“I know. But it’s silly. Six and a half hours by car or two and half by train. So I’ll deal. You’ll just have to deal with me while I deal with this.” She gestured around the first class car of the TGV. It was nice, actually. Quiet. The seats were soft and roomy, and they seemed to have this table group of seats to themselves. Theo had taken the rear-facing seat. With a deep, cleansing breath, she sighed and smiled. “Okay. I’m sorry. I shall endeavor to be more civilized. You’ve just met bitchy Carmen.”
He chuckled and opened his Mac on the table between them. “She was the first one I met.”
Remembering that first night at Café Aphrodite, when he’d come up to her with that stupid come-on, she laughed. “Fair enough. She’s out front most of the time, I’ve been told.” She nodded at his computer. “You working?”
A cloud passed over his blue eyes and then quickly cleared, and Carmen thought again that there was something going on with him. She didn’t ask, though. She’d asked once, a few days ago, when he and Eli had been weird with each other. He’d told her he was fine. So either he was fine, or he didn’t want to talk about it. Or he was one of those people who insisted they were fine because they wanted you to push and obsess until you dragged it out of them. In the first case, there was nothing to talk about. In the second case, she respected his desire not to talk. She knew him enough to know he wasn’t the kind of person of the third case, which was good. She hated that manipulative bullshit.
In any case—she didn’t ask if there was anything wrong.
She had enough of her own shit to think about.
“I thought I might. You have another offer on the table?”
She pointed to a discreet sign above their seats. “Wifi. Want to watch a movie?” He nodded, and she moved her pack to the other empty seat, scooted over, and made room for him to sit at her side. He swung his laptop around to face them. Aside from an intermission for the dinner and drinks served at their seats, they spent the trip quietly, watching Jason Statham kicking elaborate ass. Carmen rested her head on Theo’s shoulder, and he pulled her leg up to hook over his thigh. They shared her earbuds.
It was a nice ride. She allowed herself not to think too much for a while.
~oOo~
Jean, her guide at the lavender farm, spoke a heavily accented, limited English. Between that and Carmen’s heavily accented, limited French, they spent an interesting day together. Her French had been steadily improving during her stay, but she was fairly sure they were managing to invent a ‘Frenglish’ of their own. It worked, more or less. He was a nice old guy, a fourth-generation farmer watching his progeny take over for him. He looked like he’d walked off the pages of a travel magazine, short and round, a face weathered by a life in the fields. He even wore a flat cap and a tattered cardigan over a grey shirt and dun-colored workpants.
When they broke for lunch, he produced bread, cheese, and wine, and they ate at a table near the barn, overlooking the fields. Carmen wondered whether he was trying to play to what he thought her expectations would be, or whether his life was truly so pastoral. Monet could have had an easel set up at the edge of the long rows of brilliant purple flowers. It was harvest time, and the plants were at their peak. The air fairly burst with scent.
Honestly, this tour was more recreational than anything. As a landscape designer, she wouldn’t be starting her own lavender farm any time soon. None of her farm and garden tours in France and the UK were about bringing home growing ideas, not really.
Still, she was learning stuff she could use when she made a proposal. People—homeowners and business owners alike—wanted a story, a narrative about their garden or courtyard or whatever it was they were planning, and having the information and experiential knowledge that she was gleaning by spending time on these farms gave her a story she could tell. In fact, sitting alongside the long rows of aromatic lavender with Jean over crusty bread, hard cheese, and dry wine, while bees buzzed and the sun baked, was possibly more important than the specifics about how lavender was grown and harvested. She could tell the story of picturesque Avignon, of Jean in his flat cap, of how the scent of lavender shaped the taste of their lunch, how the heat of the sun and the warmth of the wine in her blood made her sleepy, made her calm.
Jean’s granddaughter walked up and spoke quietly to him. He nodded and turned to Carmen. “Pardon, mademoiselle Carmen. I…go…moment only? Restez-vous? Er…wait here?”
“Oui, Jean. D’accord.”
While he went off, she leaned back against the table, closed her eyes, and soaked up the warmth, the smells, the sounds of the day.
She had a little buzz on. Seemed like she almost always had a buzz on—or a full-on drunk, or the lingering effects of one. She didn’t drink much at home, but in Europe, she’d been drinking nearly every day. She wondered whether that should concern her at all, but, feeling the Provence sunshine on her face, she decided fuck it. She was on vacation.
Part of the problem, if it was a problem, was that Theo didn’t drink wine. They were in fucking France. She wanted a good French wine with a meal, and then there was the bottle, sitting at the table, while Theo drank his bourbon. So she drank the bottle. And then, sometimes, she wasn’t done and needed another.
Most nights, they were passing out more than falling asleep. Theo drank a lot. She tried to remember if he’d been drinking as much when they first met, but she wasn’t sure. She thought not; she thought the past few weeks, he’d been hitting the sauce harder and earlier every day. He’d still been in bed, practically in a coma, when she’d left this morning.
She thought his writing wasn’t going very well. Though she hadn’t asked and wouldn’t, he got prickly when his writing came up in any context, and she figured it was causing him stress, the kind eased with drink. She understood. Wine was helping her not freak out about what was going on at home. Though Rosa seemed simply to assume that things would be fine and the Uncles would handle their own business, Carmen felt she could hear the strain in the voices of her family.
Since Luca had told her about the job site fire, she’d learned that there had been trouble before that—heavy equipment vandalized and totaled, employees harassed and assaulted. The fire had been an escalation of these more minor incidents. It was causing more than a headache for Luca and John—and their father. It was hurting their business as well as their men. They were losing jobs, and that hurt the men, too. Whoever the Uncles were fighting had decided that the legitimate business of Pagano & Sons Construction was an easier and perhaps more effective target than the Uncles themselves.
More dangerous, too, though. Uncle Ben and Uncle Lorrie had a code, and that code kept innocents clear. An enemy who defied that would find those two little old men to be capable of viciously wrathful vengeance.
And so there was a war going on at home, and she was lounging in Provence with the sun on her face and a belly full of wine and cheese. It was wrong. It was tormenting her sleep with its wrongness—when she was sleeping sober enough to dream.
Not that she could do anything at home. And, true, she was keeping Rosa clear of it, too. But it felt wrong to be here, away from the family. She should be home, not enjoying Europe and Theodore Wilde.
Pulled in two directions. What she wanted and what she should do—they’d never converged onto the same path in her whole adult life. She’d always taken the path of ‘should’ and abandoned the path of ‘want.’
So, what did she want?
She didn’t know.
The path of want was overgrown, indistinct by now.
She sat up and grabbed the bottle of wine from the table. Filling her glass to the brim, emptying the bottle, she waited for Jean to return.
~oOo~
When she got back to the room, again feeling content and buzzy from the sun and the wine, Theo looked fresh and gorgeous. He was wearing only a hotel robe. She cocked an eyebrow at him.
“You look better. Did we have a spa day?”
He dimpled at her. “Nope. Got up, went out for lunc
h, walked around the city—tomorrow, we should do the same. It’s just spectacular. And then I came back and wrote some.”
“So what’s with the robe?” She dropped her bag on a tufted chair and bent over to unlace her boots. They’d booked a suite, with a sitting room and bedroom, both opening onto a balcony overlooking the rolling countryside.
When she stood up, he came over and kissed her, his arm coming around her waist and pulling her hard to him. He tasted of bourbon, and he smelled like his usual, amazing self. “I want to stay in tonight.”
“We’re here for a weekend, and you want to stay in? Why?”
He released her and took her hand, leading her into the bathroom.
It was a large room, done in all in marble, with a pale pink tone, like a blush. In one corner was a large, deep tub. The kind built for two. The tub was empty, but all around its wide edge were votive candles in small glass holders. They were unlit. A silver bucket on the shelf behind the tub held an iced bottle of champagne—a magnum. Two crystal flutes stood next to it.
Carmen just gaped for a few seconds. Then she muttered, “Jesus, Theo. I’m gonna find and destroy that book with the lame pickup lines. It must have an appendix for schlocky ideas for romantic evenings.” In truth, though, it looked nice. That tub was…enticing. “You don’t have to seduce me, you know. I’m gonna fuck you. Promise.”
Undeterred by her snark—she was sure he was used to it by now—he stepped up behind her and circled her waist. With his mouth on her ear, he murmured, “There’s romance in you, beautiful girl. I know there is. Come on…Avignon, a nice hotel, a great tub, a fine bottle of champagne…and I have room service coming up at eight. You can relax in the tub, I’ll wash your back…sound nice?”
She loved his voice. She loved his body. She loved his arms around her. She even loved his dopey romantic streak. There was a lot she loved about this man.
That thought normally would have caught her up, but she was high on Provence—and on the good, dark wine she’d had with Jean. Maybe she would commit some kind of cultural treason to say it, but she liked French wine better than Italian.
Leaning back on his chest, she sighed. “Okay, I admit it’s a cute kind of lame. Is the water imaginary, though?”
He laughed and kissed her cheek. “I wanted it hot. Go get undressed, and I’ll fill the tub and light the candles.” With a swat to her ass, he let her go.
She turned toward the door and then stopped. “Wait—we’re not going to set fire to the place with all those candles, right?” The thought of fire gave her a moment of gooseflesh.
“We’ll be in a tub full of water, Carm. I think we’ll be okay.”
She left him to his chore and went into the bedroom to change into a hotel robe of her own.
They’d had a tense day or two at the beginning of this week that was now ending. Somehow, they’d found themselves in a tender place, hurting each other. Talking about things that Carmen certainly had no intention of talking about—or, rather, they’d almost talked about those things. But she had no intention of talking about them. Angry sex was better.
Angry sex had been a lot better.
But after that day or two, they’d been okay again. She was glad; in a month, she and Rosa would be heading back to the States, into whatever fray the Cove presented. This time with Theo would be over, and she wanted these last weeks to be good.
Rosa was already beginning to mope a little about the end of the trip. She and Eli were surprisingly serious with each other. Carmen had stopped waiting for the explosive breakup. They were making plans, figuring out how and when Eli might move to Rhode Island and what he might do when he got there. It worried Carmen a little—they were moving fast—but she’d told Rosa to go with her heart. She was young. So was he. They had that luxury.
As Carmen had hoped, her little sister had changed during this trip. But she wasn’t sure she’d had nearly as much to do with those changes as Europe itself had. And Eli, too—he was good for her. Carmen saw it. He was a down-to-earth young man, and seemed to be a kind of anchor for Rosie. He called her on her drama. Of course, Carmen did, too. But when she said something, Rosa got defensive and entrenched. When Eli called her out, she listened.
He wasn’t setting out to change her; he simply said what he thought. Carmen believed that he did love Rosa. And he was steady. Rosa needed that.
Rosa needed someone who saw her as Rosa first and Pagano second.
In the process of looping her thick mop of hair into an elastic high on her head when that new thought struck her, Carmen stopped. Sabina had said more than once that Rosa was disconnected from the family. Carlo said he’d come to see it, too. Carmen had seen their point, but mainly she’d rolled her eyes and thought they were engaging in yet another excuse for Rosa to be a vapid twit. But maybe the problem was that she was trapped along the edge of the family—too distant to be fully in the bosom, too close to be free to do her thing. She was the only of them—now—who had aspirations beyond Rhode Island.
Jesus. They were trying to do to her what had been done to Carmen. Something like it, anyway. Trying to reel her in, get her under control. Carmen had dragged her across the ocean with that very goal in mind. And Rosa was pushing against it, braver than Carmen ever had been. The fight was taking so much out of her, though, she was spending so much energy trying to be different, that she couldn’t legitimately grow into her own self. So what they all got was the plastic shell.
“Carm? Okay?” Theo came up behind her, and she realized she’d been standing there with her hands on her head for who knew how long. Long enough for her fingers to get tingly. She finished putting her hair up. She had time to think those alarming thoughts later.
“Yeah—got lost in thought for a sec. We ready?”
“Steamy hot and relaxing.” He handed her a flute full of champagne. She took a long drink, enjoying the way the bubbles moved down her throat, into her belly and then through to her arms and legs. More tingly. Nice. The French knew what they were doing with the grapes.
“It’s good.” She noticed that he had a glass, too. “You’re drinking champagne?”
He shrugged. “When in Avignon…” He tipped the glass to his mouth. “Come on.”
He’d lit the candles, and Carmen stepped carefully over them to get into the tub. As advertised, the water was steaming hot and felt amazing. He handed her her glass, refilled, and then stood at the side of the tub, staring down at her.
“Are you coming in, too?” She sipped the champagne, feeling warm inside and out, the water and drink buffering her mind, quieting her thoughts. Rosa was a big girl. She could figure her own shit out. Carmen wasn’t her mother. Even if she had abandoned her own dreams to take care of her.
She took another long sip and shut all that noise down completely.
“I am. First, I want to stand here and watch you. You are a beautiful, beautiful woman.”
She made a face. “Meh. Skin deep.”
“No.” He squatted at the side of the tub, his robe opening to show his considerable assets and his considerable interest in her. She found herself transfixed, watching his erect cock bob as he moved, leaning over to push his hand through the water. “No, not skin deep. You’re beautiful on the inside, too. Strong and smart and fascinating.” He traced the outline of her nipple with one finger, making the skin pucker. “You know that. It’s not like you to fish for compliments, Carmen.”
“How do you know what I’m like?” She smiled as she said it; she was only playing. She felt relaxed and mischievous.
“I’ve been paying attention this summer.” He flicked his finger back and forth over her painfully hard nipple, and then pinched and plucked. Her back arched as if he’d physically lifted her out of the water by that single point.
“Fuck, Theo. Get in here.” She drank her glass empty and set it on the ledge while he finished his, too, and then shed his robe in a heap and climbed in behind her.
He slid in gracefully and settled her between
his legs, against his chest, and then his hands were immediately on her again. They’d never bathed together before—or showered together, for that matter. Usually, they were busily getting ready to go somewhere, and showers were practical matters. Carmen tried to think when she’d last had a sensual bath with a lover. Then Theo took her breasts in his hands, her nipples between his fingers, and she didn’t care when the last time was. She only cared about this time.
She kept her eyes open as long as she could, watching his hands on her. His cock was like an iron pole against her back. She clutched his knees and tried to squirm against him, but she couldn’t get leverage in the tub, and he wasn’t helping, so finally she simply gave in and focused entirely on what he was doing to her. The candles were the only lights in the windowless room and made a flickering, golden glow that suited the warmth she felt everywhere.
His hands were gentle at first, his fingers massaging and teasing, but as the need built in her, making her moan and writhe, he altered his touch and left gentleness behind. Catching her nipples between his thumbs and knuckles, he pulled briskly, and each time the intensity of the pleasurepain made her bow sharply upward with a cry. The water sloshed, covering his hands.
Rooted (The Pagano Family Book 3) Page 13