Shadowed Heart

by Laura Florand

  He tried to open the door and found it locked. Damn it, Summer. He pulled a credit card out of his wallet and wriggled it through the crack to force the lock free.

  “Don’t come in here!” Summer cried as he pulled the door open.

  He stopped. She hadn’t made it to the toilet in time and knelt with vomit in her hair and on her pretty silk pajama top. She met his eyes for one defeated second, and then flinched into herself, throwing her arms over her face and turning away, trying to hide, as she started to cry.

  “Summer. Soleil.” He stroked her curved back. “Shh. It’s all right. I’m so stupid. Shh. I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head, but she didn’t lift it from the arms that hid it.

  He grasped, dimly and distantly, that the actual morning sickness might not be his immediate fault—he’d put that morning sickness in motion a little over six weeks ago, or longer, if you counted all the times he had teased and coaxed about children and drawn visions in the air for her of how happy they were going to be as a family. But the fact that she had not made it to the toilet in time, her current agonizing shame, was most definitely due to him.

  To his need to claim her. Thinking with his fucking dick.

  Only it hadn’t felt like just his dick at the time; it had felt more like his desperate heart.

  “Shh.” He drew her up by the waist, because she still kept herself as hidden as she could, and guided her to the shower, turning it on. “Shh.”

  “Luc, please go away,” Summer said miserably.

  “You know, Summer,” he said very, very gently, easing the soiled pajama top up over her resistant arms, trying to make sure he didn’t smear any more of the stuff on her. “You’re still beautiful to me. Even right this second—especially right this second—you’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  Her head did lift a little at that, and she stared at him over the arms that still hid most of her face, her eyes wet with tears.

  “Shh.” He stroked her bare spine. Then slid her pajama bottoms and sexy lace panties off with the ease of considerable practice and put her under the shower. “Summer. Sometimes I still think that when I say I love you, you have no idea what it means.”

  And it scared him, because it made him want to turn into a teenage boy in one of his old, disastrous, desperate relationships again, trying to force his love onto her, trying to make her understand how important it was: I love you! You can’t leave me because I love you!

  Because if she didn’t know, she might give up on it too easily when things got tough and run away.

  “It’s not just because of this.” He stretched his arm under the shower, his shirtsleeve getting soaked as he touched one of those delicate, photogenic cheekbones. He stripped his shirt off, wishing he could just strip everything off and step into that shower with her, but—

  Yeah. She probably wasn’t in the mood.

  But she might pretend to be in the mood, because she faked things when she was insecure. Faked things just to please him, because she loved him so much that she was afraid of losing him, too. It drove him mad, because unless he managed to catch her at it, that skill at faking things made it, in fact, really hard to know when she was feeling insecure. And her insecurity was the great, giant weakness in his happiness, the thing that could bring it tumbling down.

  Wasn’t it? Or was that thing that always felt on the brink of tearing everything apart his own insecurity?

  “It’s not just because of this.” He let his fingers slide with the water down her side, just brushing the curve of her breast and hip. “So if your body or your face changed, I would still love you.”

  Summer pressed her forearms against the shower wall, letting the water stream down over her bent head and curved back. Arousal beat in him at the view. God, he could think of all kinds of things to do with that view, all kinds of ways to re-assert his possession of her and make her enjoy it.

  Except what kind of bastard inflicted himself on his pregnant wife minutes after she’d been throwing up and sobbing? He angled his head to better see her face. Were those shower droplets running over her cheeks or was she still crying? “You love beautiful things,” she muttered to the shower. “You know you do.”

  “You’re not a thing,” he pointed out to her. She’d told him so once herself. And he’d lifted his finger to arrange a lock of her hair, just as he was doing now. Not because he thought she was a thing, but because he loved to touch her as if she was his, and he couldn’t stop himself. “Remember?”

  Her mouth twisted into what was at least half a smile, and she lowered her forehead to rest it on the shower wall. A sigh ran through her body.

  I could make her sigh. I could make her sigh in just that position, with the water running down all over us, and I’d have to hold her up because all her muscles would give up and let me take over...

  Bastard. Sometimes the insane him and the him he tried to keep in control became far too hard to distinguish. Was his current hunger for her, despite and because of her vulnerability, a little nuts, or would every man be that much of a jerk?

  Merde, what was he thinking? Half the world fantasized about his wife. Yes, every man would be that much of a jerk, if standing right here. And it didn’t make him feel better about himself at all.

  “I love you,” he repeated out loud firmly. Because in that he did have all the other men in the world beat. He loved her more than anyone else ever possibly could.

  (Although her islanders loved her, that masochistic son of a bitch he hid inside him pointed out. Loved her in a relaxed way, a sane, swing in a hammock and drink a beer and chat way. A way that made her very happy.)

  Shut the fuck up before I kill you! he told that vicious little bastard.

  Oh, don’t you wish you could?

  Summer rested her cheek against the shower wall, turning toward him at last. She smiled weakly. “Okay.” After a moment, she took his hand from her back and kissed it, holding it to her face. “Okay.”

  He sank his shoulder against the wall beside the shower, letting his face rest against it so they were eye to eye. “Je t’aime,” he told her again, and her eyes drifted closed, but the corners of her mouth floated upward, and he could swear that tired smile was genuine. “Do you want me to wash your hair?”

  Her eyes flew open. “Oh, God, do I have stuff in my hair?”

  “A little bit,” he admitted.

  She grimaced, angling her head into the spray with renewed energy. “Luc, go away.”

  Well, at least that sounded less like a despairing, you-can’t-love-me “go away” and more like a “go-away” that was secure enough again to show exasperation. He went and rinsed his day off him in a guest bathroom, then stretched out in bed, listening to the shower shut off.

  He could all too easily imagine her drying off her naked body right now, all too easily imagine what he could do with a terry towel against sensitive, bare skin willingly yielded to him. But—he sighed. He supposed the whole incident had put paid to this night’s mommy porn fantasies, too, hadn’t it? All Luc had to think about was her trying to smile at his touch, when inside revulsion was building and building as she fought not to throw up.

  Yeah.

  No.

  He closed his eyes. They hadn’t made love since she told him she was pregnant, and he just wanted to. Well, he always wanted to, but the need kept growing in him to claim her again, to make sure that everything was still working all right.

  But she probably wanted to stop being nauseated, too. There were all kinds of wants you didn’t necessarily get when you were adapting to a pregnancy, weren’t there? It was only for seven and a half more months.

  A dizzying whirl of panic. Seven and a half more months! And then they would have the actual baby.

  The hair dryer ran briefly, and then Summer came out. Was it best just to pretend to be asleep? She’d been so damned embarrassed. It still hurt his heart to see her so shamed, how deep it had cut her, as if she really, truly feared t
hat he might not love her anymore. God.

  You have to believe I love you, Summer. You have to. There’s not one single other thing holding you here.

  She slid into bed and snuggled right up against him, and his muscles eased. Pseudo-sleepily, he shifted so that his arm wrapped around her, settling her in. There you go, soleil. I’m asleep so you don’t have to worry about being embarrassed. But even asleep, I still love you.

  She kissed his chest. He smiled, as pleasure ran through him. She kissed it again. Ah, yes. He liked that so damn much. Another kiss, three, four...her hand stroking down from his shoulder over his—

  He pressed her palm against his belly, stopping it even as all his muscles tensed. “Summer. Not tonight.” Don’t fake it to try to please me. While all the time you’re stamping down nausea.

  Summer stopped instantly. Then she rolled over to her side of the bed, curling up with her back to him. She must have gone to sleep immediately, probably worn out, his poor soleil, because she didn’t move again.

  Not once, in all the time he lay awake worrying.

  Chapter 11

  Summer went to get a haircut. Something she had rarely worried about on her island, but she looked at herself in the mirror, the faint circles under her eyes, and thought suddenly: Maybe Maman is right, maybe I’m letting myself go. Just a little trim to make sure the ends fall right.

  She lay with her head back against the sink as the stylist washed her hair, so tired she wanted to fall asleep right there, under the gentle wash of water and the firm massage of her scalp. The scents in the salon beat at her too strongly, and she wanted to sleep them away. Maybe when she woke up, her stomach would have stopped feeling so yucky. And then she would feel less yucky.

  It’s no big deal, she told herself. That he pushed you away. Let’s face it, vomit is not the sexiest look on any woman. Just because it shut down his sex drive for the night doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you anymore.

  She didn’t know why she could listen to what he said, and yet sometimes there was a part of her that just didn’t hear it. It took forever to sink in, as if her heart was this desperate parched earth that just could not relax enough for the rain. The rain slid off it and slid off it and finally, slowly, started to penetrate, as the earth at last loosened up and began to absorb.

  I love you. I love you. I love you. Luc’s voice, his dark eyes as he leaned his head against the wall by the shower and gazed into hers. She took the words out and rubbed them over and over, their resonance and the look in his eyes, like telling worry beads until the worry went away. Until her mother’s voice went away. I love you. I love you.

  It wasn’t the same love at all, that deep, dark love that seemed to reach inside her and vibrate there. Not a light, caressing love that glanced over her skin, saying, I love you, and why don’t we just take care of those lines around your eyes so you look pretty? I love you, so I’m not letting you get your hopes up for a healthy baby and a happy family.

  She touched the corners of her eyes. She did have lines there, picked up young from laughing under too much tropical sun. Luc would notice a flaw much finer than one of those tiny lines on one of his desserts and throw it out, rather than associate himself with even invisible imperfection.

  And the salon she was in right this second did microdermabrasion. Her mother had been pushing that since Summer came back from the islands, but Summer always looked in the mirror and thought, There, but for a little Botox and an obsession with skin care, goes my mother.

  Still. There was nothing wrong with microdermabrasion. Just like an exfoliation, really. And her skin certainly hadn’t come out better for those four years of careless tropical island living. She stroked the corners of her eyes, unable even to feel the lines her mother had pointed out, they were so fine. Her phone beeped, and she relaxed all through her. Luc.

  He liked to text her photos of what he was doing from time to time, when she wasn’t at the restaurant, as if he knew how much she needed the attention. Or as if he wanted to lure her over there to taste. That first possible explanation made her feel pathetic, but the second made her feel so happy.

  And a third made her feel possessive and tender: that maybe he needed the attention himself. He claimed sometimes that he had a narcissistic streak, which made her laugh. She knew a lot more about narcissists than Luc did apparently. Luc most definitely wasn’t one.

  Why had he looked that way, about the baby? Why didn’t he seem happy? She’d thought he would be overjoyed. Delirious with it. Adorable with it.

  She pulled out her phone, and it was indeed a text. From her mother. Honey, I’ve been looking…

  She hesitated, but—who else was she supposed to talk to about these baby things? Was she supposed to blurt it all out to the stylist, when the other woman asked her how she wanted her hair cut? “Um—like a woman who would be a good mommy and still sexy?” Yeah, right.

  She touched the text to open it fully.

  “Honey, I’ve been looking around. I know it’s probably premature when you haven’t even made it safe through the first trimester yet (smiley face), but you can never start too early when it comes to finding a good nanny. You want someone who knows what she’s doing, because you certainly won’t! (Smiley face.) The things I managed to mess up with you those first few months before I found your first nanny. You remember, the one you got fired when you snuck off that time at the Leucé? (Smiley face.) She was really good. Or Liz. Liz was amazing. You need someone like her, to make sure you raise the baby right. (Smiley face.) Anyway, Julie’s daughter is about to start boarding school, and they rave about her nanny, do you want me to interview her for you? I can’t wait to see you! I miss you! Love, Maman.

  The stylist squeezed a great glob of conditioner into her palm, scents of vanilla and something sickening, and all at once the scents packing the salon were clamoring at Summer like starving cats, just scratching and shoving, until she lurched out of her seat and ran, her hair streaming soaked down her back, to the bathroom.

  ***

  “I’m so sorry,” Summer was still saying twenty minutes later. They’d decided to skip the cut, but Summer was paying for it anyway, and leaving a big tip, too. “I cleaned it up. I’m really sorry.” She signed her name under the huge tip, and darted a glance at the stylist, who was barely controlling her revulsion. “I—I’m pregnant,” she tried, in this tentative hope for—what? Some stupid moment of solidarity or understanding, this sudden relaxation into a sisterhood of, “Oh, you poor thing, I remember when I/my sister/my friend was pregnant and she...”?

  “You might want to avoid salons until you’re past the worst stages, then, madame,” the stylist said crisply, turning away with the signed credit slip in hand. “I hear the odors can be difficult.”

  Right. Summer slipped her card back into her purse and went out onto the sidewalk. Sometimes she wished she’d chosen to be an actress in a romantic comedy, so she could at least have someone pretend to be her chummy sidekick friend for a while.

  She looked at her watch. Maybe she could just peek into the restaurant. That wouldn’t be too clingy and over-dependent, would it? Maybe Luc would make her another ice pop.

  A smile softened her mouth. He would definitely make her an ice pop. She just hoped she could actually eat it when it got done this time.

  The restaurant’s village perched above the sea—just far enough from Cannes and Nice to make the luxury crowd work for it, as Summer and Luc had put it when they found the location—and she drove back from the world of yachts and jewels and luxury salons to the world of old stone and jasmine, leaving the car at their house on a cliff above the sea and walking through the streets to the restaurant. The sound of stone under her feet, the brush of it against her fingertips, the vines and flowers climbing up old walls, and the cat that jumped from balcony to balcony as she passed, all reassured her. Even the sight of the yachts bobbing on the sea below, toward Cannes, comforted her in some way. That luxury world of yachts and judgment that she had
abandoned that day she stepped off her own rented yacht, moored on the edge of a lagoon, and didn’t get back on—she could handle it now. And yet not be part of it. And yet have her own happy, quiet spot.

  She just needed more time, that was all. To make it her spot. It had taken her a while to find her spot in the islands, too—she’d made a disastrous mess of her first year, in fact, to the point that she’d had to change islands. She just tended to forget that now, to think only of the way it had been at the end, of that happy, supportive community that had grown over three years around her, like the vines growing up this stone. Or maybe her community there had been the stone, and she’d been the clinging vine.

  Luc was all alone, too, she thought, as she stepped into the old stone alley behind the restaurant. Clothes hanging on lines between the balconies above layered stripes of shadow across the sunlight that slipped down into the narrow alley, and the cobblestones were bumpy underfoot. Luc had brought a few of his old staff down with him, young men to whom the thought of leaving Paris for the sunny south appealed. But most of them had stayed up in Paris. And, of course, Patrick hadn’t come.

  Luc knew almost no one here, other than the men he employed or the suppliers with whom he worked. Slow friendships might be forming, but Luc was Luc, after all: contained and perfectionist, so impossible at opening up. He had mentioned a former chef of his who had a restaurant around here, Gabriel Delange, but hadn’t yet even managed to see the other man, both intensely busy chefs in separate restaurants in separate towns.

  Did he give himself time to feel lonely? Or did he just work too hard, focus too intensely on his creations?

  Maybe all he had was her.

  It wasn’t a good thing, that she be his one source of happiness outside of work, and yet thinking of it made her soften still further, a golden longing to see him, to hold him, to find a moment when she wasn’t throwing up and he wasn’t working to just ask him: Luc, is something wrong? Can I kiss it and make it better?