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But she already knew I had to go. And despite their protestations, when we started planning their visit here next month, their qualms went out the window.
What I learned from my parents happened in those little moments—shared smiles or downturned eyes when I had done something disappointing. They never had to say much. They knew I knew.
Olivier looks into my eyes. “Yes, you understand.”
I catch my breath. What I understand is that something deep is happening here between us that isn’t just an accident of timing. He must feel it too, otherwise why would he be looking at me like that? He takes two more steps and plants his feet between two beds of wildflowers.
“This is the spot.” He opens his arms where the branches of a cherry tree lean in the breeze and the grass is soft like a feather pillow. “The spot where my mother used to bring me when my brother was too little to walk. She would take my hand and we would come running right here. If you look around, you can’t see the house, nor the pool, nor the vineyards at all. In this spot, we were in our own little world. And we’d run around these two flower beds.” He runs around behind the one, and it’s true, I can’t see him at all.
“Cuckoo!” he says, poking out his head from one side of the bursting daisies.
“I know this game!” I declare and run behind the other flowerbed. “Peekaboo!” I call out from behind a flowering bush.
“Peekaboo?” he laughs. “What a silly word.”
“Oh, and cuckoo is better?”
“Touché,” he saysand hides again.
“Oh, is it my turn to start?” I say. “Peekaboo,” I poke my head out, but he’s not there. “Olivier?”
“Gotcha!” he says, and grabs me from behind, spinning me around and lifting my feet off the ground. My hair flies in every direction.
“You got me, you got me!”
“Yes, I do,” he says and pulls me in close, my feet still not touching the ground. I feel every curve of his chest, the hardness of his torso holding me against him. “I’ve got you,” he whispers. The coffee on his breath washes over me. Everything in him is firm and confident, holding me like he’ll never let me go.
He must feel this. He must. Please tell me I’m not inventing this. If only he would kiss me. If only he would.
And then he does.
The heavens sweep me up into another world where it’s only Olivier and me, his soft lips persistent as if he fears it’s only a dream. I’m not going to pinch myself, but I will pull him into me as if the world is coming to an end.
CHAPTER 25
Olivier
A lifetime passes with my lips on hers. A kiss as if the world will never be the same.
“Natalie?”
“Yes?”
She’s so close, not even a petal could come between us. I’m not ready ’to let her go yet.
“Natalie,” I say again because I love the way her name sounds on my lips. Whatever line there had been between us, whatever imaginary boundary, it has disappeared. I feel the impulse to say something. Anything. To ask her if what’s happening in me is anything like what she feels too. But to put it into such words feels inadequate, insufficient for the cascade of my feelings for her.
“I am…” I begin, but I don’t know what words are supposed to follow, not in either language.
“You are?” she repeats quietly.
“Complicated.”
That’s the word that comes out. And I feel her body tighten under my grasp. She’s pulling away. I can’t let her; I don’t want her to. But I owe her that much, the chance to protect herself from the chaos happening in these estates. I am not free yet, not until I have cleared this with Grandmama, with Simone, with the restaurant.
The joy that radiates from her eyes—she has earned it all herself, and I cannot be responsible for it dimming. The weight of my current circumstances is too much. It wouldn’t be fair.I won’t risk bringing her down with me.
“Complicated,” she repeats, and I nod.
