Broken French: A widowed, billionaire, single dad romance, Natasha Boyd [e reader books .TXT] 📗

and allowed myself to be led back down to the main living area and through a doorway on the opposite side of the stairwell I used to go downstairs to my cabin. The galley was long and narrow with high end appliances. The counters were stainless steel and spotless. It looked as though it could be the kitchen of some sleek, New York City loft. Chef was nowhere to be seen, but next to an expensive looking coffee machine, which still had a glowing red light, there was a plate, a linen napkin-wrapped set of utensils, a bowl of fresh cut fruit, and a basket of bread and pastries including a croissant wrapped in a linen napkin. Croissants. My weakness. Also nestled in the basket was a small ramekin of soft yellow butter and a tiny jar of red preserves with a checkered lid.

First things first, I made myself some steaming fragrant coffee and added cream from a small metal jug left out. Then I plopped a croissant on the plate, as well as butter and preserves, and sat at the small banquette along the wall. Dauphine found another plate and helped herself to some of the fruit and joined me.

“So, what’s the plan today?” I asked her, tearing an end off of a croissant and smearing it with butter and strawberry jam. I closed my eyes as I began to chew and let out a moan of appreciation.

“You love food so much.” Dauphine observed with a giggle.

“I don’t think you understand. In America we think we know how to make baguettes and croissants, but I can tell you for sure we do not. I’m planning on putting on some weight while I am here.” I patted my belly.

She laughed with delight. “But they make good hamburgers in America, no?”

“Perhaps. I’ll let you know after I have one here. So, you never answered. What’s the plan today?”

“We go to Antibes. We will anchor in the bay. Papa has a meeting.” She rolled her eyes. “We will stay on the boat today. Paco said there might be treasure. You’ll swim with me?”

I nodded.

“I am only allowed if someone comes in the water with me.”

“As long as it’s okay with your father and Paco. I’ll need to borrow sunscreen, I forgot to bring some.”

“We have much. I will show you.”

I finished off breakfast, draining my cup of coffee, and located the dishwasher. Like everything else in Chef’s kitchen, it was clean and empty, breakfast having already been cleaned up and put away. I loaded our plates and utensils and wiped the crumbs from the counter and the table.

Then Dauphine led me through another short hallway and to a door. She rapped sharply and opened it. “Papa?”

“No, Dauphine,” I hissed in a whisper when I realized she planned to go into his quarters. “It’s okay. Don’t disturb your father.”

She waltzed into the sunlight-filled room. “He is upstairs, I was just checking. He told me I must always knock when a door is closed.”

“Good advice.”

The cabin we entered was clearly the master stateroom—a huge bedroom, spanning the width of the boat. A king bed centered the space. On one side, closest to us, was an office area and desk with papers piled neatly and the other had a large sofa and seating area. There was also a treadmill and some workout equipment in one corner. Her father was nowhere to be seen, and while I knew he was using a cabin downstairs to sleep rather than this one, I still entered cautiously. He obviously worked and got dressed here too, if the men’s dress shirt hanging on a valet hook in the corner was any indication. Dauphine danced across the room and disappeared through a door. I followed her into a bathroom and walk-in closet. While not huge, the bathroom was luxurious and certainly bigger than the ones downstairs.

The closet was full of both men’s and women’s clothes. My stomach shifted uncomfortably as I looked over what had probably been Dauphine’s mother’s things that had never been cleared away. Two years and they were still here?

Dauphine fingered several of the dresses as she passed, then whipped her hand away as if she’d remembered she wasn’t supposed to touch them. She opened a deep wooden drawer on a soft hiss to reveal an array of sunscreens. “Ici,” she said. Here.

I selected a thirty sun protection factor. There was a hairbrush on the counter, but there were no toothbrushes or anything that made it seem like the bathroom was currently being used on a daily basis.

I fingered the hairbrush. “Your mother’s?” I asked. But surely not after all this time.

Dauphine nodded, and then looked toward the clothes, her face marred with a pained emotion. I doubted a ten-year-old could really define the feelings that must be stirred up by having to see this reminder of their loss every day. For that matter, what about her father? Was that perhaps another reason why he slept downstairs?

“Do you like to braid your hair?” I asked to try and switch her attention.

“Oui. Andrea does it for me sometimes, but I do not know how to do it myself.”

“May I?”

Dauphine nodded at my reflection. “But my hair is … I don’t know the word. It gets stuck?” She frowned and said something in French that I presumed meant tangled.

“I have something for tangles.”

“Tangles?”

I picked up a particularly rats-nesty lock of her hair. “Like this. You have beautiful curls, but you must keep them from being knotty.”

“You have curly hair?”

I glanced at my reflection and made a so-so hand gesture. “Wavy. But it’s wet right now. Did your maman have long hair like you?” I asked, fingering the dark blonde curls.

“Yes, but it was different.” Her brow furrowed as if trying to remember. “She liked my hair. She liked to use the comb.”

“She brushed your hair for you?”

Dauphine nodded, and her lower lip suddenly began to tremble. “She made some blonde sometimes in her hair. It’s … difficult to remember.”

“It makes