I looked up at the night sky as if deep in thought. “Hmm. Let’s see. Licorice, avocado, karate—”
“You can do karate?”
“Of course. A girl must learn self-defense.”
Her large eyes grew rounder.
“It’s true,” her father said, then he turned back to me. “What about boats?” he asked, eyes steady on mine as he took a sip of rosé. I realized I hadn’t touched mine yet. “Are you glad you tried boats?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. Was he … teasing me?
“You don’t like boats?” Dauphine gasped. “Even Papa’s boat? But it’s the best boat!”
I laughed at how incensed she was. “Is it? I wouldn’t know. I have never been on another because, well, I don’t like them.”
“But now you do,” she stated as if it was decided. She wiggled in her seat, and then huffed out a breath. “Uh. Je vais aux toilettes. Excusez-moi.” She pushed back her chair and darted down the stairs, leaving me and Mr. Pascale alone over an extremely romantic-looking candlelit dinner.
On a yacht.
In the South of France.
But it felt more like being left inside the leopard cage at feeding time.
This time I did reach for my wine and took a healthy sip as blue-eyes-turned-navy glittered in the near dark.
Chapter Eleven
“You said you do not have much experience as a nanny,” Mr. Pascale asked, clearly cutting to the interview we never had as soon as his daughter had left the upper deck. “I looked at the resume Tabitha Mackenzie sent. You worked at an architectural firm?”
As uncomfortable as I was to talk about my career, the wound so fresh, it was better than the weird tension that had suddenly bloomed out of nowhere as soon as we were alone. My shoulders relaxed, and I realized how tense I’d been. “Yes.”
“In what capacity?” he asked, lifting his wine glass.
“As an architect.”
His glass stopped midair.
Inside, I did a victory high five and a couple of backflips. Take that, you arrogant, gorgeous, piece of work. Being an architect is hard work. It takes years of study. Both math and creativity and a boatload of patience and attention to detail.
His head cocked to the side, his eyes studying me.
I waited, silently gloating. Though I hoped that didn’t show.
“You’re a little overqualified, non?”
That was it? That was what he had to say? Irritation rumbled through me, and my ego got a bruised backside.
“Alors, you will not even try a mussel after that talk you gave my daughter?” Mr. Pascale asked, reaching for one of the remaining shells.
And so we were done with me and my career. I took a slow sip of wine, letting the aromatic and rich liquid slide over my tongue.
He was baiting me and I was … enjoying it?
There were three mussels left swimming in the bowl. It had been an appetizer, so there’d been just enough for both of us to have some without ruining our appetites completely, but I was abstaining. “You can have those,” I said. The bread was finished anyway.
“You don’t want the broth?”
“I don’t have a spoon.”
“If you have just one moule, you can use the shell as a spoon.”
“Or you could give me one of your shells.”
“Ahh. But where’s the adventure in that?”
Maybe he did have a lighter side after all. This couldn’t be flirting, could it? Not after the awful start to the evening. And not since he was my boss.
I lifted a shoulder.
“Is it the flavor? The—how do you say—the texture?” he questioned, using a fork to spear his bounty from the shell. “With all this sauce, you could eat anything.” He swirled it around in the bowl for maximum flavor before bringing it to his mouth.
“It’s not the flavor or texture, it’s what it looks like.”
He paused and looked down, studying the morsel on the end of his fork, his brow furrowed.
Then his confusion gave way to surprise, and he erupted into laughter. Moments later, the laughter still hadn’t subsided and his fork clattered to his plate. He pushed back from the table, a hand on his chest as his shoulders shook, and he lost himself in hysterics.
It was contagious, though I tried really hard to hold it in. But the sight of this carefully controlled serious man, losing his shit like a twelve-year-old boy in biology class, just busted me up, and before long I was laughing too. Especially when his eyes started to water, and he gasped, “Mon dieu.”
There was a noise from the stairwell, and I turned