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)
“Not Papa.” The little girl turns her blue owl-like eyes my way as though she can see right through me and my wobbly excuses. “Alejandro.”
“Oh.”
The silence that descends over the kitchen is bloody deafening.
“Felix, he said you must have a boyfriend,” Sylvie adds, turning back to the phone. “Because you have the bruise on your neck.”
“He said what, now?” I shake my head as she begins to answer my (mostly) rhetorical question.
“He said that sometimes ladies and men do things when they get…” She screws up her nose as though searching for the correct term.
My stomach drops. Oh no. Oh no. Please don’t say anything related to what he was watching last night.
“Excited,” she finishes, thank God.
I swallow, forcing my heart back down my throat. “Well, Sylvie, all I can say is that no one is getting excited. Not around me.”
Zoe snickers as I brace to be struck down from above.
“Bon. I say that if any boy gets excited around me, I will give him a bruise like this!” Raising her hand, Sylvie makes a chopping motion to her neck. “And then I will spit on him, just like Lola.”
I might try that myself. Except, isn’t spitting a big thing in porn? Where did I hear that? And then I remember it was El, my brother. Another Sunday lunch oversharing session. Double ew.
“If Felix is wrong, what did you do to hurt your neck, Primrose?”
Well, it’s like this, Sylvie; I’m not hurt, exactly. I mean, physically, I’m a little achy, but in a good way. However, emotionally, I appear to be tying myself up in knots, because your dad makes me forget everything I am. And everything I’m not. And if you want to know what that means, or have any more questions, I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait a few years. Then ask your dad.
“It’s just a silly mark, sweetie. And Felix is right, grownups do get bruises from being, er, excited. But sometimes they just appear for no reason. The same as when… when you bump into the coffee table—”
“A really tall coffee table,” Zoe mutters as she flicks through the binder.
“—but you forget that you have,” I say, ignoring that. “And when you notice the bruise, you wonder where it’s come from because, of course, you don’t remember walking into the coffee table!”
“Or limbo-ing under it.” Brows riding high, Zoe violently flicks another page.
“Anyway, I better get dressed for the pool,” I announce, grabbing a banana from the lavishly endowed fruit bowl. “Can Sylvie keep you company for a few?”
“Sure,” Zoe answers. “Hey, kiddo,” I hear her say as I leave the room. “How do you feel about prawn linguine for dinner?”
26
LUC
As my fingers drum against my thigh as I wait for the world to right itself, as Jacques closes the car door and nods to the driver. The Mercedes pulls away with a crunch of gravel, making a path up the long, winding road to the helicopter pad.
My focus should be on Barcelona and the meeting with a family of Andalusian leather makers I plan to bring under the group’s branding. But instead, my mind seeks to torment me by remembering the shape of her breast before I can consciously defend. I close my eyes as I recall her soft sigh in response to the path of my tongue. The heat and tenor of her pulse under the pull of my lips.
That fucking bite mark. In a dozen silent conversations, I’ve reasoned with myself that I just got carried away—that it was a heat-of-the-moment thing, and not a mark of possession or ownership. But the sight of it this morning felt more significant. More rousing. Stirring. Fuck it, the truth is that I was turned on by the sight of it. I’d marked her, and it felt right.
My jaw tautens, my molars moving a step closer to becoming dust. The nanny. I am the worst kind of cliché. A wealthy widower lusting after the younger, less experienced woman. The press would have a field day, I think darkly. Insinuate that I’m just another old fool who believes youth is a luxury he can afford to acquire.
The headlines would be damaging to say the least. I know better than to take these kinds of risks. Yet, when she walks into the room, all sensible thoughts become unavailable to me.
The object of my (near) obsession was at the pool with my children when I left. I wouldn’t let myself go there. In body or in mind.
I thought we were on the same page this morning, that the only reason she was coy in the kitchen was because of our audience. That’s why I’d asked her to follow me into the office. Commanded, perhaps. Some habits are hard to break. I hadn’t planned what happened, though I will admit that I longed to kiss her again.