He should be on his knees in front of a crucifix right now, praying the Hours, but he could not bring himself to do it. He wasn’t embarrassed to do it in front of Dree. If she saw him pray like that, she might understand him better. She might leave him, which would doubtlessly be best for both of them.
But he wouldstarvewithout her tonight.
He asked her, “What life do you think I’m meant to live?”
Dree shook her head, her blond hair bobbing as she did. His fist had tangled it in back. “That’s not up to me to say. I mean, I just got swindled out of everything I owned because I trusted the wrong guy. I shouldn’t be giving anyone advice, except that I am painfully aware you should not pine for someone who does not love you. I’m a mess because that’s what I did. I wanted his love so much that I let him steal narcotics from the hospital and everything from me. What should you do? That’s not for anyone except you to say, but I think you need to grab hold of it anddoit. You can’t look back at that girl anymore. I see what it’s doing to you. Do you like me?”
Maxence rolled his eyes a little and then looked back at her. “Yes, Ilikeyou. I likeeverythingabout you.”
“And not just fucking my fat ass, right?”
He chuckled, and it felt real that time. “No, not just your ass, but you have a fantastic ass. I don’t think you should denigrate the quality of your ass in the slightest.”
“Then, if youlikeme, it’s killingmeto see how upset this girl is making you. Just . . . don’t let it get to you. Let it roll off your shoulders. Live your life because it’s the only life you get. Take a deep breath and embrace today and embraceme,and don’t be sad about her.”
Max smiled at his funny little blonde. She was right, and he had the rest of his life to wallow if he wanted to. Right now, for this last day and a half, he had Dree in a hotel room in Paris. “You’re right.”
The chandelier overhead shone on the silver knife Dree pointed at him. “Now, you eat up those overpriced sea critters. You’re going to need your strength for tonight.”
His little blonde was a wise, wise woman.
Maxence ate his supper and considered all the deeply disturbing things that he planned to do to Dree Clark that night.
Because he needed to drive her wild so she would give him what he needed.
Chapter Seventeen
Spa
Dree
Augustine went to sleep.
Dree could not frickin’ believe it, so she sat on her side of the bed and stared at him until she could convince herself it was true.
They’d eaten supper and had a few glasses of wine, talked over some seriously silly things about Monagasquay and Monagasquayanois culture that Dree thought he must be making up—no real estate could be that expensive—and then they’d eaten the toffee-meringue thingies that Augustine’d had delivered that afternoon.
The toffee ones had crystallized-sugar meringue pressed on the outside and wereperfection.
Then, they killed the rest of the champagne bottle and its champagne friend, mostly with Augustine grilling her about growing up in New Mexico.
She was supposed to be lying about everything, so she told him the truth because he wouldn’t believe it anyway.
Yes, rattlesnakes give birth to live babies. There is no such thing as a rattlesnake egg.
Yes, the little straw-colored scorpions are the most poisonous, not the big black ones, and the little ones glow in the dark under UV light. Checking a hotel room for scorpions with a UV light will show you something else you cannot unsee.
Yes, her cousin Levi had been an asshole, so they’d taken him snipe hunting. “The brown snipes are delicious roasted, but the white ones are poisonous if they bite you,” they’d told him, and then she’d planted a stick with a handkerchief tied to a long wire the night before. When they’d been snipe hunting for about an hour, she’d picked up the stick, and the dreaded, poisonous “white snipe” had flown at them. Levi had run away screaming like a dying rabbit. She’d run after him while holding the stick, so the poisonous white snipe had chased them for half a mile until she’d been laughing too hard to stand up anymore and collapsed on the desert floor. That was the story of how she’d gotten eighteen cholla spines in her leg, and thus her last tetanus shot.
And then, when she was tipsy with the bubbly wine, he’d dragged her into the bedroom and watched while she took off her gym clothes, slowly. She’d stood naked in front of him and tried not to look as nervous as she was. He’d told her to lie naked on the bed and inspected her with his eyes and his fingertips. He’d raked his teeth over her throat and shoulders and pinned her wrists to the bed above her head.
And then he’d given her one last kiss, smiled in the most evil way she had ever seen a man smile, and he rolled over and went to sleep.
He was still wearing that white tee shirt and lurid jammie pants, so she hadn’t even gotten a look at his dang back tattoo.
He wasn’t even snoring, so she couldn’t be annoyed by that. His breathing was even and deep like his soul was at peace with the universe.
Hers wasn’t.
