“I don’t want you to be disappointed in me,” he said softly, so that I had to lean in to be sure of him. “I will try harder than I ever have before to be that kind of person but you will have to forgive me my mistakes when I inevitably make them. I wasn’t this kind of man before I met you.”
His words made my soul ache. I couldn’t believe that no one had ever told him how intensely beautiful he was. Though I had met his parents, understood them to be self-serving, I couldn’t really fathom how Elena could have refrained from telling him every other moment, how special he was. I honestly felt like it was my honor to get to love him, to know him and take care of him.
I told him so.
He stopped walking and slowly turned to me, slipping one hand through the hair at the nape of my neck and the other around my hip. We stared at each other with wordless feelings in our eyes as he slowly walked me back against a wall and pressed himself close to my body. I relished the heat between us, tipping my head back to maintain eye contact.
“Thank you,” he whispered, and I felt, more than heard, the words against my lips.
I pressed a soft kiss to his mouth in response.
When he broke away, he pulled back to smile a ridiculously adorable grin. “Are you ready for some déjà vu?”
I frowned, looking around until I realized that we were in front of Chez Dumonet, where we would meet his friends and colleagues from Mexico. It was my turn to grin.
“Lead the way.”
The restaurant was one that I had never been to before but only because I had always been too poor for such extravagancies. I loved it on sight for its subtle opulence and quintessentially French features but I also understood that I was biased by the sight of the Mexico crew sitting around the best table by the window.
“Giselle,” Robert Corbett bellowed as everyone stood up to greet us.
I couldn’t help but laugh as he embraced me in a huge bear hug. Though he was sixty-five years old, he had the kind of virility you would have expected in a much younger man.
When I embraced Duncan Wright next, I couldn’t help but note the difference between the two men. The CFO of Faire Developments comported himself with a humble, almost subservient calm and kindness that would have seemed much better suited to a man of Robert’s age and slight stature.
Margot only deigned to smile slightly in my direction but I found myself surprisingly happy to see her. After all, she had been the one to urge me to pony up and claim Sinclair as my own.
Richard hugged me next but it was a short embrace because Candy was pushing him out of the way before he even had his arms around me.
“I’m the best friend,” she explained haughtily as she delicately wrapped her arms around me and then snapped me close with a brutal force that shoved the air from my lungs.
I laughed even as I tried to catch my breath. “Hey, best friend.”
“How are you feeling?”
My heart panged. “Like I sacrificed my entire world for the only thing that really matters.”
“That was pretty poetic,” she said as she pulled away from me and made a face. “But it makes sense. Even though you made the only choice you could, it doesn’t make it any less difficult.”
“You owe me two hundred big ones,” Richard said to Duncan.
I turned to the meek young man and watched him blush furiously.
“I, um, I don’t…”
Richard guffawed. “Don’t be embarrassed, Wright, you lost fair and square.”
“You placed wagers on my relationship with Elle?” Sinclair asked in that perfectly glacial tone that immediately froze everyone in place.
Duncan cleared his throat before stuttering, “Well, logically, you see, I mean, it was obvious to everyone who could see you two in Mexico…”
“Oh get off your high horse, Sin, we made a bet on you two getting together. Big whoop. Turns out our instincts were correct, which is probably what makes us such invaluable employees too,” Candy said.
“And the best of friends,” he added, drolly.
Her eyes widened and she placed a hand over her chest. “You think we’re friends? I’m touched, truly.”
I laughed at their antics as everyone took their seats. Even though I didn’t know the group very well, I felt connected to them because they had been there at the very beginning of Sinclair and me. If anyone could understand the magnetic, inexorable pull between us, it was them.
And they proved their understanding by being nothing but polite and delightful through the entire evening. It was amazing to be able to relax with friends, to feel comfortable leaning into Sinclair when he fed me a morsel of beautiful beef bourguignon from his plate and kiss him when I returned from the restroom. Candy coyly commented on the silver and turquoise cuff Sinclair had given me, the very same one that I had admired with her in Mexico, and I was even thrilled when they began to question us about the future, as if it were only natural to assume the two of us would be together for a very long time.