He runs his hand down over his pinched features. “It’s not an easy thing to admit.”
“I’m sure it’s not.”
“It was both my parents’ idea. Marine came from a good family, and she was beautiful, so my mother wanted those good genes and that good money to be passed along, even though we had so much more money than her family did. Enough so that it was pretty obvious Marine only wanted me for that reason.”
“So she never loved you either?”
He takes a large gulp of wine and clears his throat. “No. She couldn’t love anything. I guess we were well suited in that respect.” He pauses, his eyes seeming to count the grains of sand in the flickering candlelight. “She had no problem seducing Olivier. She thought it was great. She thought she was going to benefit from it all, as if she didn’t already have everything she ever wanted.”
“And then you showed her the door.”
He frowns. “Look. I’m not proud of it.”
“I never said you were. And what did your father have to do with this arrangement?”
“He said it was the right move. I was young, but it was good to show the world that I was ready to settle down . . .”
I raise my brow. “You don’t think your father had this all planned from the start? That he wanted you to marry Marine so that he could blackmail your cousin?”
He sighs and runs his fingers along the tablecloth. Oh, how the tables have turned here. He thought he could get me to bare all and he’d be exempt. “Maybe. Probably.”
“Just another pawn in his game.”
His eyes blaze as he glances at me, but he doesn’t say anything.
We lapse into silence, occasionally glancing at each other, until all the food and wine is gone.
“How about dessert?” he asks me, pushing back his chair and getting to his feet.
I look around. I don’t see any dessert.
Oh. It’s sexual, isn’t it?
I give him a wry look as he comes to my side of the table and holds out his hand for me. “Just trust me.”
“I’m no one’s dessert, Pascal,” I warn him, but I feel shaky inside, as if I might go back on my word.
The corner of his mouth curls into a grin as he stares down at me. “You don’t have to tell me twice. Come on.”
He gestures with his open hand and cautiously places mine in his. He wraps his strong, warm fingers around me and helps me to my feet.
He doesn’t let go as he leads me away from the table and to the beach, right to the water’s edge.
“We’re going swimming?” I ask.
“Tomorrow,” he says. “Come this way.”
Still grasping my hand, he takes me along the water past the cliffs and bare rocks that slide into the sea until we round a corner and come to another long expanse of beach. There are a few houses at the water’s edge here and there, but farther down there is a low building right on the sand with disco lights, and I can hear the soft thump of EDM music.
“Are you taking me to a rave?” I ask suspiciously. “You know I’m still in bare feet.”
“Just getting dessert,” he says.
We walk down the beach for what feels like forever until the music is louder and the building is upon us. It’s a beach bar with a casual vibe and only a few patrons. Most of them are in chairs sprawled across the sand, drinking beer, while a few girls are dancing around them, lit up by the colorful rotating lights. There’s a DJ in the corner who looks like he’s giving it his all, even though the crowd is small.
Pascal leads me over to the bar, where we take a seat on high stools that sink a little into the beach. “Dos sangrias, por favor,” he says to the bartender.
“You speak Spanish?” I ask him.
“Barely,” the bartender says in English. I look at him and see he’s got a twinkle in his eye like they’re longtime friends. Pascal obviously frequents this place when he’s on the island, although this doesn’t strike me as Pascal’s scene either.
“What?” Pascal says to me, reading my face. “Beach bars are my favorite, and Manuel is the best bartender on the island, isn’t that right?”
I’m not sure that Manuel understands Pascal’s French, but I think he gets the gist anyway because he pours an insane amount of brandy into each of our glasses.