Page 111 of The Stranger

Mon dieu, what is with these thoughts? Whatever has passed between us, we aren’t destined to be together. Wanting Primrose is one thing—it’s just lust. A fleeting whim. Lust belongs to stolen moments and borrowed time and asks nothing of tomorrow.

Love, though, it promises permanence. It seeps into you, into the cracks, until there is no corner of your life untouched by it. By that person. Your person. Their laughter becomes your home, and their happiness becomes your own. The presence steadies you. It fortifies you.

Their pain undoes you.

Their absence destroys you.

This I know because I have survived both love and loss. But only just.

I know what it is to watch the one you would give your life for fade before your eyes. I know how it feels to wake in the morning and wonder why the sun has risen, and why the birds continue to sing when it feels like the world should’ve stopped spinning on its axis hours ago. Days, weeks, months, and even years.

But I endure, though I lack the desire to discover if I would again.

So I’ll let myself want Primrose. And if she’ll let me, I’ll steal moments and kisses and let my thoughts linger on her far longer than they should. But permanence? That I will not stand for. Loving Allegra very nearly killed me. I can’t build another life around someone I could also lose.

I huff out an unhappy laugh and shake my head. “It’s nothing,” I say as I realize my assistant is still waiting. Watching. Wondering.

Fate has a terrible sense of humor.

Nothing but the sudden sense of betrayal toward my late wife prompted me to set Primrose out of the door at Ardeo. It wasn’t because she’d done anything wrong but because, for the first time since Allegra passed, I felt I had. The sense of disloyalty was so sudden, like an anvil dropped to my chest because Primrose made me feel something I hadn’t in a long time. And to thank her, I literally pushed her away, then slammed the door physically. Emotionally. And when she turned up in my house the next day, perhaps I found there were no more doors I wanted to slam.

“Okay,” Jacques mutters under his breath. “You know you can run anything by me, right?”

This is ridiculous. My thoughts are so deeply introspective over a mythical future with a woman I barely know. So little has passed between us. Moments. Kisses. A few words. Sensory snapshots. My hand at the deep curve of her waist and the soft pout of her lips. The heavenly sight of her without her clothes. I promised her four weeks of self-discovery, and nothing else. But she seems wants nothing from me, when it could’ve been perfect.

My life is in Paris. My children belong there. Schools. My offices. Flagship stores. Board meetings. Employees. Profits to grow. Life’s demands never cease. Meanwhile Primrose belongs to London. Hospital wards. Study. Accolades. Friends. A life fully framed. A future that’s still opening in front of her, blooming like a flower.

She deserves a man who will offer her a beginning. Not one who would ask her to step into the middle of a story already marked by loss.

I twist my neck and rotate my stiff shoulders as I tear my mind from what feels like a pull back to the house, like I’ve forgotten something there. This morning, I will climb aboard a helicopter and there I will concentrate on the day ahead. I’ll sign a contract that promises the safest stewardship of a heritage brand after months of negotiations. The deal isn’t done until the paper bears that ink. I need to get my head back in the game. Get my priorities straight.

But I already know that later, I’ll fly back to a house I own, in a valley that is almost entirely mine to see a woman I have no claim on. A woman I want more from, to discover if she really is intent on dating an ordinary man. Alejandro, I internally scoff.

“The viniculturists we employed from California.” I’m almost surprised at the sound of my voice. Jacques visibly also. “Amador County, I think.” I was impressed with the chardonnay there.

“Okay, yeah. I remember that trip.”

“What is his name?” As though I didn’t already know.

“Martinez? Alejandro Martinez, I think.”

“When we get to the mainland, have HR send me a copy of his file.” I don’t know the man’s age. I don’t know exactly where he’s from, though I know he’s personable. A winning personality, I think sardonically. And that he’s proficient at his job, or I’m sure he wouldn’t be here on the estate.

“Will do.” A pause. “Is there a problem?”

Not until this morning there wasn’t. “I just want to check something.” What he has that I lack.

I take a moment to straighten the snowy cuffs under the sleeves of my bespoke suit that is a silk-linen blend, then run my hand down my chest. I wonder if he likes wearing overalls embroidered with my name.

Connard, I chastise silently.

Primrose owes me nothing beyond her professionalism, and after the way I treated her that night in Paris, I forfeited the right to resent her for choosing someone else. So why does the thought of another man touching her leave such a bitter taste in my mouth? Why does the thought of her face in his hands create the sense of a steel bar tightening across my chest?

Because it shouldn’t be him. The thought arrives uninvited. It can’t be me. Does that mean it shouldn’t be anyone?

I close my eyes briefly, and a vision of her arrives unbidden once more in my head. How she looks when she comes seems indelibly inked onto my brain.

Christ. Desire I can manage, but this acute sense of possessiveness… how do I manage that? I tip my head back against the headrest and allow myself a rare moment of honesty: possessiveness might the least alarming thing I feel for her.