and realize my blundering crush. Or worse, think I was a sleazeball hitting on her. “I don’t want … um.” Oh, good God. Was I this rusty?
“Am I not dressed properly?” She suddenly fussed, her cheeks flooding with pink, and her eyes unsure. “I was told I could wear a swimsuit.”
Fuck. Remorse filled me.
“No. You look fine.” Fine? She was fucking gorgeous. Unthinkingly, my hand went to her bare arm and squeezed gently for a millisecond before dropping it like it burned. “Let’s go,” I snapped. “We’re late.” I brushed clumsily past her rather than stay cooped up in that small space, mainlining her coconut scent and accidentally and perpetually insulting her.
But God, I was a beast around her.
Uncouth.
Erratic.
Horny.
Let’s just hope she was invisible to my father. And moreover, that he couldn’t tell how tightly wound I was around her.
After a moment I heard her follow me, and we made our way to the back deck. Dauphine began chattering immediately and held her braid up while Josie rubbed sunscreen on my daughter’s neck, back, and shoulders. Then Dauphine returned the favor, and I knew Josie might end up burned later, but there was no way I could offer to put my hands on her skin. I encouraged Dauphine to do a more thorough job, then when it was done we all climbed in the tender for the short ride to the beach.
I’d hardly seen my father over the last couple of years. As a child, he’d been almost mythical in status to me. He’d put in long work hours, and I had assumed our family money was due to his work. It was years before I discovered our wealth had been my mother’s, and my father was simply always a “try-hard” with a chip on his shoulder. And his time away from home had rarely been for work.
I’d spent my youth trying and failing to impress him. I’d thought he’d spend more time with me if he could see how smart I was. Consequently, I became the top student. Though that hadn’t been much effort as I was naturally analytically minded. I adored science and mathematics. My father called me a nerd.
Then I thought if I played more sports, I’d garner his praise, so I joined the football team. That had come harder. When other boys had perfected fancy footwork in the streets and parks after school, I had been headfirst in a book or being chauffeured to music and chess. But I persevered, and finally made it, becoming center forward and then captain of our local club team. My father never came to a game.
Then when I was an older teen I thought I could garner his praise if I became a ladies’ man. A wild child. After all, he seemed to respect men with a roving eye, who weren’t chained to their wives and families. And so, I drank. I fucked. I broke hearts. But all it got me was a reputation as a fuck up, tears from my mother, and contempt from my father who came to see me as a wastrel. As did the French press who so closely monitored our family.
It was only after I realized the family money was just something my father had married into and spent frivolously, and that he’d only respect me if he needed something from me, that I finally got my head out of my ass. The scales had fallen from my eyes, and my father had become … just a man.
A weak man.
A man who made questionable deals, trusted the wrong people, and slept with the help.
Someone I had no intention of emulating.
When we arrived at the beach club, my father was in true form. His eyes missed nothing, not the tension in my shoulders and not the expanse of leg on display by my daughter’s minder. Women at the beach club wore less than her, but Josie still tugged on the hem of her cover-up, and she still drew eyes to her like a magnet. My own included.
“Papa,” I said, forcing a joviality I didn’t feel into my tone as he clapped me on the back more heavily than he needed to.
I could tell he was feeling on top of the world. Bold and optimistic that he could get me to invest in his latest venture. “Great to see you,” he greeted me. “Just great. And my sweet little Dauphine!” he crowed as she leapt into his arms. “Who is your new friend?”