Ménage Material [La Belle sans la Bete Ménages] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Akeroyd, Serena

  Her cheeks flushed, and had she been able to control the involuntary reaction, she certainly would have. The last thing she wanted was to be complimented on her tongue. Good God, the man was French. Surely, he realized her humor and her brain were the last things a woman wanted to be admired! Trust Devvy to pick the most complicated and least charming Frenchman in the country.

  Before she could do more than grumble at the thought, he was suddenly there. Right in front of her. No longer pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed, but five inches away. Touching distance. Her heart, the treacherous thing, started to pump like a piston at his proximity. There was something in his eyes, something that was the catalyst to her sudden arousal. She didn’t understand it and from the mention of this Alexei, she wasn’t sure she wanted to!

  “Alex knew you would be at that convention and directed me your way.”

  And just like that, her arousal disappeared. Vanished, without a trace. If anything, she felt slightly nauseated. “Alex,” she repeated blandly. From the depths of her desire for him came a torrent of fury. He might be taller than her but she didn’t give a damn. Index finger erect and ready to point, she jabbed him in the chest and stepped forward, urging him to step back if the pair of them weren’t to collide. “Just who the hell is Alex? Explain what’s happening now, or I’m leaving!”

  Even though he’d been preparing for this moment since he’d first proposed to Devvy, the timing of this ultimatum came as a shock to Sebastien.

  He had thought to introduce this topic over a long, evening meal. One where romance was in the air and Devvy was soft and relaxed after an afternoon spent between the sheets.

  He’d imagined countless ways of informing her of the truth behind their marriage, but he’d never thought she’d ask him if he was cheating on her. He’d never believed she’d be the one to bring the subject to a head.

  Was he relieved the truth was about to be revealed?

  He couldn’t deny that he was. After all, he and Alex had planned this for so long, had been waiting for her for over a decade. What they wanted was unorthodox. The pair of them knew that, and knew only a special woman would accept them and their desires.

  Bastien was certain they’d found her in Devvy.

  Gentle, warm, welcoming Devvy. With her big heart and big eyes, eyes so blue that they pierced a man’s soul and made him see himself for the true creature he was.

  She would be good for both of them. God knew Alex needed an extra something in his life. Something to live for aside from his science. Someone who could understand the dedication required in his scientific calling but would push him, make him expand his boundaries.

  Alex and Bastien had been together too long, had settled so comfortably into their roles that neither could change, for they were both stubborn men. They weren’t in a rut. Their relationship wasn’t stale, and they weren’t seeking outside help to kink things up a little, to add some spice. No, they accepted each other. Flaws and all.

  Just as Alex accepted that Bastien, in times of stress, would push himself to passing out on the treadmill, or bursting a blood vessel as he tried to lift weights as heavy as his own body, Bastien understood that his lover found the outside world to be one of chaos and disorder. In his apartment, the wide-open spaces, Alex was liberated, free.

  Devvy would change all that. She had slowly started to change him, and she’d do the same for Alex.

  When Bastien’s work caused him stress, the gym wasn’t his only port of call now. He’d find himself in Devvy’s lab, pleading for her soft but strong hands to work their magic on his shoulders or spine—he’d been heading there this very afternoon, but she’d popped into the bedroom before he’d had a chance.

  He could easily afford the best masseur in the land, could have him or her shipped in from whatever city they lived in just to tend to his needs when he required it. Instead, he preferred the hesitant and inexperienced but loving touch of his wife.

  He knew Devvy would break the patterns the two of them lived in. Alex would slowly find order in the chaos of the world, because Devvy would make him. Christ, in summer, she practically lived outside so if Alex wanted to get within an inch of her, he’d have to leave the house and venture out.

  Her garden was her source of peace, and Bastien had found himself out there more and more often. Because of her. In the evenings, he’d taken to looking out, finding his own brand of pleasure in the land, something that only happened because his wife had opened his eyes.

  No, change was definitely coming. And he embraced it, wholeheartedly.

  All that mattered was bringing Devvy, his orthodox and prim Devvy, around to their way of thinking. That meant he’d have to manipulate her, and the thought didn’t sit well with him. It would be worth it in the end, and he could sweeten the bitter taste in his mouth by saying that the end justified the means, but he loved Devvy, and didn’t want to have to manipulate her.

  Oh, he knew she believed he didn’t love her. She was a strange creature. So confident in herself as a scientist yet so unconfident in her position in his life. He hadn’t failed to notice that the house was exactly the same as it had been three years ago, before she’d moved in. There was no feminine stamp on any of the rooms. Only her own quarters had been altered to suit her tastes.

  She wavered in and out of his life, willing to step back so as not to crowd him for fear of annoying him, and he let her get away with it. It wasn’t that he wanted her to be insecure. It was that he didn’t know how to stop it.

  He might be a master manipulator in the boardroom but where his wife was concerned, he was soft as putty. And that was a major problem, considering he’d have to call on all of his skills to make her see that the triad he and Alex wanted to forge between the three of them was a path that led to their mutual happiness.

  Love weakened a man. This was a fact he’d learned upon meeting Alex, and falling for his wife had merely confirmed it.

  But there was a bigger picture at play, and Bastien knew he would have to push aside his tendency to yield around his wife, if he were to attain every single one of his and Alex’s hopes and dreams for the future.

  He was used to duty and stress. He wore the mantle of power easily. But in this, he felt like Atlas. The globe on his shoulders, the weight of the world on his back.

  He just prayed success was in his future. He wasn’t sure Alex could stand the disappointment, and if he lost Devvy, if she asked for a divorce, Bastien could honestly admit, he wasn’t sure how he’d cope without her. After two years, she’d inveigled her way into his heart, and the holes she’d leave behind if she left…they’d be there until he died.

  Success or failure. The responsibility rested entirely with him.

  For the first time in his life, fate held Sebastien in its hands, and he didn’t like it.

  Chapter Two

  Devvy wasn’t one for ultimatums. In fact, demanding that Bastien tell her the truth or she was out of there was the first one she’d ever made in her twenty-six years. The fact that it didn’t actually work, she blamed on inexperience. The next time she made one, he’d damn well listen, she vowed.

  That ultimatum, however, was the reason for their departure from the bedroom and their sojourn to the formal lounge. Sebastien had called down to the kitchen and postponed dinner. She didn’t have to see the grimace on Bastien’s face to know that the chef would have complained. Loudly.

  It was France, after all. Good food, good wine…it was to be treasured and savored. It didn’t matter that Bastien was the man’s employer. Food should never be wasted. Especially not in favor of an errant wife’s demands.

  Not that the chef knew that she was to blame for the delay. He was just pissed that his creation, a meal he’d spent a day preparing, would be wasted.

  It didn’t matter to him that his employers’ marriage was on the rocks. No, he just cared about his goddamn stew!

  Devvy was sulking in an armchair, slouched in the padded leather of a moss green Chesterfield.
She had propped her feet on a low, mahogany coffee table and refused to look at an irritatingly calm Sebastien, who was on the matching sofa to her left, one ankle settled on his knee. Instead, she focused on the elaborate fireplace, the hearth filled with flowers cut from the garden and the painting above the mantelpiece, a scene from a hunt.

  She hated this room. Very rarely used it unless Sebastien invited guests over, and then, she had little choice but to sit here.

  In reaction to her demand, Sebastien had picked up the phone and contacted this “Alex.” After, they’d traipsed down here and were currently waiting for him to arrive so all could be brought out into the open.

  Whatever was going on, by using this room and not going into her lounge or his office as they would ordinarily have after dinner, Bastien was being very careful to show her that Alex was a guest in their home. In a way, she appreciated that, but disliked the necessity of it. The sooner she knew what was going on, the happier she’d be.

  Even though she knew it would be wiser to keep quiet until the mystery man himself arrived on the scene, she’d been unable to help herself when the words had spilled from her lips seconds after he’d cut the call with this “Alex.”

  “Are we going to split up?”

  At his frown, she’d continued, “Will this conversation mean you’ll want a divorce?”

  He’d sighed and tucked his cellphone into his trouser pocket. The man had been half-undressed, his torso bare after her massage, yet he still managed to look cool and calm. “That choice will be yours, Devina.”

  His use of her full name had made her stiffen. Nobody, apart from her father, called her by her full name. And only then, because her dad had been the one to choose the horrible title, so he had to!

  Part relieved, part unnerved by the odd reassurance, Devvy had merely nodded, then watched as Sebastien gathered his shirt from the floor where he’d flung it earlier and dressed himself again. Once decently covered, he’d held out a hand to her. She’d studied it and him. Her eyes had drifted up to his face to take in the blank expression covering his features. He’d given nothing away, not even one emotion. She’d frowned but accepted the courtesy, and tucked her fingers in his. And there they’d remained as they walked down the stairs and stepped into the salon.

  For the last twenty minutes, they’d been seated here in silence, and it was the most peculiar twenty minutes of her life. She knew the world she’d created for herself here in Paris rested on the next few hours. Whoever this Alex was, whatever he was to Bastien, and whatever he would ultimately be to her, would make or break her life here.

  That discomforting thought alone had made her relieved for the postponement of dinner.

  When the doorbell rang, both of them shot up from their seats, spines rigid as they turned as one to face the salon door. Their ears pricked for the sound of Louise, the maid, answering the summons. They heard the door open, the slight mumble of a greeting and then, a faint boom as she shut out the outside world again.

  Two sets of feet tapped against the polished parquet of the hall, and then Louise hovered in the open entryway, murmuring, “Monsieur Ivanov is here, Monsieur.”

  “Show him in,” Sebastien told her.

  The pair of them watched as Louise stepped out of the way and a man filled the doorjamb. As soon as her eyes caught a glimpse of the stranger, of the other man in her marriage, a man she’d seen in countless science journals, Devvy choked. “Alex?” she gasped out, her horrified eyes seeking her husband’s. “You call Alexei Ivanov ‘Alex’?” Leaping to her feet, she strode across the room and forcibly took Alexei’s hand and shook it. “I know something weird is going on with you and my husband, but at this moment, I don’t care.” She blinked up at him, not seeing him but the scientist’s version of the superstar he was.

  The man had just created the first functioning prototype of a breathalyzer that could test for the presence of no less than six different types of cancers. He was a genius—well on the way to finding a cure for the more common cancers—and he was in her living room.

  Her frickin’ living room!

  “It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Devina,” he murmured, taking her hand and raising it to his lips. He brushed the back of her fingers with a soft kiss that had something burning to life deep inside her belly.

  Her cheeks bloomed with heat as she shook her head in bemusement. Alexei Ivanov actually wanted to meet her! It was a pleasure, he’d said.

  Heart on the verge of palpitating, and knowing she’d have to back down from her schoolgirl crush, she bit her lip then blurted out, “Call me Devvy. Only people who are mad at me call me Devina.”

  His smile was amazing. It lit up the somber lines of his face in a way that told her he didn’t smile frequently. And that pained her. It shouldn’t have, as he was only a stranger, and up to no good with her husband, but it was the truth. His somberness hurt something in Devvy, and she had to stop herself from rubbing her heart with the ache of it. Weird, or what?

  Alexei Ivanov was not a hunk. Not in the traditional sense, at any rate. He was not handsome in the way that society measured attraction, but to her, it was like looking at an idol. Better, even.

  He was younger than Sebastien, thirty-seven. Lines scored the sides of his eyes, his forehead and mouth. His head was covered in a thick pelt of silvery blond hair and his coloring was pure lab—i.e. he very rarely stepped outside, living his life in his laboratory. He was pale and should have looked washed out, but that thick mane of his made him look vibrant. Combine it with the deep, almost violet-colored eyes, and Devvy had a hard time controlling her attraction to the man.

  No, he wasn’t good-looking in the Hollywood way. But every single molecule in Devvy “Devina” Jacques’s body sat up and listened now that he was in the room. And her molecules were already used to standing to attention. Her husband was gorgeous, after all.

  At the protracted silence on her part, Sebastien commented around a chuckle that Alexei shared. “I think she has been struck by hero worship.”

  She refused to blush, instead ducked her head, and shot a glare Bastien’s way.

  “It is charming to be so appreciated,” was all Alexei said.

  “Take advantage of the peace. Devvy is not a quiet woman.”

  Huffing, she propped her hands on her hips and said, “Why not discuss all my flaws to a complete stranger, Sebastien? Where are your manners?”

  Before he could reply, Alexei tugged at one of her hands and cupped it within his own. “But I do not wish to be a complete stranger for long.”

  Confused, Devvy snapped her gaze between the pair of them. She told herself it was wrong, that hero worship—something Bastien had correctly guessed was an affliction of hers where Alexei Ivanov was concerned—did not mean she could curl her fingers into this man’s hand while in her husband’s line of sight. The man she loved, even if he was keeping secrets from her.

  No amount of reasoning stopped her though.

  Her fingers acted of their own will and they speared through Alexei’s, linking them in a fundamental way. A part of her wondered what she was doing. She’d never been so brazen with anyone in her life. Not even Bastien, and she’d made vows to him, for God’s sake!

  But this was Alexei Ivanov. The science world’s version of Brad Pitt.

  It was a wonder she hadn’t flung her panties at him!

  From the corner of her eye, she saw the pleased smile gracing his mouth and felt something deep inside her bask in the warmth.

  “This has gone better than I expected. I wish I’d realized you had a crush on Alex, we needn’t have wasted two years.”

  The wryness in Sebastien’s voice had her frowning. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you remember that cosmetics convention you attended, where you met Sebastien for the first time?” Alexei prompted and at her dazed nod, continued, “I’d seen an article about you. Your science, your methods. Your genius. There was a picture of you, looking serious and stern but those eyes of yo
urs…” With his free hand, he traced the sharp jut of her cheekbone. The gentle touch had gooseflesh swimming the length of her spine. “And beneath the lab coat, you were every man’s wet dream. It said you’d be at the convention, and I told Bastien to go there and to meet you.”

  “But why? If you…” She hesitated.

  “If I was attracted to you?” he spoke the words for her and she nodded gratefully.

  “If you were, then why didn’t you come and meet me yourself?”

  “Alexei makes a point to never attend a convention of that sort. He’s been nominated for a Nobel Prize, and he probably won’t be there either.”

  It was strange, because she could sense neither approval nor disapproval about this on Sebastien’s part. He was carefully blank, and whatever her husband was, he was an instinctive creature. He’d made a fortune on his financial insights. That told her whatever he truly felt was carefully buried.

  “I dislike crowds.”

  Sebastien snorted. “He’s agoraphobic.”

  Alex’s eyes flashed at the other man, and Devvy was startled to see anger and panic in his gaze. He quickly looked at her, and she could tell he was nervous about her reaction to Bastien’s words.

  “Is he telling the truth? Do you fear outside places?”

  Alexei swallowed, and almost defiantly spat out, “Yes.”

  “Only the promise of telling you the truth made him leave his home tonight, Devvy. If I want to see him, I have to go to his apartment.”

  Devvy frowned and used her free hand, for the other was still being clutched by Alex, to scrub at her forehead. “I’m confused. You saw my picture in a magazine and because you won’t leave your apartment, you had your friend date me instead?” Her words had her taking a step away from her idol and demanding her hand back.

  “He’s more than just my friend.”

  Her eyes darted toward her husband. “I thought you said you weren’t gay.”