When I'm with You (Because You Are Mine #2)(10)

Lucien blinked. “That’s wonderful.”

“You’re surprised, aren’t you,” Ian stated, studying him from beneath a brooding brow.

“No. I know how much you two love each other. It’s a wonderful thing to witness, seeing you and Francesca together.” He didn’t flinch under Ian’s laser-like stare.

“You’re telling the truth, but still . . . you doubt that I could make a commitment like that. Deep down, you thought you and I were alike in that way.”

Lucien grinned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Ian gave him a droll glance and stood, pacing in front of the desk and reminding Lucien very much of a trapped tiger. “We both like women, but neither of us has ever been the settling type. What about that woman—Zoe Charon? You were serious about her last year. But when her manager offered her a promotion in Minneapolis you let her go without a second glance.”

“That’s not true. I glanced.”

Ian gave him a skeptical look, but Lucien didn’t blanch. He had hesitated about letting Zoe Charon walk away last winter. He’d liked her a lot. But in the end, there was always an unavoidable rift between him and intimacy. Now more than ever.

“What has my past experience with women got to do with the fact that you’re considering asking Francesca to marry you?” Lucien wondered.

“Nothing, of course,” Ian said. He unbuttoned his suit jacket, fell again into one of the chairs, and crossed long legs. “It’s just that . . . I have never once in my life considered myself to be the marrying type. I’d assumed the same thing about you. Perhaps I was wrong?”

“No, you weren’t,” Lucien replied. “But again, I hardly see how my preferences—or shortcomings as a man—apply to you.”

“Because I have more shortcomings.”

“You worry that you can’t be faithful to Francesca?”

“No,” Ian responded grimly. “It’s not that at all. She’s everything I want. Another woman would never do, now that I’ve touched Francesca.”

Lucien experienced a flicker of envy.

“I don’t understand your hesitance, then. If you know you can be faithful to Francesca, what’s the problem?”

Ian grimaced and glanced away. Lucien sensed his hesitation . . . his bitterness. “I feel that I might poison her somehow after a lifetime of association with me. I thought you might understand. I know how ashamed you are of what your father did, of his crimes. I, too, have a sort of . . . taint on me that I feel I can’t make disappear. It’s in my blood,” he added irritably, glancing at Lucien. “I know. I realize how melodramatic I sound. But Francesca is so . . .”

“Fresh. Genuine. Lovely,” Lucien supplied when Ian faded off.

“She is light itself. And I’m not.”

For a second, neither of them spoke as Lucien absorbed Ian’s words. A powerful kinship with the other man rose in him, an amplification of a connection that neither of them spoke of but seemed to mutually sense from their first meeting. They shared dark souls, stained from the moment they first drew breath in this world.

“I just feel that if Francesca and I marry, no matter how happy we are, a dark cloud hovers on the horizon. My decision to bind her to me could change things, open up”—Ian paused as if trying to find the words—“un sac de nœuds.”

Lucien smiled sadly at the French phrase—a sack of knots. He thought of Elise out there in the kitchen. He sighed resignedly. Well, sometimes there was nothing for it. Knots must be untied, one by one, no matter how intimidating the task. He would not back down from his personal sac de nœuds now that it’d been shoved in his face so provocatively by gorgeously packaged trouble.

“Who isn’t afraid of the future when making such an important decision?” Lucien asked quietly. “You must believe in yourself and your ability to make your own fate. Everything else is bowing down to fear.”

A strange look came over Ian’s fierce expression, a distant light dawning in shadow. “You think it’s just a matter of cold feet then?”

“I do. You must trust in yourself. You must trust in Francesca.”

Ian’s glance was like a blue-skied storm. “In Francesca, I have complete trust.”

In myself, I have precious little.

Lucien remained seated as his friend gave his thanks and left the room, the unsaid words ringing like a familiar echo in his head, the voice his own—not Ian’s.

* * *

The lunch rush had died out by the time the elegantly dressed woman who had introduced herself as Sharon Aiken entered the kitchen.

“Lucien has asked to see you in his office, Ms. Martin.”

Elise paused in the process of arranging vegetables on a plate of grilled shrimp and pearl couscous.

“Can’t it wait?” she asked warily. She’d been expecting the summons from his royal highness, but that didn’t make hearing it now any easier.

“Lucien says Evan can finish up for you. There’s only one table left to serve. He says for you to report to him immediately. He has a polo match later this afternoon, and he wants to speak with you before you become involved in the dinner prep.”

“Of course,” Elise said, taking pains to keep her voice cool and professional when she noticed the pointed curiosity in Sharon’s expression. Obviously Lucien had warned the manager that Elise might try to wriggle out of a meeting with him.