This particular shade of want, however, was biting and primitive and disturbing.
For that reason, he kept trying to put a lid on it. He didn’t want to want her this hard. It felt too much like those times he’d wanted other things he couldn’t have, like parents who took care of him or a hot meal.
Maybe if she wasn’t so frosted by how things had gone with Otto, things would be different, but he couldn’t change what had happened and wouldn’t if he could. At least she had stayed and would continue this pantomime they were calling a marriage.
He didn’t want it to be pantomime, though. He wanted the reality of touching her. Covering her. Claiming her.
Don’t, he ordered himself, but his ears were ringing with the sound of her footsteps as she explored their suite in the Paris hotel.
His eyes refused to look away from her, only noting very absently the backdrop of tasteful creams and dull bronze, white sculptures and pink floral arrangements.
She wore boots with her jeans, giving her strolling steps a swagger that entranced him. She paused in the rounded nook of windows that offered a view of the Eiffel Tower shining golden against the purple clouds of fading dusk.
They had both fallen asleep on the plane from Berlin. It was too early to go for dinner. What else were they going to do right now?
“Heskel told me how you helped him and his husband. Do you mind if I ask why?”
He lifted his brows. Heskel wasn’t usually so forthcoming.
“I knew Klaus from school. We’d kept in touch, which is how I knew to recruit him. I was working in Hong Kong when his crash happened. It took a few weeks for me to get back here to visit them. When I saw Heskel, I saw myself.” He winced at how uncomfortable it made him to refer to his darkest days even in passing. “I recognized how much stress he was under, trying to keep them afloat. It looked a lot like the way you were drowning when we met,” he said sardonically.
Her brows came together crossly. “I was fine.”
He ignored that blatant lie, saying, “I threw him a life ring because I wished someone had done that for me. You asked me why I continued working for Otto even after I knew what sort of man he was. Because, in many ways, Vorstoben was my life ring. Seeing the way Otto dismissed Klaus without telling me was the beginning of me making plans to leave, though.”
“Hmph.” She moved past the doors to the balcony, skirting the end of the sofa to the bookshelf. Hardback copies of French classics stood next to framed black-and-white photos of Paris streets. She peered into the bedroom.
“Only one.” She sent him a cool look. “I’m sure you think I’m very casual about sex, given my line of work.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I don’t care how you made ends meet, Joy. I was poor for the first half of my life. If I’d had a skill like yours, I would have used it, so I don’t judge how you leaned into yours.”
“What did you have?” she asked with a curious tilt of her head. “To rise to a life like this? Besides a job at Vorstoben?”
“Hunger.” Literally. He tucked his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned on one of the square mirrored columns. “A ferocious desire for security and control over my future. Single-mindedness.” Desperation, at times. “I was fifteen when I worked on a hotel like this.” He glanced around. “An iconic building getting an upgrade. The furniture they threw out was nicer than anything I’d ever seen. I stole a chair from the dumpster and took it home to my mother. She still has it. She loves it. I remember promising myself every morning, when I arrived on the jobsite, that one day I would stay in places like this and not think twice about the cost.”
“Is this the first time you’ve thought about the cost today?” she asked with a twist of humor on her lips.
“I haven’t at all. Heskel booked it.” He shrugged.
“I’ve been pinching pennies for so long, I can’t imagine that sort of confidence.” She touched the bouquet on the bookcase, realized the flowers were real and cupped a bloom, bending to inhale its fragrance.
He let his gaze trace the line of her back, the roundness of her ass, the beautiful length of her legs.
She glanced up and caught him, not that he was hiding his interest.
A light blush stole into her cheeks. She dropped her gaze to the flowers, toying with the petals. “I keep wondering if you’re still in love with her.”
“Who? Mira? No,” he dismissed firmly.
She angled her head, studying him from the corner of her eye. “That sounds like you don’t even like her. But you were going to marry her?”
“She’s fine.” He heard how lukewarm that sounded and curled his lip at himself. “We’re friends. Soldiers in the same infantry, maybe. I’ve never wanted love in my relationships, and she knew that.” It was probably a good idea to make that clear to Joy as well.
“Why not?” She blinked in a way that asked,Who doesn’t want love?
