Page 53 of Spooked

If Carissa did know, she’d clearly forgotten. Her lips pressed together in a thin line, and he knew she was annoyed. Good. She was the one who’d suggested this stupid dinner. He could have been eating takeout and painting another wall right now.

“I’ll have the vegan beefsteak.”

“I guess it’s your choice, but do you know how many kilowatts go into processing mycoprotein? The fungus also feeds on sugar, which requires fertiliser to grow.”

When the waiter came, Carissa ordered Coquilles Saint-Jacques in a terrible French accent. A long time had passed since Brax had seen her on the back foot, and it was a joy to behold. The waiter’s smirk when Carissa told him he had a lovely ass instead of thanking him very much was the frosting on the cake. She always got the pronunciation of “beaucoup” and “beau cul” confused.

And then Meera, his beautiful Meera, surprised him again, but in a good way.

“Ah, bonsoir. Je voudrais la Coquilles Saint-Jacques accompagnée de légumes, s’il vous plaît.”

Her accent was perfect, her delivery flawless. She spoke French? The waiter gave her a warm smile as he noted down the order.

“Vous parlez français?” Brax asked Meera after the waiter had taken his order. “Tu ne l’as jamais mentionné.”

“J’ai passé six mois à Paris dans le cadre d’un programme lycée ‘études à l’étranger’. Et vous?”

She’d spent six months in Paris? Brax had never participated in a “study abroad” programme, but he was a quarter French and fluent in the language, thanks to his paternalgrand-père. Thatbâtardhad refused to speak English to his young grandson, so Brax had been left with no choice but to learn. Carissa, on the other hand, could manage restaurant French and shopping French—badly—but that was all.

“Je suis un quart français.” And Carissa was getting more and more peeved because she couldn’t understand the conversation. “Ne vous inquiétez pas pour ma femme. Elle fait just semblant de parler français.”

“Ah, c’est pourquoi elle a complimenté l’arrière du serveur.”

Brax barely kept the smile off his face. This woman was on his wavelength in a way he’d never felt before. He loved the new, feisty Meera. Unfortunately. If time travel existed, he’d sell his soul to turn back the clock and tear up that fucking prenup.

Finally, Carissa gave in. “What are you saying to her?”

“I’m just complimenting her menu choices. The Coquilles Saint-Jacques looks delicious.”

Carissa had a face like thunder for the rest of the meal. Meera bested her in every verbal jousting match, and when she gave his bitch of a wife a faux hug at the end and said, “Merci, Clarissa, dinner was wonderful,” he could have kissed her.

No, really.

Brax was in a colossal amount of trouble.

CHAPTER21

THE ASSISTANT

Ihadn’t expected Mr. Vale to be quite so hands-on with the renovations, but there he was, sitting on the floor in a pair of faded jeans, repainting a baseboard. I put down the bag I was holding and took a moment to study him. He looked younger in casual clothes. The suit added five years.

“Did you get them?” he asked.

“I got them.”

Several pieces of art had been ruined by the flood, erotic poses drawn in black ink. The artist lived in New York, and she’d spent the past four days recreating what had been lost. I’d just travelled across the city to collect them. The carpet installers were due at two p.m., and then we’d need to put the furniture back. Upstairs, the kitchen was back in action, the refrigerators had been restocked, and the laundry was being sent to a service until the new washers and dryers arrived. The faulty dryer was back with the manufacturer for investigation.

“What do you think?” Mr. Vale asked. “Did you look?”

I’d looked. The drawings werenotsafe for work, unless you happened to work in a sex club. A woman being fucked from behind while a man wrapped his hand around her throat, a naked woman cuffed to a cross, a man wearing a collar and leash… I’d always been taught that sex was shameful, but now I knew differently. Everyone I met at Nyx was happy to be there. There was no shame in pleasure among consenting adults.

“I think they’re beautiful.”

The artist, a sweet sixty-something lady named Bettina who’d converted one room of her apartment into a studio, had managed to capture emotions on paper. Passion, lust, vulnerability. I knew that because, for the first time in my life, I was starting to feel those things too.

But for the wrong man.

An unattainable man.

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