Discretion (The Dumonts, #1)(83)

“You aren’t so hard to find.”

“Oh, really? Because I recall you once saying that you knew nothing about me, that I was practically untraceable online.”

“That may have been my way of making you talk,” he says with a smirk. “It sort of worked.”

“Don’t tell me you have access to French spy networks.”

“I might,” he says. “I also might have access to a little something called Google.”

I laugh. I laugh because he’s here, and it’s so amazing and impossible that he’s here.

He’s here.

“How did you even get here?”

“An airplane,” he says, pulling me toward him. “The same kind you took.”

“Oh, was yours bought by Pascal too?”

His grip on my arms tightens, and Olivier’s eyes grow hard. “I need you to tell me everything that happened. Did he hurt you? Did he”—his voice breaks in anger—“do anything to you?”

I shake my head. “No. I mean, he’s an asshole and a creep and a fucking pervert.”

“Pervert?” he asks sharply.

“Are you surprised?”

“What did he do to you?” he grinds out. He looks like he’s ready to throw the armchair across the room.

“Calm down,” I tell him. “He didn’t do anything. He just . . . he’s lewd. And he may possess a video of us having sex, and he may have jacked off to it more than a few times.”

Olivier’s eyes narrow into green slits. “What?” he hisses.

“I saw the video. It’s, um, hot—us against the glass at your hotel. But it’s nothing you should worry about . . . or perhaps maybe the next time you see him at the office, you can confiscate his phone.” As if there isn’t a chance it exists on some online drop box. I try not to think about it.

“What a sick fuck,” he swears. I can see veins throbbing in his temples. Jeez, I probably shouldn’t have told him that.

“Yeah, but on the plus side, we did look pretty hot,” I manage to say, but he doesn’t return the humor. “So I guess he’s going to deserve a punch or two in the face when you get back?”

“I’m not going back.”

I stare at him blankly. “What?”

“I said I’m not going back.”

I look him up and down. “You don’t even have any luggage.”

“The moment Blaise told me, the moment I saw the note you left, I had to come. I went right to the airport and got the first flight out. I told Seraphine there was a chance I wouldn’t come back for a while.”

“How long is a while?” I ask, both hopeful and afraid to hear the answer.

He chews on his lip for a moment as he gazes at me, perhaps feeling the same way I am. “As long as it takes. Maybe years.”

“Years?” I practically spit out.

He shrugs. “No pressure. But I figured now was as good a chance as any to finally get that hotel in Napa Valley going. At Renaud’s vineyard.”

“You’re kidding me?” This feels all so precious and fragile, I’m afraid to question it in case it breaks, but . . . “You’re not going back home?”

He shakes his head. “Things are fucking crazy back there. I don’t want any part of it.”

“But Seraphine! She’s your sister.”

His face falls at that, and I immediately feel bad for the guilt trip.

“She is my sister, but she’s a big girl. She wanted me to come after you. She wanted me to go.”

“But the company . . . they’ll eat her alive.”

“She can fight back. She will fight back.”

“But . . .”

“I know,” he says with a sigh, running his hand down his face, “but it is what it is. And I don’t think she’s as alone there as you think.”

“But this way they win. You could take over, protect your family name.”

“Like it or not, the family name is Dumont. If Gautier wants to ruin it or make it rise into the next century by adapting to the times, that’s on him. It’s not on me. Look, I am not cut out for it. Maybe I was at some point, but I’m damn good at what I do now, and I like it. And I think cutting my ties with Paris for the time being might be the best idea I’ve ever had. Didn’t you feel the same way when you left here?”

I nod slowly. I guess Olivier’s only worked and worked and worked. Maybe this is his time to be someone else.

“I didn’t like the person I was in Paris, and it wouldn’t have gotten any better, only worse,” he says. “You know it. We had the odds against us the moment we stepped foot in the city; we were never able to capture what we had at the beginning.”

“Don’t all relationships go that way?”

“Maybe if you accept it and give up on them. But I’m not going to give up on us. I’m not going to give up on you. We deserve better than that, mon lapin.”

I’m smiling and crying all at once, floored by happiness, my body shaking from the transition from pure heartbreak to fear to suddenly having everything I ever wanted.

“And,” Olivier goes on, “I hope you’ll come with me. To California. Maybe you could finish your studies in San Francisco. Or do whatever you choose to do. I just want you with me for every single step of this new life.”