Chapter 16

So Elena had pretty much gotten on with her life—she wasn’t stupid—when he called her. What the hell was up with that? The very next evening. At nine o'clock, as she had curled up in bed with a book, her phone rang. And it was him. And she was an idiot and had to answer it.

Lucien's deep voice, wrapping her up with warmth right there in her bed, as if he was her comforter. "Ça va, bella?"

Elena scowled at the phone. No, it was not going. How could he even ask that? As if the very question, in his deep warm voice, was what changed the whole evening and made things go all right.

The worst thing was that it did. “Never drink limoncello in Italy,” she said. “Let that be a lesson to me.”

Lucien laughed. “If us together was enough to make you feel drunk on two sips, I think we’ve got something here.”

She glowered at his voice. That blasted, totally unfounded confidence in his voice as if he could make happily ever after come true just because he was in it.

“Put me on video?” Lucien said.

She bit her thumb tip uneasily. But she knew he found her sexy. And she was a terribly weak-willed person. Because she shrugged her knit top off one shoulder and ran her fingers through her hair and did switch to video. “Just for a minute.”

Lucien’s tan face filled the screen with that warmth in his eyes that always felt so uniquely hers. “Mmm.” That deep sound of approval licked around her and curled her toes. “Grazie, bella.”

“Don't you start with the Italian.” She started to snuggle down into her pillow and stopped herself. “Can I turn it off now?”

“Is it okay if I catch a screenshot?”

“No.” Guys could be jerks. His whole company probably spent half their lives showing off photos of hot women to each other.

Lucien’s expression flickered.

Of course he could have just taken the screenshot anyway. And instead he had asked.

“Okay, ma chérie.”

Oh, she was his chérie now, was she? Elena, you sucker. Never drink limoncello. Never speak to legionnaires. Never even set foot in Italy.

He blew her a kiss, and the video cut out. Oh. And he’d listened to her without arguing.

She curled up on her side, the phone against her ear, because somehow it felt as if that way her reaction to him was her little secret. He didn't get to know.

“So you're in bed,” that warm, deep voice said in her ear. As if the fact gave him a great deal of material for reflection.

“Just reading.”

“Any sexy bits?”

Maybe. “It’s War and Peace.”

Lucien laughed. Damn, she loved his laugh. Especially in that rumble in her ear, as if her ability to make him laugh was an intimate and special gift. It was probably okay to believe in him a little bit here, wasn’t it? He was hours across the Mediterranean. So it was a pretend believe.

“You little liar. So if you’re not going to share, I guess I have to imagine the sexy bits on my own?”

“Go away,” she said. But she didn't hang up.

He laughed again, low and warm and sexy. “It’s okay. I don't have to imagine them out loud.”

Damn, now she was curious. Her toes curled, and she told them to behave. “Did you need something?”

“Just missed you.” His voice was so reassuringly matter-of-fact. “Wished you were on that ferry with me.”

Really? She rubbed her cheek against the pillow and wished she had sheets that made her feel as sensual as his voice did.

“Think you’d like to come to Corsica sometime?”

“I was there last week. I saw you jump. And I saw you march.”

“Yeah?” He sounded pleased.

“Pretty sexy,” Elena had to admit. Damn it. He tweaked the worst bouts of honesty out of her.

“Glad you thought so.”

She turned off her light. So no one could see her smiling as she nestled the phone to her ear.

“We’ve got some nice beaches, too,” he said.

“Yeah, but I get harassed by legionnaires on the ones near you.”

A little pause. “I could probably help you with that problem,” he said very dryly. “I’m sorry about the guys. None of them really messed with you, did they?”

“No, they’re just kind of indefatigable in pursuit. I can’t really relax and watch the waves.”

“Damn idiots.” He sighed. “Sorry.”

The only partial solution Elena had ever made work against street harassment was to act so knowing and worldly-wise that they felt small and vulnerable, and even that only worked some of the time. But it was true that carrying a big Lucien with her at all times would probably work even better. Or bear spray.

“We could go hiking, too,” he said. “Do you like water sports?”

Not at all. She always thought of her grandmother, somehow. But she could imagine Lucien’s face, full of laughter like when he had danced swing with her, and in the vision the water was a brilliant blue, the sun shone down on them, he hugged her when she fell in the water so she didn’t imagine herself drowning in it, and life was golden and happy. “I’ve never done much.”

“I’m a good teacher,” he said coaxingly, and she smiled again.

He really wanted her to come, didn’t he? Her toes curled again, and she stretched one foot out to frown at them. Help me out here. Curl up some cynicism.

“Lucien.” She tested his name softly to herself, and only realized she had murmured it out loud when he made an inquiring noise. “Oh…nothing. If you ever have a daughter, you should call her Tinuviel.”

He made a little sound as if he was having to collect himself from that one. Okay, maybe that was a bit of a conversational curve ball.

But his voice when he spoke was warm and musing, a voice that made her want to curl up in it like a little kitten. “But Luthien was dark-haired…wasn’t she? In The Silmarillion, right? I haven’t read that since I was a teenager. Not looking as if my kids are likely to have dark hair right at the moment. What if she turned out to be a red-head?”

That one took Elena a moment. And then her lips parted, and she stared straight up at the ceiling in shock. Then the whole idea kind of caught up with her, that he teased out there so easily, as if, as if… “You bastard.” She hung up abruptly and threw her phone onto the end of the bed, sitting up to bury her face in her hands.

That jerk. That damn jerk. Teasing long term and permanency and family just to get his own fucking way with her body. She pressed her hands against her eyes, trying not to cry.

I’m never speaking to him again. I’m not.

Her phone burped. She eyed it a long moment, but couldn’t help herself and stretched to get it.

Definitely high maintenance. Sleep tight, bella.

She took a long breath, and that sleep tight, bella slowly relaxed through her, resonant with memories of his voice. She lay back down on her pillow.

The phone burped again.

Bet she’d be as beautiful as you.

She threw her phone out into the hall and locked the door between her and it.

***

The next night, he just sent a text. Can’t talk tonight. I have to have a beer with one of my men.

Well, that could be a good captain giving someone space to get his head together. But she’d also seen how those legionnaires hit bars around base. Could be he was just tempted by the thought of a night out where there were hot, available women getting drunk.

She nibbled on her thumb. Where?

Instead of a text back, the sound for a video call. Lucien’s face appeared briefly on the screen. He smiled at her, then shifted the camera around to show what looked like a small back garden and military style housing and another man stretched out in a lounge chair with a beer in his hand, looking intrigued and lifting a hand to wave. The video call cut off.

Then another burp. I could go to a bar with my men without cheating on you, bella, fyi.

Cheating on her? Like they were in a couple? Like he would consider it cheating if he flirted with someone else?

How had she wandered into this la-la land of, of, of…solidity? He wasn’t even on the same side of the sea as she was. How could he feel solid?

Last burp. Talk to you tomorrow. With an audio file attached.

It was his warm, deep voice, the softest of murmurs, as if he held the phone close to his lips and kept his words only for her. Sleep tight, bella.

She dissolved back onto her pillow in a wash of sexy security. Utterly ridiculous. But she played the clip again. Sleep tight, bella.

Oh, crap. Technology was terrible. You could create all kinds of illusions of forever with technology. Hell, she could be tormenting herself with that clip years after he dumped her, if she wasn’t smart enough to delete it.

Sleep tight, bella.

Pre-emptive dumping. That was what this called for. Although, as far as she was aware, she had not yet agreed to couplehood. Two or three little…outings…hardly counted. How could you dump someone when you’d never said yes in the first place?

She turned off her phone and put it on her nightstand.

Tucked her hands under her pillow.

Rubbed the sheet a moment.

And then reached out and played the audio one more time. Sleep tight, bella.

It made her smile as she fell asleep.

***

Damn it, she was so stupid.

Elena could not believe she had turned down a proposal from her museum friends to have drinks and dinner so that she could be somewhere private in case he actually called.

She was an idiot. She stamped her feet on the floor to shake some sense into herself, and she thunked her head on the wall. And she eyed her phone sidewise and tried to leave it in other rooms.

And right at nine, he called. Just like he said.

“Remember the fox in The Little Prince?” he said.

What? Elena stared at her bedroom window as if she could see straight through to Corsica instead of to the laundry hung on her neighbor’s balcony. “You read Le Petit Prince?”

“I love Saint-Exupéry.”

Elena sat blinking a moment at the juxtaposition of the tough, weathered warrior and the little golden-haired boy with his rose.

“Fascinating man. One of the early aviators, flew all over everywhere. Really did crash in the Sahara during an attempt to break the Paris-Saigon speed record. He lived through the rise of insanity in Europe, and one of the last things he wrote before he wrote The Little Prince were his thoughts on escaping on a boat for America, looking back to the coast and his friends held in concentration camps.”

She gazed somberly at her covers.

“And he died fighting to free France, when his plane disappeared.”

“I know.”

“I always found it fascinating how beautiful and powerful and simple a book he made out of that time. Anyway, the fox says you need rituals, to tame someone.”

“Tame?”

He laughed. “To make her trust you. The fox says it’s important for the little prince to show up at the same time every day, so he can look forward to it, and if the prince doesn’t show up at the same time, the fox doesn’t have the same pleasure, because he needs to be able to count on it. What do you think? Am I right to follow the advice of a fox?”

“I think I don’t know you at all,” Elena said slowly, staring through her window. Laundry. The sea far off. Corsica in the distance.

“Yeah? Starting to get interested in knowing me better?”

Yeah, kind of. He was a tough legionnaire, a paratrooper, a former commando, and a leader of men who read The Little Prince. Also, he apologized. Also, persisted.

And his voice was so freaking sexy.

“I managed to get Monday, too,” he said. “So I can fly in Friday evening and fly out late Monday. Sound good?”

It sounded really good. She kept curling and uncurling her toes, worried by how good it sounded. She’d had things sound good so many times before.

“After that, I won’t be able to get the next weekend, but I’ll be back for the last weekend of May for Matt’s wedding.”

She brightened just thinking about him going to Matt Rosier’s wedding. See? She really had done good for the Rosiers, bringing him back.

“Will you come to the wedding with me?”

She blinked. “Isn’t that a long way off?”

“It’s less than three weeks off, Elena. How’s that trust issue therapy going again?”

“Butt out of my therapy.” There might be a downside to…seeing…a captain. He seemed to interfere as a matter of course. “Anyway, I didn’t mean a long way off for you. I meant for me. I usually get bored with a guy by then,” she said airily.

There was a silence. She flexed her fingers on her phone uneasily. Was it just her or did that silence kind of stretch grimly out from Corsica and lower itself over her whole bedroom?

“I’ll try to be more entertaining,” he said dangerously.

Elena pulled her knees up to her chest, wondering if she should take it back. But she didn’t want to be the one hoping for something from him here. She thunked her head against her knees in despair. She so much didn’t.

“They need to know the numbers for the caterer.”

At Damien’s wedding, the Rosiers had seemed pretty well able to adjust to last minute guests. “Fine. I’ll go with you. Anyway, I’m already invited.” She’d found Layla Dubois. She was pretty much that couple’s fairy godmother.

“Your friend Antoine invited?”

“Yes.” He’d helped find Layla, too, drawing up the documents to transfer Colette’s house in the valley to her. So he’d been invited by the bride. Elena had no idea how that discussion had gone between bride and groom, but probably fairly similarly to the way Jess and Damien’s had gone over the same guest. The Rosier cousins didn’t seem to appreciate Antoine’s efforts to get their family to share some of their good fortune with the rest of the world.

Another silence that Elena couldn’t interpret.

“I know he hasn’t tried to endear himself to you guys, but Antoine is a nice person,” she said.

“Is he.” Very neutral.

She bit the tip of her thumb. “Did the drink go well?”

Lucien’s tone shifted, warmed. “I think so. Sometimes a man just needs a chance to talk. He’s going through a divorce, and he had a tough last tour. How about your day?”

She smiled, lying back again. This was kind of a nice way to end the day. Cozy. Solid. “Great! We’re working with Tristan and Malorie to preserve Niccolò and Laurianne’s perfume book, and it is gorgeous. It’s amazing. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to get our hands on this. It’s the single most important artifact of Grasse’s development into a perfume capital that we have.”

“Yeah? Can you give me a behind the scenes look at it? Tristan told me that he and Malorie had found it, but he didn’t have it with him at the wedding.”

“Of course!” Elena said, delighted. “I would love to. I’ll take you this weekend.”

A murmuring, smiling noise from the other end of the connection. “So it’s a date then.”

Elena hesitated, realizing she’d just somehow stumbled into a commitment to him for this weekend, but she was too excited, and she rushed on. “Actually…would you be at all willing to let me have your ring, too?”

A tiny pause. “You want the ring?” Lucien’s voice sounded odd.

“Not to keep!” Elena hurried to reassure him. “Just for a special exhibit on Niccolò and Laurianne, now that you have all those treasures back.” Maybe with a mirror or a special camera and screen, they could show the inscription through a glass case. That inscription that said, J’y suis, j’y reste.

I am here and here I’ll stay. She sighed wistfully, wondering what it had been like to be Laurianne.

“You want to borrow the ring?” Lucien’s voice had grown so odd she was starting to wonder if she’d turned into Sam in Mordor or something. Maybe she was morphing in his vision into a slavering Orc.

“Not to keep it!” Good lord, she really did sound like Sam. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. I understand. But I’ll take very, very good care of it, if you want to trust it to me.”

“Will you.” Lucien’s voice had grown very neutral.

“And I’ll give it back,” Elena assured him.

Lucien made that sound he sometimes made with her, amused and resigned and exasperated all at once. “Good to know.”

Was it her, or was everyone else in the world just crazy sometimes? She blew her hair off her forehead. “Even if we’re not even speaking to each other at that point. I’d still give it back. I mean, the museum would. There would be a contract and insurance and everything.”

“I’ll think about it,” Lucien said. “Sometimes I have the strangest conversations with you.”

Yeah, him and her both.

“Tomorrow I’m going out with friends,” she told him firmly.

And she did do that, or rather she had them over for dinner, and that was great and everything, but it just made her miss being able to talk to him that night so badly it was as if she was already addicted to it.

Which made her play his sleep tight, bella audio again and curse herself as hopeless.