Bad Boys of London: The Complete GYPSY HEROES Collection (68 page)

Le Suquet is the old part of the city so it is full of quaint, narrow streets full of old-fashioned shops. It is charming, and I fall in love with it, but it is here that I notice that women simply can’t stop staring at Shane. Everywhere we go, he gets ogled at. And I mean really ogled at. When we stop at a little café with tables spilling out into the sideway and order pissaladière, a beautifully simple and delicious pizza with onion, olives, and anchovies, the waitress actually totally ignores me, and flirts outrageously with Shane.

‘Are you a model?’ she asks him in English.

He says something to her in French, which makes her glance at me, shrug, and start taking the order.

‘Well,’ I say when she walks away, ‘she certainly thinks you’re God’s gift.’

He crosses his arms. ‘Says the woman who’s got most of the population of Le Suquet staring at her like zombies with working dicks.’

I snort. ‘Zombies with working dicks? Excuse me? There were girls walking backwards after they passed us just to keep admiring the other side of you.’

‘Well, darling, while you were looking at the women walking backwards, I’ve had to endure the painful sight of men blatantly stripping you with their fucking eyes.’

I lean back. ‘You’re serious?’

‘Damn right I am. It’s fucking annoying.’

My eyes widen. Can it really be that Shane Eden is jealous? The thought is like a bolt of lightning in my heart. ‘Are you jealous?’ I ask incredulously.

‘Yes,’ he admits gloomily. 

‘I love it when you look all brooding and moody. It’s kinda sexy.’

He perks up. ‘Did I just hear you describe me as sexy?’

‘Yeah, I think I might have.’

‘Well, that’s what’s called progress.’ His voice is warm and full of laughter.

‘By the way, what did you tell the waitress just now that made her look at me?’ I say casually, taking a sip of my perfectly chilled rosé.

‘I told her I was gay but that she was welcome to you.’

I almost choke on my drink. ‘What?’ I burst out.

He laughs.

‘You don’t care if people think you’re gay?’

‘Nope. It’s extremely useful in certain circumstances.’

‘Couldn’t you have just told her you weren’t interested?’

‘Girls like her don’t give up easy; she’d have been slipping her phone number into my hand as we left. And that would have just made you get all jealous and pissed off.’

‘I’m not jealous,’ I deny.

‘Oh, you’re jealous all right, Elizabeth Snow Dilshaw. You’re the kind of woman who would try to make a man wear a chastity belt.’

His statement surprises me. He hardly knows me. ‘What makes you say that?’ I ask curiously.

His eyes are like mirrors, giving nothing away. ‘Experience,’ he says cryptically.

‘Well, you’re wrong. I have never been jealous in my life. Not with Lenny, and certainly not with you. In fact, I found it amusing that all those women were looking at you.’

‘That’s really great to know, because they don’t make chastity belts in my size.’ He grins. ‘Too large.’

‘I wouldn’t have cared if the waitress had slipped you her number,’ I say.

There is mischief in his face as he reaches out, grasps my wrist, and strokes it with what seems to be a seductive promise. It is intimate, delicious, and wonderful. Pleasure ripples over my skin, sizzles into my muscles, and instantly I feel strong desire swirl inside me like dead leaves picked up by the wind and helplessly drawn into another’s world.

The expression in Shane’s eyes changes, becomes so lust-drenched that I am undone by the look. I lick my lips. And we find ourselves lost in our own world. We stare at each other hungrily. Desire shimmering between us like some invisible magic. My blood heats up and I feel wetness pooling between my legs. God, it never crossed my mind that I could be so sexually aroused while sitting in a restaurant just looking at a man.

The waitress comes with the food, and, standing over us, clears her throat loudly.

I snatch my hand away. She plonks the pizza in the middle of the table, slaps a small plate in front of each of us, and stalks off.

I giggle at Shane.

‘I told you what she’s like,’ he says.

We both laugh.

The pizza is beautifully simple and delicious. Once Shane has paid our bill, we walk out and start walking uphill. It is hot, and the hill is steep, but we get to the top. We stand outside the majestic old church, Notre-Dame d’Espérance, and look down at the stunning view over the bay.

‘Want to go into the church?’ Shane asks.

‘OK.’

We pass through the old doors, and inside it feels like we have entered a different world. Even the air is cold enough to make me shiver. The stone walls give the impression of damp chill, and the air is hushed and still. Our footsteps echo. Afternoon sunlight falls dustily from high stained-glass windows into the dim interior and lays in milky shapes of color on the floor. It is deserted except for a woman with a black shawl on her head, bowed in prayer in one of the front pews. She does not turn to look at us. I look at the vast, high-ceilinged space in awe.

‘Vellichor much?’ Shane whispers next to me.

I glance up at him. ‘No, I love it. This is far better than any used bookshop.’

He looks at me strangely. ‘Are you messing with me?’

‘No, I’m serious. Ever since this place was built, people have been coming here bringing all their pain, sadness, hopes, gratitude, and joy. The stones have absorbed it. Hundreds of years of human emotion. Can you not feel it?’

He stands very still for a few moments, then looks down at me. ‘Nope.’

‘Shame,’ I whisper, and move forward.

He follows me. ‘Have you never been to a church before?’

‘No. My mother is a non-practicing Christian so she never took us to church. However, I begged and harassed my nanny until she gave in and took me to the temple with her in secret.’

‘How old were you then?’

‘My first trip was when I was five.’

‘Are you a Hindu then?’

‘No. As a child I didn’t go to the temple to pray. I just loved my nanny so much, I couldn’t bear to be parted from her for any length of time. Plus, I enjoyed the trip because it was colorful and the priest allowed me to ring the bell.’

We find ourselves at a side altar with burning candles, and Shane turns to me. ‘Do you want to light a candle?’

‘What does it signify?’

‘It’s a symbol of your prayer that carries on burning even after you are gone.’

I remember Chitra lighting oil lamps and asking her why she was lighting them, and I still recall her answer. Sweet Chitra. I miss her so.
‘It is a way of asking for something from God. The fire lifts your prayer up to God,’
she said.

I look up at Shane. ‘Yes, I’d like to leave a prayer here.’

He drops a note into the donation box slot and takes two candles out. He passes one to me, and we stand side by side and light our candles solemnly. I watch Shane place his in its holder, and I close my eyes and pray. I pray like I’ve never prayed. I pray to any god, Hindu or Christian, who will listen. I ask the stones to absorb my prayer and keep it safe after I am gone and even when the candle burns out. I pray for a bright, silent intercession from the heavens that my actions harm neither Lenny nor Shane.

I open my eyes and see another candle about to sputter out. It seems to grasp desperately for its last breaths of life. I cannot watch it die. I look up at Shane. He is watching me avidly. ‘Can we buy another candle?’

His eyebrows rise, but he puts another note into the box and takes another candle out and gives it to me. I light the candle using the fire of the prayer that is about to sputter out, and plant it next to it. I watch the new flame take over and then I turn to Shane and smile. ‘Shall we go?’

We go out into the afternoon air. It is warm and full of the smell of the sea.

‘Feel like an ice cream?’ he asks.

‘Lead the way, sir.’

‘Step this way, madam, for the best ice cream ever,’ he says when we reach a sweet little shop with a green and yellow signboard and cast iron metal tables and chairs outside. There is a bell at the door that chimes prettily when we enter the shop. It is obviously a mom and pop business. The ice cream counter curves around the entire shop in the shape of a U. A man with a walrus mustache is standing behind it. He knows Shane, and talks to him in French.

‘You can have as many flavors as you want in a cone,’ Shane tells me.

There are so many unusual flavors it is difficult to choose, but in the end I decide on four different types of chocolate: Ecuadorean dark chocolate, Mexican chocolate with cinnamon, Rocky Road, and white chocolate with ginger. Shane has salted Turkish pistachio, grape nut and black raspberry. Shane pays for our ice creams, the man gives us napkins, and we carry our treasures out into the sunshine to sit at one of the tables outside. I carefully lick the white chocolate ginger bit first. It is delicious.

‘Good?’ he asks.

‘Very,’ I say looking up at him through my lashes.

‘Are you flirting with me, little rabbit?’ he asks, his lips covered in ice cream.

I remember how they felt and tasted last night, and feel a rush of something through my body—what, I do not know, but it is exciting. I like that about him. The way he makes me feel so alive. ‘Maybe,’ I say boldly.

His grin is wolfish, his eyes full of light. ‘Works every time,’ he says.

‘What?’

He takes a lick of his ice cream. ‘Feed a girl ice cream and she gets an appetite for love.’

‘I said maybe,’ I remind pointedly.

He chuckles and looks at me with lazy eyes, his whole body relaxed. ‘Maybe, definitely, what’s the difference?’

The sun is warm on my skin, I am with the most dazzling man on earth, and suddenly I feel bold. I lean forward and lick his ice cream. ‘This is maybe,’ I say softly. Then I stretch forward and, going close to his face, lick his lips. ‘And this is definitely.’ I lean back and try to look nonchalant. ‘See the difference now?’

Something flashes in his eyes. Suddenly he doesn’t seem so tame and friendly anymore. It’s like waking a sleeping tiger; I can’t tear my eyes away from him.

He smiles slowly, invitingly. ‘I’m a bit of a slow learner. Would you mind if I run through that again?’ he asks.

My heart begins to race. I can’t believe I started this. What on earth was I thinking of? And yet, I can’t back off now. ‘No,’ I say huskily.

‘So this, then, is maybe,’ he says, and, bending down, kisses me, his lips gentle, but persuasive and insistent.

I try to keep my head, I really do, but, by God, the blood is drumming in my ears and all kinds of winged insects are fluttering in my stomach. The man can really kiss! He lifts his head. I gape at him stupidly. His eyes are heavy-lidded.

‘Now, let’s try definitely.’

He takes my lips again, but this time his mouth is more sensuous, more—far more seductive, urging mine to open. His tongue slips in. Waves of dangerous pleasure sweep through my body and stir my blood awake. I begin to respond to him.
Oh God!
I think dazedly, my whole body feeling like it is blazing with need. I want him inside me!

He ends the kiss, and I feel his face move away from me.

‘I think I got the difference now,’ he drawls, his eyes languorous.

His hand reaches out and straightens mine so my ice cream cone is no longer tilted at an almost horizontal angle. I look at my hand as if it is separate from me. There is a puddle of melted ice cream on the sidewalk. I turn back to face him. His face is deliberately neutral. He stretches like a sun-warmed cat.

‘We should be getting back,’ he says, and stands.

We walk down the hill in a kind of pregnant, expectant silence. Neither acknowledges it, but both of us know. This is just the beginning. There is no denying this thing burning between us.

Monsieur Chevalier is leaning against an old wall, smoking a cigarette and waiting for us. He drives us back to Saumur in good spirits. The men talk in their own way with hand gestures and half-understood French, and I hang my head out of the car and breathe in the scent of France.

Who knows if I will ever come back here again?

Fourteen

SNOW

W
e agree to meet in the great Salon at seven. I have an hour to soak in the bath and dress. I get into a two-piece dark grey cocktail dress. It has a high scoop neckline with cut-in shoulders. The crop top is encrusted with floral beading with a keyhole opening at the back and a scalloped trim along the midriff. The short flaring skirt is layered with organza fabric and stops just below the knee. I slip into beaded high heels and pull my hair into a knot at the nape of my neck. I line my eyes, brush the mascara wand a couple of times over my eyelashes and color my lips a deep red.

The effect is sophisticated and sleek.

Feeling nervous and excited I go down to the salon. Shane is already there. He must have heard my footsteps on the marble floors because he is standing by the window, a glass of some amber liquid in his hand, looking at the entrance. I stand at the doorway for a second. Both of us drink in the sight of the other. This is the first time I have seen him dress up and he is, well, there is no other way to describe it, breathtakingly, extraordinarily handsome.

‘Will you walk into my parlor, said the Spider to the Fly,’ he says.

‘Oh no, no, said the little Fly, ‘for I’ve often heard it said, they never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!’

He walks up to me. ‘I promise I’ll eat you and you’ll live to see the day,’ he murmurs, his breath whispering into me.

I find myself blushing. He touches my cheek and my throat feels suddenly parched.

‘What will you have to drink, pretty little fly? Vodka and Orange?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ll have a glass of wine.’

‘We’re having a Beaujolais with our starter. Want a glass of that? Or would you prefer champagne?’

‘The Beaujolais sounds lovely.’

‘Make yourself comfortable,’ he says and disappears out of the room. I walk to the window he had been standing at and look out. It faces the side I have not explored. An open meadow borders a forest. I wonder if that is where the wild boars live.