“Pee…shee,” Luc said slowly, seeming to taste the syllables. “Which eventually became Peachy?”
“Exactly.”
“Hmm.”
“I realize ‘Peachy Keene’ probably sounds like a joke to some people. Which is why I don’t use it for dignified legal documents like leases. But other than that…” Letting her voice trail off, Peachy fluffed her hair with her fingers then asked, “I don’t really think I’m a ‘Pamela,’ do you?”
She was flirting, she realized a moment later. Not a lot. And probably not too skillfully, either. Flirting wasn’t exactly her modus operandi when it came to dealing with members of the opposite sex. But the impulse to tease Lucien Devereaux—at least a bit—was suddenly irresistible.
No. Wait, she amended. Teasing wasn’t quite the right word for what she felt impelled to do. It was more a matter of…of…testing.
And not just him, either. In some strange way, Peachy felt she was testing herself as well.
Luc’s eyelids came down a fraction of an inch. The left corner of his mouth curled upward. What had been an introspective expression suddenly became very, very knowing.
“No,” he responded, his voice soft, the quirking of his lips becoming more pronounced. “You’re a lot of things, cher. But you’re definitely not a ‘Pamela.’“
There was a short pause. Peachy took a drink of wine. Luc did the same.
“I take it you’re close to your father,” he eventually observed, toying with the stem of his glass as he gazed across the table at her.
“Oh, yes,” she affirmed, trying to ignore the evocative movement of his lean fingers. The skin of her inner wrists tingled where he’d caressed her with his thumbs earlier in the meal. “Very. And to my mom, too, of course.”
“Of course.” The words held a faint edge of bitterness.
There was another pause, more awkward than the previous one. After a few moments, Luc glanced away. A moment after that, he lifted his wineglass and drained it.
What was she supposed to say now? Peachy wondered, picking up her own glass and taking a small sip. Given what she’d been told by the MayWinnies and Laila Martigny, it seemed ill-advised to opt for the obvious conversational ploy of shifting the discussion from her mother and father to his.
And yet, mightn’t failing to make some comment about Luc’s parents create the impression that she’d been prying into his background? Although she was prepared to admit that she hadn’t shut her ears to what their mutual neighbors had to say, she didn’t want him to get the notion that—
”I gather you know mine was not the happiest of families,” Luc remarked, bringing his eyes back to meet hers.
Peachy hesitated, briefly considering whether she should deny knowing any such thing. She decided against it for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that she was a lousy liar.
“I’ve heard a few things,” she finally admitted, choosing her words with care. “I mean, I know your mother and father weren’t—uh—didn’t—”
“My father was obsessed with my mother and drank because he understood that marriage didn’t mean she was truly his,” Luc said with trenchant precision. “My mother was obsessed with herself and did as she damned well pleased.”
For a split second Peachy thought the lack of inflection in his voice signaled genuine indifference and felt a strange sort of relief. Then she realized it signified precisely the opposite.
She reached for her wineglass with a hand that was not quite steady. “And you were caught in the middle.”
Luc’s control cracked for just an instant. His eyes flashed, the look in them so dangerously incendiary that Peachy felt herself flinch away from it. Then they turned opaque as stone.
“I learned to fend for myself at an early age,” he replied.
Peachy believed it. And something inside her ached as she did so. But she didn’t dare show it. Every instinct she had told her that even the slightest hint of sympathy would be rebuffed.
She cleared her throat. “They’re…dead now? Your parents, I mean.”
There was a pause. Luc’s features tightened, suggesting some sort of internal conflict. Finally he said, “They were killed in a car crash. Together.”
“Oh.” Her response was little more than a shaky exhalation. While she’d known his mother and father were no longer living, she’d not been privy to details about their demise.
Luc’s mouth twisted. “My father was driving drunk and smashed through the guardrail on a bridge. The official verdict was that it was an accident.”
That he harbored doubts about the validity of this judgment was obvious. But Peachy shied from inquiring why. Instead she asked, “How old were you—?”
“Nineteen. I was in my second semester of college. I dropped out. I enlisted a few months later.”
The question of what he’d done during those few months trembled on the tip of Peachy’s tongue. But before she could find the nerve to voice it, the sommelier, their waiter and a pair of busboys converged on their table. By the time they’d performed their various duties and bustled away, the option of asking was gone. Luc’s mood had changed. Whatever impulse had prompted him to lower his guard to a degree unprecedented in her experience with him clearly had been reined in. His defenses were back up.
Deciding the ball was in his conversational court, Peachy turned her attention to the dessert menu their waiter had presented after he and the busboys had cleared the table. It took her a good minute or two to mentally debate the merits of bread pudding soufflé with bourbon sauce versus a classic créme caramel versus a “tasting” of fresh sorbets and fruit. Not only did Luc fail to utter a single word during the entire process, he also remained silent once she’d closed the menu and set it aside.
She gazed across the table at him.
He gazed back. Steadily. Inscrutably.
Although it was not a character trait of which she was particularly proud, Peachy knew she was capable of being extremely stubborn. Pigheaded, she supposed some would say. So if Lucien Devereaux wanted to test her will by refusing to speak, that was just fine and dandy with her. She could wait him out.
Couldn’t she?
Well…
Uh, maybe…
“Look, Luc,” she suddenly blurted out. “I don’t want you to think that I spend a lot of time gossiping about you behind your back because I don’t.”
“No?” There was just enough spin on the word to make it impossible to determine whether it was meant to communicate skepticism or disappointment or a peculiar blending of both.
“No,” Peachy insisted, then grimaced as honesty goaded her to clarify. “I mean—okay. Yes. I’ve talked about you with the MayWinnies, Laila and Terry. I admitted as much last night when I told you why I’d decided to ask you to, uh, help me out. But you’re hardly our number-one topic of discussion!”
“Really.” Luc began stroking the stem of his wineglass once again, seeming to mull over the implications of her last statement. “And just what—or should I say whom—is these days?”
Peachy looked away. Although she’d spoken the truth a moment ago, it hadn’t quite come out as she’d intended.
“Peachy?”