Celine slapped his hand down before the embroidered fabric could slide off. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Isn’t this why you locked the door?”
“Wha—” Celine wheezed. Incredulity felt hot in her veins. “Mon Dieu, you—you vile, degraded, sinful—”
“Sinful,” he echoed. “I do like that one.”
“To assume I would even want to—Agh!” She threw up her hands. “Sit down and don’t you dare move a limb until I’m done talking.”
The smirk on Bastien’s lips widened as he complied and situated himself on the edge of her bed, too comfortably for Celine’s liking.
“Bossy,” he murmured. “I can work with that. Proceed.”
Celine didn’t return his jibe. The sooner she got this over with, the faster they could return downstairs and ward off any suspicions. “You cannot tell anyone you saw me at Folies-Bergère.”
Bastien quirked a keen brow. “Why? It is not as though you’ve never been to a cabaret before.”
She didn’t want to give him all the details, but she feared Bastien wouldn’t cooperate if she requested his secrecy with a simple please. He wanted entertainment and gossip, anything lewd or scandalous that would make enough of a bargain to keep his mouth shut.
“It’s not aboutwhereI was, rather what I was doing.” Grabbing a book from her bedside table, Celine opened the volume in half and produced the announcement paper for the contest. “Remember this?”
Bastien’s eyes moved back and forth on the text. “Ah,oui. The famous competition.”
“Only you and Anaïs know about it, but if my mother finds out she won’t so much as let me step foot outside the door. She has no qualms about tying me to a chair to prevent me from spending ten weeks in the company of flappers and fashion designers.”
“I’m guessing you don’t want Jacques to know either, otherwise he would have been up here with us.”
“How perceptive of you,” she said drily. But Celine could also see he was intrigued now. Good. “I will tell Jacques on my own time. You, on the other hand—”
“Me?” Bastien clicked his tongue. “See, there’s a flaw to your logic, darling. Anaïs is the blabbermouth here, not me. And lucky for you, neither is Jacques. On occasion. So you might want to reconsider this whole dragooning me into secrecy thing, and take my sister up here instead.”
“Then you agree to keep quiet.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But—” Her confidence deflated. Anxiously, Celine began tapping her foot, her heel dipping into the plush carpet that lined the floor. “Why can’t you just keep this one secret for me?”
“Because it makes life dull.”
Sometime during their exchange, Bastien had reclined back completely and was now hugging one of her throw pillows. Celine had a mind to pluck it from his hands and smack some sense into him. But she abstained, lest it give him one more reason to blab. She began fidgeting with the string of beads that hung from her neck.
“Do you always sprawl yourself on young ladies’ beds like this?”
“On occasion,” Bastien replied flippantly. “But this is a first. Usually they're sprawled beside me with a little less clothing than you have on right now.” He gave the mattress a soft pat. “Care to have this conversation from that point of view?”
Celine’s whole body convulsed. “Ew. Never.”
Bastien shrugged. “By the by,” he drawled, already moving on to another topic. “It says here on your slip that you need a model. Is the one you have chosen by any chance pretty? If you give me her name, perhaps it will compel me to forget I ever saw your lovely face at Folies-Bergère.”
Celine froze.
The model!She had completely forgotten to look for one.
Her fingers came automatically to her lips and she started chewing on her nails. If she were to receive the letter by tonight, there was a good chance she might need a model for tomorrow. A dry, ironic laugh almost escaped her lips. As if she had a hefty list of people she could call at random on a Sunday night. And where would she even find a model who wouldn’t tell anyone about it. Then she’d have to contend with two people...instead of just Bastien…who needed to keep her secret…
Celine’s eyes lit up.
“You!” she exclaimed, standing before him and splaying her arms wide.
