Pascal; he’s rarely serious. That’s a good thing. If I remember correctly, if he is serious, he’s rather terrifying.
But today, right now, his pale eyes are dancing with amusement, his smile crooked. If he wasn’t a Dumont, I’d probably think he’s as strangely handsome as everyone else seems to, but I have a hard time being objective.
Nor should you be objective about that, I remind myself.
“What on earth are you wearing?” he asks, looking me up and down and running his hand over his distinctive chin. “Not that I’m complaining, but it does look like you raided a costume place.”
I give him a steady look. “It was my mother and your mother’s idea, apparently. Guess I should be relieved to hear it wasn’t yours.”
“Yes,” he says, striding into the study, “but now that I’ve seen you in this, I don’t think you should ever take it off.” His eyes linger on my ass, and I have to remind myself to try to play nice with him.
“Let me ask you something,” I say as I ignore that comment and wag my finger for him to come forward.
He does so, and I can feel the heat of his body at my back, the smell of his cologne, which I don’t think is the one he wears in the ad campaigns at all. He smells like the ocean, something sweet, and a bit of cigarette smoke.
I wave my duster at a book with a splintering hole through the spine. “Are my eyes deceiving me, or is this a bullet hole?”
“Ah, yes,” he says, and I glance at him over my shoulder.
“Really? What happened?” Who was shooting guns in the study?
He bites his lip and raises his arched brows for a moment. “I’m going to need you to sign your contract first.”
“I thought you trusted me?” I ask, though I know he shouldn’t trust me at all.
“I do,” he says, stepping away from me. He pauses by the desk and picks up a cane that was resting against it and raps it into his palm a few times. “But I’m not an idiot. If you’re going to work for me, you’re going to learn a lot of things. Some of them aren’t pretty. If I know that you’re locked in with an NDA, then I’ll sleep better at night.”
“You don’t seem like the type that has anything keeping him up,” I tell him.
“Well, I have been told I lack a conscience,” he muses thoughtfully. He puts the cane back and then gestures with his head. “Here. Come with me to my office. This is your mother’s area anyway. Your job is to tend entirely to me.”
As much as I hate that idea, I hate the idea of being among Gautier’s stuff even more, so I follow him as he exits the study and heads up the spiral staircase to the second floor, the crystal chandelier glittering above us.
“Why are you home so early?” I ask as we reach the second floor and go down the east wing of the house, past the rows of portraits in gilded frames that hang on the wall, their eyes following our every move.
“Everyone is a fucking moron,” he says, glancing at me quickly over his shoulder. “I don’t have patience for idiots.”
“I assume these are the new hires since Seraphine and Blaise left?”
He stops and gives me a look I can’t read. “I’d like to hear what you know about Blaise and Seraphine. But that can wait for later.” He pushes the door open to his office, and I follow him inside. “Besides, I guess the real reason I came home early is because I wanted to see if you really were here.”
“You didn’t think I’d show?”
He gives me that crooked grin again while his glacier-blue eyes spear me. He’s got quite an unusual way of looking at you, always has. Like he can see right through you, but it’s also more than that. Like he knows all your secrets, and plans on using them against you later. “After you left the café, I spent the evening convincing myself that our conversation actually happened. You’re very bewitching, you know that? Anyway, I couldn’t be sure that you actually meant what you said. You were so adamant against working for me, and then you suddenly changed your mind. I get that you needed a favor, but still . . .” He sits down at his desk and stares up at me. “I wasn’t counting on you.”