Ice Steam (Loving All Wrong #3)

by S. Ann Cole

  Davian’s love hurt, it made me depraved, desperate and weak, his love was a depressing poem, a sorrowful ode, a tale with no fairy blowing glittery dusts of happiness.

  Standing outside the airport looking lost with my luggage, I figured I probably should have replied to Xavier’s email to let him know the invite was accepted. Maybe he hadn’t bothered sending anyone to pick me up because he thought I wasn’t coming.

  Just as I was about to take out my cell and ring him, a silver Renault Koleos cruised to a stop right at the Pedestrian crossing where I stood.

  Although the windows were tinted, somehow, I knew it was him, and I instantly began wheeling my suitcase toward the glistening SUV as the driver’s door opened.

  My eyes were drawn to his shoulders first. Broad, even, stalwart, like a wall that couldn’t be scaled, couldn’t be broken through, not even with a wrecking ball, the bridge that held the entire strength of him. His shoulders.

  Only when his pectorals were in direct alignment with my eyes, did I realize I had stopped walking and was just staring.

  My gaze finally drifted up to his face to find him watching me in that concentrated way he usually did whenever he was trying to read me, gauge me, and kept running into a dead-end; like an old man struggling to read without his glasses, his eyes would squint, his thick lashes crowding together, and one side of his bottom lip would be sucked into his mouth, while the pink tip of his tongue flirted with the other corner of his mouth.

  I could imagine him having that exact expression as a boy back in school when concentrating hard to work out a trigonometry equation.

  A black hoodie was drawn over his head, and his facial hair, which looked as if he hadn’t shaved in weeks, almost transformed him into a hobo. A hot, freakishly large and well-built hobo.

  Wordlessly, he relieved me of my handbag and my suitcase, then turned and trod back to the Renault.

  No hug. No kiss. No “thanks for coming”. No “I missed you”. No…nothing.

  Hands dangling empty and useless at my sides, I followed him to the vehicle, watched him dump my luggage into the back and return to the driver’s seat without so much as a side glance at me.

  I stood staring at the vehicle for a while, debating whether I should address his behavior or play it cool for now. Then I remembered how this trip would end, what I’d be doing to his heart, and decided to go with the latter.

  Meek and without attitude, I opened the passenger door and climbed in. He’d already had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear stick, so I’d barely gotten the door closed before he was driving off.

  Deciding not to address that either, I looked out the window instead, waiting for him to simmer down and go back to being the man who made me feel like the only girl in the world. Right now, his actions were like someone annoyed at having to pick up their family member or a helpless friend from the airport.

  Definitely not like I was his “Chino”.

  In contrast to the hustle and bustle at LAX, Rennes Airport was a little on the quiet side, with very few people milling in and out. Brittany was nine hours ahead of L.A., so although it would be dark back home right now, it was gorgeous dusk here.

  We drove in piercing silence for over twenty minutes, but the tension and lack of conversation between us made it feel like hours, until he tried to put us out of our misery by switching music on.

  I wish he hadn’t. I wished he’d just let the silence deafen me. Because the song he chose, Blue October’s Not Broken Anymore, nearly killed me.

  Gravel crunched under the tires as Xavier revved up a steep, rocky hill toward a stone-house at the summit, surrounded with lush green trees, shrubs, and flamboyant plants.

  Once we reached the top, the rockiness leveled out and it didn’t feel half as precarious as it seemed from below looking up.

  The house was one long L, with doors I was positive someone of Xavier’s height had to bend a little to get through. Blue wooden window shutters and terracotta roof with plants through the tiles. To the right, was an old water well used as a garden piece with blooming potted plants lined around its rims and hanging from a weathered, but sturdy, wooden roof.

  There was an old-world, romantic feel to the place, and I resisted the urge to jump up and down like a silly kid, excited to be spending my weekend at this gorgeous place. So much better than Santa Barbara would have been.

  Xavier hefted my luggage from the SUV, while I did a full three-sixty in front of the house, with my arms spread wide and a fantastical grin on my face like Giselle from Enchanted.

  As I ended my Disney world twirl, I found Xavier standing still with my luggage, watching me with a hint of a smile on his lips. “Wanna see the back?”

  At my eager nod and broad smile, he set my handbag on the hood of the vehicle and abandoned the suitcase, came over to me, clasped my hand and led me in the direction of the water well. We rounded the well and ended up on a worn pathway curving around the L of the house, leading us straight to the back…and it was heaven.

  Roses! Everywhere! Beautiful, lush, radiant roses on going on and on, on a long stretch of land. Red, white, yellow and pink. Their fresh, inky odor permeating the air.

  “Wow,” I whispered.

  “Was Mom’s hobby,” Xavier offered. “Liked gardening. Loved pruning roses. After Dad’s demand to move back here and I came to repurchase the house, the couple who was living here had gotten rid of the garden and was expanding the house. They didn’t wanna give it up. Had to offer two times what this place is worth to get it back. Knocked down their added construction, hired a live-in gardener to rebuild Mom’s garden so that by the time Dad moved back here it would be like nothing had changed. That cottage down to the edge,”—He pointed to a small stone building that could pass for a one-bed apartment—“gardener lives there free of charge. To keep this garden alive, for Dad.”

  He was such a good son to his father, enabling him instead of telling the old man to wake up and smell the roses—no pun intended. But if he was content dwelling in the past, why take that away from him, right? If that was his only way of making it through each day, I’d be enabling him, too. I’d rather have a deluded father than no father at all…

  To stop my train of thoughts from straying to my nonexistent parents, I unclasped my hand from Xavier’s and started down a narrow pathway between the rows upon rows of roses, holding my palm out above them so the soft petals could caress my lifeline. I could hear the rush and roar of the ocean from somewhere, and I squinted through a light fog that was starting to form as the evening grew darker. “What’s down there?”

  “A cliff you don’t wanna fall off of.”

  Both of us couldn’t fit side by side on the narrow path, so he was walking behind me, hands gently holding my hips as they swayed with each step. We trekked down to the end of the rose garden, which opened up to verdant green field, that grew patchy and littered with pebbles as we reached the end of the land—that was now a pointy cliff overlooking a rather wild, rough ocean, crashing violently upon jagged rocks.

  Taking his hands on my hips, I pulled them fully around me, and his chest slammed up behind me with the action. Leaning my head back on him, I murmured, “The ocean is really angry.”

  He said nothing, and I wiggled my ass against him, fishing for an erection, a hardening, a twitch….and got nothing. I made another comment about the view, how breathtaking it was. But again, he said nothing.

  He offered up no more tales of the past, or even lowered his head to nuzzle my neck, kiss the top of my head…nothing. I might as well be leaning back against a wall he was so still and lifeless.

  As wordless minutes ticked by, the ocean a loud, threatening roar so far below, abusing the hell out of the rocks that were so harmless against its attacks, I wondered if the only reason Xavier was still behind me was because I was holding his hands there, forcing him against his will.

  I decided to let his hands go and see what he woul
d do, if he would keep his arms around me, remove them and stuff them in his pockets, or shove me over the cliff and smirk as I fell to my death.

  When I let his hands go, pretending to brush my hair from my face, his arms remained around me for all of six seconds before he removed them.

  I released a disheartening sigh. Disheartened at his lack of arousal, and his lack of desire to hold me.

  The Xavier I knew and loved would have a hard-on at the very sight of me. The Xavier I knew and loved would have his hands all over me after not seeing me for so long, and would most likely have me bent over the edge of this cliff, pounding into me.

  This Xavier was different, distant, detached. Old Xavier was present for about ten minutes as he told me about the garden and held my hips. But the moment I touched him, he switched off. As though I didn’t have the right to touch him like that.

  Something was up.

  And I got the feeling this trip would be ending on a rockier note than I’d prepared for. Maybe I wouldn’t be the one to break up with him. Maybe he knew something and called me here to chew my heart up in person.

  When I turned to look at him, his hands were fisted in the pockets of his hood, eyes narrowed out at the ocean.

  “We should go inside,” he told the wild winds. “Chloe baked for you.”

  I assumed Chloe was the housemaid.

  As he spun and swiftly walked off without me, I lamely followed him back to the front of the house, where he picked up my luggage and beckoned me inside.

  Like I had guessed, he had to dip his head a little to get through the door, but once inside, the ceilings were oddly high, with exposed beams and stonework. Cozy, warm decor, with weathered, antiquated furniture—possibly custom-made for Xavier’s father. Aromas of fresh bread, sweet pastries and melted cheese danced on the air, and my stomach growled.

  Xavier disappeared around a corner with my luggage, leaving me in the middle of a large living room, and a tall, remarkably pretty and surprisingly young blonde emerged from an archway on the left, pulling a floury blue apron over her head.

  “Ah, Alina, zu hag arrived zafely.” Tossing the apron over her shoulder, she bounced right up to me and hugged me, tight, like I was an old college friend she hadn’t seen in a while.

  And as she drew back from the embrace, all I could do was stare at her. She was so pretty, and young for a housemaid. No older than twenty-five. Why was she so young? Were all French housemaids this young and attractive?

  What was even more freakish was how starkly she resembled Xavier and Xena: same superbly long, wavy blond hair, gray eyes—not as dazzling as theirs—and same ridiculous beauty.

  “You’re Chloe, right?” I asked without a smile. Jealousy clawed at my insides as images of Xavier screwing her all over this stone house while she baked sweet French pastries for him flooded my mind.

  She nodded, giving me a toothy smile. “Xavier zoesn’t lie. Zu arg like magique!”

  Maybe he brought me here to rub her in my face, to break up with me at the end of the trip and let me know he was moving on with her. Maybe—

  Xavier thudded back into the living room without his hoodie, wearing a white wife-beater now, his taut nipples pushing against the tight stretch of fabric. “You’ve met Chloe.” He walked over to her and kissed her temple, bestowing her with an adoring smile. “She takes care of this place and my old man.”

  Chloe’s cheeks were suddenly as red as the roses outside, her gaze drifting to the floor, her neck coloring, her breathing getting a little audible.

  Xavier didn’t seem aware of this, but I was. I was all too familiar with what being near Xavier Xander could do to a woman’s brain, speech, and respiratory system.

  No doubt about it, he made Chloe nervous.

  Quickly mumbling something with a lot of Zs, she scurried back through the archway.

  “Does she take care of you, too?” I asked him, crossing my arms.

  He opened his mouth as if to give me an innocent “yes”, but then stopped and narrowed his gaze on me. “That mean what I think it means?”

  “Why does she look like that?” Uncrossing my arms, I fought the raging urge to stomp my foot. “She’s a housemaid. Housemaids don’t look like that!”

  Xavier, all of a sudden, looked amused. “You jealous?”

  “Is that a trick question?”

  Closing the distance between us, he opened his palms and covered my breasts—in a tentative, clinical way a nerdy virgin boy would touch a girl’s boobs for the first time. And with his hands fixed on my tits, like they were a buoy keeping him afloat, he said, “Chloe’s job is to take care of the house and to tend to Dad’s needs.” His eyes latched to mine. “All his needs.”

  As my mouth formed into an O at the comprehension, he went on, “He prefers busting his load in young French chicks who look like Mom. Chloe looks like Mom. A year ago it was Britney. Whenever he starts showing signs of boredom or relapsing into his madness, I change them. But Chloe’s lasted the longest. Guessing she’s a keeper.”

  “And you haven’t slept with her?” I pressed. “She obviously has the hots for you.”

  Closing his eyes, he bumped his forehead to mine. “Haven’t slept with anyone since I met you, Chino.”

  At the burning expectancy of his lips touching mine, his tongue slipping into my mouth, I bowed into him, curling two fingers into the loop of his jeans. But the kiss never came.

  Instead, he pulled away.

  I started to ask, “Xavi, is there somethi—”

  But he cut me off, tugging my arm. “Dad’s dying to meet you. C’mon.”

  Before I could utter another word, he pulled me along through the archway that led into a long kitchen, then straight through a plank door that led out to the side of the house—a cool, prosperous sitting garden that wasn’t visible either from the front or back of the house.

  Beneath an enormous tree was an octagon-shaped wooden table with a giant loaf of bread that looked fresh out of the oven, an assortment of cheeses, white grapes, cherry tomatoes, and red wine. A type of setting apt for afternoons, not when the sun was calling it quits for the day.

  “This is supposed to be supper?” I whispered to Xavier.

  He chuckled. “Dad never cares what time of the day it is. He wants what he wants when he wants it. Will drive you out for dinner later…if you want.”

  Of course I want, you complicated douchenizit!

  The man sitting at the table mumbling to himself had dark hair, not blond. And as Xavier and I edged around the table, catching his attention, I noticed he had brown eyes, an upturn nose, and thin lips. Handsome, yes, but he looked absolutely nothing like Xena or Xavier.

  When he saw me, his eyes lit up and he quickly stood, his hands going up in defense mode. “I know, I know. Young Xander looks nothing like me, and every bit like his beautiful, gorgeous angel of a mother.”

  He tipped his head to an empty chair at the table and smiled fondly at it. And I wondered for a brief moment what was so special about a chair made from Eucalyptus wood.

  Offering me his hand, he said through a grin, “Nice to finally meet the woman. The woman powerful enough to put that look in my son’s eyes. To send him running home to his pa, wailing ‘love is beautiful and it hurts!’” He turned his face up to the tree leaves. “Love! Is beautiful! And. It hurts!”

  Twinkling lights suddenly flashed on, wrapping in brilliant sparkles around the tree trunk all the way up to the thick branches. And at the suddenness of it all, I jumped out of my skin, spinning and looking around with wide eyes, wondering what the hell was happening, expecting to see explosions of fireworks and a spraying fountain next. The entire garden was lit up with sparkling lights and lanterns hanging from the trees. Beautiful.

  Hearing a stifling sound, I turned back around and glanced up at Xavier. His shoulders were shaking, uncontrollably, but his lips were folded and his face contorted as he fought to hold in his laugh. “Getting dark,
Chino. Chloe just turned on the outside lights.”

  “I…he just shouted and then…lights just…I didn’t…”

  Losing the battle with his laughter, Xavier burst out laughing full on at me now, and I wanted to punch him so hard, but knew only my knuckles would feel the pain.

  Instead, I took his father’s hand and shook. “Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Xander.”

  “Call me Mick,” he said, grin still in place. His voice was deep, but coarse, like that of a smoker’s.

  Although Xavier didn’t have his looks, he decidedly had his build. He had the same intimidating height and was far more robust than Xavier.

  Releasing my hand, he once again gestured to the empty chair. “And this is my lovely wife, Aline.”

  Two things struck me speechless for a brief moment: the fact that Mick was seeing his dead wife’s ghost, and the fact that her name was Aline. Only a single vowel making a difference. Like a single vowel making a difference between Live and Love.

  With a hesitant smile that made me feel as insane as the man across the table, I waved at the empty chair and murmured, “N-nice to meet you, Mrs. Xander.”

  Mick gave his son a pointed look, like that’s all he’d needed to hear, and Xavier averted his gaze, pulling out a chair for me to sit.

  Why hadn’t he told me his mother’s name was so close to mine? Was that the reason he almost never called me by my real name? It was kind of creepy, yeah, but in some weird way, it made me feel like we had an even deeper connection. Fate, maybe?

  This rested on my mind for the full hour that we ate and chatted under the tree.

  Mick dominated the entire conversation, giving us old tales of the past, ones I was sure Xavier had heard a zillion times over, seeing as he kept spacing out.

  He had cut my bread and cheese for me, poured my wine, fed me grapes, but he hadn’t eaten a single bite. And his disregard for the wine seemed substantial evidence that he hadn’t relapsed—either that or he was really good at faking sobriety.