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

much for infrastructure.” Her eyes flicked back down to where she was helping herself to salmon and salad. She hadn’t looked at me once. And I realized we hadn’t even greeted each other either. God, I was a prick. How must she be feeling right now?

“It’s an inconvenience here. A strike every time I turn around it seems these days.”

“There’ve always been strikes. It’s part of French life,” I said, amused at my mother’s new sense of principle.

“And you don’t mind?” my mother challenged.

“Of course I do.” I shrugged. “But I work around the obstacle.” I offered the bread basket to Josie and then poured her some wine. I managed it all while still staying focused on addressing my mother so I didn’t have to cross gazes with her.

“Oui,” Dauphine piped up. “Mountains are made to find a way over, not to stop your journey,” she parroted my favorite phrase I deployed on her every time she told me she couldn’t do something hard, like homework. She turned, her eyes sparkling proudly at me.

“Quite right. You’re talking to me again?” I asked her in French

She stuck her tongue out. “Josie is back. I’ll stop again if she leaves again.”

If she leaves?

I finally chanced a glance at the woman in question, but she was focused on her plate, her cheeks still blazing and had probably just heard her name in our French interaction. I suddenly realized how uncomfortable she must feel being forced to eat a meal with me after the way things were left between us. And it wasn’t like I’d made her feel welcome and invited her to stay and eat. My mother had done that. Tack on the fact that the last time we’d seen each other, she was orgasming in my arms, and … shit. I shut the image of that down and grabbed a sip of water.

She had to be feeling humiliated and vulnerable and, if I knew anything about her thus far, angry as shit. Had I taken advantage of her?

My stomach tightened. Even the idea of her angry was turning me on. I was a train wreck.

I glanced back at Dauphine and my mom, only to see my mother’s eyes narrowed on me.

I gave her a thin smile. “So, Mother. Tell us about your latest charity project.”

The rest of lunch proceeded quickly. I tried to pay attention to my mother’s news, and soon lunch was cleared and Dauphine was dragging Josie into the house to give her a tour.

“Alors,” my mother said as soon as we were alone. “How long were you sleeping with the poor girl before she grew a backbone and left you?”

Chapter Thirty

My mother’s eyes pinned me with her signature mix of disapproval and pity.

The very worst look.

I remembered a similar look one night eons ago when I’d slunk back home, easing my father’s Porsche back into the garage at three in the morning after stealing it to go on a little joy ride. I’d done it in a bid to impress my friends, and a girl of course, though it had backfired royally when the girl’s father had found us, her passenger seat reclined, my hand up his daughter’s nightie, and my tongue down her throat. I guess I should have felt lucky we didn’t live in the land of guns. But back then, the hot humiliation of being caught was like being held up against a wall by my throat. I drove home, carefully mind you—my earlier bravado and machismo gone, and praying like a dying man that a phone call about my behavior didn’t beat me home. Alas, my mother waited in the dark of the garage until I’d thought I was almost home free, the idle engine silenced, the dust cover eased back over the sweaty beast, before she’d flicked on the fluorescent garage light and scared the shit out of me. “You will not become your father,” she’d growled.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I said to her now across the lunch table. “I’m not sixteen. And I’m not sleeping with her.”

“Xavier. I’m not blind. And I’m not being judgmental. At least not about what you think. There’s no wife to cheat on,” she bulldozed over the scoffing sound I made.

Ouch.

“But mon dieu, Xavier. Did you learn nothing from your father’s behavior? You don’t sleep with the help. How extremely uncouth. Certainly, not in your position. If a lawsuit were to happen now with everything you’ve built, or the media got wind of it—well, and not to mention how very awful it would be for Dauphine. So confusing.”

“Again. I’m not sleeping with her,” I snapped. “That’s—that’s why I didn’t stop her when she resigned.” I felt the wince at my admission, even as I tried to remain stoic.

“Ah, but you wanted to sleep with her.” Trust my mother to just put out there what I was dancing around.

I blew out a breath. For all that I’d been an impossible teenager and was mostly responsible for the silver streaks she paid a fortune to have blended into her salon blonde, we’d also become close after my parents’ divorce. Grabbing my glass of rosé, I downed the last sip and filled it back up with water. God knew I needed my wits about me. “Whether I want to or not, it’s irrelevant. She’s leaving.”

“Not until at least tomorrow.”

“So what? It’s one night. I’m not that weak or desperate. Anyway, let’s talk about something else. How long are you here? Without some help for Dauphine, I could really use you this week. It’s busy for work, and I hate to always leave her on the boat with the crew.”

“I’m here for five days. She can stay for all of them. Then I’m due for a board meeting in Monaco for the Roman Heritage Society. Oh, that reminds me, I must tell Dauphine. They’ve discovered a shipwreck, almost two thousand years old, right here in town down by the old Roman port. They were digging to put in a