lied. ‘Maybe next time.’
‘I drink from it several times a day, Adèle. You could get a foot in, if you wanted.’ He motioned for me to come into his office.
‘Like I said—’ smiling ‘—maybe next time.’ Gérard’s secretary had sat back down in her chair, but popped back up just before the door closed. ‘I did bring you a nice piece of pork, though,’ I said, pulling the can of meat out from under the gingham towel.
‘What else do you have in there,’ he said, looking from a distance. ‘I don’t like pork, or vanilla oil,’ he said, and I turned, tucking the oil into the bottom of the tin. I was willing to give him my body to touch, but by God he wasn’t getting the vanilla oil.
‘I wasn’t sure what to pack.’
Gérard laughed. ‘You don’t think I asked you here for lunch, do you?’ He closed his window drapes and I glanced over the things in his office, searching for that damn cigar box, the light dimming. He took off his jacket and loosened his tie.
This was the Gérard I had come to know. ‘I suppose I knew you’d have other plans.’ I put the tin on top of the commode and fanned my neck with my hand, finally able to think of the cool grass and lying in the sun.
Be yourself. I smiled. Thump. Thump. Thump.
He pulled a silver flask from his desk and unscrewed the top, his eyes dancing over my body. ‘You look—’
‘Good? After spending time at a convent?’
‘I was going to say something else.’ A smirk teased his lips as he took a swig from the flask.
‘Mmm.’
‘I knew you’d be back.’ I was ready for him to call me a quitter, say something about how I had never lasted long doing much of anything at all, but instead he twirled his finger around his office and smiled. ‘I’ve been promoted—I’m very important.’ He wiped his wetted lips with the fat of his thumb.
I leaned back on the commode, both hands bracing the top, checking to see if it lifted like a chest, but it felt very attached. ‘Well, you know how I like to change my mind.’
‘Like most women.’ He took another swig before walking toward me and every muscle in my body tensed.
‘Gérard, I—’
He pulled my head back by the hair. ‘Yes?’ He planted his lips on mine, and I smelled the liquor in his mouth coming from his nose. Even after weeks of being at a convent I couldn’t have enjoyed his kiss, but I resisted the urge to pull away, my hands searching the top of the commode as he groped me with his free hand. Then to my relief, I saw a cigar box on a bookcase a few paces away, and closed my eyes, waiting for him to finish.
He panted for breath when he pulled away, and I boldly slipped out from under his compressing arms with his fingers still in my hair.
‘Is that how you greet all women? Or just me?’
‘Just you.’ He wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
I rested my backside against the bookcase and tried to look as relaxed as I could. Gérard had been known to sense fear. I stretched my arms out, my fingers walking up the cigar box.
‘Just so we’re clear, I’m not marrying anyone right now,’ I said.
‘Because you’ll run away again?’
I paused to think of a reason he’d believe, something only a selfish man like Gérard would understand. ‘There’s too much going on with the war, truthfully. I could never have the reception I want. Not with the rations getting more restrictive. We’d have to get everything from the black market, and I don’t want anything black at my wedding.’
Gérard reached for the box, laying his heavy hand right on top. ‘You would only think about yourself.’
I pulled the box out from under his hand and opened it, offering him one of many cigars tucked inside. Gérard slammed the lid down.
‘Tell me, why’d it have to be nunnery?’
‘The nunnery, as you call it, gave me time to think. When I get married, it will be because I want to get married. Can’t go to my father and expect it to be done.’
He held my hand, a light squeeze clenching tighter and tighter. ‘Your father will see to it you fulfil our agreement.’
‘My father thinks he arranged a marriage to the man you used to be—the one who bought wine for his family’s spa, someone who said please and