Page 13 of A New Year's Toy

He would’ve looked menacing if he hadn’t sent me a wink.

Then the door creaks, announcing the arrival of Laurent and Delphine Rose.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Alistair

Something stinks.

It isn’t the sweetly sick scent of the colorful macarons on the table. It isn’t the syrupy berries-scented diffuser placed on top of the decorative dressers on either side of the room either.

The room itself and the kind receptionist who welcomed us and showed us here, they’re all right.

Our two hosts are my problem. There isn’t anything I can pinpoint about what makes my jaw clench or my eyes narrow at them. This isn’t something cultural; the sex toys I bought before I ordered from Nola’s shop were bought in a sex shop in Paris.

I like the city, I love trailing the halls of the Louvre. I could eat their duck à l’orange for dinner for the rest of my days.

Nothing against the French. On the contrary.

Just these two.

“Bon jour, Madame Vickers,” both of them chime in tandem.

The years of entrepreneurship experience I have under my belt and the dozens of scumbags I’ve come across have sharpened my senses. And these senses fucking scream at me to wake up as Laurent kisses the back of Nola’s palm and his sister, Delphine kisses her cheeks from either side.

I. Do. Not. Like them.

But I promised Nola I’d be a wallflower at her meeting, and I’ll honor my word. Our relationship is based on mutual respect, on honoring each other. The fact that she even agreed to let me in on it—so I could witness her in her element—attests to the deep level of trust we’ve built.

A hunch will not trigger me to break it. It’ll take a hell of a lot more than that.

“Bon jour, Monsieur et Madame Rose,” my Nola does her best impression of Bernard.

I temporarily forget about my dislike of the Rose siblings at the nearly perfect French accent she’s adopted in the past two hours we’ve been here.

“Mon Dieu!” Delphine coos at her. “Est-ce que tu parles Français?”

“No, no.” Nola chuckles. “I don’t speak French.”

From my vantage point at her side, I watch the nearly undetectable clenching of her fists at her sides. She’s doing a damn good job at masking her inexperience.

She reminds me of myself. My first few official meetings to raise money for SunInUs, the solar panel company I built with my own two hands, were brutal.

I was twenty-three years old, grief-laden by the death of my sister and my parents not long after her. They died within one week of each other, their personal grief for their daughter’s early demise taking them from me and my other sister, Jolene.

I was poor as shit, too. Not a penny from their life policy entered my bank account. The blame for all of their deaths is mine, alone. Leaving the money to Jolene was the least I could do as penance, an insignificant atonement for my sins. One I continue paying, despite her pleas to stop.

But I digress.

Throughout the internal shitstorm that wreaked havoc in me, I still showed up at the meetings, put up a straight, strong face, and charged forward, taking no prisoners.

Similar to my Nola.

“Well, your accent is flawless,” Delphine continues, her smile widening. “Isn’t it, Laurent?”

“Oui, oui.” He nods emphatically.

They seem too nice. Too eager. Maybe they recognize me? It’s not entirely impossible, my face has appeared in global magazines, and I’ve been at it for a while. Maybe they want to be cordial.

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