“But what?”
“I didn’t think it would be that easy. You must have hypnotized her or something.”
Laurent laughed. “No hypnosis. She was needy, and you know me and needy people. I just worked my magic.”
Normally, I would have argued with him, but I couldn’t think of a better description. I collapsed back on the sofa, Laurent eyeing me. “Don’t get comfortable. I helped you with a problem because that problem had taken up residence in my flat. That’s all.”
“I need to speak to you.” There was a plaintive note in my voice that I couldn’t find it within myself to care about. “Please.”
Laurent reached up to massage the back of his neck while he contemplated my words. “Not today.”
I sat up straight. “When?” I fully expected him to name some obscure date in the future.
“Tomorrow,” Laurent said after a pause. “Not here, though. And not at Cillian and Finn’s.”
“Where?”
“I’ll text you a place.” When he walked to the door and opened it, I didn’t argue, getting up and going through it.
“And Mac?”
I turned back. “Yeah?”
“Don’t be late.”
Chapter Twenty-five
I got to the small cafe Laurent had named, the text message saying that and only that, an hour early, his warning about not being late still ringing in my ears. There was no way I was giving him an excuse to leave. Assuming, that was, that he didn’t change his mind about turning up.
Apart from the message from Laurent, my phone had stayed silent, whatever magic Laurent had weaved with Katrina apparently doing the trick. Cillian’s comment was that if he had to spend twenty-five minutes in a room with Laurent, he’d probably be ready to jump on a plane, too. The slight smile on his face had said the dig was more mired in habit than in any true malice, though.
Laurent arrived right on time, proving himself well worth the hour’s wait in a short-sleeved white T-shirt that displayed his tanned, muscular arms and gray jeans that seemed to be painted on. The considerable bulge at the front caught my eye, and I wasn’t alone in turning to stare as he approached across the cafe.
“You look hot,” I said as he took a seat at the opposite side of the table, figuring that getting an early compliment in couldn’t do any harm.
“You look…” His eyes skimmed over me, the slow perusal making my skin prickle. “…worried.”
“I am worried.” I pushed a latte toward him, purchased so he wouldn’t have to waste time going to the counter and ordering. “I’m worried that I won’t be able to get the words out I want to say in the time you’ll give me to say them.”
Laurent crossed his arms over his chest. “I have no other plans this afternoon. Not unless Prince Charming rides in here and carries me off.”
“If he does, I’ll tell him he needs to wait his turn.” Well, if that wasn’t an opening, I didn’t know what was. I pushed on before he could respond to me staking my claim over a fictional prince. “I wasn’t honest with myself before. Or I didn’t know myself well enough. One of the two. Maybe a bit of both.”
“You’re young. It takes time to know yourself properly.”
The glint in Laurent’s eye showed it for the provocation it was. His good mood surprised me. After the days of him not talking to me, the issue that had led to that still unresolved, I’d expected to find myself face-to-face with a much cooler customer. “Don’t start that again.”
He sat forward, resting his chin on his interlocked hands. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll have to take steps.”
“What sort of steps?”
I waved his interrogation away. Lovely as it was to banter with him again, I had bigger fish to fry. “I thought”—I fixed my gaze on a spot just right of Laurent’s cheek?“that all I wanted from you was sex. I was wrong. I have feelings for you that go beyond that.”
A baby started to cry a few tables away, and I wanted to tell it to shush. If only it was old enough to understand how important my declaration was. How it changed everything about my life. Not only because Laurent was a man, but because he was French. My permissible time in this country was trickling away like sand in an hourglass, returning to London suddenly seeming cold and empty.
At least Cillian had offered an olive branch in how I could stay. All of that hinged on the man currently sitting silently opposite me, though. Because if he didn’t want me to stay, then everything else was pointless.
