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)
“Same,” she mutters as her gaze slides away, but not before I see the corner of her mouth curl.
“And you intrigue me.”
“Same. Again.” She glances down at her hands, as though not happy with the admission.
“I’d almost forgotten I still could.”
“Could what?”
“Feel.” The whole world in those eyes of hers. “Primrose, I’ve never been attracted to any woman like I am to you.” Not even Allegra in those early days. I don’t remember suffering this fervor of fascination. “But I must be honest with you. While I know it might be possible to have two loves in one life, I won’t risk loss again.”
“You loved her very much.”
“I did.” And I could love you just as easily, I fear. Words I cannot admit and a risk I will not take. “I can’t promise you a future,” I add, daring to press my hand to her face. “But I won’t pretend I don’t long for what’s before us. No one can make you feel like I can.”
She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t need to because I see the truth of it there on her face.
“We could have a summer.” My thumb traces the shape of her mouth, everything tightening inside me at the heat of her breath. “A handful of weeks before life demands something different from both of us. Don’t refuse to bloom because autumn is coming.”
“Poetic.” She makes a small huff of the word. “Euphemistic.” Her brow furrows.
“I’m asking you not to sacrifice these weeks to fear.”
“Who says I’m afraid?”
“I think we’re both afraid, in our own ways. We’re afraid of what might happen. Afraid of what we might miss. But I want you. I want to be the man who gives you all that you’ve missed.” I lower my head so slowly and, when she doesn’t resist, slant my lips over hers. One sweet, tremorous slide before I pull back and drown in the blue of her eyes again. What a way to go, I think as I turn back to the piano.
“Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment, chagrin d’amour toute la vie,” I whisper over the melancholy tune. The pleasure of love lasts only a moment, but the grief of love lasts a lifetime.
30
PRIMROSE
“Primrose, put on your swimsuit and join us!”
“Maybe later,” I call back, though my words are wasted on a little girl busy twirling in the swimming pool like a water nymph. Her delight is compounded with a scream as her father’s dark head breaks the surface of the water beside her. He grabs her immediately by the waist, throwing her effortlessly into the air. She lands in a tangle of legs and arms and sizable splash for someone so slight.
I smile at the sight of them, at her infectious laugh, and how she swims immediately back to reach him, “Again, Papa. Again!”
His white smile gleams then, across the water, our gazes catch. His expression sharpens and something low inside me knots. Probably my ovaries.
“Papa, persuade Primrose to swim,” Sylvie says, climbing that man like a monkey on a pole. “It’s too hot to do anything else today!”
“I’m fine,” I say as I reach for my water bottle.
“I think she’s afraid of getting wet,” Luc replies in a tone that is not safe for work. But Sylvie’s attention has already moved on as she launches herself back into the water, chasing a ball thrown by her brother.
“I’m not afraid,” I hiss. “I just prefer not to.”
His gaze is fiery, yet somehow full of amusement. A private kind of amusement.
Right, that’s it. “As you well know, I can swim perfectly well on my own.”
“I’d pay to see that.”
“Yeah, well, you’d have to.” I didn’t mean to say that. “But maybe I’m already swimming with someone else,” I hurry on. “Have you thought about that?”
One of his eyebrows quirks like a question mark. “Thank you for that invitation.”
“What?”
“I can’t say that would be something I’d necessarily like. Unless, of course, you’d like it.”
“I…” Me with someone else. And Luc watching. My brain breaks a little as Luc launches himself backward with a grin. With strong strokes, he moves across the pool, still watching me.
“Why are you red?” Sylvie pops up at the nearside of the pool, her slender arms over the side.
“Sunburn.”
“But you are in the shade.”
“It’s hot out.”
“Then you should swim.”
Not in my bikini. With him. “Maybe later.”
She screws up her face, and I sigh. It’s been a long few days and my nerves are a little fraught.
At the far side of the pool, Luc plants both hands on the stone edge. With one smooth push, and he lifts himself effortlessly from the water, clearing the edge, arms and back muscles working and flexing galore. Like an Olympic swimmer, or a made-for-TV moment, he twists and perches on the side.
I mentally hold up a sign. 9.9