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Would we have talked at all or spent the whole time on our phones avoiding each other in between really boring bouts of obligatory sex? Thank goodness we’d used a condom every time. Neither of us had ever suggested going bare. Maybe we’d both somehow known it really wasn’t going to be forever.
I dressed in a casual blue sundress I’d planned to wear to lunch at the resort and put on my sneakers to go with it. No one would be talking to me about fashion choices if they saw me looking like this.
Maybe I should go walk around like this purposefully…
That wasn’t helpful thinking.
My inner cheerleader, the one who had been quiet lately, needed to reemerge and fast. I was pretty much blowing up my life without her. Or maybe it was just the opposite. Maybe she had been my inner enabler.
Zeke’s house was quiet, and as I made my way out of the room, I realized that I wasn’t exactly sure which room was his. He’d said down the hall. Burgundy doors. There were four places that looked like that.
All right. If I were Zeke’s private spot in the house, where would I be? I went to the one on the other end of the hallway and knocked. It was as far from me as he could be, and if I were aperson who never had houseguests but got saddled with me, that is where I would go.
“Come in,” his voice answered, and I opened the door to go in, stopping abruptly as I entered. The rest of the house was ugly as sin, but this room was beautiful. This one really was Zeke’s. Dark colors, wooden panels. A bed bathed in black and gold. Low lighting with huge windows that gave the impression the room was lit up by Paris alone.
And standing next to one of those windows was Zeke. Shirtless. Gorgeous. Built out of stone. So handsome, he stole my ability to speak.
In his hand was a shirt that he quickly put on as he eyed me silently. “You okay?”
I wasn’t the only one who had bathed and now looked more casual. Zeke was in jeans. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him in jeans before. They were dark denim, and he’d now dressed himself in a white T-shirt that fit close to his muscles, showing off just how buff he was, a fact I could one hundred percent attest to, having just seen it first hand with the shirt off.
Still waiting for me to answer him, he walked over to the dresser and put on his watch. His hair was slightly damp, and the room had the scent of a shower around it, like he’d left the bathroom door open and the smell of his shampoo and soap had seeped in, making everything seem clean and fresh.
I swallowed. “We need to talk about what’s happening.”
His smile was surprising. “Can you? Speak, that is?”
I shook my head. “Often and quite well.”
“Good. I wasn’t sure there for a second if I was going to need to call a doctor.” He strode past me. “Come on. You must be hungry.”
I wasn’t actually, but I followed him from the room. “I’m okay. You don’t need to worry about that.”
“How can you not be hungry? Rather than ordering, since I wasn’t sure what you’d want to eat, I asked Paul to make us some sandwiches and leave them in the fridge. That was pretty universal, I thought. You can bet there is an egg on those sandwiches. I have always loved how the French do that, they just add eggs to things.”
Did they? I usually thought about cheese. And café au lait. I did love coffee. “Really, I don’t eat at this time of day.”
“You didn’t eat anything but a few peanuts this morning. You’ll eat now.”
Okay. I would. “Can we talk while we do that? You can tell me what you want in exchange for whatever you’re offering.”
“Yes, we can talk between bites. People have been doing it for as long as I can remember. Chatting as they consume sustenance.” The kitchen he brought us into was big, wellfurnished, and modern looking. Like his bedroom, it seemed a place that was actually used in the house instead of displayed.
He opened the fridge and pulled two sandwiches out. I didn’t see any staff. I was sure they were around, but they kept themselves away from Zeke. Where did they spend the day? We’d had help in the house, but none of them stayed very long. Two years at a time. Then we’d up and move again. But none of them hid from us.
Zeke pulled out a chair and pointed at it. I sat down, assuming that was what he wanted. He took the one across from me and placed a plate down that I figured was mine.
“See?” He winked. “An egg.”
I could see that. This wasn’t exactly a croque monsieur, I didn’t think. It was more like just swiss cheese. An egg. Lettuce. And some kind of mustard. I took a bite and discovered there were also little baby pickles embedded in the bread. I wouldn’t have thought I’d love it, but it was savory, fresh, and practically exploded in my mouth when I chewed.
“You like it.” He took a bigger bite than the one I’d been nibbling on, his gaze not leaving mine as he ate his own. “I didn’t ask you if you had any food issues or allergies. I know a lot of people are gluten free or dairy free.”
That was true. “No, I’m not any of those things.” I didn’t have trouble eating any food or any medical issues that would require me to abstain from anything. I just made it a rule to not eat very much. The bare minimum to get me through. I took another bite. This one bigger. What was it about this food that was so much better than anything I’d ever eaten before? The bread? French women were always so gorgeous and thin. How did they eat like this and stay so fit?
Before I’d realized, I’d eaten an entire half of the sandwich. Okay. That was enough. I put my hands in my lap.
Zeke rose from his side of the counter and crossed to a small fridge on the other side of the room. He came back with a bottle of wine that he quickly opened with a corkscrew he pulled from a drawer. Zeke was a person who knew his way around his own kitchen.
