The Frenchman (Crime Royalty Romance Book 1) by Lesley Young Read Free Book Online Page A

tattoos, pretending to wear his heart on his sleeve. Nuh-uh. The reality is far more . . . visceral and exciting . How the risk beckons one like a wildly steep ski run. Oh God.
    I needed to get this dinner over with so I could call Jess. She left that morning and it was about seven-thirty p.m. She would make this all better. Or Mom. I wouldn’t tell her any of this stuff. I just wanted to hear her voice.
    “Be careful, my love.” Marie was watching me chop onions. Her mood had shifted back to lighthearted after the meal preparations got underway. Bastien reached out for the knife, and I gladly handed it over, eyeing the wine that had been poured for me.
    I needed to get it together. Marie was a cop. She was reading me. And I wasn’t ready for her to see the real Fleur. The one who, on rare occasions, had major meltdowns. Plus, I would have to lie and say it was still the torn dress upsetting me, which I should be over by now.
    I took a deep breath, smiled, and asked about her day. She said the usual, “Fine,” (she never divulged details) and began talking up Bastien. Somewhere around finding out what Bastien thinks of my blog, how much he loves cooking, and visiting America, I realized she had invited Bastien to dinner for me .
    Um, okay.
    I tried to go with the flow. And why not? Pile on the strange, I thought, unlocking my stiff shoulders.
    Mid-meal, I was enjoying myself. Mid-dessert, I was laughing at Bastien’s understated charm. Over coffee, he had me making eyes. At the door, when he asked me on a date in two days’ time, I said yes.
    Friday night. A fabulous new restaurant.
    And why shouldn’t I go out with him? He and Marie had worked together before he’d been transferred to a different division. How could I go wrong?
    This is what I told her, sitting side by side, cozy in our PJs, watching a local French news station.
    She smiled. “I do not want you to think I care either way,” she said, earnestly. “I only wanted Bastien to meet you before you were in Toulon too long.”
    “What do you mean, before I’m here too long?” I asked, midway into a bite of the best brie I had ever tasted. Cheese heals wounded pride, apparently, or temporarily, anyway.
    She frowned at me. “Come now, you do not need compliments I think, non ?”
    I stopped chewing.
    She thinks I’ll attract lots of men and that I know this and that I’m fishing for compliments. That’s not the way I am at all. That Marie had misunderstood me struck me straight in the heart, like a sharp-pointed arrow. There isn’t a vain bone in my body. She wouldn’t know how I didn’t get contact lenses until high school, or that until I got braces, I had been referred to behind my back as “beaver.” This beauty everyone refers to is as fleeting as bubble skirts.
    “Ah,” she exclaimed, taking in my stricken face. “You are sincere!? Oh mon Dieu , how innocente you are.”
    That made me feel even more naive. “Ah, ma belle , non non non , that is part of your je ne sais quoi , I see now,” she exclaimed, grabbing my cheeks, pulling me to her in a hug, petting my shoulder. “I love this about you.”
    I was instantly consoled.
    She pulled back and held my gaze. I smiled. But her face dropped, and with it, my heart.
    “Promise me something?” My stomach swooshed. I nodded. Anything. “I do not wish to be . . . motherly. But I want to say—” I nodded my head encouragingly, very much wanting her to be motherly “—when we are born le monde est beau, n’est-ce pas ? (the world is good, is it not?)” I nodded. “ Mais , eventually the bad”—I imagine she had seen a lot of bad in her line of work—“eats the good.” She held her hand to her mouth as though she were pouring invisible water into her mouth. “It consumes all, until you can’t remember what is good.”
    Sadness pervaded her beauty. Her bunched up brow and faint smile lines drew her down.
    “Marie,” I whispered, wanting more than anything to give her