They're Strictly Friends (Tough Love Spinoff Book 1)

by Chloe Liese

  Pinning back my curls into a loose side knot, I looked at myself. Papa’s deep blue eyes. Maman’s thick tendrils. I felt sick.

  When I came down the stairs, it was another blow to my heart.

  Lucas stood in the corner of the foyer, unfairly beautiful in a gray three-piece suit of dashing summer wool, paired with a crisp white shirt and a tie in colors that matched his eyes, gray and green, like a stormy summer sea. He was so tall most people found him intimidating, but I was tall, too, and I had a figure my mother termed generous. When I was around Lucas, I felt like I was just right.

  “Lucas.” I smiled in greeting. “Good afternoon.”

  “Elodie.” He grinned back, but as his eyes traveled me, his expression sobered. “Has someone died?”

  His blunt sarcasm was unsurprising to me by this point. “No, Lucas.”

  I felt his examining gaze bore into me as I used the mirror hanging in the hallway and applied lipstick.

  Tossing my lipstick in my purse, I turned and faced him. “You’re staring at me.”

  “Yes,” he said. No attempt to deny it. No pithy deflection.

  Finally I met his stunning eyes. “Would you stop?”

  He pushed off the doorjamb, seeming poised to stalk toward me. “You look about to cry.”

  “I’m weepy.” I shrugged and lied. “Time of the month.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  I opened my mouth to ask how in the hell he had any concept of my cycle, but my phone beeped, and I saw who it was. That was enough to distract me. I opened it to read the message.

  Be back in Paris tomorrow, amenable to the deal. You will do this. Defy me and delay, and you’ll enjoy a taste of what life without our name is like. – Simone

  If I’d had any doubt I was about to be in dire straits, her signature confirmed it. When I’d been penalized before, it was always signed, Simone instead of Mother.

  “What is it?” Lucas took a step toward me as I closed out of the message.

  I couldn’t tell him this. It would be humiliating to admit having parents who loved me so little, particularly to another person who loved me much less than I wanted him to.

  “Elodie.” He closed the distance between us until we were nearly chest to chest. Heat radiated from his body, and my heart was beating wildly. I took a step back, out of instinct.

  “We should be going,” I said. Turning, I called up the stairs to Nairne and Zed. “Ready to leave?”

  Their bedroom was a few floors up and complicated by a rather intimidating security system. Better to shout than face that.

  “Almost!” Nairne called back.

  My phone rang. I saw it was Gabrielle, but I sent it to voicemail. My parents had assigned me a financial advisor when I was given my initial trust at age twenty-one. Gabrielle and I talked rarely. Annually, usually, since there wasn’t a lot to discuss. My club salary had been nothing next to what my parents had bestowed on me, and they privately discussed with Gabrielle the money I’d use and how. I’d do as they say, then spend the dregs my way to try to fill the hole made by their absence in my life.

  My phone beeped a tone that said I had a new message. There was only one reason Gabby would message after calling. She had something urgent to say. Something related to my finances. I held my breath, opened my phone, and read my sentencing.

  There was ringing in my ears. A wave of hot nausea soared up my throat.

  I was penniless. Yet what hurt most wasn’t the sudden loss of my lifestyle, it was the confirmation of what I meant to my parents.

  Nothing.

  The lift that made their home accessible for Nairne’s wheelchair dinged, my friends emerged, and I told myself I’d deal with this later. I had to. I loved Nairne and Zed, and Jamie my godson. My chosen family. Today was their day and a joyful one, not to be ruined by my misery. I stared at my mobile, feeling the earth threatening to give out from underneath me.

  Zed whistled as he stepped off the lift and shoved Lucas’s shoulder. “Luc, it’s rude to show up the father of the baby on baptism day.”

  Lucas’s cheeks pinked as he glanced down at himself, and a rogue swatch of dirty blond fell across his forehead. “What’s so remarkable about the fact that I’m wearing a summer suit? I took no great care or anything.”

  Zed rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that makes it so much better. Fair warning, I have handsy aunts, and you’ve got sexy times written all over you.”

  Nairne laughed but tried to cover it, which earned a glare from Lucas. “What?” she said. “I haven’t said a word.”

  “Your laugh was plenty indication.” Lucas sighed. “Should I change or something?”

  Zed seemed preoccupied with the nappy bag and Nairne was holding Jamie to stand on her lap. He bounced his legs and garbled around the fist he was sucking. “Jamie says no, Uncle Luc. Looking this dashing is only fitting for my party.”

  A mother who loved her child. What a revolutionary concept. The betrayal, my heartache, grew tenfold and I felt like I might faint.

  “What’s the matter?” Lucas asked as he strode right to my side.

  Lucas’s concern jarred me and I looked up, catching Nairne giving me a look that said what she’d said about us before: “Friends my arse.”

  I closed my mobile, pocketed it, and stared up at Lucas. In my heels, I only had to glance up slightly at him, even as he towered over us all. “Nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing,” he insisted. “You’re white as a sheet.”

  I shook my head, turned toward Nairne, trying to smile brightly as I walked her way. “I promise, I’ll be fine,” I said, shifting my attention to Jamie. “Now let me see you.”

  I scooped him up and held Jamie in my arms, stroking his cheek and muttering to him in French, while Jamie answered back in baby babble.

  I felt Lucas’s eyes on me but couldn’t bear to meet them. He’d see straight through me and demand explanation for my distress. Zed finally stood and hoisted the nappy bag on his shoulder, oblivious to the conversation that had transpired. “All right, kids,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

  The rest of the afternoon passed in a surreal blur. The baptism. The reception at their home. Greetings and small talk. I floated in a daze and mostly managed polite conversation. My mobile buzzed nonstop in my dress pocket, tormenting me. I knew who it was. And if I answered, what could I say? How did you speak to your parents when they wanted you to marry for a business deal and punished you for your resistance with destitution? And yet, could I let such coldhearted injustice go unchallenged? How could I not fight to make my parents understand how wrong they were?

  After another round of buzzes, I was at my wits’ end. I slipped outside and resigned myself to answering Maman. Boiling angry, I spoke in French. I wasn’t yet good enough with English to be irate in the language.

  “What do you want, Maman?” I paced the yard, knowing I was ruining my heels and not caring.

  “You thought I wasn’t serious, didn’t you?”

  “Maman, I don’t care about your money.” True and false. I did care, but only because of what money signified to them. In the Bertrand household, money was how you loved someone. And look where we were. I wasn’t begging for funds or feelings. They clearly didn’t have either to spare for me.

  “You say that, Elodie. But you’ve never lived without. You’ll see.”

  “You’re not going to threaten me into this. I won’t do it!”

  Maman laughed emptily. “Don’t be too hasty in your words. I give you a week at most, having your little tantrum in London. Enjoy it, see how much you actually like life beyond my provision, then come back and report for duty.”

  I gripped the phone so hard my fingers went white. “How could you do this to me?” I whispered as tears choked me. The betrayal I felt sent rage coursing through my system.

  “Because it’s the best thing for Bertrand. It’s your heritage, whether you want it or not.”

  “I. Don’t. Want. It.” I inhaled raggedly. “Never.�
��

  I could hear her fury, felt it flying through the ether from her phone to mine. “Then, you’re dead to me, Elodie!” Maman yelled over the line. “And now you can know the truth. You’ve been dead to me ever since Adrien. Ever since you killed my little boy.”

  I had to bite my hand not to scream as my heart broke.

  I couldn’t take any more. I hung up and wished I were strong enough to crush the phone in my hands. Part of me always knew Maman hated me for it, but the little girl who just wanted her mother’s love had never given up hope that one day she’d be forgiven.

  I stared up at the sky, remembering how after Adrien’s death, I’d lain on my favorite high-up tree branch and thought about heaven and hell. How I’d wondered if my parents would be happier if I weren’t there. How easy it would be to fall and snap my delicate neck. Would they welcome my absence? Relief from the constant reminder of their daughter who’d allowed their precious little boy to die?

  The back door slammed and startled me from my thoughts.

  Lucas stormed across the yard, fierce determination tightening his features. I stared at him, tears streaming down my face as he advanced on me. One large hand wrapped around my arm and hauled me against his chest.

  “Elodie.” His voice was a low, gentle timbre, and my French name sounded like music on his clipped British tongue. The damn burst inside me, and I sobbed in his arms.

  Everything about Lucas was warm and solid. He smelled woodsy and clean as he wrapped me in the comforting protection of his body. I felt safe, and I realized how rare it was that I felt safe with anyone.

  “Shh, there now,” he crooned. More gentling words, sweet nothings that you’d offer a wounded animal. I sank into his touch and cried until I had nothing left. A hankie appeared in front of my face as I pulled away, and I took it, blowing loudly for such a long time that Lucas was grinning at me when I pocketed the soaked fabric. His smile was dazzling, but his eyes still assessed me with concern.

  “I’m all right,” I whispered.

  “Rubbish.” He grasped my chin and tipped my face so I’d look at him. Our eyes met and held as life went on around us. Clattering plates. Children’s laughter. The whisper of evening air through the trees. A car alarm and the sudden screech of a cat caught off guard.

  We’d never been alone before. That had to be why I felt as if the world had tilted. But then his gaze shifted to my mouth, then back to my eyes, and I saw something I’d never seen before, what I’d only dreamed I’d see in his eyes when he looked at me. Longing. No, not just longing.

  Love.

  But Lucas didn’t love me. Lucas was my friend, who’d made it quite clear he was interested in nothing more. An unabashed flirt, he’d certainly fancy a tumble between the sheets, but nothing else. No, Lucas was my friend, first and foremost. Trivia rival, arm wrestling nemesis, teaser who never failed to needle me to rage. He had no business looking at me like that.

  I clasped my mobile in my hand and hardened my features as I stepped out of his touch. After Mother, I couldn’t take another person’s dishonesty. Love was off the table, so what did this look mean? Why did he have to choose the worst moment of my life to give me false hope?

  I wanted to slap him, then maul him with kisses. I wanted to climb his long body and demand he do something with me if he was going to look at me like that. Instead I took a slow breath and sighed his name wearily. “Lucas…”

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  I glanced away and wiped under my eyes. “I’ll be fine.”

  A string of oaths muttered under his breath, Lucas threw his hands on his hips. I had to bite my lip as my eyes disobediently returned to him. My life was imploding, but when he set back his suit coat and revealed his solid, lean torso, the elegant strength of his body behind a tailored gray suit that made his sage and silver eyes sparkle, I couldn’t help but want him.

  “Why don’t you trust me with this?” he pressed. “I’m your friend. You can tell me anything.”

  “What?” I laughed bitterly. “Who are you to demand honesty from me? To insist on my confidence, when these past months you’ve been sullen and removed and—”

  “Christ, woman, we are not making this about me.” He scrubbed his face with his hands and swore under his breath. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. You are my concern. You’ve been worrying me all day, darling, and I can’t…”

  Lucas’s voice died off as he realized his slip. His eyes widened in alarm.

  He’d called me darling. Said it soft and tenderly, as natural as the embrace he’d wrapped me in. No one had ever called me such an endearment, and that genuine affection opened my guarded heart.

  Our eyes met as my phone, my worries, slipped from my grasp.

  I lunged at him. Slid my hands through his thick, silky hair like I’d wanted to for a year, since the first time I stumbled into him. Then I kissed him. There was no finesse to it, no tenderness. Mouth smashed against mouth. Teeth clacking. Tongues battling for control. I wanted him, and somehow with just one tiny word, I knew he wanted me. No more playing these stupid games, pretending we weren’t shaped for an intimacy that both relied on and deepened with our friendship.

  Oh, God. Friendship. What if I’d just crossed the line irrevocably, and now I’d lose Lucas too? What if he was just politely, platonically concerned? Or what if he, like my parents, really only had use for what I could give him—my body?

  I pulled away from his grip on my shoulders as I gasped for air. My body burned with longing, and I hated myself for wanting him.

  Lucas stared at me, chest heaving, gorgeous sandy blond hair mussed.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, so quiet, my voice barely carried on the breeze.

  Lucas had heard me, because his features darkened. “Don’t you dare apologize,” he growled.

  The air crackled, and the sun slipped behind a cloud, casting us in shadow. His eyes went to my mouth, then back up. Then he cupped my cheeks and crashed his mouth to mine again, kissing me with the same intensity that I’d kissed him.

  A groan of pleasure left his lips as he kissed me deeper. I opened my mouth instinctively, desperate for him, moaned as his tongue slipped along my lips and then charged my mouth, searing every corner of it.

  “Elodie,” he whispered. His kiss was hungry and desperate. Long fingers tangled in my curls, he hauled me flush against him. His hard length pressed from inside his trousers against my belly, and heat traveled my body with every brush against his front. He tasted like mint and something inexplicably Lucas. I wanted to taste him forever.

  My arms flung around his neck, and I pressed up on tiptoe. He slid his hands down my back and held me tight as our kiss became something dangerous. Hot, fast, rhythmic. We’d always bantered and sizzled. I’d had a hunch we’d be fantastic together, but now I was experiencing our potential, a tiny taste of what it would be like to be loved by Lucas. Now I knew it would be worlds better than I’d imagined.

  Until he pulled back, anguish lacing his features. “God, Elodie. I-I shouldn’t have…” He stepped further back, raking a hand through his hair. “Forgive me.”

  “Don’t. If I can’t be sorry, neither can you.” I grabbed his hands as they tugged his hair, and held them fast. His eyes locked with mine as he exhaled.

  Thunder boomed from a ways off. That meant my escape outside was going to be short-lived, which was a problem. I was in no position to socialize further. I needed a bottle of wine, a stomach-aching cry, and then a new day tomorrow to figure out what I was going to do with myself.

  “We should go in,” he muttered. His head craned up at the darkening clouds, and I stole a glance at his handsome face. Pronounced Adam’s apple and a strong jaw. Soft lips, long nose. That misbehaving hair flicking in the growing wind.

  “I can’t face anybody right now,” I said.

  His gaze snapped down to mine. “No. Of course not. Go tell Nairne you’re feeling unwell, then I’ll get you out of here.”

  “Where could you tak
e me?”

  He interlaced his warm hand with mine. Lucas stared down at our connection, as his thumb softly circled my skin.

  “I’m taking you where I should have a long while ago. Home.”

  Four

  Lucas

  My resolve was crumbling, barreling down on me like an avalanche that I felt powerless to stop. Months ago, at Nairne and Zed’s wedding, I’d confessed my attraction for Elodie to Nairne. I’d also explained I would never act on it, that I was trying my best to keep a healthy distance, for a number of reasons nobody was privy to yet. I really was trying. I was just failing miserably at it.

  After Jamie’s baptism, I was concentrating so hard on not watching Elodie, I’d been completely useless for conversation. I was stuck in some mindless banter with one of Zed’s teammates when a swish of rose-colored dress caught my eye, and the faint scent of jasmine infused the air.

  Elodie.

  My head snapped around just as the minx slipped through the swinging door to the kitchen and disappeared. As if of their own volition, my feet strode ahead, taking my legs, then my body with me. I was following her, and I shouldn’t. But she’d been distressed all day, preoccupied with messages coming in on her phone yet denying anything untoward was happening in her life. It was rubbish. Something was wrong, and the woman was obtuse to think I hadn’t noticed, hadn’t worried and watched her in concern as covertly as I could all day.

  When I strode through the kitchen, straight into Nairne and Zed’s backyard, Elodie was tromping through the lawn, spitting rapid French into her mobile, and I knew right then something was direly wrong. With each step, her Louboutins sank into the earth, making a terrible sucking noise as she extracted each heel with the next stride. A woman didn’t ruin shoes like that unless in true crisis. Especially Elodie, who was never vain but dressed simply, quintessentially Parisian. Shoes, though—they were her weakness.