“Honestly?”
“Oui.Thatisthe theme of the moment.”
He chuckled, and it was such a relaxing sound from him it warmed me more than the flames in the fireplace.
“I wanted to impress you. Stupid, really. When you were only there because I paid you to be.”
“Maybe at first,” I said without thinking. “But King and the money?” I reached for his hand and interlaced our fingers. “They were a distant thought in my mind whenever you were in a room with me. You took up all the space. All my thoughts. Until I started to forget why I was there in the first place.”
“That’s a dangerous admission. Especially to amonstre.”
“Not tomon monstre.You won’t hurt me.”
“You trust too easily.”
“And you don’t trust enough.”
“That’s what happens when your father is taken from you in the middle of the street on a sun-drenched afternoon.” The confession was soft, but the impact was harder than any strike could’ve been. “You stop trusting perfect situations.”
I wanted to know more, was about to push for more, when he cleared his throat.
“You mentioned a betrayal,” he said, turning the focus back on me. “Was that true?”
“You remember that, huh?”Mon Dieu. That time in my life was the last thing I wanted to talk about. But if we were baring our souls, learning to trust, then I supposed I couldn’t deny him the full story.
“I remember everything.”
“Maybe you should be the one spying,” I teased, but when he didn’t respond, clearly waiting for more, I swallowed a sigh and took myself back to a place I never allowed myself to go.
“I wasn’t always such a…well, man-eater, as my brothers would say.” I glanced at Dimitri who arched a brow at the mention of family, and I waved a hand. “Not blood family but chosen family. You’ve met three of them already.”
“I see. And your blood relations?”
“Nonexistent. No siblings and I haven’t spoken to my parents in”—I thought back, counting the years—“has to be at least a couple of decades.” More like they hadn’t spoken to me, but that was just semantics. There had been no communication between the three of us, and at this point, that was fine by me. “My mother is French, my father is from the U.K., so I grew up splitting time between France, London, and New York.”
“That accounts for two languages,” Dimitri said, and I cracked a smile.
“Keeping track, are you? How many am I up to?”
“At least six.”
“Remind me to whisper sweet nothings in a seventh later.”
Dimitri nodded against my neck, tightening his arms around me, and I swallowed a sigh.
“I guess by now you’ve figured out I come from money, but what you don’t know is that the generational wealth and status goes back centuries. Both sides of my family are part of the aristocracy and are worth… Well, add a few more zeroes to the check King gave you and you’ll understand.”
“So you planned to spend the couple million I gave you on what, lunch?”
“Couple million?” I said. “I do believe the agreed-upon price was four.”
“Lunch and dinner, then.”
“Exactly. Maybe even a couple bottles of the best brandy.” My lips quirked as I faced the flames again, but my smile soon fell. “What I didn’t realize as a young man going out into the world was that there are people who would take advantage of my family’s money and connections. I was… What did you say? Too trusting?” I shook my head. “Not so much anymore, but I was then. I went off to university in Manhattan and got swept up in a romance with a much older man, someone I had no business being with.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“Ah, but you’re not the love-bombing type,mon monstre. You’re also not a diplomat. Or my father’s closest friend.”
