DutyBoundARe

by Sidney Bristol

  “Oh.” Lisette jerked back into the moment, aware she’d just been caught staring.

  Mathieu muttered something that earned him a disapproving glance from grandmère while Lola merely chuckled.

  “This is Lisette, grandmère. She’s one of Mathieu’s college friends,” Lola replied since her host didn’t.

  “Well, aren’t you a pretty thing.” She frowned. “You’re all wet. Mathieu, you know how to treat a lady. Couldn’t you get her an umbrella or something?”

  Lisette bit her lip, feeling a little justified after the childish way he’d treated her in the car.

  Mathieu opened his mouth and closed it. She could almost see the protests hanging on the tip of his tongue, but all he said was, “Yes, ma’am.”

  Lola elbowed her and slanted a glance Lisette’s way, her lips pursed.

  “Lisette.” Mathieu whirled toward her. “Bathroom’s down the hall on the left. I’ll just be a minute.”

  “I’ll show her,” Lola replied.

  “No…” Mathieu’s sentence trailed off. He clearly wanted her away from his family.

  Was there something wrong with her that he was afraid what would happen when she met them? Was she going to uncover some great secret of his life to them? Or was he ashamed of her?

  “You’ve got him tied in knots,” Lola whispered as they stepped into the hall.

  “What? No, he’s being a pissed off baby tonight.” The way he was behaving made her want to give him a spanking.

  “Mm-hm.” One side of Lola’s mouth kicked up and her eyes twinkled.

  What was that supposed to mean?

  “How are things?” Lola flipped on the lights to a long, narrow bathroom and leaned on the wall across from the door.

  Lisette mirrored her pose, leaning against the doorway. “Complicated. Stressful. Crazy.”

  “Do you think you’re safe right now?”

  She shrugged. “I thought I was safe in Chicago.”

  “Besides being an ass tonight, has my brother been treating you well?” Though Lola wore jeans and a boat neck gray shirt, it was easy to tell, or maybe sense, that under her skin was a remarkable woman. Standing next to her, Lisette felt as if her entire life was a wreck.

  “Yeah.” She shrugged, not having a better answer than that. If Lola wanted details they were going to be in trouble.

  “I’m sorry I told him to break up with you in college. At the time, I thought it was the best thing for you—not him. He was never a thug or very wild, but he had some growing up to do; I thought he would hurt you. I’ve often regretted meddling in his life and what could have been.”

  The words were no surprise to Lisette, but she felt better for hearing the admission from her friend’s lips. They’d never been close, but Lola was good people. Someone Lisette had always known she could turn to in a pinch.

  “No, I think it was the right thing to do. I’ve had life experiences and opportunities I never would’ve had if I’d stayed here. I fell hard for him in college and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I saw myself marrying him because of it.”

  “And now?”

  “Now we’re friends.” She shrugged, the lie sitting hard in her throat.

  Lola snorted. “If that’s the lie you want to feed me, okay.”

  “It’s the truth. How I feel is irrelevant. He’s not over his ex-wife and I’m not going to be the scapegoat for her sins.” It felt good to say those words. Falling for Mathieu all over again would be easy. There was enough love left to build something new. But she couldn’t pay the price of someone else’s wrongdoings.

  “I wanted so bad to play divorce attorney on that damn case.” Lola’s face creased, as if she’d tasted something foul.

  “Was it nasty?” Her gross curiosity wanted all the details. Sure, she’d like nothing better than to give his ex a black eye.

  “She went for the jugular. Amanda was a con artist, and she got him for the house he owned before she was in the picture as well as all his money.”

  “They weren’t married that long. How could she have had a right to the house?”

  “She broke him. There wasn’t any fight left. You don’t understand. The Mathieu you’re seeing right now is about as close to how he was before Amanda as I’ve seen him.”

  “Oh.” Lisette blinked, letting that tidbit sink in. “Hold that thought, I’ve got to pee.”

  She shut the door and turned to the mirror, staring at herself. The woman in the mirror was a wreck. No wonder his grandmère had been so hard on him. But maybe that’s what it took to get through to him.

  Mathieu ducked his head under the kitchen sink. “Grandmère, nothing’s leaking here. I think it’s your head.”

  “You calling me a liar?”

  He glanced up at Grandmère with her hands on her hips and an overly dramatic frown creasing her features.

  “Grandmère, what’s this about?” He straightened until he towered over her. It would never matter how much taller or bigger he was than her; the whole family knew who had the real power here.

  “I don’t know what your mother wanted you to do, but she left in a hurry. What have you been doing lately to worry your mother, boy?” She leaned against the counter and stirred something in a stockpot he doubted had anything to do with food. She was always making something. He idly wondered if Jacques Savoy had ever had cause to meet his grandmère. The bounty hunter was some sort of backwater healer himself.

  “I’ve just been working. I don’t know why she’d be worried when her and dad are the ones who put off family dinner. You should be worried about them, not me.” He leaned against the sink and watched her stir the pot.

  “You losing yourself. I see it. You let that no-good-woman steal a part of you and you patched it up, but it hasn’t healed.” She lifted her gaze from the pot and stared at him. “You won’t stop picking at it. Let it go, boy. You’ll be happier if you do. And that girl would help you.” One side of her mouth kicked up and her eyes seemed to twinkle with mischief.

  He wouldn’t argue with her. He couldn’t, not really. Grandmère was rarely wrong, so if she said he needed to do something, he’d think about it.

  Voices from the hall announced Lola and Lisette as they rounded the doorway and entered through the other side of the kitchen.

  “You fixed that leak yet?” Lola asked, her lips tightly compressed to keep from laughing.

  He glared at her, but there was no heat behind it. They were his family, and as meddling as they were, he loved them. They were all he had anymore.

  Lisette’s phone began to ring and she jumped. She hurriedly dug her cell out of her pocket.

  “It’s my brother. I’ll be in the next room.” She hurried past him, pressing the phone to her ear.

  “You stare any harder you might break her,” Lola muttered right next to him.

  He glanced at her, the orchestrator of this mess, and didn’t know if he should thank her or hate her.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I know you still have feelings for her. You wouldn’t be so possessive of her if you didn’t.” Lola leaned against the sink next to him.

  “She doesn’t need me in her life right now.” He’d just bring her down. Between being tied to New Orleans and his past, she’d never want something with him again. No matter how tangled her emotions became. He felt the weight of guilt for stepping over the line last night. He hadn’t even thought about it in the same light as she had until she pointed it out.

  “God, do you want some cheese with your whine? Snap out of it. I did not need to even see you together. Just the way you’ve been talking is enough to see that you like her. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  He mulled her words over. Lisette wasn’t Amanda. She needed help, but she wasn’t a damsel in distress.

  “You’re right.” Mathieu pushed off the counter.

  “Where you going?” Grandmère asked, tapping her spoon on the pot.

  “
Home.”

  “But you just got here.” She put her hands on her hips and frowned.

  “And now we’re leaving. See you this weekend for dinner?” He gave both women a quick hug and peck on the cheek.

  “Same time, same place as always,” Lola replied. “Lisette coming with you?”

  “Probably.”

  And he was okay with that.

  Lisette followed Mathieu into the apartment, sick and tired of the silent treatment. She slammed the front door and stomped after him.

  Mathieu went to a knee and scratched Gator behind his ears.

  “I’ll take him,” she said, ready to be away.

  “It’s still raining outside.”

  “I have dry clothes.” She took the leash off the peg near the door. The clasp jingled and Gator shot across the space toward her, wiggling and jumping. “You want to go outside, don’t you? Too much time in that crate, huh?”

  Lisette took an umbrella off the same set of pegs and slipped out of the front door, only to be followed by Mathieu.

  “You don’t have to come,” she said, wishing he’d just stay put. Gator minded better than his owner.

  “It’s late. I’m going out with you.”

  “Fine.”

  They went back downstairs in silence and struck out down the sidewalk to their normal haunts, not a word uttered between them. Mathieu took the umbrella and held it over both of them. Gator trotted forward without a care to the rain, zipping from scent spot to patch of grass, here and there. Cars whooshed by, but mostly it was a quiet evening.

  And Lisette couldn’t even enjoy it. Frustration bubbled up inside of her the longer they walked.

  “What did I do to piss you off so much?” she blurted out.

  Mathieu’s step faltered and he turned to study her. He blinked several times, his face illuminated by the streetlights.

  “I’m not pissed at you,” He replied.

  “Then why the twelve-year-old silent treatment?”

  “I was thinking,” he replied slowly.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And so the mature thing to do is to not speak to me, walk off in the middle of dinner and act like I’m a parasite around your family?”

  “That’s not how I saw it,” he replied.

  “And how did you see it? Please, tell me.”

  “I did not handle the dinner discussion as well as I could have. I’ll admit that, but I did need to process and think through what you said. When Mom called, she needed me over there that instant, so it made sense to get up and go. Yes, it was abrupt, but it was supposed to be an emergency. My family…” He paused and sighed. “It’s not that I don’t want you around them, it’s that…”

  He stopped, so she had to follow suit. She turned to face him, most of his features hidden in shadows.

  “Amanda was someone they related to, at least in the beginning. You’re—you’re like me. It’s different. If they see us together, if they read between the lines, I don’t want them to get attached to you, because when you leave it will be that much harder to move on.”

  “Move on from what?” He’d been pretty frank with her that he saw them as friends.

  “You’re an easy woman to fall for, bebelle.”

  Wait—what?

  She stared at him, muddling through the subtext.

  Gator circled her legs, testing the length of the leash.

  Mathieu ignored the dog and edged in closer. He cupped her cheek with his free hand and slowly lowered his face to hers.

  Is he serious?

  Her heart raced and blood rushed past her ears—or maybe that was a car driving by. She couldn’t tell.

  Mathieu’s lips grazed hers, and though it was a gentle, barely-there slide of skin on skin, she felt it down to her toes. She tightened her grip on the leash and held her breath. He dipped again and sealed his mouth over hers, pulling her lower lip between his.

  All the warm fuzzy feelings and complicated emotions buzzed about in her head, drowning out the rest of the world. She leaned against him, one hand on his chest, seeking more contact. The hand on her cheek slid back into her hair. His fingers curled into the loose strands, pulling her head back for the perfect angle. Her heart fluttered even at the tiniest show of dominance.

  Yes, this was what she wanted.

  Rain continued to pelt the umbrella and Gator whined, pulling on the leash.

  She sidestepped, pulled along by the dog. Mathieu followed, a smile curling his lips.

  “What does that mean?” she asked, unable to contain the swirling emotions and thoughts in her head.

  “It means I’m stupid.” He reached for her free hand.

  And what did that mean? One kiss didn’t make everything right. It didn’t clear up his baggage and it didn’t make it okay to toy with her emotions. She pulled her hand from his.

  “No, I need more than that.”

  “Okay.” He held his hand up and sighed. “I tried telling myself you’re like Amanda, but you couldn’t be more different. She was a weak, manipulative woman. You stand up for yourself, you don’t take shit and you don’t allow things to just happen to or for you. I was wrong. I did it because letting myself believe you were just like her meant I didn’t have to like you. Because liking you leads to other things. Change. Wanting something I don’t think I have any business wanting.” He glanced sideways at her. “You.”

  Lisette’s brain screeched to a stop. What now? How did she respond? She was still half in love with the man.

  “I am not your ex-wife,” she said with force.

  “No, you’re nothing like her. I thought I could save her. You don’t need saving, you just need a shoulder to lean on. We all do. It was my mistake to lump you in with her, and I’m sorry.”

  “Good.”

  “I don’t know if I’m what you need, I don’t know if I can be anything except a shoulder to lean on, but I don’t think we can play together and it not be sexual on some level. It’s part of our chemistry. We go together. We fit.”

  A day ago if he’d given her this speech she’d have swooned into his arms. Now, she didn’t know what to say.

  “I need to think. Can I finish walking him by myself?”

  “It’s too late for you to be out here on your own. I’ll take you back to the apartment if you like.”

  “Fine. Yes, please.”

  “Okay.”

  They turned and walked back toward the front of his building. She wanted to charge ahead, put space between them, but he grabbed her hand. Their fingers threaded together, his warmth enveloping her. She couldn’t run away from him, but she didn’t know if being with him was good for her either.

  chapter Thirteen

  Terror

  Mathieu plodded up the stairs to his apartment, soaked to the bone, and Gator was still as energetic as when they’d gone out. Guilt ate at him. For Gator’s sake alone he had to move on, find someplace where he could install a doggie door at the very least so the pit bull could stretch his legs. It would be good for Mathieu as well. The apartment had become a symbol of everything he’d lost in the divorce, but he wasn’t losing anymore. At least he hoped not.

  He’d kissed Lisette. He’d felt the shudder of her body against his and in that moment, he’d accepted everything he wanted. Her. In any way she’d have him.

  One more flight.

  The ball was now in Lisette’s court. He’d stressed the platonic nature of their relationship, when it wasn’t what he wanted at all. It was what he’d thought was good for them. If she chose to remain pissed at him, he wouldn’t blame her. He felt like an ass for stepping over the line last night, though at the time it hadn’t occurred to him it was something they needed to negotiate. It had felt right, to have her undulating on his hand, bringing her pleasure.

  He didn’t know if he could be what Lisette needed, but denying that he wanted to try would only harm them both at this point. And the
last thing he wanted to do was hurt her more than what she’d already experienced.

  Gator went straight to the apartment door and sat down, twisting to look back at Mathieu.

  “I’m here. Hold on. Just hold on,” he muttered to the dog.

  He unlocked the door and stepped over the threshold, Gator shooting in before him. He glanced into the living room to see Lisette sitting cross-legged on the couch, wearing her pajamas and a towel wrapped around her hair.

  “Hold him. I’ll get a towel.” Lisette got up and hurried into the bathroom, emerging a moment later and going to her knee to wrap the soaked dog and do her best of drying him off.

  “If only dogs used boxes like cats.” He sighed and slipped the waterlogged leather coat off, hanging it on a peg to dry out.

  “Then think of the mess they’d make kicking up dirt or whatever.”

  “Hey, it’s an idea. Maybe not a good one, but it’s an idea.”

  She smiled and he breathed easier, the invisible hand wrapped around his ribs loosening its grip.

  “There you go; all dry. Well, as dry as you’re going to get without a blow dryer.” She unclasped the leash and handed it to him.

  Gator licked her on the face then surged past to do a loop around the living room and into the kitchen to his bowl to lap at the water.

  Lisette watched Gator’s antics, her features softer, more at ease than they’d been earlier.

  He shifted his weight, bursting at the seams to ask her what the next move was, what she thought. Hell, they didn’t have to speak at all. He could simply hold her for hours and lose himself in her. There was something about her presence that soothed him. She’d salvaged the ravaged shreds of his life already, knitting him back into a man without even realizing what she did. Giving him her submission, trusting him, quietly pushing him to be more.

  She glanced at him, catching him staring. The smile faded. Her calmness only made him want to fidget more. Lisette rose, her gaze still locked with his. He couldn’t read her or get a feel for what she was thinking and his head buzzed with questions.