French Wanker - Victoria Pinder Page 0,24
else, and I finally broke.
It was like he saw me and liked me. It was nice. What was the harm of sharing? We’d never see each other once the week ended, and maybe that fact gave me the courage to open up more.
I sighed. “I’ve been so routine lately. I go to work, go home, watch a rom-com, maybe pick up a bottle of wine on a Friday night and let a double feature play. I go out with my friends, and even dating was just something I did to pass time. I honestly had no feelings on it. It was like I was a robot, going through the motions of living.”
We headed toward the gas station signs and an exit on the highway.
“I might have been doing the same, if I’m being honest,” he said
Details. Right. I ignored the twist in my heart and decided it was okay to talk. “And I know what it’s like to be lonely. I thought marrying would solve that, but now I see that was a bad idea entirely.”
“I asked Cecilia, because it fit my life at the time, but I wasn’t in a rush to have her forever, and neither was she.”
“How did it end?”
“In silence.”
He parked in front of the pump and people came out to serve us. France wasn’t self-serve? I didn’t ask but watched as attendants pumped gas like I was watching magic happen. “That sounds so grown up and mature, Quentin. I admire that about you.”
“You like more than that about me, and we both know that.” He handed his card over and signed.
A moment later we were heading off. “In the future,” I said, “we both need to make ourselves happy and not settle for convenient. No one else is going to shake us out of our ruts.”
“Smart.” He nodded.
Yet I knew nothing about Quentin other than he made me feel better. I glanced at his profile and ached for more of him. “What about you?”
He moved fast back onto the road. “What about me?”
I needed to know more. Quentin rocked my body, but maybe we could talk and be friends during our week-long relationship, too. Anything was possible, right? I raised my eyebrow and said, “You said you broke up with Cecilia.”
“That’s not quite right.”
I blinked as my heart sped up. “What happened?”
“She died.”
My gut twisted. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Tell me about you and your ex.”
I’d sound shallow, but he’d asked. “Marlon practically left me at the altar after I bought our honeymoon and my dress. It’s horrifying how I was going to say yes, but it was nothing tragic like Cecilia.”
He glanced at me for one second before focusing on the road. “You want details?”
“Oui,” I said in my impression of him.
He stared at the signs that started to read Monte Carlo. “Cecilia’s family went through a lot when she died. If I stayed, I would only make their lives worse. Besides, I’m okay alone. I haven’t seen my own family in a while, and I’m needed on my family vineyard.”
Cecilia sounded like a beautiful French woman. In my mind I saw Audrey Hepburn or whoever that actress was in the movie Amelie I’d watched on Netflix. Both had some childlike wonder of life and the world in how they interacted, which probably wasn’t true, but either way… I’d never be that dreamy and starry-eyed.
I never had that child-like joy to living.
And that vision didn’t need to be indulged anymore. Quentin was mine for the week, but my spine heated as I asked, “Any particular reason why?”
He kissed my hand. “My father has no one else to leave the vineyard to. I suppose it was always my fate in a way, and my own desires to do something else were always secondary.”
“That sounds like rich boy problems,” I said without thinking. Following passions wasn’t the luxury of the working class. He’d said he could have anything or anyone. Now I was sure of it.
He laughed a little. “It does sound like that, doesn’t it.”
“Am I wrong?”
“I liked that you enjoyed my company without knowing my bank account.”
“Yeah, I’m right. You have people like me doing the books for you.”
The sound of his chuckle relaxed me, like I’d discovered some secret about him, and I put my feet up.
He stared at me, but I just put my chair back and relaxed.
His silent stare at my feet made me put them down. I’d upset him, so I rubbed the side of my face to get out of