into something else. Something more intense. Something darker. Something he really couldn’t afford to feel.
“Nothing personal at all,” he said, taking a strawberry from the bowl and popping it into his mouth. Then he poured himself a glass of champagne and picked the envelope up from the cart and opened it. “Look at that. A brochure of all the activities we’re entitled to partake in today.”
“Goody. Since this is supposed to be vacationy, let me see.”
He handed her the glossy, trifolded paper and waited while she perused it. She reached into the bowl and took out another berry, this time putting it into her mouth whole. Her dark brows knit together. “A massage,” she said. “Hmm. Well—” she looked up at him “—I could use one. My muscles are knotted. I’m a little stressed.”
“You’re stressed?” he asked.
She blinked. “A little.”
“You’ve been singing a lot of Christmas carols for someone who’s stressed.”
“Well, I acquired a lot of my stress today.” Her eyes narrowed.
“Point taken.”
“A ride on the tram over the mountain, to a restaurant at the summit. Wow. That sounds … high.”
“Do you have a problem with heights?”
“Not at all,” she said. “If you do, maybe I’ll take the tram ride, and you can get the massage except … I really do want the massage.”
“We can’t do things separately,” he said.
“Well, then, the massage is off the … massage table. Because I’m not getting oiled up with you.” Her cheeks turned pink. “Well, that was a little bit more … out there than I meant it to be.” She cleared her throat. “How about this tram? We can ride it to the top for lunch.”
“Is food all you think about?”
“Hey, I’ve now watched you pour two alcoholic beverages very early in the day, so if we’re going to get judgmental you’re going to lose this round, my friend.”
“All right, lunch it is.”
“I’m thinking cheeseburger.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Luc. Really. Because cheese doesn’t ask stupid questions. Cheese understands.”
“Well, then let’s journey to the mountaintop for your understanding cheese.”
“You’re absurd,” she said, “this entire thing is absurd.”
“Well, we’re living it. So we might as well enjoy it.”
She worried her lip for a moment, then slapped her hands down on her thighs. “Yes, dammit, I will enjoy it. I’m owed some enjoyment. A little time off without my family. Still with my boss, but hey, I’ll take what I can get. Let’s go get that burger.”
“WELL, THAT REALLY was high. So this had better be quite the hamburger,” Amelia said as they waited for their food.
The tram had taken nearly an hour, which Amelia had seemed honor-bound to fill up with Amelia-like chatter. About birds, and trees. And how blue the sky was.
And all he’d been able to think about was how her lips had looked wrapped around the strawberry. And from there, his mind had gone to how her lips might look if they were wrapped around his—
Yes, he’d had to adjust his thinking quite often. Among other things.
“I imagine it will be,” he said. “Since it’s closer to Denver.”
“That doesn’t apply to all food, just foods with Denver in the name.” She rolled her eyes and took a French fry out of the basket in front of them.
“That makes more sense than what I was thinking.”
“Do you have culture shock yet from leaving Paris and all its pastries behind?”
He lifted a shoulder and took a fry from the basket. “No. New York has everything I want. Plus it’s missing a lot of things I’d rather not deal with.”
“Your family.”
“Exactly.”
“What happened with your dad? I mean … we’ve never talked about him. I know it was a huge deal in Europe when you left the firm.”
“Because my father is a tyrant, and why I worked with him for as long as I did is … well, it is a mystery to me. I was raised to take over the firm, and I did. I was raised to marry a suitable woman, and for a while it seemed I would do both. I had Marie, who was so very perfect to be the queen for the Chevalier kingdom. Until it all came crashing down. And there was a point where I was still working to keep my father’s empire running, while my brother went out and did what he pleased … and I asked myself why I was still working so hard for something I didn’t even care about.”
“You got an answer, I take it?”
“No. I got no answer. And that was when I decided to leave. If you don’t know why you’re working sixty-to-eighty-hour workweeks, you shouldn’t be working them.”
“I don’t suppose.”
“I also found out my father had been stealing money. From the business, from clients. So after I set the law on him, I left.”
“You were the one who … who broke all of that open?”
“Yes. I am. Don’t tell me you secretly imagined I might be involved in the crime?”
“I seriously never did,” she said. “You’re too much of a rule follower.”
Luc frowned. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t mind being called a rule follower. But for some reason, coming from her just now, it sounded very unexciting. And as though it might be the real reason he hadn’t had sex in nearly a year.
“Well, I’m glad to think you don’t believe I could be a criminal,” he said.
“Though,” she said, “I’m starting to think that I can be very stupid about people.”
“Why is that?”
“Just … reasons.”
Right then, a waiter set their plates in front of them. Two very large cheeseburgers. The view, which was all snow-capped trees and gray rock jutting up beyond them, was at odds with the food. One was common, the other altogether unique. Wild.
Then there was Amelia. She seemed more a part of this than Manhattan somehow. Perhaps because she defied the clean, sleek steel of the city.
