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"Andimagine my surprise," he continued like I hadn't spoken, "that Mom and Dad still don't know that they're going to be welcomingtwograndchildren soon."
"Dean. I don’t want to talk to you about this."
Most men would have been afraid,veryafraid, when I used mydon't fuck with mevoice, but Dean was the baby of the family and hence spoiled. He also didn't scare easily, or at all.
"Emilia tells me, and Madame Tight Arse confirmed that you spread rose petals all over your bed and—"
"The fuck is wrong with the world that you know so much about what's happening in my bed?" I thundered.
Several people turned to look at us while Dean merely quirked an eyebrow. "Andused up all her good candles. Did you know that she had to get professionals in to clean up the wax from your original hardwood floors?"
I gritted my teeth. "I told her to not tell the parents, but maybe I should've been specific about her talking to fucking no one about my personal business."
Madame Lefèvre was taking liberties she wasn't allowed. I tolerated her, Damian avoided her, and Dean provoked her every chance she got.
"Dude, do you know your wife is close friends with a very beautiful black man?"
I felt something twist inside me. "What?"
"Yeah. She works with him."
"She works with him?" Christ! I hadn't bothered to look through the file the investigator had given me about her because I'd opened it, seen her pictures, and then closed it before I started to jack off to her Polaroid face in my office.
"Yeah. She owns aboulangerie. Makes a mean fucking croissant,butit's her cinnamon snails that areda bomb."
"I know she has a bakery in the Marais. I didn't think sheworkedthere. I thought it was…a vanity project."
"Nope! She owns the wonderful Délices d'Elsa in the Marais. Her father helped her start it up." My brother showed off how knowledge about my wife. "It's very boho chic. I spent the morning there."
"Damn it, Dean.”
He shook his head as if a thought struck him. "I don't get it. You obviously had her investigated, but you don't know about her one single employee?" Dean was confused. I didn't blame him. I felt the same.
"Her face makes me…I don't fucking know, Dean." I downed the rest of my Scotch and waved at a waiter, pointing to my glass. "You spent the morning with my wife?"
Who the fuck was this guy she worked with? I needed to go through that fucking file aboutmy wifeso I could figure out who the hell she was.
"Not her, butinher…bakery." Dean was enjoying himself. " Mismatched chairs and tables make it feel like you’ve stepped into a French grandma's country house. And I don’t think I’veever seen anyone look as sexy in an apron as she does. She's got a fine—"
"I get the point." I cut in.
"You do?" Dean's voice hardened. "You married her. You didn't have to."
"She's pregnant."
"And you've left her alone for a week after you fucked her over Madame Lefèvre's rose petals?"
I was a confident man. Anyone in the art and antiquities world would tell you that Duncan Archer was a mean son of a bitch. Women would tell you I fucked like a madman. I was not soft and squishy. And, yet, with Elsa, twice now, in bed, I'd made love. What was even more terrible was the fact that on both nights, I sleptwithher and woke up to her beautiful face. That first night I was happy to have breakfast with her and make small talk before I left while she took a shower. I'd even saidau revoirand left money as a tip because it had been a pleasant night.
The morning after our wedding, I ranbeforeI fucked heragain. I'd already taken her three times at night, waking up to an insatiable need for her. Each time had been fucking beautiful and notjustfucking.
For a man who, as Mom said, treated women with respect regardless of who they were, I lacked the emotional circuitry for a healthy, intimate relationship with a woman.
The truth was simple. Elsa scared the shit out of me.
"You had amazing sex with your wife, and now you've moved back to your fuck pad here at the Ritz. Is that what you're saying?" Dean asked after I told him about how I pulled a runner.
"It wasn't sex," I tried to explain haplessly. "It was…more."
