“So he thought he’d go right to the opposite end of the spectrum?”
“They said he doesn’t look his age. Anyway, if Guillermo isn’t your cup of tea, there’s always Richard.”
“Richard…”
“The other date. He’s a back-up at the moment for…”
“Guillermo,” I finished.
“Yeah.”
“I told Finn I wasn’t going on any more dates.”
“Yeah? Funny… I don’t think that’s what Finn heard. I think Finn heardplease find me some more dates, so they have.” Mac gave a low chuckle. “Anyway, I’ve fixed your problem and mine at the same time. No thanks needed.”
“You have? How?” Suspicion tinged my question. “And I thought you called to apologize? Now I’m supposed to be thanking you. Which is it?”
“It’s the same thing, really.”
“It isn’t. The two things are light years away from each other.” Silence. “What did you do, Mac?” More silence. “Mac?”
“I may have told Cillian that you and I struck up a budding romance.”
Chapter Eight
I ran the words through my head. Once. Twice. And then a third time, just for good measure.
“Laurent? Are you still there?”
A bubble of laughter escaped from me. “I thought for a moment you said you’d told your brother we were dating.”
“I did. It’s the perfect solution, right? It’s a reason for me to stay in Paris because I’ve met a handsome French man, and want to get to know him more. And you’re dating me, so you can’t go on any dates with other man lest I dissolve into a fit of jealousy. The saying about killing two birds with one stone could have been designed for this exact situation. It was a great idea of mine, even if I say so myself.”
“It’s insane, is what it is.”
“Why?” Mac sounded slightly put out, and I wished I could see his face.
“You’re straight, for one.”
The noise that came from Mac’s throat said I was splitting hairs. “Apart from that, it’s a brilliant idea.”
“Apart from that?” I was back to being a parrot. “When exactly did you drop this bombshell on them?”
“Just now.”
Which explained why I hadn’t had Finn on the phone yet, demanding to know how I’d had an entire conversation with him and not mentioned it. A state of affairs that wouldn’t last for much longer. If I thought he’d been pissed at me for not mentioning Mac’s presence, I’d seen nothing yet. It was hard to tell someone something you didn’t know yourself, though. “Fuck me!”
“Not yet, darling. We’re still in the getting to know each other phase of our relationship.”
I refused to acknowledge the lick of something warm in my chest at Mac calling me darling. “We don’t have a relationship. Not that sort of relationship, anyway.”
“We do as far as Cillian and Finn are concerned. Well… not that they believed me.”
“They didn’t?”
“No…”
“I don’t know whether that’s a good or a bad thing.”
