The Boss (Chateau #3) - Penelope Sky Page 0,80
working in a labor camp every single day that he doesn’t go back. She could be killed at a moment’s notice. I’m entitled to be anxious—so get off my ass.”
I sat on my couch and watched TV in French, hoping to catch on to their conversations. It was such a hard language for me because I’d never been exposed to it prior to my trip to Paris. In high school, I took Spanish…and didn’t retain a word of it.
A knock sounded on my door, telling me Gilbert had entered my bedroom.
I kept my eyes on the TV, still annoyed with him from earlier today.
He cleared his throat as he stood at the end of the other couch.
I still didn’t look at him.
“Melanie, I’d like to apologize. I think my feelings may have gotten the best of me.”
I turned away from the TV and met his gaze, seeing the guilty look on his face. “You think?”
He dropped his gaze, the features of his face sagging like he aged a decade in a second.
“Please accept my sincere apology.”
“I’m not going to tell Fender.”
“I already knew that, Melanie. I’m sorry because I was being biased and insensitive.”
My anger was impossible to grip, so I let it go. “It’s okay, Gilbert.”
He came closer then indicated to the cushion beside me. “May I?”
“Sure.”
He took a seat then grabbed the notebook on the coffee table. “Working on your French, huh?” He nodded to the TV.
“Fender said I sucked at it, so…”
“Yes, he asked me to teach you even when he’s in residence.” He grabbed the pen and clicked it. “Any luck with this?”
“Nope.” It was some kind of soap opera, and while there was a lot of yelling and then a lot of steamy scenes right afterward, I couldn’t make out the transitions in between. Other than simple words that I had already learned, the rest was indecipherable.
“French is a difficult language for a novice. And we speak so quickly that it’s hard to grasp.”
Whenever Fender spoke on the phone, his words tumbled out like a waterfall. In English, his words were seldom and purposeful. Maybe it was because it was his second language.
Gilbert crossed one leg on the opposite knee and got comfortable against the cushions.
“Is he home?”
“Yes. Just had dinner.”
If he wanted to see me, he would have come to me. He wouldn’t have ordered Gilbert to continue his instruction. He was either in a bad mood or still had work to do. His work outside the camp seemed to be dinner with important figures and nighttime strolls with shady characters. I knew which one it was when I wasn’t invited.
Gilbert went on with his instruction, teaching me a couple phrases I could use at dinner parties, and then tried to help me figure out what was being said on the TV show, so I could follow along. “I think regularly watching French TV will help. They say immersing yourself in a culture is the quickest way to learn a language. But since you don’t go out, this is the next best thing.”
The most French I’d learned was what Fender said to me, so that was true. “He said I sucked at French, so I’m obviously not understanding what he says to me.”
“And what does he say?”
I tried to think of something new, something I didn’t recognize. “Cha… chatti—”
“Chatte, probably.”
“Chatte parfaite.”
He chuckled as he wrote it down. “Chatte parfaite.”
“What does it mean?”
He lowered his eyes and cleared his throat. “Perfect cunt…”
“Oh…” Sometimes I didn’t want Gilbert to translate because it was a bit awkward, but I didn’t have a phone or laptop so I couldn’t figure it out myself.
Gilbert moved on. “What else?”
What other dirty things did Fender say to me? “Uh… something like… te baiser… dans le cul… I’m not sure if that’s right.”
He didn’t have a reaction as he wrote it down. “He wants to fuck you in the ass.”
My eyes immediately paled at Gilbert’s words. I was sure Fender would do a good job, but I was not interested in that…at all. My cheeks started to redden a little bit when I knew exactly what he said, what he wanted me to know that he’d said it. I pushed past it to dispel the awkwardness. “He also says… Je t’aime, chérie. He says that a lot, actually.”
Gilbert went absolutely still, the point of his pen pressed to the white paper, a drop of ink growing bigger and bigger the longer he held it there. With eyes wide open, as if he