Page 29 of Tangled With the Wrong Guy
‘Cake, what else?’
‘Good call.’
‘I know a great late-night pâtisserie,’ she said. ‘I’ll buy you cake when we make it out of here. And when people ask what wicked depravities you got up to on your stag, you can say, “I ate cake handcuffed to a Parisian girl in a black beret who sexually abused a statue.”’
He grinned. ‘And did I lick the cream off her beautiful body?’
Heat crept up Chloe’s neck – and through her body, pooling between her legs. ‘Oh la la!’ She winked. ‘Well, maybe you did. If you were a goodgarçon.’
Chapter Eight
Chloe’s ability to create stories was only matched by her compulsion to overanalyse people’s words, to look for hidden meanings. It was exhausting, but she couldn’t help it. As someone once said, ‘Maybe when the author says the curtains are blue, they just mean the curtains are blue.’ But Chloe always wondered why the curtains were blue.
Right now, she was wondering whether Joel’s words about cream were just for fun, despite that look in his eyes.
But surely he’d assume she’d never condone cheating, let alonebethat girl, on his stag, after she’d told him the reason for her own broken heart? So his wordshadto be just for fun, right?
Or, more likely, she reasoned, it was a ploy to derail her attempt to get the truth out of him. To scupper her mission to encourage him to fly in the face of all those expectations and be himself, and to hell with strict families and military fathers. To admit he was about to make an enormous mistake.
Then she realised that while she’d been staring into space overanalysing, his cheeky grin had only got bigger. Unless she was very much mistaken, those wordsweren’tjust for fun.
Her eyes widened.Did I really just say he can lick cream off me if he’s a good boy?Yes, she had said that, and what was more … realisation dawned … she’d meant it. One hundred per cent.
She smiled slowly. ‘Shall we move on? This way, I think. I reckon the entrance might be along there.’ She pointed to where the boundary took a sudden sharp turn.
As they walked, a voice in her head started to protest, but Chloe was off down the road of rapid rationalisation. If Joeldiddo something sexually creative with cream, shewouldn’tin fact be doing to Zara what Dan had done to her. Because this marriage Joel was hurtling into wasn’t about love, it wasn’tcoeurs et fleurs. It was a feelings-free arrangement from which they would both benefit; it was for the sake of appearances, for family honour.Plus, if Zara was happy to turn a blind eye to Joel’s boyfriends, a one-night stand in Paris with a florist from Huddersfield wouldn’t even dent her hard little heart, never mind break it.
Chloe had never experienced that wild, free, let’s-try-all-the-things lifestyle enjoyed by more adventurous young people. She’d lived at home during her university years, for the sake of her student debt and to be close to Dan.
What a waste.
Just one lover in all her twenty-six years. That was quite possibly tragic.
Around them, the City of the Dead’s inhabitants were a reminder that life was short. It was time to stop existing, start living. Beginning now. A chained-together one-night stand with added cake, with a beautiful guy who was nice, and fun, and quite sad andverynoble, in beautiful Paris … what possible reason was there not to?
Like Edith Piaf, she’dregrette rien.
As they approached the perimeter, they could hear the occasional car, the sound easing them back into the world of the living, beyond the wall.
And there it was. A small, green, wooden door next to the large metal gates.
‘Key?’ she said.
Joel produced it from his jeans pocket. ‘There’s a bolt too,’ he said, pointing. Chloe bent her knees, balancing on herhaunches, and he crouched down beside her. With her free hand she wiggled the bolt until it slid back.
Their heads were almost touching; she sensed his eyes on her face and turned to meet his gaze. He was so close; his breath was a gentle warm breeze on her lips.
‘Chloe?’ he said softly.
Her heart leapt into her mouth. ‘I’m sad,’ she blurted. ‘It’s not been my usual quiet walk home, but … well, it’s been kind of lovely. Unexpectedly lovely, considering how it started with you vomiting on my feet.’
He smiled. ‘Does that mean I can stop apologising now?’
‘Yes. But in return …’
His smile faded.
Needing to touch him, she lifted her hand and stroked his hair back from his forehead. ‘On the far side of that door, we’re going to have a truth fest.’
