Page 38 of A Royally Fake French Menage
Certainly not one I’d met a few days before in another country on the arm of another man.
“I love you.”
I nuzzled her hair and clutched her tight to my chest, uncaring if she stained my gifted shirt. Because every word was true. The sigh that left my lungs was of the warm and fucking fuzzy variety.
I stroked her hair as I held her in the cradle of my arms, vaguely aware of the shadow that walked away from the doorway I hadn’t locked earlier. Probably not my smartest move, but payment for the suit had to come through somehow, and it likely wasn’t anything Beau Bennett hadn’t seen before. I’d figured hewanted to check in on her before he left, and I expected he liked what he saw. Otherwise I guessed I wouldn’t be breathing.
Ignoring his soft words without trying to interpret them, I closed my eyes and held Genie to me tighter. I didn’t need someone else’s approval.
The girl pressed to my chest was mine and I’d share her with one other man and one only.
EPILOGUE
BARCLAY
Istretched out in a chintz baroque arm chair that I had no idea on the history of, other than that its previous occupant had a tendency to sit with their hips skewed to the right more than the left. My heels rested on an overstuffed, if slightly threadbare footrest that showed plenty of prior love for the piece. A fire burned low as I read from one of my grandfather’s leather bound copies of Byron. He’d marked it up in places. Some of the comments were academic based as though he’d made them during his college years. Others were obviously added over the top later on and far more derogatory.
I wonder what you would have thought of me, grandpa.
But I’d never had the chance to meet the man past my fifth birthday. I barely remembered anything beyond a wrinkled visage full of whiskers that scratched my face, a gruff voice that scared the hell out of miniature versions of me, and a man who smelled more than faintly of good tobacco that had been all the rage back then.
Jacques had committed to filling the house with staff and warmed the stones of the old, uninhabited castle before he andGenie left for the night in his shiny new suit that Beau sent over, courtesy of my directions. I hadn’t had time to duck into my favorite tailor when we arrived as we were in a bit of a rush to get to Bracksley, but Beau stood up to the task magnificently. I knew it would cost me, but that was life at Rippton U. We traded favors the way others lent out shirts of traded books or other collectibles.
When you had a personal bank account with funds enough to purchase a small country, favors between flirtatious enemies meant more than any other bribery could achieve.
I rolled the yellowed corner of the page as my eyes began to droop. Lines blurred as I shook myself back to some semblance of a waiting state. I’d promised both Genie and Jacques that I’d stay awake and wait up for them, but the exhaustion of the weekend set in. I’d also promised them we’d head back to the US after this, but unlike in France, I didn’t have the same urge to depart post haste. Some part of me wanted to steal a few more days in the suddenly warmed castle. Pick out the bones of who I was, who we all were together. Maybe discover a part of my own history here, and explore with them who we wanted to be before we went anywhere together at all.
Steal a few moments of peace before Rippon attempted to shred it apart.
Closing Byron’s ancient pages—the book was possibly a first edition, knowing my family—I placed it on the over padded arm of the chair and rested my head back, letting my eyes close.Just for a moment, I promised myself, knowing that it would be far more.
And when I opened them—more than a moment later, though it seemed as though no time at all had passed—Genie curled in my arms, her legs tucked over my hips. Curls hung in a disheveled mess over my shoulder and her makeup smeared across her face. No, not her makeup…
I frowned, leaning in to kiss her and came up with a mouthful of heady scent that left my sleepy brain suddenly hyper alert.
“My, you did have fun without me,” I reproved her gently. Teasingly, as I didn't really disapprove.
Neither could I rise to the challenge tonight, too exhausted to play. And she was warm in my arms, her eyes dozy as she snuggled into me. I doubted that, whatever the hell they had done together, that she was in a fair state to play, either.
I glanced over my shoulder and around the chair for Jacques, but the taller man was nowhere to be seen. “Did you not bring him back with you,mon petit chou?” I murmured, pressing my mouth to the corner of her lips and tasted her, but not him. My brow gathered. “Did you not please him, my love?”
Surely she wasn’t that inconsiderate? Or perhaps he hadn’t let her… My mind whirled with the possibilities. Jacques was demanding, and sometimes refused to allow others to pleasure him, preferring to watch as his lover unravelled, refusing to take part at all.
Was that what had happened between them tonight?
“She wore me out is all, my lord.” Jacques’s equally sleepy voice came from the floor somewhere in the realm of my feet.
I peered over Genie’s knees at him. “What on earth are you doing down there?”
“Well, I won't fit in there with all of you, so here I am.” He spread his hands as he rested his head against her thigh, stroking beneath the hem of her damp gown thoughtfully.
My frown deepened. “Why are you wet all over, kitten?”
She shrugged. “The fountain looked fun to play in. Then Jacques took me upstairs.”
My frown cleared as my eyebrows attended my hairline at her neat use of the double entendre I was sure she intended. “Did you actually go to the event at all?”
“Nope.”
