Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
“What’s going on with you?
His gaze lingers on my profile longer than it should. It feels like I’m being dissected, though I know he’s banking on another brush-off. For me to remind him to watch his mouth, mind his business. For me to reestablish the narrative that I am, above all else, impenetrable. But what comes out instead is a sound I don’t recognize, a ragged noise halfway between a laugh and a cough.
His brows draw together in shock. “Luc?”
What the hell is going on with me? It feels almost as though the sound was a preventive subconscious attempt. Which is fucking ridiculous because when have I ever confided in anyone?
It’s nothing,” I mutter gruffly. I’m not sure what I’m feeling right now. Rebuffed. Confused. A bit of an asshole. But I’m not losing my mind.
“I can get a priest if you want to confess.” His offer is only half-joking.
I’d be chased out of the confessional for admitting the things I want. I glance at my thigh, where my fingers have begun drumming again. I curl them inward.
Jealousy. There’s something else I’m feeling. Fucking Alejandro. My teeth clench and my jaw flexes. It’s an entirely ordinary name for the region for an entirely ordinary man not from the region. An American, pah! What the fuck makes them so confident?
Alejandro with the nice smile and lashes like a camel. Or was that a llama? I can’t even remember his face. Just as well, or I might seek him out and shove my fist in it.
Sois pas con. Don’t be an asshole, I tell myself.
But ordinary is just another word for normal, and normal must have its advantages. A life lived with freedom. Without scrutiny, suspicion, and mistrust. The need for high walls.
Perhaps that’s where the attraction lies. He is a man who might offer her a future, not just a month of making her scream his name.
Mon dieu, what is with these thoughts? Whatever has passed between us, we aren’t destined to be together. Wanting Primrose is one thing—it’s just lust. A fleeting whim. Lust belongs to stolen moments and borrowed time and asks nothing of tomorrow.
Love, though, it promises permanence. It seeps into you, into the cracks, until there is no corner of your life untouched by it. By that person. Your person. Their laughter becomes your home, and their happiness becomes your own. The presence steadies you. It fortifies you.
Their pain undoes you.
Their absence destroys you.
This I know because I have survived both love and loss. But only just.
I know what it is to watch the one you would give your life for fade before your eyes. I know how it feels to wake in the morning and wonder why the sun has risen, and why the birds continue to sing when it feels like the world should’ve stopped spinning on its axis hours ago. Days, weeks, months, and even years.
But I endure, though I lack the desire to discover if I would again.
So I’ll let myself want Primrose. And if she’ll let me, I’ll steal moments and kisses and let my thoughts linger on her far longer than they should. But permanence? That I will not stand for. Loving Allegra very nearly killed me. I can’t build another life around someone I could also lose.
I huff out an unhappy laugh and shake my head. “It’s nothing,” I say as I realize my assistant is still waiting. Watching. Wondering.
Fate has a terrible sense of humor.
Nothing but the sudden sense of betrayal toward my late wife prompted me to set Primrose out of the door at Ardeo. It wasn’t because she’d done anything wrong but because, for the first time since Allegra passed, I felt I had. The sense of disloyalty was so sudden, like an anvil dropped to my chest because Primrose made me feel something I hadn’t in a long time. And to thank her, I literally pushed her away, then slammed the door physically. Emotionally. And when she turned up in my house the next day, perhaps I found there were no more doors I wanted to slam.
“Okay,” Jacques mutters under his breath. “You know you can run anything by me, right?”
This is ridiculous. My thoughts are so deeply introspective over a mythical future with a woman I barely know. So little has passed between us. Moments. Kisses. A few words. Sensory snapshots. My hand at the deep curve of her waist and the soft pout of her lips. The heavenly sight of her without her clothes. I promised her four weeks of self-discovery, and nothing else. But she seems wants nothing from me, when it could’ve been perfect.
My life is in Paris. My children belong there. Schools. My offices. Flagship stores. Board meetings. Employees. Profits to grow. Life’s demands never cease. Meanwhile Primrose belongs to London. Hospital wards. Study. Accolades. Friends. A life fully framed. A future that’s still opening in front of her, blooming like a flower.