Breathe Me - C.R. Jane Page 0,62

"I can't believe I'm here," she whispers. "Why did I wait my whole life to come to Paris and visit this café?"

Quaid laughs. "Well, you're only twenty-eight," he snickers. "I'm not sure that most people have visited Paris by then. You're way ahead of the game."

She continues to stare at the pastry strangely before shaking her head. "Yeah, you're totally right. I'm way ahead."

Her comment doesn't sit well with me for some reason. She's not telling the truth.

The Valentina I knew didn't lie. She wore everything about her on the surface, visible for anyone to see. It had been a full-time job for the three of us to protect her from the vultures who wanted to take advantage of this.

But this Valentina sitting across the table from me is lying. She’s shrouded in secrets, and I hate it. It makes me want to uncover all of her layers one by one and strip her bare.

Our gazes lock and she quickly looks away, and I know she can tell that I’m seeing right through her.

Pasting a big grin on her face and pointedly ignoring my questioning gaze, she picks up her pastry and takes a big bite, making a loud moan of contentment that has the inane and unfortunate effect of making me hard under the table. At least the other two fools at the table are suffering from the same affect.

Logan brushes a crumb off her lip, and she gives him a grateful smile before continuing to eat her pastry.

"This is better than I imagined," she whispers, looking at me. My hand freezes as I stare at her, and I'm reminded once again that at one time, I was just a boy desperately in love with a girl and I would have done anything to have this moment.

That boy would have been disappointed in the man I am today.

This man is too.

Valentina

Carter sees too much. He always has. It comes with the territory of being a listener instead of a speaker—he sees everything. Even what you're trying desperately to hide.

After my mishap, my pastry doesn't taste nearly as good as it did when I first bit into it. I struggle down the last bite and wash it down with my drink. I'm supposed to go easy on the caffeine just like with the alcohol, but I could barely drag my body through a day as it is. If I only have three months, I would like to have some sort of energy, even if it’s the artificial kind.

Shit.

A tremor starts in my hand as I'm putting down my coffee, and I splatter coffee all over the pristine white tablecloth.

It's only Carter paying attention.

Always Carter. And he stares at me, a challenge in his gaze, as if he stares at me long enough, the truth will eventually pass through my lips.

"Just a secondary effect of my last treatment," I laugh breezily. "Another reason finishing my journey to become a surgeon would probably be impractical now. Can you imagine if my hand started shaking like that, and I accidentally sliced something important off?" I'm smiling as I say all of this, even if every word kills me. I wish it was the treatment and not the disease that causes the tremors. I could find a way to alleviate that.

But there wasn't a way to alleviate the tremors combined with the short-term memory loss, vomiting, and nausea caused by the brain tumor.

"What about general medicine?" asks Logan, ever the problem solver.

"You still have to give shots and stitches, etc," I say softly, pushing a piece of hair out of my face nervously. I don't have any interest in pursuing this line of topic. It was hard enough losing my career once. Talking about it just makes it worse.

"Should we go to The Loo?" Quaid says suddenly in a terrible British accent, effectively cutting off whatever Logan was about to say.

"You need to go to the restroom?" I ask with a giggle.

"I mean the museum? Did I not say it right?" Quaid asks. He's trying to look innocent, but the devilish sparkle in his gaze tells me that he knows the difference between "loo" and "Louvre" and is just trying to save me from a potentially very heavy conversation.

I stand up from the table, closing my eyes for one second from the dizziness I experience. It's going to be a tough day. Lovely that my symptoms decided to ramp up on a day of heavy walking. I discreetly pull out another one of my