Page 38 of Sunburned

“I guess success has really done a number on him,” she said.

I murmured agreement, but I knew she was wrong. It wasn’t the success that had done this to him, it was the guilt.

Chapter 11

By the time Laurent returned to collect me from Le Rêve, the sun was high in the sky, bouncing off the white yachts that sailed silently on the deep blue sea below. No one was around when I emerged from my room with my sandals in hand to find Laurent waiting for me in the kitchen, wiping down the spotless countertops.

His lips parted slightly as his eyes met mine, and I completely forgot for a split second why I was there. What was it about the way he looked at me? It wasn’t flirtatious or seductive, nothing that obvious. It was more…open? Unguarded. Like he saw me. Which was ridiculous. I didn’t even know his last name. But that didn’t change the fact that his slight smile felt like an invitation intended only for me.

“Ready?” he asked. “It’s just us.”

Just us.I liked the sound of that entirely too much.

He led me to the front door, his shoulder brushing mine as he reached past me to open it. Outside, I stepped into my wedge sandals before continuing to the car. He clicked the key fob and the side door slid open. I hesitated. “I’ll sit up front with you, if that’s okay,” I said, my heart beating like I’d just propositioned him.

“Of course,” he said.

I came around the back of the van to the passenger side as he came around the front, both of us reaching to open the car door at the same time. I laughed. “I’m used to opening my own doors.”

He stepped back and gestured for me to open the door. “It’s heavy,” he warned.

I dragged my gaze away from his to locate the door handle and pull. The door was in fact surprisingly heavy, the driveway slightly slanted, and I wobbled backward on the uneven pavement in my wedges, my back landing against his chest. “Sorry,” I said automatically, mortified.

That made three times since I’d arrived here. I was beginning to think gravity was conspiring to push me into his arms.

“Will you let me help you into the car?” I could feel his voice reverberating in his chest.

“That would be lovely.”

He placed one hand on my back, taking my other hand in his to lift me into the van.

“Thank you,” I said, allowing myself to meet his amused gaze before he closed the door.

I took a breath, busying myself with my phone as he walked around to the driver’s side and swung himself up into the van. He extracted a pair of sunglasses from the visor before expertly executing a three-point turn in the small space to point us in the right direction.

“You are a diver, Audrey?” he asked as we pulled out of the driveway.

I nodded. “I grew up diving. My mom loved to dive.”

“So, it is in your blood.”

“Yeah.” I could picture my mom clear as day, grinning and tan, her dive mask pushed up on her forehead, her braid dripping seawater as she spouted off the Latin names of the fish we’d seen down below. In her element. The image made my heart both sing and bleed. “What about you?”

“I have been obsessed with the sea since I was a boy. My brothersand I spent summers with my grandparents on the west coast of France, near Biarritz. But I did not start diving until I moved here.”

“Because you were always surfing?” I guessed.

He nodded. “Biarritz has very good surfing.”

“What’s the biggest waves you ever surfed?”

“Nazaré, in Portugal,” he answered immediately. “The waves are so tall they tow you out on a Jet Ski.”

“That’s terrifying.”

“Yes.” A glimmer of a smile flashed across his face. “But it is nice to be terrified sometimes, no? Makes you feel alive.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Totally.”

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