Page 63 of My French Love Affair

I bite my lip, debating it. I know that if I walk away now, he’s going to find out anyway. He’s made that much clear.

So, I begrudgingly let out a sigh, tipping my chin up slightly.

“It’s Poppy.”

His brows lift, like he wasn’t actually expecting me to give in.

I cross my arms. “That’s all you’re getting.”

“Poppy,”he repeats, looking thoughtful as if he’s turning the name over in his head.

And hearing it in his annoyingly sexy French accent makesme irrationally irritated all over again.

Then, after a beat, he nods.

“Pavot,” he muses, the French word rolling off his tongue effortlessly.

I frown. “What?”

His lips twitch. “Coquelicot, then. That’s what we call them in the fields.”

“The fields?” I echo, momentarily thrown.

“The poppy fields,” he says, his voice smooth, lazy. “In the French countryside. They stretch for miles, all red and wild and untamed.”

He tilts his head slightly, watching me.

“A fitting name, don’t you think?”

I stare at him, annoyingly unsure whether or not that was meant to be an insult.

“You sound like you’re trying to be poetic,” I say as I narrow my eyes.

“Maybe I am.”

I let out a sharp, humorless laugh.

“That’s unfortunate for you.”

His brows lift slightly, amused. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” I smirk. “Turns out I’m not into tortured poets.”

The second the words leave my mouth, something flickers across his face, and for the first time tonight, he looks genuinely intrigued.

I don’t wait for him to recover, though. Instead, I turn on my heel and march away, without another word.

But not before I hear him chuckle behind me -

And I swear that I feel his gaze lingering on me long after I’ve disappeared into the crowd.

Chapter Nineteen

Frederic

Poppy.

Her name lingers in my head. It refuses to leave, refuses to be anything less than a whisper in my mind, teasing and infuriating me all at once.

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