Page 60 of Never Too Late

Chapter Twenty-one

We arrived at the hospital to Henri just leaving Laurent’s room, the handsome Frenchman’s face lighting up with a smile when he saw me. I had no idea why he’d pursued me with such dedication since my arrival in Paris, when I hadn’t exactly been a barrel of laughs. Perhaps he had a thing for moody men. In which case, I fit the bill perfectly.

“Finlay,” he said, his accent stronger than Laurent’s. “I did not know you were coming tonight. Had I known, I would have made my visit later, so it coincided with yours. No matter, we are both here now. Perhaps when your visit is complete, we can get a drink somewhere and discuss Laurent’s recovery. The broken leg is going to mean he will require his friends’ help. And we are both his friends, are we not?”

Henri hadn’t looked away from me once, Cillian apparently achieving invisibility in his eyes. “We are,” I agreed. “Tonight’s not a good time, though, Henri.”

“Non?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll hire a nurse for him,” Cillian said with a bite in his voice, “if that’s what’s required. Therefore, no tête-à-tête between the two of you is needed.”

Cillian inviting himself to the conversation forced Henri to either acknowledge his presence or risk coming across as rude. Henri delayed turning his head long enough that I knew he was tempted to ignore Cillian. I had an inkling Henri knew exactly who Cillian was as the two men eyed each other like they were contestants in an episode ofThe Bachelorand I had the starring role.

I hadn’t thought to mention Henri to Cillian. Why would I when nothing had happened between us and I’d never given Henri even the slightest encouragement? No doubt Cillian was wondering why one of Laurent’s friends seemed hellbent on getting me alone. Seizing hold of Cillian’s hand, I yanked him closer to my side. “Cillian, this is Henri. Henri, Cillian. Cillian’s my boyfriend. We’re recently reunited.”

The two men shook hands, contact between them as minimal as they could make it and it still classify as a handshake. I was beginning to think all I’d needed to do in London to wrest Cillian’s attention away from his work was to have another man show interest in me. If only I’d realized that, it could have saved us both a lot of trouble.

“I see,” Henri said, his throat bobbing. “Well, that’s…” He trailed off, either unwilling or unable to complete his thought. He tried for a smile in my direction, the action not quite coming off. “Laurent will be very pleased to see you.” With that, he turned on his heel and made a hasty departure.

“I think you just broke his heart,” Cillian said as we watched him leave.

“At least I stopped you two from dueling in the car park.”

A slow smile crept over Cillian’s face. “I would have won.”

“What makes you so sure?”

The smile grew wider. “I work in advertising. I fight dirty. He wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

I gave the statement the response it deserved, which was to roll my eyes. “Wait here,” I instructed. When Cillian opened his mouth to argue about being so summarily dismissed, I slipped inside the room and closed the door before he had a chance to. I’d just narrowly averted one pissing contest, so I wasn’t up for Laurent and Cillian getting into another one so soon.

Laurent was propped up on hospital pillows, and while he didn’t look great—more of his face covered in purplish bruises than wasn’t —it was a vast improvement on that first day when I’d had to search for evidence it was really him. His smile when he attempted one was lopsided, and short-lived.

“Does it hurt?” I asked as I approached the bed.

“Does what hurt?”

“Smiling.”

“Always,” he quipped. “Why smile when you can frown? I learned that from a pasty Englishman.”

I pulled a plastic chair closer to the bed and sat. “That pasty Englishman being me, I presume?”

“Of course.”

I rubbed my hands over my thighs while I tried to think of something to say. I’d spent two days lamenting the fact that I couldn’t talk to him, and now I could, the words just weren’t there. “I’m sorry that—”

“Don’t!”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“You were going to apologize for not escorting me home, like I am some… damsel…” He paused after the word, waiting for my nod of confirmation that he’d used the correct word before continuing. “Some damsel in distress and you are my big, butch security guard.”

“Well, yeah, that was what I was going to say, minus the damsel and the big, butch security guard part, anyway. If I’d come home with you…”

“If you’d come home with me, maybe the bus would have hit both of us. You do know the driver lost consciousness and swerved off the road, and that it wasn’t that I in my stupidity stepped in front of it?”

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