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“I’m not much of a drinker. I don’t know…”
The bartender spoke again. I smiled but had no idea what he wanted from me. Eventually, Zeke looked back at me.
“You don’t speak a word of French, do you?”
I shook my head. “Not one.”
“Okay. I’ll order for you. He speaks English, but he doesn’t like to. Might be easier if you don’t have a preference if I just did it.”
I nodded. “Sure. You order.”
That was the easiest choice I’d made today.
“How do you not speak French? I thought you four went to the best schools wherever you were living.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. We had. My father didn’t want us in boarding school, for whatever reason he’d never shared it, but we always attended really good private schools wherever we happened to have moved. He didn’t like to settle, or stay anywhere too long. Once we were astronomically wealthy, we seemed to up and go even more than we had when we’d been only extremely rich.
“I’m not very smart.” People, when they noticed the things I couldn’t do, and they did notice, didn’t tend to remark on them. It was the whole I was richer than they were thing. But when they did, that answer seemed to shut them up fast.
Zeke tilted his head just slightly. “That’s obviously not true. Despite a lack of judgment, maturity, and common sense, you are able to converse, seem to have a high vocabulary, and I’ve heard you speak on videos that our PR department sent me. You are obviously smart enough.”
I remembered those videos. I didn’t work for the company doing anything substantial, but I did have some title in the charitable giving department that Hope ran. That was how I got my health insurance taken care of. That was gone now, too. Somuch for my birth control. Another thing I was going to have to figure out. Or I’d just refrain from having sex. That would be the best idea. No sex, ever again. I didn’t like it that much anyway. Better to just take care of myself. Only I was capable of giving myself an orgasm.
“Layla? Still with me? Not going into some kind of dramatic shock where you’ll have to be locked away to heal from your ordeal?”
My attention was right back on him. The bartender returned with two drinks. A champagne looking cocktail for me and a whisky for Zeke. He took his straight up, not even ice to filter away any of the intensity of the drink. I’d never been able to stomach whisky, it was just too much, so I supposed I should feel lucky he hadn’t ordered that for me.
“Sip if you haven’t eaten anything. I’m not going to hold your hair for you. In fact, we should get you some food.” He spoke to the waiter again who ran off quickly.
I lifted my drink to my lips. It was sweet and obviously had champagne in it, as the bubbles tickled my tongue. Other than that, I wasn’t sure what I was drinking, and at the moment, I couldn’t seem to bring myself to care.
“So, you don’t speak French because you’re not smart.” He lifted an eyebrow and set down his drink. “You left Kit at the altar for…reasons. I really don’t want to hear about them. Your father has cut you off. Your brother stole from you and abandoned you in a country where, as we’ve already determined, you can’t speak the language. Your sisters have left, for reasons I’m inclined to believe that they had no choice about because Hope seemed frantic. But in any case, you are alone.”
I took a longer sip of the drink. “Yep, that’s pretty much it.”
The waiter set down some peanuts in front of me. I supposed it was a good thing I wasn’t allergic. Still, my stomach turned at the idea of eating. I set my drink aside. If I couldn’t eat, I wasn’tgoing to continue with the alcohol. Justin used substances to not have to deal, I didn’t.
“After this drink, I’ll take you to get your stuff and then we’ll figure it out from there. I can put you on a plane to New York if that is what you want.”
That made the most sense. I should go home. I had an apartment that was paid for until the end of the month when I was supposed to move in to live with Kit. So, I’d lose that soon, but at least it could take care of me now while I figured out what to do next. Hope and Bridget both had rooms I’m sure they’d let me crash in until I…until I what? I had no earthly idea. But I just had to do the next right thing. One step after another. Then the future would show itself to me.
Fuck me, I sounded like a self-help book in my own head, and even I knew it was bullshit.
“Thanks.” I had no other choices, nowhere else to go currently.
He nodded. “You’re welcome.”
Zeke brought the glass to his mouth and sipped the whisky. I watched him, hoping he didn’t realize I was staring, but that action might have been the most sensual thing I’d ever seen. He met my gaze, and I had a feeling he knew exactly the direction of my thoughts. Zeke probably had women staring at him all the time, because he was like a walking advertisement for sex. They could probably sell bottles of that whisky here if they just sat him in this chair and instructed him to sip it all day.
Well…a walking advertisement for what sex was supposed to be and not what it was. Movie sex. Imaginary sex.
“If it means anything, I think Kit and his entire family are crooks. I think they’re bad people. Maybe not Kit. I don’t know him. Why would I? But his parents? Yes, particularly the mother. You’re well rid of them.”
I ate a peanut. It was warm, salted, with some other spice on that. What was it? I loved it. I ate another. Then another. Food really was better in France. Not that I got to eat very much of it. I had to watch my weight, but I could eat the entire bowl of these peanuts. The thought made me push them away. Anything I liked too much I had to get rid of, at least when it came to things with caloric intake.
Did my run through the streets count as my daily cardio?
“Thank you.” I finally responded to his speech about the Allards. I couldn’t say I disagreed with him. “But my father may never forgive me. He needed the money they were going to give him the second we got married. Well, you know, you work with him.”
