Page 43 of The Billionaire's Temporary Governess (French Conquests 2)

“I’d have expected my son would have insisted.” Her smile was disingenuous, deliberately casual.

And Naisha panicked. “Why would he? I’m just the governess.”

“Oh please.” Madeline rolled her eyes. “You young people always take our generation for fools.”

Naisha was appalled. “Oh, no. I mean—Ma’am.”

Madeline shushed her and pointed to a pool chair. “Hush, child. Sit.”

She knows.Naisha sat, dropping into the chair like a sack of wheat, wondering if this was going to be her last day in the employ of the Dubois family.

“Before you bring a sin down upon your soul, don’t even bother to deny what’s going on between you and my son. I’m not feeble-minded, and I have eyes.” She added with a wink, “Besides, you don’t manage a staff of more than twenty people and not pick up on the gossip. So I’m well aware that you have been joining William in his chambers after lights-out—”

“Madeline, I—”

She shushed her again. “Child, let me finish what I am trying to say. Now, I have to admit that at the start, I wasn’t happy to know that the person my son had hired to look after my granddaughter’s education was a woman he had previously had a relationship with. I was even more taken aback to discover that you have grown into an even more beautiful woman than your younger self promised to be. I was very clear to William that there was to be no untoward behavior—”

“You warned him off me?” Naisha wasn’t sure whether to be more embarrassed or upset.

“I did,” Madeline admitted, “it needed to be said. But that was before I noticed the effect you are having on him. How happy Liam seems. Happier than I have seen him in years. And I have begun to hope that it is possible for my boy—never mind he’s a fully grown man of the world, he will always be my boy—to be happy.”

Madeline reached out and lay her hands gently on top of Naisha’s hands. “I just want you to know that I’m happy that you are here, and that the two of you have my blessing.”

With that, Madeline leaped up and hastened away, looking almost as if she thought she’d said too much, and leaving Naisha sitting there, her head spinning.

Liam’s mom knew? And furthermore, she approved? Was that possible? Her chest was filled with sharp pangs of joy, but she was immediately brought back down to earth. Madeline might have correctly deduced that they were sleeping together, but her further assumption was wrong. She seemed to think this was a romance, a love match.

It was not. It was simply about the sex—great sex. She and Liam had specifically agreed that that was all it was.

Hadn’t they?

The question remained in her mind for the rest of the day, and stayed there buzzing even when she was back in his room, sitting in his comfortable armchair, lost in her thoughts. Her doubts only floated out of her head awhile after he came out of the shower and slipped behind her to press soft kisses on the side of her neck.

It was only much later, as she lay in his arms, warm and content, that those thoughts returned, being repeated over and over like a mantra.This is only for now, not for the future.This is sex, not love.

To think anything else would be foolish, not to mention self-destructive.

“Asleep?” Liam murmured softly into her ear.

“Nah. Just thinking.”

“About?”

“Love,” she blurted, and immediately regretted it. Before she allowed her tongue to bury her even deeper underground, she hastily said, “I mean was thinking of a few love poems I could use to get Willa started. We’re just moving into the Romantic period in English Lit…”

Lame, lame, lame,she screamed at herself.You suck at lying, girl.

“I’m sure she’ll enjoy it, whatever you choose,” he said drowsily. Then added, almost as if he was talking in his sleep, “Hell of a thing, love. Only been there once, but…”

But what?she wondered. “Sofia was—”

“Not her.”

And then he was gone, drifted away into slumber with his face squashed against her cheek, fully satiated, leaving her in frustrated wonder. Had he just said the one love of his life was not his wife?

If that was true, why had he married her?

And if it hadn’t been with Sofia, who had he been in love with?

---