When I'm with You (Because You Are Mine #2)(23)
He shook his head. “You breathe improper, Elise. You could make taking out the garbage an X-rated affair.”
Her breath stuck and burned in her lungs when she saw the heat in his gray eyes.
Did she really know what she was doing, putting herself at risk with Lucien Sauvage?
She stilled, the question evaporating from her brain, when he reached up and carefully wiped juice off her chin.
They loaded all their purchases in the largest black pickup truck she’d ever seen. “These Americans do everything so big,” she muttered as she helped him close the tailgate. She could just imagine what she was going to look like trying to peer over the dashboard of the enormous truck when she took over marketing next Saturday. The brutish truck hardly compared to the Bugatti Veyron she used to fly around Paris in. Oh well. At least she’d earned the right to climb behind the wheel of the behemoth vehicle. She’d never done any such thing for the cars her father gave her.
Lucien checked the platinum watch on his wrist. “Come on, we have time before the lunch preparations. I’ll take you for something else the Americans do big.”
“What?” she asked, her heartbeat escalating when he took her hand in his.
“You’ll see,” Lucien said elusively.
She gave him a doubtful look when he led her to a small restaurant nestled innocuously among expensive Gold Coast town houses.
“The House of Pancakes?” she asked dubiously.
Lucien just smiled knowingly and led her inside. The delicious aromas of ham and maple syrup made her mouth water.
“Is there a party going on?” she asked, bemused as she took in the crowded restaurant and rambunctious atmosphere.
“No. This is a typical Saturday or Sunday morning here. The Americans love weekend breakfast. It’s an occasion for them,” Lucien explained quietly before the hostess greeted them cheerfully and seated them at a small Formica-topped table.
“Look at all the families . . . the friends,” Elise said, examining the diverse crowd, everyone talking amiably or diving into mounds of syrup-drenched pancakes or fluffy omelets. In France, breakfast consisted of coffee and a croissant and was hardly an occasion. The first meal of the day was the least important, and definitely the least social, in her opinion.
She opened the plastic-covered menu and stared in wonder at page upon page of decadently rich food. Lucien must have noticed her amazement because he was smiling when she looked up.
“It’s like culinary Disneyland.”
“I’m always telling people, when it comes to cooking, the Americans do one thing like no other: weekend breakfast. Look at them,” he murmured. He grabbed her hand on the tabletop in a gesture that seemed entirely natural on his part but made her heart jump. She followed his gaze.
“And people say Americans will never understand the true meaning of a French meal,” he murmured under his breath to her, eyeing the tables of happily relaxed people, friends and families talking about their week in a non-pressured manner while they sipped steaming coffee or indulged in a doctor-prohibited meal for one precious moment during a busy week. She saw a teenage boy showing his dubious but interested grandfather something on his iPad, a man reading his International Business Times while his female companion perused a self-help book, their hands held fast on the Formica tabletop. Kids colored on the restaurant-supplied kid’s menu, looking adorably like they’d just rolled out of bed with uncombed hair and sweatpants, shorts, and occasionally even pajama bottoms.
“I find,” Lucien said quietly across the table, “they’re at their best at breakfast.”
She looked at him and they shared a smile.
“I admire the chef,” she said.
Lucien chuckled. “I imagine it’s more of a cook than a chef. It hardly compares to the complexity and nuance of what you do.”
“Thank you, but I meant I admire him because he gets to bring all these people together. These families,” she added, once again studying all the relaxed, happy people with longing. “You miss having family around, don’t you?”
“I miss having a family. Period.” She was surprised when he reached across the table and squeezed her hand. She saw something in his eyes—something she understood all too well.
We are alike, you and I. Both alone. Both misfits.
But not alone when we’re together, she added in her head. A powerful feeling swelled in her chest.
“How is your father?” he asked quietly.
She grimaced. “He’s growing more stubborn in his old age.”
“He always could have used being a bit more stubborn when it came to you,” Lucien said with dry amusement.
Elise rolled her eyes, even though she actually thought Lucien was right. She hadn’t minded half as much as she thought she would have when her father cut her off financially. Maybe part of her had been waiting for someone in her life to show a little backbone; although, when it came to her father, she suspected he wouldn’t hold out if she begged him hard enough. She’d just been tired, too worn out to exhibit the required amount of wheedling and bargaining to get him to relent.
“Other than his newfound cantankerous streak, he’s much the same as always. Still gay, and pretending to all the world that he’s the Heterosexual Bull of All of Europe.” She saw Lucien’s small smile and matched it sadly. “Bless his heart. If only he realized it wouldn’t matter a bit to most of us. It hasn’t mattered to those closest to him for forever, if only he’d step outside of his brilliant head for a moment and notice. Although if he declared himself, my mother would be lost. How could she possibly justify all her affairs then?”