in tan pants, and his shirt is white and silk and slightly undone, hinting at his bronzed chest beneath. His hair is equally mussed, and he looks the epitome of rich French guy on vacation, and yet it’s such a change from the Pascal I normally see. It’s not just that he’s not in a dark suit and tie, it’s that he looks fresh and free.
Or maybe I’m just projecting myself on him.
“What is this?” I ask, gesturing to the table.
“Dinner?” he says. “I thought if you did wake up, you were going to be ravenous. At least I was.” He plunks the bag on the table and then removes the contents, two foil takeout containers. “And of course there is no food in the house, so I drove to my favorite seafood restaurant next town over and got them to make us some paella to go.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had paella,” I admit, surprised at how thoughtful he’s being.
“Not even when you were traveling Europe?”
The thing is, I wasn’t so much traveling as I was running from Gautier. I had only saved up so much, so when I fled, I just hopped from city to city, looking for work and wishing I spoke better English.
I shake my head. “No.” But I leave it at that.
He watches me for a moment, thinking something I’m not sure I want to know, and then starts to dish out the food onto the plates. Though I haven’t had paella, I know what it looks like, and this looks and smells divine. Saffron-colored rice, red chorizo, fresh prawns.
“This is all amazing,” I tell him as he sits down across from me.
“Good. I’m glad you’re impressed.”
“Fresh authentic paella, wine, a candlelit table on the beach. If I didn’t know any better, I would say you were wooing me.”
“I am,” he says, covering his smile with his glass of wine.
Heat flares in my core, my belly doing flips. There I go again, feeling things for him I shouldn’t be feeling. I have some more wine to try to drown the feeling, but all it does is make me want to revel in it.
“Are you being wooed?” he goes on with a hopeful tone.
I give him a shy smile. “Maybe . . .” I pause. “Do you do this for all your employees?”
“I don’t even do this for my dates,” he admits with a shrug. “A trip to Mallorca, food on the beach. I would have cooked all this if I knew shit about cooking.”
“I’m actually surprised you don’t have a cook anymore.” If I recall correctly, they did back in the day. Francis or something like that.
“Your mom cooks most of the time now. I suppose I should be putting you to the test. I wouldn’t mind you serving me breakfast in bed.”
The mention of my mother is a cold knife into my chest, making my breath hitch. For a moment there, I had kind of forgotten what we both left behind when we came here.
“Okay, how about this,” he says, and I meet his eyes. “We don’t mention anything about back home. Not your mother, not my father, no mother or brother or cousins or blackmail or murder or anything. Not for the whole trip. Sound good?”
I raise my wineglass. “I will definitely drink to that.”
“So with that shit out of the way, let’s talk about you like you promised.”
Oh jeez.
“Let’s start with your childhood,” he says, swirling the wine in his glass.
“Hmm, not an overwhelmingly broad topic at all.”
“What was your life like before you moved in?”
“Well, let’s see,” I say, taking a bite of the paella and letting the orgasmic taste distract me for a second. I swallow reluctantly. “I lived with my mom and dad outside Paris in a shitty neighborhood you would have never heard of. People shooting up on the street, prostitutes, smugglers, the whole lot. Our apartment was one bedroom, and my mom often slept on the couch with me because my father would kick her out of the bedroom. He beat her—a lot. She . . .” I trail off, refusing to bring up images. “It was pretty bad.”
Pascal winces, his eyes downcast. “Okay, this was the worst subject to bring up. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay, but it’s done. It all made me stronger. It should have made my mother stronger, too, but . . .”
“She met my father.”
“She met your father. And he offered us protection from him. My mother