Page 173 of The Stranger

“Will she still be there when we come home?” Sylvie gets so close to the screen that, for a moment, all I can see is one gimlet eye and one sun-browned cheek.

“Of course,” I say, because the admit I don’t know would be a mistake. My brain tells me the sooner she leaves, the better for me. And my body tells my brain to shut up. “She’ll be here.” Even if only for a little while. But the answer comes easily. Too easily to be the truth.

Felix leans into view beside her. “You promise?”

“I do.”

They accept this with the resolute faith children place in their parents when they’re young, and the conversation moves on to the places they’ve visited, and the things they’ve seen. But my promise feels like a chicken bone stuck in my throat.

Primrose has not indicated that she’ll leave before our time is up. The date on her ticket that we don’t speak of. Things between us are good—better than good. The past few days have been full of laughter and long meals and her warm body curled against mine at night. So I won’t think about the future. The end. Whether she’ll be here when the children come home or whether I decide that shouldn’t be the case.

Be honest.

If there was any justice in the world I’d be struck down from above.

43

PRIMROSE

He asks me to be honest and all I can think is, I see you hiding.

He asks me to be honest, but what I want is for him to ask me to stay.

Stay. I nibble the inside of my lip. How would that even work? He lives in Paris, and I live in London. His children belong in Paris—it’s what their mother intended for them. And London is my home; my job is my home. How would we even navigate our lives, our commitments, and a relationship with the English Channel between us?

This is ridiculous, I think as I adjust the throw pillow behind my head then almost frisbee my book to the coffee table. He’s not going to ask me to stay. We have seven days—that’s all. Two more without the children. Is it weird that I miss them?

“Everything okay?” Luc glances up from his own book as his fingers tighten on my ankle. I cannot express how sexy he looks in those dark-framed reading glasses.

“I’m bored.” I’m not. What I am is driving myself crazy. But if there’s one thing guaranteed to distract me and to get his attention, it’s the suggestion that I’m at a loose end.

Idle hands and all that.

“That is bad news,” he murmurs.

“I know.” I stare at my toes as I point them like a ballerina. A ballerina lying on a sofa, but still.

“What a bad host I must be.” His hand glides a little higher to my calf. “What could we do to relieve that boredom, I wonder?”

“How about you tell me a story.” I give a little pout.

“Let me see. Once upon a time,” Luc begins, his expression so serious, “there lived a lonely Frenchman who invited an exceedingly lovely Primrose into his garden.”

“Because he wanted to plough her?” I give a soft undulation of my body as I adjust the pillow behind my head. “Did she make him wet his plants?”

“Who’s telling this story?” As he stares at me, a suffer a tiny throb inside, like my body remembers the feel of him. The whole of him. “The little Primrose insisted she was there only to admire the landscaping⁠—”

“The manscaping.” I press my hand to my mouth as I snort.

“The landscaping.” He lifts his hand to take off his glasses.

“Um, no sir,” I say with a waggle of my finger. “Put ’em back on.”

He says nothing but the look he slides me is incendiary. And the glasses stay on.

“This is a slow story.” But I jolt as his hand slides around to the back of my knee. “Hurry and get to the bit with the garden bed.” Or where you bed me. So little time. So many feelings.

“Before very long, the Primrose was tending to his…” He quirks a teasing brow. “Shrubbery.”