Honeymoon in Paris (12 page)

“Oh, you can handle that, can you?” I lifted a brow at my adorable husband and couldn’t help but laugh. If I was being honest, the
last
thing I felt like doing right now was discussing finances
or
the loss of my job.

“Open it,
chérie
,” Luc prodded.

I opened the dainty gift bag from my favorite lingerie store in Lyon, Chez Isabelle. Inside, I found a delicate, silky pink slip that opened down the front. Three lavender bows tied across the opening, and a beautiful pattern of matching lavender lace trimmed the hem. Two sparkling amethyst-colored jewels studded the silky straps.

It was gorgeous, sexy, and exactly my style.

“I love it,” I whispered back before giving him another kiss.

He wrapped his arms around my waist and trailed warm kisses up my neck. “Perhaps I can help you try it on?”

I pushed away all of the fears and doubts that had consumed my mind in the past twenty-four hours, and instead allowed my sweet husband to wrap me up in his warm embrace. Despite everything that had just happened, I felt so comfortable in his arms, so safe. If Luc couldn’t divulge the details of this bizarre Boucher family business, I simply had to trust that he had his reasons, and that he was capable of handling it on his own. In the meantime, I was looking forward to making up for our missed night of honeymoon bliss.

“I’d
love
some help trying on my new lingerie,” I said, squeezing his thigh.

He grinned as he slipped my shirt over my head and ran his strong hands up the length of my torso and over my breasts. He quickly unfastened my bra, stood me up in front of him, and unbuttoned my jeans.

“
Tu es magnifique, ma beauté,
” he whispered, kissing my navel and pulling my jeans down to my ankles.

I ruffled my hands through Luc’s hair as he pulled me in closer and slipped his fingers in between my thighs.

“Luc, if you keep this up, I don’t think you’re going to see the lingerie on me. I won’t be able to wait that long.”

A sultry laugh escaped his lips as he stripped me completely naked, then slipped the silky nightie over my head, running his strong hands over my hips as he did so.

The smooth material felt cool on my skin in contrast to Luc’s roaming hands, lighting a fire in my abdomen. I pulled him closer to me and ripped off his T-shirt. “One night without you was too long. Let’s not make that mistake again.”

Luc responded with a deep growl as he unbuttoned his jeans and let them drop to the floor. I fell backwards onto our cushy bed and let him have a look at me in my new lingerie. His sexy grin gave way to an even sexier dimple as he swiftly removed his underwear, then climbed over top of me and plunged his warm mouth onto mine.

My hips surged upward, melding with Luc’s pulsing, toned body. I suddenly didn’t care about anything that had happened over the past day and a half. Luc was my husband. He loved me unconditionally, and I loved him the same. I always would. Nothing would ever change that.

“
Mon amour, j’ai envie de toi
,” Luc’s husky voice whispered in my ear as he knelt in between my legs and ran his hands up the inside of my thighs, making me squirm in anticipation.

“I want you too, Luc.” I grabbed his hips and pulled him back down on top of me. “
Now.
”

“A woman who knows
exactly
what she wants—there is nothing sexier.” He hovered over me, his broad shoulders, ruffled brown hair, and lust-filled gaze almost too much for me to bear. “And what will you do if I don’t give you what you want?” he teased.

I dug my nails into his back and pulled him closer. “I don’t think you want to find out.”

Luc laughed as he pulled a thin pink strap off my shoulder and ran his lips across the tops of my breasts. “I’ll take my chances.” He traced the outline of my nipple with his thumb, while his other hand slipped underneath the lace, his fingers immediately finding the spot that made me go
insane.

I wouldn’t let him get away with this.

Running my hand down his rippled abdomen, I reached lower and still lower until I found the spot that made
him
go crazy. I could hardly contain myself, though, as he slipped his fingers inside of me and pressed so deeply I had to bite my lip to stop from moaning. I matched his intensity with each stroke of my hand and watched as he closed his eyes and succumbed to the pleasure.

Suddenly he grabbed my hips and positioned me perfectly beneath him, then with an intense gaze that said
I love you, I want you,
and so much more, he thrust into me. This time I couldn’t help but let out a low moan.

He pressed into me in slow, deep thrusts as he slipped the other strap off of my shoulder and cupped my breast in his hand. He lowered his face to my chest and ran his tongue over the tip of my nipple, the feeling of him inside of me, of his hands and lips on me, sending a ripple of pleasure through my core.

I took his face in my hands and looked him in the eye as he continued to move over top of me. “Luc, you are the only one who’s ever made me feel this way.”

That sexy grin reappeared, his sweet eyes lighting up as he leaned in to kiss me. He nibbled my bottom lip as he wrapped me tightly in his arms and pushed harder and firmer inside of me. “I want to see you,” he said. “I want to see your gorgeous body on top of me.”

Luc rolled to the side and hoisted my hips up and onto his, another muffled cry of pleasure escaping my lips as the length of him shot inside me. He pushed into me more forcefully now from below, his hands cupping both of my breasts, his eyes full of an intense desire, a longing, a love I’d never seen before in any other man’s
eyes. Luc’s need to be with me and to love me made me lose all control, made me give myself to him fully and completely.

I rolled my hips back and forth over top of him, running my hands up his glistening torso and resting them on his firm chest.

Luc slid his hands underneath the slip that now bunched at my hips, then pulled me harder and faster onto him, his eyes closing as he bit his lip to hold back a moan. “
Charlotte, tu es trop belle. Tu me rends fou.
”

Nothing made me hotter than when Luc spoke French to me in bed. I leaned over him, kissing him with every ounce of wild passion that poured out of me, reveling in the perfect feel of his body, his love, his strength wrapped around me. He held me firmly against his pulsating body, thrusting into me almost violently as his breath quickened, his kisses, his touch becoming more urgent, more forceful. My core ached with desire until an explosion of pleasure set off inside of me. I muffled my cries into Luc’s shoulder, my body resting on top of him as he continued to thrust faster and harder into me. Finally, I felt him grow firmer, his hands gripping my hips as he pushed one more time, going so deep I could hardly breathe.

Our bodies collapsed against each other, warm, sweaty, and totally and utterly in love. No one had ever made love to me the way Luc did. Every single time we romped under the sheets was different, incredible, mind-blowing, and
full
of surprises.

TWELVE

Hours later, a tiny knock on the bedroom door woke me from my sleep.

“Papa,” Adeline’s soft voice called through the night.

I shot out of bed, thankful that I’d put on a T-shirt and yoga pants before falling asleep. This whole living with a child situation was new to me—mostly in a good way, but new nonetheless.

“Are you okay, Adeline?” I whispered to her in French, noticing Luc snoring soundly on his side of the bed. I’d never heard him snore before; hopefully that wouldn’t be one of our new
norms
in this whole marriage deal.

I refocused on Adeline’s distraught face, the dim light from the streetlamp outside revealing a large tear running down her cheek.

“I don’t feel good,” she responded in French, clutching her fuzzy white teddy bear. “I want my daddy.”

I knelt down, took her hand, and led her out into the hallway, closing the door behind me. “Your daddy is really tired, sweetie. He needs to get some sleep. How about I take you back to your room and read to you until you fall back asleep. Will that be okay?”

She stomped her little feet, her purple nightgown swaying back and forth. “
Non!
I want my daddy!” And then the tears came. Big, round, wet tears, streaming down her face.

I scooped Adeline up into my arms and carried her back into her bedroom. I didn’t mind that she was kicking me the whole way. I wanted to try to make this right. Now that I was here to stay, it
couldn’t always be her daddy comforting her. I wanted her to learn to love me too.

I laid her down in her pink bed, flicked on the lamp, and sat down beside her, testing the back of my hand on her forehead to see if she was still running a fever. She didn’t feel
that
warm, but then again I’d never done this before, so I really didn’t have a clue.

She pushed my hand away and glared up at me, her almond-shaped emerald eyes tired, red, and sad. I’d always wondered where she’d gotten those beautiful green eyes; now, after meeting Brigitte, I knew. Adeline’s smile, her nose, her normally sweet demeanor, all resembled Luc. But those eyes—
those
belonged to Brigitte.

I wondered if I would ever look at Adeline again and
not
see her mother looking back at me.

“I don’t want you here,” she said in French, turning her back to me and curling into a tight ball underneath her pink, fluffy comforter. “I want my mommy to come back. I want her to live here with me and daddy.
Not
you.”

Maybe I should’ve woken Luc up after all. How do you even begin to explain divorce to a four-year-old?

I resisted my urge to rub her back and kiss her on the cheek, knowing she would just shrug me off and get even angrier. Instead I searched the room for something to help me with a three
A.M
. explanation of divorce and step-mothers to a sick, tantrum-throwing four-year-old.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that twenty-four hours after sleeping off a champagne hangover in Marcel Boucher’s bachelor pad, I would be so happy to find a family of four stuffed penguins.

What has my life come to?

I grabbed the penguins from Adeline’s overflowing stuffed animal bin and walked to the other side of the bed where she was facing the wall, her eyes purposefully squeezed shut.

“I know you don’t feel like talking to me right now, so we’re going to talk to your penguin family instead.” I propped all four of the penguins up on the side of her bed. She kicked her little feet under the covers and kept her eyes closed.

“This is Daddy Penguin,” I began. “And this is Mommy Penguin. One day Mommy Penguin and Daddy Penguin had a little baby penguin, and they named her Adeline.”

I wanted to say,
Adeline is a stubborn little penguin who needs to open her eyes and pay attention because Charlotte Penguin is exhausted and doesn’t feel like putting on a penguin puppet divorce show at three o’clock in the morning
, but I felt that a sarcastic penguin show wouldn’t help matters.

Instead, I continued. “Mommy Penguin and Daddy Penguin love their little Adeline Penguin more than anything in the whole world.”

Unfortunately, after meeting Mommy Penguin the day before, I could see that she
clearly
had her priorities, and her daughter wasn’t one of them. Brigitte’s little visit here this morning didn’t fool me one bit. She was jealous that Luc was already remarried, and she wanted to get her little paws in here and screw things up for us. Again, I chose to bite my tongue and, instead, plodded onward.

“One day, Mommy and Daddy Penguin decided that they needed to spend time with other penguins so they could be truly happy. But that doesn’t change how much they adore their sweet Adeline Penguin.”

Adeline’s eyes were open now. “But
why
do they have to spend time with other penguins? Amélie’s mommy and daddy don’t spend time with other penguins.”

Amélie was Adeline’s best friend. Of course Amélie’s mommy and daddy didn’t need to spend time with other penguins because her mommy wasn’t a drunken, jealous, raging little actress who dated men twice her age and crashed her ex-husband’s honeymoon.

I only hoped Brigitte would get her act together at least a little bit by the time Adeline was old enough to understand everything. Otherwise Adeline would surely see her mother acting out in the tabloids, and one day in the not-so-distant future, she would realize my penguin rendition of the way her family had broken up was not at all the truth.

“Every penguin family is different,” I said. “And what works for one penguin family doesn’t always work for another family. Having more penguins in the family can be more fun! I mean, don’t you want to play with more penguins too?” God, I was really reaching here.

Adeline sat up, her little eyebrows scrunched in confusion, her long auburn hair sticking to her cheeks. “I guess so,” she said hesitantly.

Whew.

“Me too! So when Mommy and Daddy Penguin decided they’d love to invite some more penguins into their life so that Adeline Penguin could have a bigger, better penguin family, that’s when Daddy met Charlotte Penguin.” I introduced the fourth and final penguin to the scenario, as Mommy Penguin took a nose-dive to the floor. Oops.

“Daddy Penguin fell in love with Charlotte Penguin, and as soon as Charlotte Penguin met Adeline Penguin, she fell in love with her too!”

“But Mommy still loves Daddy,” Adeline insisted. “She told me that today. And
she
wants to live here. Can she move in too, so all four of us can live together?”

Hmm, seems I was getting more intel on what had gone down during the ex-wife’s house call this morning from the four-year-old daughter than I was from my own adult husband. And what was wrong with Brigitte that she would
tell
her young daughter these things? No wonder Adeline had been a mess all night.

I brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and put Charlotte Penguin in her lap.

“I’m sorry your mom told you those things and confused you today, sweetie. The truth is that while she loves you very much, and while your mom and dad will always care for each other, your mom has a very busy career as an actress, and she can’t move in with us.”