I barely get my fingers out of the way. “I need a break. I need a vacation. Fuck it, I deserve a vacation. And you’re coming with me.”
A vacation? A chance to get away from this place? I mean, I would be going with Pascal, so that’s obviously a con, but damn it if I don’t feel a bit of weight lift for the first time since I got here. Still . . .
“You’re not worried about any letters?”
“All taken care of. I told my mother to put them aside in my office until we return. She’ll keep an eye out for them.”
“And you trust her?”
He shrugs. “The letters are addressed to him, so if the worst-case scenario happens, then fine. But no. My mother is not a fan of my father.”
“What exactly did you tell her?”
“I said that there might be a letter addressed to him that he shouldn’t see, and that I’ll deal with it when I get home.”
I watch him carefully. He seems to believe this. “You’re not worried she’ll open it out of curiosity?”
“She might. But she’ll come to me first, not him. Look, my mother and I aren’t close, but the older she gets, the more she leans on me. My father has become her enemy of sorts.” He runs his hand over his jaw, appraising me. “You’re awfully worried about those letters.”
“I’m not,” I say, maybe a little defensively. I pull it back. Smile reassuringly. “I’m not. I was just thinking about you.”
“Thinking about me for once? How sweet.”
“Pascal, it’s my job to think of you.”
“That very well may be, but you don’t need to burst my bubble. Anyway, are you interested in getting away? Don’t pretend you don’t want to go,” he says. “I can read you like a book.”
Don’t be so sure about that.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Have you been to Mallorca?” he asks, and then he catches himself. “Sorry, I forgot. Poor-girl childhood. But you did say you were all over Europe after you left here.”
“No, I haven’t been.”
“Well, we have a place there, and I haven’t been in a long time. It’s on the beach. For a week we’ll have nothing to do but laze around and drink and get tan lines.” He bites his lip as he stares at me with raised brows. “Or no tan lines, if you’re into tanning naked. I am. Just so you know.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course you are.”
“Don’t roll your eyes at me, miss. You’re the one who got handsy with me last week, let the record show.”
I feel a flush burn on my cheeks. He’s right. I’m still not sure what the hell came over me the other night in that gazebo. I guess I just wanted to see, feel what effect I had on him. And I wanted it to be on my terms, not his.
He slaps his hand down on the desk. “So let’s go before anyone finds out, or I change my mind. Go get out of that uniform and pack a bunch of bikinis or something.”
Another roll of my eyes. As if I even have a single bathing suit. “What am I going to tell my mother?”
“You’re going with me on a business trip. That’s all she needs to know. You’re twenty-five. You can do what you want, can’t you?”
“And you’re thirty-one and you almost punched your father at work,” I point out. I add under my breath, “Though I’m sure he was asking for it.”
“He was. It doesn’t matter, though. We have a plane to catch.”
When Pascal said we had a plane to catch, I was expecting your typical commercial airline, probably business class. But when we get to the small airport just outside Paris, I realize we’re talking about a private jet.
“Are you kidding me?” I ask as he takes me through the gates and over to the small waiting lounge, stocked with champagne and finger foods, the sleek jet parked outside. “This is how you travel?”
He shrugs and shoves a piece of bruschetta in his mouth before taking a swig of champagne. “Why not? I have the means, I might as well use them. What else would I spend my money on?”
“Hookers and blow,” I joke.
But from the curve of his lips, it’s probably not a joke.
“Whatever,” I tell him quickly. “As long as I don’t hear about it.”
“We tell each other everything, though,” he says knowingly. “Remember the contract.”
“How could I forget?”
“You still owe me some stories.” He picks up a glass