Hometown: Beijing.
Languages Spoken: French, English, Mandarin.
Impressive that the hotel employs managers with such fluency. Another plus.
“Bonsoir,” Scarlett says.
“Bonsoir. Are you two checking in?”
“We are indeed,” I say as my companion hands Song her passport, and I give her the name on our reservation. I’d let the hotel know our names wouldn’t match the passport but that privacy was important to us.
The manager lowers her gaze to the computer screen, scanning it, hunting for our reservation, I presume. “And did you fly in, come by train, or drive?”
“We took the train,” Scarlett answers, then turns her face toward me. Her gorgeous green eyes lock with mine, and flames blaze in her irises.
From the mere mention of the word train.
A blush flushes across her cheeks. They turn a little pinker, a little redder, as if she’s reliving the memory of our train ride.
“Aren’t trains fabulous?” Song asks.
“It was the best train ride I’ve ever had,” Scarlett says.
Pride suffuses me, spreading through my molecules and cells as she gives an impromptu review of our train ride to the woman at the desk.
The woman smiles, raising her face from the screen. “Did you enjoy the scenery, even at night? It’s such a wonderful view coming here.”
A cough bursts from Scarlett. “Yes, coming here was great. I loved everything about the train trip. It felt like . . . a wonderful escape,” she says to Song.
Her eyes flicker to me once more.
And I know.
I have the answer now as to whether she wants to erase our train tryst or not.
The answer is, she doesn’t.
There is no regret for Scarlett Slade.
“I love to ride the rails,” Song says as she plucks away at the keys. “Makes me feel like I’m in another world. It relaxes me. It’s so wonderful to meet another person who’s discovered the joys of trains.”
Scarlett drums her fingernails on the counter. “Oh, I definitely discovered them. I didn’t know I was such a train person until I took this ride. But I’m absolutely one now.”
And it’s like she’s sealing the deal, making it crystal clear how she feels.
“And it seems your suite is ready,” Song declares with a smile, like she loves customer service as much as she loves the rattle and hum of the railroad.
Scarlett blinks. Taken aback. Her brow knits. “A suite?”
“A honeymoon suite. Your husband booked the honeymoon suite,” Song says, tipping her forehead to me.
I part my lips, weighing in for the first time. “Of course we want the honeymoon suite, darling. I can’t wait to show it to you.”
“Great,” Scarlett says. “Terrific. Fantastic.”
Alarm bells go off.
The trifecta of words is my warning.
I need to wait to show the room to her.
Because we need to talk.
I ask the cheery train lover to please have a bellman take our bags to our suite and we’ll be up there shortly.
“Very well,” she says, then hands me a key. “And I hope your stay is as fabulous, if not more so, than the ride here.”
“Yes, so do I,” Scarlett replies.
I take the key, drop it into the pocket of my trousers, then I set a hand on Mrs. Dickens’s elbow and I guide her away from the front desk. “We’re pretending we’re on a honeymoon. Did you actually think I was going to book separate rooms?”
She shakes her head, but her eyes are nervous again. “Of course you were going to book one room. I just . . .”
“You didn’t think we would actually have one room? Do you want me to book another one under my real name or another fake name, and I can go sleep in that?”
She meets my gaze, steadying herself. “No, I don’t want that at all.”
As we head farther into a corner of the lobby, I don’t let this go. “Are you sure? I don’t want to be presumptuous. I might’ve been presumptuous by booking this suite. But the plan was for us to appear as newlyweds. I could find a way to justify getting another room. I’ll devise something,” I say. I’m not sure what, but I’m not a formidable businessman for nothing.
I solve problems.
If Scarlett doesn’t want to share a suite, I can fix that.
I can find a solution.
She straightens her shoulders, squares them, and looks me head-on, her eyes blazing. “No. I’m going to share a suite with my husband,” she says, then lifts her arms, grips the collar of my polo, and says, “But first, get me a drink.”
“A drink it is. And we can talk about whether you’re sure you can handle it,” I say, since she likes a challenge.
She narrows her eyes, like she’s daring me. “I can handle anything. Any topic.”
That’s my Scarlett. “Shall we talk about philosophy, music, literature, art?”
“Try again.”
I lower my voice, going to a whisper. “Or we could talk about the fact that I made you come so fucking hard on the train that you’re both reliving it over and over and trying to deny how good it felt.”
She nibbles on the corner of her lips. “You’re forward, aren’t you?”
“When it comes to you, I am.” I meet her gaze, my eyes locked with hers. “Let me make this clear, Scarlett. Whatever happened on the train, and whether it is going to happen again or not, I care deeply for you. And because of that, we’re going to go talk.”
She gestures to the bar. “Let’s figure this out.”
11
Scarlett
I like my life neat and orderly.
I like it understandable. I like it to make sense.
Most of all, I like it so that I can’t get hurt.
That feels less likely now than it did an hour ago.
Nothing about what happened with Daniel over the last few hours is neat and orderly.
Nor is it clear where to go from here. And I like to know where I’m going. I like to have an agenda, a to-do list, a plan.
I like maps. I like schedules.
But right now, I am whiplash. My emotions are a tilt-a-whirl, whipping me back and forth.
In one moment, I want to flirt with him, to tease him, to play with him.
The next minute, I want to boomerang back to who we were.
But I don’t think we can. Maybe we can only move forward and figure out what our new world order will be.
One thing I know for sure is that new world orders are best negotiated over martinis.
We head into the bar.
With low flickering lights, lavish archways, curved wood trim, and faded green woodwork on the walls, the quiet bar hearkens back more than a hundred years to turn-of-the-century Paris.
Even the bartender looks like she’s stepped out of the Belle Époque, hair piled high above her head and wearing a low, ruffled top.
She says hello to us in French as soft, sensual music floats in the air, surrounding us.
The kind of music that plays when you sigh wistfully, fling open your balcony window, curl your hands over the iron latticework railing, and stare out at the city, asking the river what you should do next.
I wish I could talk to the river. I wish it could tell me what to do about my desire.
But there’s no river here.
No one to ask either.
I can only ask myself if I’m going to proceed with the role-play. Take the game we began to the next level.
I flash back to Nadia’s words in the shop, to my own confidence then.
But then intimacy with Daniel was merely a delicious idea.
A lovely notion.
Now it’s real.
Now it’s happened.
Do I want it to happen again?
Well, the obvious answer is yes.
But can I withstand it when we need to stop playing?
Can I control my need?
We slide into a small circular booth, and his thi
gh grazes mine. A bolt of electricity rocks my body. Lights me up again.
I am flammable around Daniel Stewart.
One touch and I melt. One kiss and I flame. That’s how I feel around him.
Like I’m truly combustible.
Maybe because it’s been so long for me. Perhaps because I’ve shut down those parts of myself since my marriage, when my sense of faith and trust was immolated.
Or perhaps I’m vibrating with desire simply because I want Daniel Stewart madly, deeply.
The woman from behind the bar circles by our table. “What can I get you two? We have some specials if you’d like to hear them. We also have local wines.”
My instinct is to say yes to a white, but I need something stronger. “I’ll take a dirty martini, please.”
“Sounds perfect,” Daniel agrees. “Make it two.”
When the woman leaves, he looks at me and says, “We don’t ever have to do that again. But what we do have to do is this. Make sure we’re all good.”
At his words, all my worry slinks away. It tiptoes out, turns the corner, and barely waves goodbye. It simply fades into the night.
The fact that he cares so deeply about us, our friendship, our partnership, means the world to me.
“What do you think we should do?” I ask, eager to know where he’s at.
He locks his blue gaze tight to mine, holding my eyes with his intensity. “Scarlett, I’m wildly attracted to you. I want to take you to the room and fuck you. I want to bring you pleasure over and over again. I want to have you,” he says, and I tremble with lust. I squeeze my legs closed, my thighs rubbing together, my center aching for him. How can he do this to me over and over? Maybe the answer is because he’s so damn direct. He owns his lust. “But the next day, I want us to be like this again.” He gestures from him to me. “I want us to talk. To banter. To make decisions together.” A small, vulnerable smile crosses his lips. “That may be a dream. But it’s mine. Is that even possible?”
He raises an excellent question, one I don’t have the answer to, even though I love the idea. “Is it?”
He shrugs, sighing heavily. “I don’t know how that would work. I’ve never had a relationship like that,” he says, his tone more vulnerable, more earnest than he’s ever been.
And because he’s been honest with me, I must be with him. “I’ve never had anything like that before either. I’ve never had that kind of relationship at all.”
“Have you always been in serious relationships? Committed ones?”
The answer is easy. “Yes. I have. My marriage, and before that, I was always in relationships. I’ve never truly had a fling. I wouldn’t know what one’s like.”
He takes a beat, but his eyes never stray from mine. “Do you want to try?”
“I don’t know,” I say, answering from the heart as the server swings by, setting down our martinis.
“Here you go. Enjoy your stay at Le Pavillon de Giverny.”
He smiles at her as she leaves. “We will.”
I love his confidence. I want to scoop it up, take a spoonful, and taste it. I want to feel that same boldness. But maybe I can by believing him. By believing the we will when it comes to us.
He lifts his drink. I lift mine.
“To questions, and to finding the answers,” I offer.
“I’ll drink to that.” We clink glasses, and then we do what we’ve always done.
We talk.
“At the risk of knowing the answer, I suppose flings are something you’re familiar with?” I ask.
“Flings. One-night stands. And arrangements. I’ve played the field. I’ve had threesomes, as you know.”
I do know this about him. Before Cole fell in love with Sage, he and Daniel had engaged in threesomes, the kind where the two of them would focus solely on the woman’s pleasure. Daniel had entertained me with stories of some of those. I ate up those tales, loving the debauchery, the decadence, and the way he told them—with zero guilt.
With only an appreciation, it seemed, for the purity of pleasure and the pursuit of it.
In his world, pleasure is reason enough to indulge.
Is it in mine?
I don’t know, but I delighted in the voyeuristic thrill of listening to the stories of their bedroom antics, the kind where everyone said yes.
Where everyone wanted the game.
“I’ve never really indulged in bedroom games. Not like that,” I tell him. “And I don’t want a threesome.”
“I wouldn’t want to share you,” he says, then takes a drink, sets it down.
His lips are a ruler; his eyes are resolute.
That decisiveness turns me on. I don’t want to be shared. I’m a one-man kind of woman. “I’m glad you don’t want to share me. I don’t want that kind of bedroom game.”
“I sense that about you.”
“Is that why you don’t want to share me?” I ask, needing to know, craving the answer. “Because you can tell I don’t want that?”
He hums. Maybe a few notes from Beethoven. Perhaps “Ode to Joy.” A sign that he’s thinking. He licks his lips, inching closer. “No. That’s not the reason. Here are the reasons. I don’t want to share you for you. And I don’t want to share you for me. So make of that what you will.”
Part of me wants to make everything of that, but that’s a risky bet. “What do you make of it?” I ask.
“I’m trying to figure that out,” he says, and his forthrightness lures me. It makes my skin tingle. But also, it excites my mind.
That’s what electrifies me the most.
That’s what excites my body—when a man speaks his truth. When a man acts from truth. When he doesn’t lie.
Honesty is an elixir.
For all our flirting, all our games, Daniel has never seemed like a liar. Not once.
Right now, his eyes are etched with longing, a longing he’s letting me see fully. “But the one thing I don’t need to figure out is how much I want you,” he adds in a low, dirty whisper. “I don’t need to mull it over. I know I’d like to explore it, and I believe we can go back to who we were. We’re mature, thoughtful, caring. We can fuck and not let it ruin us.”
A pulse beats between my legs.
Fine, my brain isn’t the only organ that’s turned on.
My body longs for him. For the way he says fuck with such assuredness, such confidence.
“Are you asking me, Daniel? Are you asking me to engage in bedroom games with you?”
He lifts a hand and brushes the red strands that don’t belong to me off my shoulder. I tremble under his touch.
“It’s up to you, Scarlett. I’d very much like to indulge in you. What would you like?”
I lick my lips, lift the glass, and take another drink.
What would I like?
I would like to feel indulged in.
I would like to know what that’s like.
But I also don’t know what happens on the other side. How to make the exit neat and orderly. How to ensure I’m not ruined. “Our friendship matters to me. Our partnership matters to me,” I say. “I don’t want to lose any of that. We can make promises that nothing will change, but can we keep them?”
He knocks back his drink and sets down the glass. “We can certainly try.”
People make all sorts of promises. People try to commit. But promises are often broken. “I’d like to sleep on it,” I finally say.
A flash of disappointment crosses his blue eyes but then disappears, like he’s rearranging his features to hide it. “Fair enough.”
The hint, as brief as it was, touches my heart. If he’d had zero reaction, I’d think he didn’t care one way or the other. That he could take this or leave it.
We finish our drinks, pay the tab, and head to our suite, where I hope the answers will come to me at night.
But once the door clicks shut, I fear it’ll be that much harder to resist now that we’re alone together.
Since I’m not so sure I can simply take
him or leave him.
12
Scarlett
This is not the first time we’ve been in a hotel room alone together.
Obviously.
There was Aix-en-Provence, as well as countless other times since I’ve become a partner. We’ve visited many of our properties together, stopped in rooms, checked them out.
This is de rigueur for us, just a regular part of a day in business.
Tonight is business, true.
But it’s also personal, because this is the first time we’ve set foot in a hotel room after I pretended to be his wife. After I learned how thrilling games with Daniel are. And after he uttered those seductive words—we can fuck and not let it ruin us.
Words that send a shiver over my body as the echo of them resonates in my mind. I hear them over and over, along with other words like . . . indulge in you.
And . . . our friendship matters to me.
Those words ring in my head as we survey the room, my eyes drifting past the sunken living room, the French doors that lead to the bedroom, and a balcony that overlooks the shadow of the hill.
Beautiful.
“Is it too soon to say I’ve fallen in love with this property?” I ask, buoyed by the prospect of this purchase, if all the other properties hold up too.
“Love at first sight is perfectly acceptable with music and fine hotels,” he says with a wry grin.
I raise a finger. “And books. Don’t forget books.”
“I’d never forget books. Falling for a story needs no explanation.”
I smile, glad we can do this, grateful we can be friends, that we can banter this way.
Talk like partners.
That’s who we are.
But there are practical matters to attend to. I gesture to the French doors. “You can take the main bed, Daniel.”
He scoffs, furrowing his brow. “Woman, who do you take me for?”
“Is that such a terrible idea?”
He strides to the balcony, opens the sliding doors, then tosses me a don’t be crazy look. “I’m a gentleman. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“You don’t have to,” I say as he turns and gazes out at the view of the inky night sky. Stars wink on and off as a midnight-blue blanket covers the earth.
My One Week Husband Page 9