Page 60 of The Stranger

Dieu, I am not jealous!

“And Alejandro asked you out?” My question sounds brittle as I reach for my glass.

“I’m new here. He was being welcoming.” Her fiery gaze flashes my way. More welcoming than me, it seems to say.

“So it would seem,” I mutter.

“Who is Alejandro?” Felix looks up from his plate with a frown.

“He has brown hair and blue eyes,” Sylvie answers. “He’s very tall, like Papa. But not so old.”

My glass halts on the way to my mouth. “Why, thank you, Sylvie.”

My daughter gives a tinkling laugh and even Primrose smiles.

“Not so old,” I repeat when what I want to ask is, whose side are you on, child? But there are no sides here. Just a vain old man lusting after the nanny, apparently.

“And he has a nice smile, doesn’t he, Primrose? Primrose, doesn’t Alejandro have a nice smile?”

“Yes, I suppose he has.”

“I have all my own teeth still,” I grumble, much to her amusement.

“I like his long eye lashes, just like Lola’s.” My daughter flutters her lids. I hope she learned that from the fucking llamas and not from her nanny.

“Alejandro says humans and llamas are the same because they’re both silly when they are in love.”

“Alejandro seems to have a lot of opinions,” I mutter flatly.

“He was just being friendly,” Primrose insists once more.

“Yes, he seems very… sociable.”

“Is that the French way of insinuating he’s a flirt?” she asks with just a touch of pique.

I sigh like a teacher despairing of his pupil. “Primrose, my French has much more imagination than that.”

Her head comes up so sharply, and her cheeks take on a wonderful pink hue.

“If Alejandro has any sense at all. He’ll learn from the llamas.” Finally, I bring my wine to my lips. I sense Primrose’s eyes on my neck as I swallow. And feel the effect of her attention much farther south.

“In what way, Papa?” Felix asks.

I lean back in my chair and hold out my wine as though to study it, determined not allow my eyes to stray. Every glance her way is an act of self-sabotage.

Yet I still find my eyes on her.

“Papa,” my son prompts. “What will he learn.”

“That persistence isn’t always rewarded.”

Primrose curls one elegant brow. An inquiry or a taunt? My own gaze narrows in response.

“Sometimes a younger man is just bothering the wrong female.”

The children exchange a confused look as Primrose fights a smile. And I decide I probably won’t need to fire the grape man.

“Primrose, will you be here for la vendimia?” Sylvie asks as she scoops the last of the dessert from her dish.