Page 36 of All Mixed Up

With equal solemnity, he didn’t say a word either. Just continued dipping into a surreal stillness…an attentive intensity.

“It is not the first slice you’ve gotten into me, mon reve.”

17 Days and Counting

“He did that?”

“He said that?”

Even on a Skype video call, I was pretty sure telling Leese and Gigi had been a poorly-executed case of TMI. Sometimes, even with them, too much information was just too much information.

But in this case, I’d been damn near ready to spill my guts to the next stranger I sat next to on the Metro. Not that Lucien hadn’t done exactly the same thing, over the last seven days—resulting in me finally breaking down and pinging two-thirds of my girl posse under the thin pretense of discussing their return trip to Paris.

Thin was right.

Inside a minute, they’d both seen through my façade.

Inside another, they’d guessed I was actually calling about man issues. Neither had even questioned about which man.

“Okay, wait. I need a review.” Leese, ever the pragmatic redhead, went I Love Genie with her forearms while leaning toward her laptop cam. “So after the Paris moment”—her nickname for Lucien and my’s first meet on Avanti’s opening night—“You decided Paget was worth some Parisian-style fun after all?”

“You mean after he went all Prince Phillip on our Metro Sleeping Beauty?” Gigi giggled it out, but her mirth was short-lived. Leese knew how to dagger a moment with her accusing snort.

“Okay, whoa,” she injected, glaring harder into her camera. “Pause button. ‘Metro Sleeping Beauty?’ What the hell, Darienne? What happ—oh, you do not with the eye roll at me, missie.”

I was tempted to continue, because a riled-up Leese was truly a sight to behold. Instead, I went for a bratty tongue poke and a good-natured laugh. “Not a deliberate holdout, okay? I just wanted to get to the point.”

But that was only half the truth too. I was holding back key details—though in my defense, an over-the-ocean Skype call didn’t feel like the best arena in which to tell them I’d signed a pay-by-the-date agreement with one of the world’s most notorious players. For the purposes of this exchange, only here and now, the description was modified for purposes of necessity. And sanity. Though I wasn’t exactly sure whose.

Gigi cleared her throat, stepping into her diplomatic side with ease. I could’ve kissed her, even over the miles, for building on my point and prompting, “So that point being…”

“A consent for casual, that spilled into something more once you hit the sack.”

Leese’s jump in on the conclusion didn’t surprise me. Didn’t stop my answering grimace. Hearing the situation so plainly stated, especially by a person I respected so much, was bizarre. On one hand, I was flooded in relief—but the chaser was a burst of crazy discomfort.

“Well, yeah. More or less,” I finally muttered. I focused tighter on both their faces. “Why isn’t this fazing either of you?”

Gigi shrugged. “Should it?”

I sat straighter, fighting off alarm. “Did Nico…say anything to you?” The man had stayed on in Paris, working nonstop with Milo on the opening month logistics kinks at Avanti. I hadn’t thought he had the time or urge to care about anything beyond that, though he and Lucien seemed good friends beyond their business relationship.

Still, had Lucien mentioned anything about our “business arrangement,” I suspected I’d have been the recipient of a visit from the boss by now. Friends or not, Milo had been reveling in his papa bear role with me. Everyone thought it was his way of preparing to knock up Arista again, but whatever the incentive, I’d actually enjoyed it—until thinking of that shit mixed with his awareness of Lucien’s well-earned playboy title. There’s where things got messy. Okay, Lucien and I hadn’t been totally secretive, but as far as Milo was concerned, his friend had simply taken me out a few times under the pretense of showing me some city sights and talking business. God only knew what Milo would do if learning just how deep—and hard and wet and orgasmic—our “business” really went.

“Of course not.” Gigi’s assurance came not a moment too soon, despite how she finished with a defined arch of her pretty chestnut brows. “But you and Lucien have been discreet, right?”

I sent her a gentle smile. At once, yearned to add a grateful hug. She was stepping outside her comfort zone here, and I knew it. She didn’t like keeping secrets from Nico, but the implication here was already clear: I was asking for exactly that. The cherry on top of her discomfort sundae? Despite sharing Leese and Greer’s swoonage about Lucien’s devastating looks and beyond-bold swagger, she also had the clearest view about the man’s fuck-and-duck track record.

“Of course,” I said at once, stamping my tone with the same assuring message. I knew what I’d gotten into here. Or more accurately, what I was refusing not to get into. Still, Gigi’s expression was stuck at skeptical. Damn, I wished Greer could be in on this call. She’d have some sassy Southern-ism to make us all laugh and forget this tension. But she was off at a romance novel convention, working hard for the authors she represented.

“Of course,” I repeated, as if that would accomplish the same goal. “Seriously, Gi,” I added. “‘Discreet’ has practically been our code word—not that we’ve had need to use it over the last seven days.”

A long pause went by. Even from thousands of miles away, I could see the gears cranking in both their heads.

“So what does that mean?” Leese was the first to break the silence, stabbing it with her incisive tone. “Did he say exactly that to you?” she pressed. “Were those his exact words? Did he give the look with them?”

Oh, gawd. I wanted to laugh but my sweet friend was beyond serious. The look. It was the sticker we’d tacked onto the stare Lucien seemed to save for me, also a hallmark of that first encounter at Avanti. The gaze to which I was deliriously addicted by now. The blue-black heavens that always seemed imbued with a million stars. The heart-stopping crinkles at their corners whenever he pulled me close and smiled down at me.

The stare that showed me, with increasing frequency, exactly what I didn’t want to see.