“Stay away from me.” Furious, incensed, she lifted her hand in a stop sign. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from me. Don’t come any closer.”
Of course, he ignored her. “If you’re half as tired as I am you need to lie down. Let’s go inside.”
“You think I would lie down with you? After what you did? Because you save a life and behave like a hero and buy your grandmother flowers, you think you are this great big gift to women, no?” She was so angry she stumbled over the words, switching from English to French and back again. “You think you’re so irresistible.” He was just like Pascal. Exactly like Pascal.
“Wait a minute, just rewind—” he frowned “—a moment ago you called me a lying piece of— What did I lie about? And what does buying Grams flowers have to do with anything?”
“Go away!”
“Not until you tell me what you think I lied about.”
The fact that he needed to ask tipped her over the edge. “Why are you here, anyway? Did she kick you out? Or did the great Sean O’Neil break his own speed record for leaving a woman’s bed?”
“Did who kick me out?”
She curled her fingers into fists, the misery a solid lump in her throat. “You can’t even remember her name. You disgust me.”
“Honey, I’m so tired I can barely remember my own n
ame.” But amusement had been replaced by irritation. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on here? Because I’m coming up blank.”
She’d backed along the lake path but still he kept coming, across the deck and down the steps until he was standing right in front of her. “I want you to leave. Now.”
“I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s made you so mad.”
“You broke a promise! You say—said—” she fell over the words in her temper “—you said things but you didn’t mean any of them. It was all lies.” Furious with him and with herself for believing him, she gave him a massive shove just as he stepped toward her and he lost his balance and toppled into the lake.
There was a huge splash and Élise was showered first with water droplets and then with male cursing.
“What the hell is wrong with you? I only put these clothes on half an hour ago. That’s two sets I’ve ruined today. I go through more clothes in Snow Crystal than I ever do in Boston.” Swearing, he hauled himself out of the water, dripping all over the path and a million miles from his usually sophisticated self.
“I want you to go away.”
“Yeah, I got that message.” He wiped the water from his eyes and glanced down at the shirt now plastered to his chest. “Before I do that you’re going to tell me what promise I supposedly broke.”
“You don’t even remember! You break promises so often you don’t even care.” She ran up the steps, picked up a glass candleholder that was on the table and hurled it at him. “You promised Sam you wouldn’t leave him.”
He ducked and there was a splash as the candleholder landed in the water. “That’s the promise?” He stared at her through eyelashes clumped together with water. “We’re talking about Sam?”
“Yes. He was terrified and you took his hand and you were so cool and calm and you promised him, Sean. You said those words as if you meant them and then you—then you—” Her normal fluency deserted her and she switched to French, abusing him with words that any taxi driver in Paris would have admired.
His bemused expression told her that his education hadn’t included listening to many French taxi drivers. “I’ve lost you. If you’re going to insult me, do it in English or at least textbook French.”
“You promised him, and then you left ’im to go and ’ave sex with that nurse with lascivious eyes and a too-red mouth that pouted like so—” She pushed her lips out in an exaggerated imitation of the other woman and saw his brows lift in astonishment.
“That’s what this is about? The nurse?” Water dripped down his face and he cursed again and wiped it away with his palm. “All this throwing and screaming and pushing me in the lake is because you’re jealous?”
“I am not jealous! This is not about me! It is about Sam.”
“Sam told you to drown me and hurl a candleholder at me? I don’t think so. This isn’t about Sam, it’s about you, sweetheart.”
“I am not your sweetheart.”
“You’re jealous.” He said it slowly, like a revelation, and his sudden smile made her want to push him straight back in the lake and hold his head under.
“Why would I be jealous? I do not at all care who you sleep with, tu me comprends?”
“I do understand you,” he said calmly, “but the correct sentence structure should be ‘I do not care at all.’ You split the infinitive, baby.”