and my blinks became longer. The car ride was smooth and lulling. The air was cool. The stress of the last few days caught up with me, and despite my nap in the train, I closed my eyes.
The motion of the car woke me. After an hour or so, we’d left the highway and meandered down toward the coast. Again, the arresting sight of the Mediterranean Sea caused me to temporarily hold my breath when I saw it. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. What a view to wake up to.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Dauphine asked from beside me.
Turning to her with surprise, I saw nothing but a new curiosity on her face. “No,” I whispered and shook my head.
She frowned. “Why not?”
“Uh—”
Blue eyes flashed across the rearview mirror. My boss was listening. If there was any chance my new boss had seen my initial reaction to him, it might be a good thing to casually mention I was off the market. Oh, how I wished I could say yes. Maybe I should make one up? Lying about having a boyfriend was just a boundary. Women did it all the time. I had girlfriends who’d put a ring on their wedding finger for girls night out so as not to be harassed in some of the clubs we liked to go to. I called a frantic emergency meeting in my head. Use a real ex? That cheating stockbroker I dated a year ago? Who else?
Crap. The moment had passed.
“But have you had a boyfriend?”
“Yes. Of course.”
Dauphine clapped. “He’s American?”
I nodded.
“What does he do, this American boyfriend? Is he a movie star?”
A laugh burst out of me. Did all foreigners only think of movie stars when they thought of America? “No. He was a financial journalist.” Okay, so that was the ex, ex-boyfriend’s job. A stockbroker who wrote opinion editorials. Who’d dumped me when he realized I was never going to talk about my stepfather.
“What is this, Finansh …?” she tried to pronounce with a frown.
“Financial journalist. I’m afraid you might think it’s quite boring.”
“What is the word boring?”
“Pénible,” Monsieur Pascale offered from the front seat, clueing me to the fact he was, indeed, paying attention. He was holding the phone to his ear as he flipped through some papers on his lap. But it clearly didn’t take his attention off what I was sharing with his daughter.
“Ahh,” said Dauphine, nodding gravely. “Continuez.”
I swallowed a smile. “He writes about the stock market for the newspaper. Do you know what the stock market is?”
Dauphine bristled. “Yes. Of course. Papa talks about that too and makes me so … boring.” Her eyes rolled slightly.
I chuckled and also heard a soft snort from the front seat.
“Bored,” I corrected with a smile. “You are bored, not boring.”
She scowled, and then seemed to get it, and let out a small giggle.
“But your English is very good,” I assured her.
“Papa says I am only allowed to watch TV and YouTube in English.” She gave a dramatic sigh. “So yes, it is quite good. Better than the girls at my school,” she added without a hint of arrogance.
I noted she didn’t refer to them as friends. “What do you like to watch?” I asked as the car went around what felt like the seventeenth roundabout. My empty stomach tipped nauseously, and I reached for the overhead handle.
“On TV I like Disney Channel.”
I searched the recesses of my mind. “Zack and Cody?” I chanced.
“Oui! I love them.” She looked at me with renewed interest.
“Why is he not your boyfriend anymore?”
Yikes. This girl. “Um—”
“Did you love him? Your boyfriend?”
“Dauphine,” her father snapped from the front.
I sucked my lips between my teeth to avoid laughing.
Dauphine folded her arms over her chest again but didn’t press me and we all lapsed into silence again. I caught her eyes, and making sure no one but her could see me, I mouthed, “No.”
She gasped in delight and then snickered. And we both looked away innocently.
Outside the window, the scenery became more enchanting with every moment. I’d never seen blue quite like the inky indigo of the bay in front of us, ringed with turquoise and sparkling in the sun. There were only a few boats anchored in the bay, but it was hard to imagine they were owned by individuals. They could double as an elite cruise ship enterprise. I hadn’t thought much about the vessel I would be staying on, beyond the fact I hated the isolation and claustrophobia of boats.