Two Besties, Two Babies, Two Dangerous Daddies novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: Unmasked

Our flights home were booked for the morning.

Lexie and Cillian went to bed early, in separate rooms, with a lot of slow good nights in the hall.

I sat out on the terrace with my feet up on the wall and the whole coast lit up below me.

Ciro came out with two glasses.

Sparkling water for me. Sparkling water for him.

"You don't have to do that," I said.

"Partners split the bill."

He sat on the wall beside my feet, close but not touching.

The sea made a slow sound against the rocks a long way down.

"So," he said. "Partner."

"Partner."

"What does a partner do on her last night in France?"

"Prices your villa. Thirty-two, by the way. The marble upstairs is fake."

"It's not fake."

"I knocked on it. It's tile."

He laughed, and it went out over the water.

"Can I ask you something real?" he said.

"You can ask."

"Why gold digger? Why say it out loud? Most women would hide that."

I turned the glass in my hands.

"My mom chased rich men my whole childhood," I said. "She never caught one. She just got older and more embarrassed."

"And you?"

"I decided if I was going to do it, I'd do it on purpose. Out loud. With a spreadsheet."

"Why?"

"Nobody gets to laugh at me for something I said first."

He didn't laugh.

He just nodded.

"Your turn," I said. "Why'd your mother leave?"

"She said my father's house was a place where nobody told the truth."

"Was she right?"

"Yes. That's why I hate being lied to."

He looked down at his hands.

"And I still let my uncle lie to me for a year."

"Because he taught you to cook."

"Because he taught me to cook."

The wind moved my hair across my face.

He reached up and pushed it back, then stopped with his hand by my cheek.

"I need to tell you something," he said. "Before we go home and it gets loud."

"Okay."

"I woke up that night at half past two. You were gone. One cufflink was gone."

"I know. I took it."

"I put my shirt on and went down to the casino floor in it," he said. "Looking for a woman in gold."

I stared at him.

"Nobody knew the book was missing until nine the next morning," he said.

"I was already looking for you. For you, Trixie. Not for the book."

"You didn't know my name."

"I knew your laugh. I walked that floor for an hour listening for it."

I put my glass down on the wall, very carefully, because my hand wasn't steady.

"That's a good line," I said.

"It's not a line."

"I know. That's what scares me."

I swung my feet down off the wall.

Now I was standing between his knees, and he was sitting, so our faces were level.

Up close in the terrace light I could see everything.

The scar through his eyebrow. The bump on his nose. The gray coming in at his temple that he probably hated.

That night at the ball I'd had him in the dark, with a mask, and no name.

I'd never had his whole face.

"No masks," I said.

"No masks."

"Lights on."

His breath went out of him.

"Trixie," he said. "You said partner. You said not ever."

"I said not your girlfriend. I didn't say not tonight."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm a gold digger. I'm always sure."

"That's not an answer."

I took his face in both hands.

"Yes," I said. "I want you. Tonight. With the lights on, and your face, and my name in your mouth."

He stood up off the wall and kissed me.

It wasn't the pool. It wasn't angry.

It was slow, like he had all night and planned to use it.

I took his hand and walked him inside.

I led him down the hall with his hand hot around mine.

My room was the last one, and I'd left the balcony doors open, so the whole space smelled like salt and lemons and the lamp by the bed was already burning.

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