He thinks I’m an English prude compared to his self-confident Francophile ways. I acted totally fine. I think.
“Morning.” His voice makes me jump as I’m still lost in deep thought about his gloriousness. I can’t hide the blush on my cheeks when I turn around and see him freshly showered. He looks different this morning and not because he has clothes on either. It’s like the dark cloud that has been hanging over him has shifted slightly.
“You shaved.” I realize his scrappy beard is missing. He doesn’t look like the washed-up artist with a drinking problem that I’ve seen for the past six weeks that I’ve been here. He now looks like the man I remember seeing in the art magazines and on the Internet. It’s not like I stalked him or anything. He’s wearing faded jeans with fashionable holes and a bright white polo with bare feet. He smells clean like sandalwood and earth.
“Eat.” Gabriel places his breakfast in front of him which is surprisingly English—bacon and eggs.
Louis sits on the chair beside me and starts his breakfast eagerly, which shouldn’t surprise me as he’s hardly eaten anything in forty-eight hours.
We think Louis has hit rock-bottom these past couple of days, destroying his studio and most of his recent work in the process. It probably hasn’t helped that while his life has spiraled out of control, his ex and her man are the toast of the town. As much as I think my boss is a dick, and he is, I do feel for him—a teeny tiny bit.
He obviously loved his wife more than anything in the world, and her betrayal has ripped at his core. Maybe that’s what true love does to you. While Louis imploded over the last forty-eight hours, it got me thinking about Toby and why I wasn’t destroying the house over losing him. It’s been nearly two months since Toby dropped his bomb. Except for a couple of nights, I haven’t really thought about him, and we were together for five years. Other than maybe a bruised ego, I don’t know if I’m as heartbroken as I thought I was. Although, out of stupidity, I still check his Instagram, and it still makes me want to puke with all the happy photographs of him and his girlfriend, but the ache I had in my chest seems to have gone. Maybe it’s the French air, or maybe I’m just too busy looking after my drunken pain-in-the-ass boss that I haven’t had time to think about my feelings for Toby.
Was I really in love with him? This is a question I have been asking myself. Or was it just convenient? Like we got into a routine, and that was all there was to it. Maybe we were never real soulmates. I mean if we were, he wouldn’t have cheated, right? Food for thought, Emily. Food for thought.
Gabriel places two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice in front of me pulling me from my thoughts and disappears from the kitchen. Louis has been vicious with his words the last couple of days I have spent with him on his bender.
“You owe Gabriel an apology. Actually, you owe all the staff a massive one. Maybe a nice bonus would make up for all the shit you have pulled these last couple of days.”
“Excuse me?” Louis quirks an eyebrow and looks at me as if I have lost my mind.
“You may be looking all…” I wave my hand in front of him.
“All what?” He glares at me.
“Normal now,” I say. “But that doesn’t make up for how you have acted over the past forty-eight hours.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Shall I play you the footage?”
“You recorded me?” Louis looks at me stunned as anger laces his words.
“Yeah, I’m going to use it to blackmail you.”
“What?” he roars.
“Oh, calm down, will you? Jesus, you have no sense of humor. No. I took the footage because I knew you wouldn’t remember, and I knew you wouldn’t believe how much of a dick you have been if I just told you. So, I wanted proof to show you.”
Louis takes a large gulp of his orange juice. “Do I really want to see this?”
“I think you should.” He takes one last sip and nods, so I pull out my cell, bring up the footage, and show him. He stares at it in stunned silence, and when the mini clip is over, he clears his throat. “Um… can you excuse me for a moment?” Louis hands back my cell and walks away from the kitchen.
I give him a couple of moments, then I hear his footsteps as he walks back into the kitchen and goes to the fridge to pull out the vodka. Our eyes meet, and he hesitates, then puts the vodka back in the fridge and rests his elbows on the island bench, his head falling into his hands.
I’m proud of him in this moment because forty-eight hours ago, he’d have taken that bottle and disappeared for the day.
“I’m an embarrassment.”
Well, I’m not going to sugar-coat it for him because he is. “Not so great seeing yourself like that, is it?”
Those blue eyes look up at me. “I don’t want to be like that anymore.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? That’s all you’ve got to say.”
“Okay, that’s good,” I add, which makes him smile.
“I was waiting for a tirade of words from you. So, I’m a little taken aback that you’ve given me a simple ‘okay.’”
Leaning forward, I place my elbows on the island bench too. “I don’t think I can make you feel any worse than you do right now.” He just stares at me. “But I have a plan.” Louis raises his eyebrows. “I thought we could go for a bike ride today.” He continues to just stare at
