1230 Avenue of the Americas 15 страница

“It’s a little obscene watching you eat that, ” I say. Across the table he’s closed his eyes, humming around the spoon in his mouth.

“It’s my favorite, ” he says. “Though not as good as the one my mother makes for me when I visit. ”

“I always forget you said she went to culinary school. I can’t actually think of a dessert my mom didn’t buy from the store. She’s what I like to refer to as domestic-lite. ”

“One day when I’m visiting you in Boston we’ll drive to her bakery in Bridgeport and she’ll make you anything you want. ”

I can practically hear the proverbial brake noises squealing in both of our thoughts. A distinct roadblock has just risen in the conversation, and it sits there, flashing obnoxiously and unable to be ignored.

“You have two more weeks here? ” he asks. “Three? ”

The phrase you could ask me to stay pops into my head before I can stop it because no, that’s—no—really the worst idea, ever.

I keep my head down, eyes on the plate between us, swirling chocolate sauce into a puddle of melting vanilla ice cream. “I think I should probably leave in two. I need to find an apartment, register for classes. . . ” Call my father, I think. Find a job. Build a life. Make friends. Decide what I want to do with my degree. Try to find a way to be happy with this decision. Count the seconds until you come see me.

“Even though you don’t want to. ”

“No, ” I say blankly. “I don’t want to spend the next two years of my life in school so I can go to an office I hate with people who’d rather be anywhere but where they are and stare at four walls of a boardroom one day. ”

“That was a very in-depth description, ” he notes. “But I think your impression of business school is maybe a little. . . misinformed. You don’t have to end up in that life if you don’t choose it. ”

I set my spoon down and lean back into my chair. “I lived with the world’s most dedicated businessman my entire life, and I’ve met all of his colleagues and most of their colleagues. I’m terrified of becoming what they are. ”

The bill comes and Ansel reaches for it, all but slapping my hand away. I frown at him—I can take my. . . husband out to dinner—but he ignores me, continuing where he left off.

“Not every businessman or -woman is like your father. I just think that maybe you should. . . consider other uses for your degree. You don’t have to follow his path. ”

THE WALK HOME is quiet, and I know it’s because I haven’t responded to what he’s said and he doesn’t want to push. He’s not wrong; people use business degrees for all kinds of interesting things. The problem is I don’t know yet what my interesting thing is.

“Can I ask you something? ” I ask.

He hums, looking down at me.

“You took the job at the firm even though it’s not really what you want to do. ”

Nodding, he waits for me to finish.

“You don’t really like your job. ”

“No. ”

“So what is your dream job? ”

“To teach, ” he says, shrugging. “I think corporate law is fascinating. I think law in general is fascinating. How we organize morals and the vague cloud of ethics into rules, and especially how we build these things when new technology comes up. But I won’t be a very good teacher unless I’ve practiced, and after this position, I’ll be able to find a faculty spot nearly anywhere. ”

Ansel holds my hand the few blocks to our apartment, pausing once or twice to bring my fingers to his lips and kiss them. The headlight from a passing scooter glints off the gold of his wedding band, and I feel my stomach contract in on itself, a feeling of dread settling heavily there. It’s not that I don’t want to stay in Paris—I love it here—but I can’t deny I miss the familiarity of home, speaking to people in a language I understand, my friends, the ocean. Yet I’m beginning to realize I don’t want to leave him, either.

He insists we tuck into the little bistro on the corner for a coffee. I’ve grown used to what Europeans refer to as coffee—intense, small pours of the most delicious espresso—and other than Ansel, I’m sure this is the one thing I will miss most about the city.

We sit at a tiny table outside and under the stars. Ansel slides his chair so close to mine his arm has nowhere to rest but around my shoulders.

“Do you want to meet some of my friends this week? ” he asks.

I look at him in surprise. “What? ”

“Christophe and Marie, two of my oldest friends, are having a dinner party to celebrate her new promotion. She works for one of the larger firms in my building, and I thought maybe you’d like to come. They’d love to meet my wife. ”

“That sounds good. ” I nod, smiling. “I’ve been hoping to meet some of your friends. ”

“I realize I should have done this earlier but. . . I admit that I was being selfish. We have so little time together and I didn’t want to share that with anyone. ”

“You’ve been working, ” I say on an exhale as he basically repeats my conversation with Harlow back to me.

He reaches for my hand, kisses the back of my knuckles, my ring, before twisting his fingers with mine. “I want to show you off. ”

Okay. Meeting friends. Being introduced as his wife. This is real life. This is what married couples do. “Okay, ” I say lamely. “That sounds fun. ”

He grins and leans forward, placing a kiss against my lips. “Thank you, Mrs. Guillaume. ” And wow, the dimple, too. I am toast.

The waitress stops at our table and I sit back in my seat while Ansel orders our coffee. There’s a group of young girls—around eight or nine years old—dancing to a man playing the guitar just outside. Their laughter bounces off the cramped buildings, above the sound of occasional cars or the fountain splashing just across the street.

One of them is spinning and tips over, landing just below the small deck we’re sitting on.

“Are you okay? ” I ask, stepping down to help her.

“Oui, ” she says, brushing the dirt from the front of her checkered dress. Her friend crosses to us, and though I’m not sure what she says, the way she stretches her arms to the side, and speaks to her in a scolding tone, I think she’s telling her she did her turn wrong.

“Are you trying to turn? ” I ask, but she doesn’t respond, merely watches me with a confused expression. “Pirouette? ”

At this she lights up. “Oui, ” she says excitedly. “Pirouette. Tourner. ”

“Spin, ” Ansel offers.

She straightens her arms to the side, points her toe, and spins, so quickly she almost falls down again.

“Whoa, ” I say, both of us laughing as I catch her. “Maybe if you. . . um. ” Straightening, I pat my stomach. “Tighten. ”

I turn to Ansel, who translates, “Contracte tes abdominaux. ” The little girl makes a face of concentration, one I can only imagine means she’s clenching her stomach muscles.

More of the girls have gathered to listen and so I take a second, moving them so they’ll have enough room. “Fourth position, ” I say, holding up four fingers. I point my left foot out, my right foot next to and behind. “Arms up, one to the side, one out front. Good. Now plié ? Bend? ” They each bend at the knees and I nod, subtly guiding their posture. “Yes! Good! ” I point to my eyes and then to a spot off in the distance, partially aware of Ansel translating behind me.

“You have to spot. Find one place and don’t look away. So when you turn”—I straighten, bend at the knees, and then push up off the ball of my foot before spinning, landing on plié —“you’re back where you started. ” It’s such a familiar movement, one I haven’t felt my body do for so long that I almost miss the sound of cheering, the loudest of them coming from Ansel. The girls are practically giddy and taking turns, encouraging each other and asking me for help.

It’s getting late and eventually, the girls have to leave. Ansel takes my hand, smiling, and I glance over my shoulder as we walk away. I feel like I could have watched them all night.

“That was fun, ” he says.

I look over at him, still smiling. “What part? ”

“Seeing you dancing like that. ”

“That was one turn, Ansel. ”

“It might be the single sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. That is what you should be doing. ”

I sigh. “Ansel—”

“Some people go to business school and run movie theaters or restaurants. Some own their own bakery, or dance studio. ”

“Not you, too. ” I’ve heard this before, from Lorelei, from Harlow’s entire family. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about that. ”

He makes a point of looking over his shoulder, back in the direction we just came. “I respectfully disagree. ”

“Those things take money. I hate taking money from my father. ”

“Then why do you take money from him if you hate it? ” he asks.

I throw the question back at him. “You don’t take money from your father? ”

“I do, ” he admits. “But I decided long ago it’s the only thing he’s good for. And a few years ago, when I was your age, I didn’t want my mother to feel like she needed to support me. ”

“I don’t have enough money to live in Boston without his help, ” I tell him. “And I guess in a way. . . I feel like he owes me this, since in the end I’m doing what he wants. ”

“But if you’re doing what you want—”

“It’s not what I want. ”

He pulls us to a stop and holds up a hand, not even a little fazed by the weight of this conversation. “I know. And I’m not really thrilled at the idea that you will leave me soon. But putting that aside, if you went to school, did something you wanted to do with it, you would make the decision yours, not his. ”

I sigh, looking back down the street.

“Just because you can’t dance professionally doesn’t mean you have to stop dancing for a living. Find the spot in the distance and don’t look away, isn’t that what you told those girls? What is your ‘spot’? Finding a way to keep dance in your life? ”

I blink away, back down the block to where the girls are still twirling and laughing. His spot is teaching law. He hasn’t taken his eyes off that point since he started.

“Okay, then. ” He appears to take my silence as passive agreement. “Do you train to be a teacher? Or do you learn to run your own business? Those are two different paths. ”

The idea of having a dance studio makes a warring reaction explode in my belly: elation, and dread. I can barely imagine anything more fun, but nothing would cut off my relationship with my family more thoroughly than that.

“Ansel, ” I say, shaking my head. “Even if I want my own studio, it’s still about getting started. He was going to pay for my apartment for two years while I got my degree. Now he’s not speaking to me and there is no way he’d get on board with that plan. There’s something about dance for him. . . it’s as if he doesn’t like it on a visceral level. I’m realizing now that, whatever I do, I’ll have to make it work without his help. ” I close my eyes and swallow thickly. I’ve taken such a profound mental vacation from the reality of my future that I’m already exhausted after only this tiny discussion. “I’m glad I came here. In some ways it’s the best decision I ever made. But it’s made things more complicated in some ways, too. ”

He leans back, studies me. I adore playful Ansel, the one who winks at me across the room for no reason, or talks lovingly to my thighs and breasts. But I think I might love this Ansel, the one who seems to really want what’s best for me, the one who is clearly brave enough for both of us. “You’re married, no? ” he asks. “You have a husband? ”

“Yes. ”

“A husband who makes a good living now. ”

I shrug and look away. Money talk is exceedingly awkward.

As playful and goofy as he can be sometimes, there is nothing but sincerity in his voice when he asks, “Then why would you need to depend on your father to do what you want? ”

UPSTAIRS IN OUR apartment I follow him into the kitchen and lean against the counter as he reaches into the cabinet for a bottle. Ansel turns, shakes two ibuprofen tablets into my palm, and hands me a glass of water. I stare at my hands and then up at him.

“It’s what you do, ” he says, offering a tiny shrug. “After two glasses of wine you always take ibuprofen with a big glass of water. You’re a lightweight. ”

I’m reminded again how observant he is, and how he manages to catch things when I don’t even think he’s paying attention. He stands, watching as I swallow the pills and put the empty glass on the counter by my hip.

With each second that ticks by when we aren’t kissing or touching, I’m terrified the easy comfort we have tonight will evaporate and he’ll turn to his desk and I’ll turn to the bedroom alone.

But tonight, while we stare at each other in the muted light provided by the single bulb above the stove, the energy between us seems to only grow more electric. This feels real.

He scratches his jaw and then tilts his chin to me. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. ”

My stomach flips. “I’m not sure I believe that I’m—”

“Stay, ” he interrupts in a tight whisper. “I’m dreading the day you leave. I’m losing my mind thinking about it. ”

I close my eyes. This is half what I’ve wanted him to say, and half what I was most afraid to hear. I pull my lip between my teeth, biting down my smile when I look back at him. “I thought you just told me to go to school to open my own business someday. ”

“Maybe I think you should wait until I’m done with this case. Then we can go together. Live together. I work, you study. ”

“How could I stay here until the spring? What would I do? ” It’s been wonderful, but I can’t imagine another nine months living idly as a tourist.

“You can find work, or you can just research what’s involved in opening a studio. We’ll leave together, and you can defer school for one year. ”

If possible, this is even more insane than my coming here in the first place. Staying means there is no end to us—no annulment, no fake marriage—and there is an entirely new trail blazed ahead.

“I don’t think I can stay here and be alone so much of the time. . . ”

He winces, dragging a hand through his hair. “If you want to start now, go and I’ll come next spring. I just. . . Is that what you want? ”

I shake my head, but I can see in his eyes he correctly reads my gesture to be I don’t know.

My first few weeks here I felt both like I was completely free, and also a bit of a leech. But Ansel didn’t invite me here only to be generous or save me from a summer at home or spent psyching myself up to start school. He did it for those reasons and because he wanted me.

“Mia? ”

“Mmm? ”

“I like you, ” he says in a whisper, and from the slight shake of his voice, I think I know what he’s really saying. I feel the words like a warm breath across my neck, but he hasn’t stepped any closer. He’s not even touching me. His hands are braced on the counter behind him, at his hips. This bare admission is somehow more intimate from a few feet away, without the safety of kisses or faces pressed into necks. “I don’t want you to leave without me. A wife belongs with her husband, and he belongs with her. I’m always selfish with you, asking you to move here, asking you to wait until it’s good for my career before you leave, but there it is. ”

There it is.

I tear my eyes from his and look down at my bare feet on the floor, letting the heavy drumming of my heart take over my senses for a beat. I’m relieved, terrified. . . but mostly I’m euphoric. He told me he couldn’t play the other night if I said it out loud, and maybe it’s the same fear again, that we can’t keep it light, can’t let it go in a few weeks if one of us says love.

“Do you think you could ever, ” he starts after a few beats of silence, his lips pulled up to one side in a smile, “like me? ”

My chest squeezes at the earnest vulnerability in his expression. I nod, swallowing what feels like a bowling ball in my throat before saying, “I’m already in like with you. ”

His eyes flame with relief, and the words tumble out in a long, jumbled string. “I’ll get you a new ring. We’ll do it all over again. We can find a new flat with memories that are only ours. . . ”

I laugh through an unexpected sob. “I like this flat. I like my gold band. I like my fractured memories of our wedding. I don’t need anything new. ”

He tilts his head and smiles at me, dimple flirting shamelessly, and it’s all I can take. Reaching out, I hook a finger through a belt loop on his pants and tug. “Come here. ”

Ansel takes the two steps to me, pressing the length of his body so closely to mine I need to tilt my chin to look up at him.

“Done talking, then? ” he asks, hands slipping around my waist, bracketing me.

“Yeah. ”

“What do you feel like doing now? ” His eyes manage to look both amused and ravenous.

I slip a hand between us and palm him through his jeans, wanting to feel him come to life under my touch.

But he’s already hard, and grunts when I press into him, his eyes falling closed. His hands slide up my over my chest, around my shoulders and higher, cupping my neck.

The sweep of his thumb across my bottom lip is like a trigger: a warmth spreads through me and it turns nearly immediately to a hunger so hot, my legs grow weak. I open my mouth, lick the pad of his thumb until he slides it inside and, with dark eyes, watches me suck. In my palm, he lengthens further, twitching.

He steers me to my right, walking me backward out of the kitchen, but stops after only a few steps, cupping my face to kiss me. “Say it again? ”

I search his eyes for his meaning before I understand. “That I like you? ”

He nods and smiles, eyes closing as he bends to lick the tip of his tongue across my lips. “That you like me. ” Ansel looks down at me from under the heavy fall of his hair over his brow, tilting my head back with his hand on my jaw. “Let me see your neck. Show me all of that gorgeous skin. ”

I arch my neck and his fingertips skim along my collarbone, strong but gentle.

He undresses me first, in no particular hurry. But once my skin is exposed to the cool air in the flat and the heat of his attention, I pull at his shirt, fumble with his belt. I want my hands on every inch of him at once, but they always gravitate to the smooth expanse of his chest. Everything in the world I find sexy, I find there: The firm, warm skin. The heavy drum of his heart. The sharp spasms of his abdomen when I scratch my short nails over his ribs. The line of soft hair that always tempts my hands lower.

Even in the small flat, the bedroom feels too far away. His fingers drift down my chest, breezing past my breasts as if it isn’t where they intend to be. Over my stomach and lower, past where I expect him to slide two fingers and play with me. Instead, his hand smooths down my thigh, his eyes watching my face as his fingertips linger on my scar, on skin that’s not quite sensitive, not quite numb.

“It’s weird, maybe, that I love your scar as much as I do. ”

I have to remind myself to breathe.

“You thought it was the first thing I noticed, but it wasn’t. I didn’t even pay attention to it until the middle of the night, when you finally lay down on the bed and I kissed from your toe to your hip. Maybe you hate it, but I don’t. You earned it. I’m in awe of you. ”

He pushes away from me slightly so he can kneel down and his fingers are replaced by his lips and tongue, hot and wet against my skin. I let my mouth fall open and my eyes flutter closed. Without this scar, I’d never be here. Maybe I’d never have met Ansel.

His voice is raspy against my thigh. “To me, you’re perfect. ”

He pulls me with him to the floor, my back to his front, my legs straddling his. Across the living room, I can see our reflections in the dark window, can see the way I look spread around his thighs.

He pets me, fingers sliding up and down the crease of my sex, teasing at penetrating me. On my neck, his mouth sucks and licks until he’s at my jaw and I turn my head so he can kiss my lips, his tongue slipping inside and curling over mine. Ansel pushes his middle finger inside me and I cry out, but he continues stroking slowly as if he’s feeling every inch of me.

Releasing my lip from between his teeth, he asks, “Est-ce bon? ”

Is it good? Such diluted words for something I’m sure I need. The word good feels so empty, so plain, like color bleached from paper.

Before I even know I’ve answered, my voice fills the room. “More. Please. ”

He slides his other hand up my body to my mouth, pushing two fingers inside against my tongue and pulling them out, wet. Ansel glides them across my nipple, circling in the same rhythm as his other hand between my legs. The world narrows to these two points of sensation—on the peak of my breast and his fingers on my clit—and then shrinks further until all I feel is circles and wet and warm and the vibration of his words on my skin. “Oh, Mia. ”

I’ve been helpless before: trapped beneath a car, under the sharp command of an instructor, burned by my father’s heated disdain. But never like this. This kind of helpless is liberating; it’s what it feels like to have every nerve ending rise to the surface and drink in sensation. It’s what it feels like to be touched by someone I trust with my body, trust with my heart.

But I want to feel him inside me when I fall to pieces, and my release is too close to the surface. I lift my hips, take hold of him, and lower myself down his length as we both let out shuddering groans.

We stay motionless for a few seconds, as my body adjusts to him.

I slide forward and up. Back and down. Again, and again, closing my eyes only when his shaking voice—Just. . . please. . . faster. . . faster Mia—breaks away and he slides his hands up the front of my body, to my neck. His thumb strokes the delicate skin at the hollow of my throat.

It shouldn’t be so easy to bring me back to this point again, and again, but when Ansel drops one hand to my thigh, and moves it between my legs, his broad fingertips circling, his quiet, hoarse sex voice telling me how good it feels. . . I can’t stop my body from giving in.

“C’est ç a, c’est ç a. ” I don’t need him to translate. That’s it, he said. That’s him touching me perfectly, and my body responding just as he knew it would.

I don’t know what sensation to focus on; it’s impossible to feel each thing at once. His fingers digging into my hips, the heavy length of him stroking inside me, the feel of his mouth on my neck sucking sucking sucking so perfectly until that tiny flash of pain where he pulls a mark to the surface.

I feel like he’s taking over every part of me: filling my vision with the things he’s doing, reaching into my chest and making my heart beat so hard and fast it’s terrifying and thrilling in equal measure.

He pushes up beneath me, moving so I’m spilled onto my hands and knees and we both moan at the new depth, and the new visual in the window of him braced behind me. His hands curl around my hips, head falls back, and eyes close as he begins to move. He’s the portrait of bliss, the picture of relief. Each muscle in his torso is flexed and beaded with sweat but he manages to look more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him, lazily thrusting into me.

“Harder, ” I tell him, my voice thick and quiet with need.

His eyes open and a dark smile spreads over his face. Digging his fingers tighter into the flesh around my hips, he drives brutally into me once, pausing, and then picks up a perfectly punishing rhythm.

“Harder. ”

He grips my hips, tilting them, and grunts with effort as he pushes deep, hitting me in a place I’ve never known existed and making me cry out, clutched by an orgasm so sudden and overwhelming I seem to lose the use of my arms. I fall to my elbows as Ansel holds me by my hips, rutting rhythmically, his voice coming out in sharp, deep grunts.

“Mia, ” he rasps, stilling behind me and shaking as he comes.

I collapse, boneless, and he catches me, cradling my head to his chest. With my ear pressed against him, I can hear the heavy, vital pounding of his heart.

Ansel rolls me to my back, carefully sliding back into me as he always seems to, even when we’re done, and watching my face with clear, serious eyes.

“It felt good? ” he asks quietly.

I nod.

“You like me? ”

“I do. ”

Our hips rock together slowly, trying to hold on.

Chapter EIGHTEEN

“SO WHAT TIME is this party? ” I mumble into my pillow. Ansel rests heavily on top of me, his front to my back, the fabric of his suit pressed against my bare skin, his hair tickling the side of my face. I start to laugh, struggling to get away, but this only encourages him. “Mmpf. You’re so heavy. Do you have bricks in your pocket? Get off me. ”

“But you’re so warm, ” he whines. “And soft. And you smell so good. Like woman and sex and me. ” His fingers find my sides and curl, tickling me relentlessly until he rolls me to my back and then he’s there, hovering above me, his thumb tracing my mouth. “The party’s at seven, ” he says, eyes mossy green and filled with a weight that tells me he’d much rather take off the suit than get out of this bed. “I’ll meet you here and we’ll go together. I promise not to be late. ”

He leans down and kisses me, making a sound that’s somewhere between contentment and longing, and I know he’s telling himself not to get carried away, that as good as this is, there will be time for more later. After work.

I push my hand beneath his jacket and tug his shirt free from where it’s tucked into the waistband of his pants, as I unapologetically search for skin.

“I can hear you thinking, ” I say, repeating the line he’s used on me at least a dozen times. “Wondering how much time you have? ”

He groans and lets his head fall to my neck. “I can’t believe there was a time when I used to be up and practically out the door before my alarm even went off. Now I don’t want to leave. ”

I push my hands through his hair, scratching lightly against his scalp. He works to keep the majority of his weight off me, but I can feel him relax more every second.

“Je ne veux pas partir, ” he repeats, voice a little rough now. “Et je ne veux pas que tu partes. ”

And I don’t want you to leave.

I blink up to the ceiling, wanting to commit every detail of this moment to memory.

“I can’t wait to show you off tonight, ” he says, brighter now, pushing up onto his elbow and looking down at me. “I can’t wait to tell everyone how I tricked you into proposing to me. We’ll ignore the pesky detail that you’re leaving me soon. ”

“Hide my passport and I’m here for good. ”

“You think I haven’t already thought of that? Don’t be surprised if you come home one day and it’s gone. ” He leans in, kisses me before pulling back. “Okay, that’s creepy; it’s in the top of the dresser where it belongs. ”

I laugh, swatting him away. “Go to work. ”

He groans and rolls off me, lying on his back on the bed. “If I didn’t have a meeting today with a client I’ve been waiting months to talk to, I’d call and say I’m feeling sick. ”

I prop my chin on his chest, looking up at him. “It’s a big one? ”

“Very big. What happens today could mean the difference between this case ending in the next six weeks, and dragging on for months and months. ”

“Then you should get started. ”

“I know, ” he says on an exhale.

“And I’ll be here, waiting for you at seven. ” I haven’t even finished the sentence and he’s turned to me, smiling again. “And you won’t be late. ”

He sits up, takes my face in his hands before kissing me deeply, tongues and teeth, fingers that slip down my body to brush over my nipple.