I might not be Zeke’s pretend girlfriend very long. He might even beat his four-day record with me. Less than twenty-four hours before he put me on a plane back to New York.
Riding on his motorcycle was no less exciting the second time. We arrived at a boutique that didn’t look open when we pulled up, but was remarkably available the second we arrived at the door. I shot Zeke a look. He’d clearly arranged this.
I steeled my spine and ignored whatever look he was sending me as he handed his credit card to the saleswoman and told her something in French. I knew how to do this. I’d bought a lot of clothing in my life, and it wasn’t going to take long to figure out what I needed. All of it would be expensive, even the casual wear would be fancy in its own way, and I’d look exactly like I needed to by the time I walked out of this place.
Without waiting for her to say anything to me, I strode to the back. Better to just get this over with. I had a role to play, and I was going to do it. As fast as I possibly could.
Zeke looked up from his phone when I exited. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, I’m just done. All taken care of.” I shrugged. “Are we going to bring all of it back on your motorcycle?”
“No.” He rose. “They’ll deliver it later today. That didn’t take very long. I thought we’d be here quite a bit longer.”
Maybe for someone else. It would be fun to be let loose in a clothing boutique with women fawning over them, everything they could dream of presented to them. For me, it was a regular ritual. I knew what I needed, how to get it, what would fit and what wouldn’t. I didn’t want anything I didn’t need and none of it was fun.
“Guess I’m fast.”
He put his hand on the side of my face, cupping my cheek. “You’re not happy. Did they not have the things that you want? This place is always being talked about. I thought…”
I placed my own over his. It was a strange but also beautiful moment. No one touched me like this. There was an intimacy to the act that he hadn’t earned, and yet I wouldn’t have had him drop his hand for anything in the world. “I don’t like clothes. They’re a necessity. I have to look like I’m supposed to look. But it’s not…”
I couldn’t finish that sentence because I really didn’t know how to explain it. Shopping did nothing for me. That wasn’t what I wanted out of life.
The salespeople were staring at us. I could feel it. That icky, creepy-crawly feeling on the back of my neck. They’d been nice enough, but now they were vultures wanting to chew up this moment by just looking at it with their uninvited eyes.
“Try. Tell me what you mean.”
I swallowed. “Why?”
“Because I want to know.”
That was hardly a reason. I didn’t owe him access to my soul, to my inner thoughts, or insecurities. I’d not promised him any of that. Yet, I wanted to tell him because he asked, because he was the first person to ever do so.
“We’re not alone.”
He dropped his hand at my words, and I let him go. “Okay, Layla. I’ll take you at your word. You got what you needed. Come on. Let’s go do something fun.”
His phone dinged, and he grabbed it, looking down. “It’s Michael Li getting back to me about your security. Outside.” I followed him until we both stood next to his motorcycle.
“I’m here with her now,” Zeke told Michael. I was only hearing bits and pieces of their conversation over the noise on the street. “Yep. No. Do I need to be worried?”
I touched the seat on his motorcycle. He wanted to do something fun. I’d be up for riding in circles all day at high speeds, feeling the wind and letting him drive and drive, until we were both so tired, I couldn’t see straight for it. That wasn’t likely. He had to work tonight, entertain clients, and I had to go with him and wear the gold dress I’d picked out.
Zeke swung around. “No immediate threats that they’re worried about. Just the constant problem of your father owing money to people he should never have gotten into bed with to begin with. But that’s not new. He had to move you every two years because of that your whole life. If something changes, Li will send security on my request and your father can screw himself if he tries to stop that. Michael might have done it anyway and damned the consequences. I think he’s likely to go one of these days anyway. Start his own firm.”
That was interesting. I’d never thought of Michael as being part of the company. He was like a separate entity altogether, but I guessed he was. Like I was. Like Zeke was. It was that place that connected us, that brought us all together.
“I promised you fun.”
I smiled at him. “Fun is such an arbitrary word. For example, you seem to find eating to be a lot of fun. I don’t think of it that way.”
“Ah, but you will.” His smile was contagious, so I gave him one back. “We’re in France. You can’t help but fall in love with food here. Give it time. You’ll be actually hungry when it’s time for a meal one of these days.”
I groaned. “You want me to fit in those clothes you just bought me, right?”
“I’ll buy you new ones. I’d rather have you fed than fashionable.”
That went contrary to what we were actually doing together, but I loved it so hard, I pretended he could actually give a shit right then. I was choosing the delusion, and even knowing it was that, I liked it. When Zeke was this way, it was easy to like him.
“So no more shopping. And I’m guessing you’re not going to want a spa day either.”
I didn’t mind them when I needed them, but I’d had my fill getting ready for my wedding. “I think I’m all pampered out, and my poor feet… No pedicure yet.”
“Got it. Then I have just the thing. Come on.” He handed me the helmet. My hair, thanks to the bun I kept putting up and taking down, was actually holding up pretty well despite the abuse from the helmet.
“Where are we going?” I took it from him.
“You’ll have to trust me.” He tilted his head. “Can you do that?”
Could I? I didn’t do so easily. “Why did you stay with my father so long when you knew he was doing things like getting into trouble with very bad men? Why didn’t you get out earlier?”
He leaned forward. “I’ve trusted you with the secret about my mom. You haven’t done that with me yet. Not really. What you’re asking me, it goes to the heart of a lot of things about me that I keep entirely to myself. You want to know? You’re going to have to earn it. I extended my hand, and you haven’t taken it yet.”
I swallowed. He meant what had happened in the store. The clothes and why I didn’t want them, didn’t like them, found the whole thing to be just…like going to the dentist. Trying on clothes was like pulling teeth for me. He wanted to know why.
“At some point, it became what I was known for. When I dropped out of college because, let’s face it, I didn’t belong there, fashion was decided as my thing. And at some point, it became all I was. But it’s not all I am. I don’t even like my clothes. I tell people to enjoy their style, to look their best as they are, and I’ve never, not one day in my life, looked like me. I don’t even know what it is but it’s not…shown up yet.”
Zeke set down his helmet on top of the bike. “So what you’re saying to me is that you think you’re a fraud, and clothes shopping only highlights that for you.”
He’d hit the nail on the head. “Yes.”
“They really fucked you up, Layla Radford. But that’s okay. All the best people I know are totally bent in the head.”
I didn’t see how that was a reasonable response to what I’d just said to him. I told him I basically felt like getting dressed was participating in some kind of fraudulent activity and that was his response?
“Zeke…”
He kissed me. I didn’t see it coming, and I wasn’t sure he’d planned it. One second, he stood next to me, and the next he drew me to him hard and kissed my lips gently, a stark contrast to the way he held me still. I closed my eyes, totally surprised by the caress as I gave
myself over to it at the same time.
Zeke pressed his mouth deeper, and I wanted it to never stop. My body seemed to come alive. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never been kissed like this before, so unplanned, so spontaneously, and my breasts hardened in the seconds that he held me.
He pulled back, smoothing his thumb over my mouth. “You’re so young. I need to leave you alone.”
If he’d dumped cold water over my head, he couldn’t have destroyed that second any better. “I was going to be someone’s wife. I’m not that young, I assure you.”
“Even if you were waking up as Mrs. Kit Allard this morning, you’d still be young. Too young for me. I don’t do love and romance. I do temporary. Heat. Sex. Fun. You’re living with me until we get this sorted. I won’t be another man who fucks up your life.”
Now wasn’t the time for an argument. I knew enough to know that I wanted Zeke to do those things with me, and I was going to have to convince him when his guard wasn’t as up as he’d just placed it.
That kiss had shown me I wanted more. And maybe for now, the best thing I could do was to have no-consequence sex with the only man I’d ever wanted to have it with.
Chapter Ten
I got what I’d wished for, and for a while, Zeke drove me around Paris on his motorcycle. While we’d never lived in Paris, I had been here many times. Still, I’d never seen it from the back of a motorcycle, clinging to a man who had kissed me into plotting how I could have sex with him in the future. At no time did it feel like I had ants crawling on me or any other upsetting feeling.
We were two people wearing helmets, darting around traffic, and enjoying the heck out of the pleasant weather. No one knew us in those moments, and for just a little bit, I wondered if I was getting to know myself better. I was a woman who liked the wind to hit her body at high speeds, to depend on someone else for my safety, and to try something new on a Sunday that she’d never done before. These were all things I hadn’t realized when I woke up that morning.
Eventually, we stopped, and I let my feet ache a little bit while we walked around Montmartre, admiring the work of the artists. Or at least I was. Zeke could go quiet for periods of time, and while I didn’t find it unnerving, I did have to wonder what it was that would catch his attention and hold him so quiet. I’d shared with him, and he had yet to answer my earlier question.
I didn’t want to ruin this time by asking again. I would, it was important I understood, both for myself and for the sheer curiosity because he knew things about my life I didn’t know. My dad got into trouble, and that was why we’d had to leave? Why didn’t I know that?
Why hadn’t I asked?
I stopped to admire the work of one artist who did his in pencil and charcoal. It was a dramatic effect and different than the others I’d been looking at. When he spoke to me, I smiled. It was really the only thing I could do when this happened. I’d not been traveling that much lately, and I’d not asked myself why, but maybe it had to do with this problem. I hated not understanding.
“He wants to know if you want your portrait done. He says it would be a gift to his pencil to sketch you.”
Zeke translated for him before answering the man. I wondered how many times he’d had to already tell people I just didn’t get what they were saying to me. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if I hadn’t tried to learn, if I’d never made the attempt. Most people probably thought that. I hadn’t studied French, fine. But I had tried. And Spanish. German. Chinese. All of them had been a sad failure, with the schools suggesting to my father he get me tested for one thing or another. He never did, and the Fs didn’t matter because he’d paid to get me into school anyway, where I had promptly failed. Again.
Strangers didn’t know all of this, but I did, and it was a constant bang in my head to try to deal with it. Better to just stay home.
“Well, I’ll do it if you’ll do it.”
No way was Ezekiel Scott going to sit still and let the artist sketch him. There was no way. He smiled at me. “One thing you should know, while I’m not a jackass about it, I do find it difficult to resist a real challenge when it’s presented to me. Like I’m not going to jump off the Eiffel Tower. That’s stupid. But show you that I will absolutely get my portrait done? Sure. I’ll do it. If you do it with me.”
I turned to look at him straight on. “Okay.”
He said something to the artist, and there we were, seated together, letting a stranger try to capture us in that moment.
“Hold on,” Zeke said before he must have repeated it to the gentleman who was going to try to sketch us. He was older, with a beard and a kind smile.
Zeke moved us until I sat in his lap, with his chin on my shoulder. With the sun behind us and Paris looking as beautiful as I’d ever seen it, we stayed very still and let the man with all the talent attempt to capture us.
Eventually, he said something that made Zeke groan and laugh.
“Something funny happening between the two of you that you want to share?” I was going to get a leg cramp if I didn’t move soon, so if there was something ridiculous going on that I should know about, it would really be great to hear about it so I could join in the fun.
“He said you’re incredibly sexy. And that he doesn’t know how I can sit here like this for so long without finding myself in trouble.”
I rolled my eyes. Neither one of them had said that. I was sure of it. But if they didn’t want to share, I wasn’t going to push it. “It’s hard to never know what people are saying. You could be making fun of me all over Paris.”
Zeke pressed his nose against my neck, breathing in audibly. “I would never make fun of you to other people. Or let anyone make fun of you.”
To other people? “You don’t mind making fun of me yourself?”
“That’s just between us. And I know, we’re too quick for there to be an us. But that’s the only way I do this. Fast. Quick burn. Then it’s over. No one is hurt because everyone understands. I can promise you that while other things might change between us, the making fun of you won’t ever.”
I’d wanted his guard down, and I was pretty sure I’d gotten it. He wasn’t thinking about all the reasons he shouldn’t be with me right now. He was thinking about the fact that I’d been sitting in his lap for a length of time pressed up against his body.
“I just got out of a relationship that left me…very unsatisfied.”
I wasn’t good at this, and I was sort of winging it. Bridget always seemed to be able to get men to do what she wanted. For these moments, I was going to pretend I knew how to do this, too.
He lifted his head to whisper in my ear. “How so?”
“Kit didn’t really know what he was doing. Do you?”
His laugh was low, and it moved right through me. “Young men in their early twenties never know what they’re doing. That comes with experience, and getting your cock to behave and wait its turn.”
I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation. It was a good thing the picture was going to be in black and white, because I was sure I was red as a beet. “Zeke…”
The artist finished, effectively shutting me up before I told him I wanted him to take me back to his home and fuck me all the ways he knew how. Instead, we got up, and he paid the man as I stared at the rendition.
Pressed up against each other, we both stared at the artist in the sketch with distant eyes. Zeke looked almost angry, and I was lost. While others surrounded and complimented the work, I didn’t love it. Not in the least. Was that how I appeared to strangers? With the distant, unconnected gaze that seemed like it didn’t really look at anything? And Zeke, what had been making him so angry in that second?
He stepped next to me and looked down at it. “Where should we put it?”
Didn’t he see what I did? Wasn’t he disturbed by how we’d been captured? Apparently not. The artist took it and rolled it up, placing it in a container and handing it back to Zeke, who took it from him before he wrapped his arm around m
y shoulder.
Someone shrieked, and the ants crawled on my neck, rushing around like they were having a party. This one was going to be bad.
“What is it?” Zeke asked me three seconds before the teenagers arrived. They surrounded me and spoke so fast, I couldn’t even guess what language they were speaking, but they knew me, and they were really excited.
It must not have been French, because Zeke didn’t answer them. Instead, after a few moments of this with one of them trying to grab me and none of them taking my smile and good-natured nods to mean I didn’t like what was happening, he tugged my hand and yanked me out of there, elbowing his way through the crowd.
We hustled away, eventually losing them down a small street where we darted inside the first open door we saw to wait them out. Five teenage girls. Wow. They could be pushy.
“Sorry.” I sat down fast, fanning myself. My feet hadn’t been up for the run, but since I’d caused it, I was hardly going to complain.
“Not your fault.” He spoke to the waiter and then looked back at me. “How did it start?”
“When we were fourteen, we went out to a party. Someone was taking pictures, and we posed together. Looking back, it was sort of ridiculous that it got so much attention. We were fourteen-year-old girls, right? Bridget still had braces, Hope was wearing a headband, and I was… Well, anyway, for some reason, people really responded to that picture and we ended up in newspapers and magazines.”
When he didn’t respond, I kept speaking. “Then as social media did what it did, it really only got bigger, the interest in us. And Justin, of course, but it was different with him. He came out of the fascination with us. I guess we were rich, young, redheads. It was strange, but it did what it did. Eventually, we stopped fighting it.”
Redhead On The Run (RedHeads Book 1) Page 11
