help but grin. Just the fact that she said that gives me a full-on erection. “I don’t need any help in that. Unless you wanted to help me. I could always use an extra hand.”
She stares at me for a moment, and I can’t quite read her eyes with the way the shadows are falling on them. I swear to God I see something like lust glinting in them, but I always see what I want to see.
Then, to my complete surprise, she leans over and places her hand between my legs on my cock that’s tenting up in my pants. She gives it a firm squeeze, which elicits a low, unguarded moan from my mouth.
“Are you always this hard when you’re around me?” she asks, leaning in closer, her tone more curious than anything else.
I’m so taken aback, I don’t know what to say. I can only press my cock up into the palm of her hand, letting heat wash over me like a fevered man.
“I take that as a yes,” she says.
Then she removes her hand and resumes leaning against the wall.
“What the fuck was that?” I ask, bewildered and breathless.
It’s a trap. It’s got to be a trap.
“Should I not have done that?” she asks. Her tone is mock innocence. I have no idea what’s going on with her.
I swallow, the pleasure in my cock now turning to pain without her to relieve me. “You can do that all you want, but—”
“I was just curious,” she says mildly. “I wanted to see if you had a reason to have the ego that you do.”
“And?” I prompt.
She shrugs.
Wow. Talk about automatic deflation.
“You sure know how to talk up a man.”
“You’re a man who needs to be taken down a few pegs.”
“Well, believe me, I have been,” I tell her, taking a larger gulp of whiskey this time. I shake the bottle at her. “Why do you think I’m drinking in the gazebo?”
“You called Olivier?” she asks.
“I did,” I tell her as I hand her the bottle and bring out a pack of cigarettes. I’m really trying to cut down to just a few a day. In France, that’s pretty much the same as quitting.
I light it and then inhale, hoping the cigarette takes the weight off my shoulders.
“And so . . . ?” she prods.
I blow the smoke away from her. “Well, nothing. He didn’t send them. I never thought it was him anyway. That’s not his style. He’s too good for that.”
“So then that leaves Marine.”
“She does seem to have every reason to do this. We also haven’t talked in many years. Last I heard, she married a rich man and has a few kids. She has the means for revenge, but I’m not sure if money is something she needs.”
“The letters never mentioned money. They also never mentioned you. So, since your list of enemies is accounted for, I think we should concentrate on your father. The likelihood of the threats being for him is high.”
“Too high. Where do you begin?”
“Figure out who would want him dead.”
“Whoa,” I tell her, coughing. “Dead? Who said they wanted him dead? So far it’s just idle threats.”
She shrugs, seeming uneasy. “I don’t take idle threats lightly, and neither should you.”
“But extortion and murder are very different things. Why would anyone want my father dead?”
“Maybe he hurt them,” she says quietly, looking away. Then she glances at me. “You said that he was going to kill your cousin and has a hit man working for him. You can’t pretend that she was the first person he had that done to. Nor can you pretend that your uncle was the first person he murdered. If he were able to do that to his own brother, he’d be able to do it to anyone. And if that’s the case, perhaps someone wants revenge for something he did. It could be someone who was close to Ludovic, someone we’re missing, or it could be someone else from years ago. The fact is, your father has done things, horrible things, and now someone is going to make him pay.”
I run my hand over my face, trying to ease the tension that’s building inside me.
My father really is this horrible.
I’ve been complicit this whole time.
His lackey. His minion.
All his.
I’m nothing of mine.
“Anyway,” Gabrielle says, getting to her feet. “I’ll let you think about it.”
“Where are you going?” I reach out for her, but she steps back out of the way. “You’re just going to grab