Page 171 of The Stranger

“Only honest.”

42

LUC

Only honest.

The words haunt me. They follow me as I lie awake beside her, listening to the soft rhythm of her breathing. They echo in my ear as we eat together, walk together. As we fuck.

I’ve silently castigated myself a million times for demanding the truth from her while offering her none of my own. I’ve said from the beginning that I can’t, that I won’t, love her. And I believed it when I said it.

I’ve loved only once before and did so with the reckless certainty of a man who thinks he has it all. But losing Allegra taught me that certainty is an illusion, that the ground is always shifting, and love is something you have to survive.

I will not survive it twice.

So I offered Primrose a summer. A handful of weeks, as it turns out. Because she is a gloriously stubborn woman. Pleasure without promises. Sex without strings. A beautiful thing with a fixed and clearly marked ending, according to the date on her plane ticket home.

Such fucking arrogance. As though the heart cares for what the body wants. As if it listens to what the mind warns against. The heart doesn’t give a fuck about terms and conditions or my own personal policy guidelines.

These days with Primrose have been among the happiest of my life. Breakfasts stretching into brunch. Wet footprints across the terrace after we swim Bare feet resting in my lap as we read. It’s a plague of hair ties in my bathroom, a constant litter of coffee cups, and long pale hairs everywhere. Including my ass crack.

She is maddening and she is tender. And my heart wants to hold her forever.

She has replaced no one but has become more of herself. I hope. And no house will ever feel the same without her.

I’m staring at the kind of photograph that should only be viewed in a dark room with a locked door when my children call. For one absurdly guilty second, I nearly drop my phone.

Two worlds colliding in the palm of my hand: Felix and Sylvie’s grins flashing across the screen when, moments ago, Primrose smiled a secret smile beneath my thumb. Her hair fanned across my pillow, her expression…

Fuck. She was about to come.

This woman. So many contradictions. Doctor. Daughter. Nurturer. Healer. The woman who let me fuck her in a club—who got off on watching herself being fucked. Then let me take dirty pictures of her.

I promised to delete them.

I have not deleted a single one.

I push away the pinprick of guilt before answering, as though honesty is something I need only practice when convenient.

Be only honest. Yet look at me—I keep photographs I swore I wouldn’t, and I tell her I can’t love her while refusing to face the truth. That I might already do. Every day I let her believe my heart remains out of reach, when the truth is the traitorous muscle has begun to beat only for her.

I am so fucked, I think as I arrange my expression into something my children won’t question as I accept the call. For a second, I see nothing but sky, then a flash of blond hair. Then one of Sylvie’s nostrils.

“Papa!” The image lurches, the screen filling with her face.

“Hold it still,” Felix complains from somewhere nearby. “You’ll make him dizzy.”

“I will not make him dizzy.”

“You’re already making me feel that way.” Felix uses a much pleasanter tone than the one he’s lately reserved for his sister, and I begin to wonder what tricks Amélie has employed. But then, there they both are, jostling for the camera. They’re golden from the sun; Sylvie’s hair bleached several shades lighter by salt and chlorine while Felix’s dark mop bears strands of copper. Sylvie has acquired a dusting of freckles across her nose, and my boy looks older somehow. Mon dieu.

“Ma famille.” My heart is full at the sight of them. As much as I’ve enjoyed my time with Primrose, I’ve never been away from my children for any length of time before. A night here and there due to business, but I work long enough hours not to be deprived of them for days. Pre Primrose. “Have you been behaving?”

“Oui,” Sylvie says immediately.

“Non,” Felix says at exactly the same time.

She elbows him, and he grins.