by Alix Nichols
“Have you always lived here?” I ask.
We’ve finished the tour, had a light dinner, and are now lounging in wicker armchairs in the most secluded and romantic spot in Darcy’s picture-perfect back garden. The air is filled with the incomparable sweetness of a summer evening, enhanced by the climbing roses that lace the vintage cast-iron gazebo we’re chilling in.
Top marks, Samir!
Darcy smiles.
I forget all about the roses.
Dammit, he’s becoming an ace at this formerly so un-Darcy-like facial expression. Must be thanks to all the practice he’s been getting lately, to my utter dismay. I’m determined not to slip again. Darcy hasn’t made any intentional attempts to derail me—I’ll grant him that. But he’s been in the best of moods all week, laughing at my witticisms and even attempting a few of his own.
Imagine that!
He stopped by La Bohème every night—just as I did—to watch customers look at my photos, and he celebrated with me every print I sold.
The problem is Darcy being sweet, supportive, and funny is just as bad as deliberate seduction. No, it’s worse. Much worse.
Give me the biblical serpent and his juicy apple any day over this.
“Yes,” he says. “I’ve lived in this house since I was born, with a hiatus of five years in my late teens and early twenties.”
“Don’t tell me you lived in a student dormitory during your hiatus.”
He shakes his head. “But I assure you, my accommodations were modest.”
“What made you return home?”
“It’s a long story.”
I stretch out my legs, cross my ankles, and lift the glass of homemade lemonade in my hand. “Do I look like I’m in a hurry?”
“OK,” Darcy says after a short hesitation. “I moved back here sometime after Maman left and before Papa passed.”
He sips his lemonade in silence, his expression somber. Whatever thoughts he’s thinking aren’t happy.
Darcy sets his glass on the metal table and turns to me. “Both of my parents entered a delayed and severe midlife crisis when I was about nineteen. Papa turned into a compulsive bon vivant. When he wasn’t gambling in Monaco, he sailed in the Mediterranean or raced his Lamborghini around Tuscany. He’d come home only to see his boys and then be off again on his next adventure.”
“You and your brothers lived with your dad?”
He shakes his head. “I was renting an apartment in the 6th, and my brothers lived with Maman.”
“Who ran the company?”
“No one, really. It kind of ran itself—those were the good old days before the subprime mortgage crisis. Only at some point, the company started running downhill.”
“What about your mom?”
He sighs. “Papa tried really hard to win her back and persuade her to join him on his fun-in-the-sun trips, but she despised all of it. Her own midlife crisis led her in the opposite direction.”
“To the North Pole?”
He snorts. “Maman became very religious and passionate about charity work.”
“If you were nineteen, your brothers were…” I close my eyes, computing.
“Raphael was about fifteen and Noah eleven.” A shadow passes over his face. “They needed their parents. An older brother, a butler, tutors, cooks, maids, and extravagant amounts of pocket money can’t stand in for mom and dad.”
“I guess not.”
“One day I stopped by the house and caught Raph smoking pot with a couple of other kids like him.” Darcy’s lips compress into a hard line. “With too much money and too little supervision.”
“Did you tell your parents?”
He shakes his head. “There was no point. Papa would’ve freaked out and overreacted, and Maman… let’s just say we weren’t close.”
“What did you do?”
“I took measures.” He shrugs. “Someone had to.”
“Did your measures work?”
“Oh, yeah.” He gives me a smug smile. “And I didn’t stop there. Someone also had to convince the company’s employees and the staff here and in Burgundy that the d’Arcys weren’t on a path to self-destruction.”
“But you were only nineteen!”
“It’s not as if we had other candidates for the task.” He chews on his lip. “Besides, I was already twenty-one by the time Papa involved me in the business.”
It’s funny how his voice, tone, and eyes are neutral when he says Maman and filled with warmth when he says Papa.
“You loved him, didn’t you?” I ask.
He smiles. “Papa was the best. A great guy—kind, generous, incredibly charismatic—despite his poor judgement and mistakes. Yes, I loved him, even when he went through his personality yo-yo… I loved him more than I’ve ever loved anyone.”
That’s how I feel about my dad, too.
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “You wanted to help him any way you could, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. But, as it turned out, I couldn’t save him from himself.” He shrugs. “So I resolved to at least save his name and his life’s work. His legacy.”
“I thought you didn’t care much for the family name.” I wink at him. “You did shorten it to Darcy, after all.”
“It’s just to make the conduct of business easier. I didn’t want to put a certain type of people off with my long name and my title.”
People like me?
I narrow my eyes. “Fess up, Sebastian—you’re actually proud to be Count d’Arcy and so forth, aren’t you? You burn the midnight oil drawing your family’s coat of arms and reading up about the lives and deeds of your illustrious ancestors all the way back to Charlemagne.”
“We don’t descend from Charlemagne. The first recorded d’Arcy du Grand-Thouars de Saint-Maurice was a knight of Irish descent ennobled in the sixteenth century.”
He smiles.
Slowly, his smile stretches into a grin. A grin of the panty-dropping variety.
I focus on my lemonade.
“I suppose I am proud of my ancestry and most of their deeds,” Darcy says. “That pride was one of the things that kept me going all those times I was a hair from saying screw it all.”
I gaze at the white roses over my head. What I just heard explains a lot about Darcy. But not all. It doesn’t explain why he had to be so hard on my dad. The man was no threat to him. Dad’s artisanal workshop was a little mosquito to Darcy’s King Kong.
Couldn’t he just live and let live?
Why hadn’t he at least attempted to buy Dad’s fragrances before he “cloned” them and drove the man out of business?
I’ll never forgive myself if I forgive him for what he did.
“Why exactly did your mom leave your dad?” Darcy asks out of the blue.
“I’m not sure I want to talk about it.”
“I answered your questions,” he says. “Now it’s your turn.”
“Fine.”
“So?”
“Several reasons,” I say. “His drinking, of course. Dad can’t hold his liquor, and he’d sworn to quit when they got married. He kept his promise until… until you ruined him.”
“I see.”
“She tried to help him, she really did. She got a waitressing job and urged him to do the same.”
“Wait tables?”
“Get a job. Move on.” I shrug. “But he was stuck on saving his company—his baby—at any price. When Mom discovered he’d secretly taken a mortgage on the house, she went ballistic.”
“I can imagine.”
“He faked her signature!” I shake my head. “I think it was the last straw.”
Darcy nods. “She couldn’t forgive his lie.”
“Not just that. She loves that house. They bought it shortly after they married, and completely rebuilt it over the years. It’s where they raised Lionel, Chloe, and me. We still have our rooms there, always ready for an impromptu visit.”
His gives me a sympathetic look. “She kept Lionel’s r
oom?”
“Yes.” I rake my hand through my hair. “I used to tell her she should empty it out, but now I’m glad she never did. When I go in there, I remember him and my childhood… It’s always bittersweet, but it’s more sweet than bitter.”
He reaches over and takes my hand. I tell myself it’s just to say he’s sorry for my loss. He’s trying to convey that he, too, knows what it feels like to lose a dear one.
He’ll let go of it in a moment.
Lynette comes out of the house, carrying a fragrant candle in an ancient chandelier. She sets it on the table between our armchairs.
I realize it’s dark. A quick glance at my watch confirms the lateness of the hour—a quarter past eleven.
“I’m off to bed, children,” she says, smiling. “Remember to blow out the candle when you go in.”
“Will do,” Darcy says.
He’s still holding my hand.
I’m still deluding myself he’ll release it any moment now.
Instead, he gives it a gentle squeeze and strokes the inside of my palm with his thumb.
Lynette’s steps fade away and a door clicks shut.
Darcy tugs on my arm. “Come here.”
In the candlelight, his eyes are two bottomless black wells, the pull from their depths almost irresistible.
I tip my head back and peer at the stars through the holes in the foliage. Dear Lord, I’m weak, so freaking weak. I’m about to let Darcy pull me toward him and have his way with me. My libido is taking control of my brain in a way I hadn’t anticipated. My lust has become the enemy within—a traitor only too happy to do the rival power’s bidding to the detriment of his homeland.
Darcy gives me another gentle tug, and I go to him, a slave to my baser needs. Without standing up, he leans toward me and runs his hands over my hips and thighs. He strokes them, down to my knees and up to my bottom, sliding his hands under the hem of my sundress.
I move closer and sit on his lap, facing him, my legs on either side of his. He nudges the straps of my dress and bra down my shoulders. Dying for the feel of his hands on my breasts, I pass my arms through the straps. The material slithers down and pools at my waist.
Sebastian reaches behind my back, unclasps my bra, and finally cups my breasts with his big hands. His touch is warm and snug and necessary.
Wait a sec!
Did I just call him “Sebastian”? Not because I had to, but of my own free will, inside my head where there are no witnesses?
Yes, I did.
This is so messed up.
I inch closer to his hard-on, debating if I should free it now or wait. When he puts his mouth to one of my breasts and begins to suckle, I forget what it was I couldn’t make up my mind about. The softness of his lips, the tightness of his latch around my areola and the sweet intimacy of his tongue on my nipple make me arch and whimper.
He grips the back of my neck, raking his fingers through my hair, and pulls me to him. When his kiss arrives, openmouthed and hot, I revel in every exquisite moment of it, in his heady taste. It occurs to me that extra hot has become our new normal when we’re alone. It also hits me that he no longer asks for permission to kiss me like that.
Thank God.
Who knew I’d love spice so much?
As we kiss, I begin to feel the ache and the emptiness in my core, exactly the way I did before our first time a week ago.
I hope he has protection because I really don’t see how I can make it to the bedroom.
The urge to touch him overwhelms me. I undo his belt and zipper, draw his boxer-briefs down, and wrap my fingers around him.
He makes a noise deep in his throat and pulls a condom out of his pocket.
My famished body cheers and pops champagne.
“When we get to the bedroom,” he says, sheathing himself, “I’m going to kiss and lick you absolutely everywhere.”
“Including the toes?”
“Oh, yes.”
I sigh theatrically. “Do your worst.”
“Trust me, I will.”
“If you’re trying to impress me,” I say, raising my chin in defiance, “it isn’t working.”
It’s working just fine—I’m soaking wet.
He smiles. “I’m not trying to impress you. I’m just giving you a heads-up.”
I zoom in on his erection, proud and unapologetic, like the rest of him. “What if I walked away now and left you hanging… er, getting it up?”
He stares at me. “You wouldn’t.”
“I could.”
Gripping my hips, he pulls me close enough for our sexes to brush. “But you won’t.”
As he says those words, Sebastian tugs the crotch of my panties to the side and drives in.
You’re right—I won’t.
TWENTY-ONE
“Another cappuccino?” Lynette asks.
I smile at her. “Thank you, but two is enough this early in the day.”
Actually, it isn’t that early.
The others have been up for at least a couple of hours. Three, in Sebastian’s case. Lynette and I are the only late risers, so we’ve gotten into the habit of taking our breakfast together. Besides, everyone else favors the minimalistic French breakfast of coffee, orange juice, and croissant. Lynette and I like real breakfasts.
And real breakfasts require prep work.
So, it goes like this: Lynette makes pancakes or porridge, fries eggs, and brews coffee that’s second only to Manon’s. I pick and wash a handful of strawberries from the garden and then toast some bread. When everything’s ready and we sit down, Lynette opens the paper Sebastian has left for her, and I check the newsfeed on my phone. Sometimes we chat, but mostly we just enjoy our big, fat, and infinitely rewarding breakfast in companionable silence.
I help Lynette clear the table and head upstairs.
Today Octave is out of town visiting his mother’s grave and taking care of some private matters. I’ll be using this opportunity to snoop around his quarters. He’s Sebastian’s most trusted staff member, so I figure maybe I’ll find something.
But the moment I open the door to Octave’s office, the knot in my stomach doubles in size, forcing me to stop and take a few fortifying breaths.
I inspect my palms.
Clean.
Funny, I would’ve bet they were smeared with sticky mud.
What I’m about to do feels so wrong I’m a hair from backpedaling. It’s one thing to nose into Sebastian’s life, but intruding on an innocent man’s—a good man’s—private space isn’t something I can easily justify.
However, considering I still haven’t found any dirt whatsoever on my betrothed, I have no choice.
How naive I was to imagine that once I lived here, I’d gain access to his financial information or the inner workings of his business! The documents he keeps in his home office are as innocuous as a document could be. He may as well publish them online. He never discusses sensitive matters with me or when I’m around. Or when anyone is around.
Sebastian’s life is so perfectly and hermetically compartmentalized it should be used as a case study in management books.
When working, he’s a steely business shark. In his private life, he’s a loyal friend and brother, and a respected master of the house. He’s also the most gallant of men with yours truly… on camera. At night, his alpha side comes out again, only in a different way. He forgets his good manners and becomes demanding and greedy.
It seems duplicity is his second nature.
As for me, I’ve taken a page from his book, forcing myself to compartmentalize, too.
I crave his brand of sex. I enjoy his conversation. I have a hard time keeping my eyes or hands off him.
All true, all undeniable.
But deep inside, I’m still the person who attacked him with a cream cake last October. I’m not impressed by his riches. Well, maybe just a little. It would take a saint not to be. And I’m no saint—not even close.
What Sebastian will never have is my forgive
ness.
Even if I’m soon to become Madame d’Arcy du Grand-Thouars de Saint-Maurice, I’m still me. And I still care more about justice than I do about money.
On that thought, I force myself to step in and look around.
The first thing I notice is a black-and-white portrait of a smiling young woman on Octave’s desk. Her hair is huge, its ends curled and flipped up, and she wears more eyeliner than Sophia Loren and Aimee Winehouse combined. The adorable portrait screams “the sixties” in all its rock ’n’ roll glory.
This must be Octave’s mom.
I note there’s no portrait of his dad anywhere. From what I gather, the man is still alive, even if Octave never talks about him. Maybe they don’t get along.
But I should stop distracting myself—it isn’t Octave I’m after.
I spend the next hour going through the perfectly organized and labelled files on the wall shelves. They contain nothing but bills, contracts, bank statements, and administrative correspondence.
A roomy cabinet next to Octave’s desk hosts an unusual-looking audio device and headphones. Maybe he’s an amateur radio broadcaster or something in that vein.
Next up, his desk.
When I realize that some of the drawers are locked, I’m relieved. This means I’ll get out of here sooner.
The guilt is killing me.
I open the unlocked ones. Pens, scissors, staplers, paper… One drawer contains Octave’s passport and his birth certificate.
Octave Bernard Rossi, born March 14, 1958.
Ha! I didn’t know his middle name was Bernard, like Sebastian’s grandfather’s. But let’s face it, if my middle name was Bernard, I’d keep mum about it, too. It’s undeservedly but irrevocably démodé and even mossier than Octave, which, at least, is original and even appears to be making a comeback.
As I close the last drawer and tiptoe out the door, I beg Heaven to forgive me this particular trespass.
And then I beg for a memory wipe so my tongue will never slip and call poor Octave by his unfortunate middle name.