“I feel envy, yes,” he says quietly.
“I need you to give me more than that.” I lean forward, kiss his jaw. “Envious of what.”
“I never used to. If anything, I tend to see the positive everywhere. Finn and Oliver . . . they will grow exasperated with me sometimes, telling me I’m impulsive, or I’m fickle.” He tears his eyes from mine, looking past my shoulder at the room behind me. “But now I look at my best friends and see a certain freedom they have . . . I want that. I think that must be envy.”
This one stings. The sting turns into a burn and it crawls up my throat, coating my windpipe. I swallow a few times before I’m able to manage, “I see.”
Immediately, Ansel realizes what he’s said, and ducks his head so I’ll look at him. “Not because I’m married and they aren’t,” he says quickly. His eyes move back and forth, searching mine for understanding. “This isn’t about the annulment; I didn’t want it, either. It wasn’t just that I promised you.”
“Okay.”
“I envy their situation in a different way from what you’re thinking.” Pausing, he seems to wait for my expression to soften before he quietly admits, “I didn’t want to move back to Paris. Not for this job.”
My eyes narrow. “You didn’t?”
“I love the city—it’s the center of my heart—but I didn’t want to return the way I did. Finn loves his hometown; he never wants to leave. Oliver is opening a store in San Diego. I envy how happy they are being exactly where they want to be.”
Too many questions perch on my tongue, fighting to come out. Finally, I ask the same one I asked last night: “Then why did you come back here?”
He watches me, eyes assessing. Finally he says only, “I suppose I felt obligated.”
I assume he’s talking about the obligation of the job he would have been insane to turn down. I can tell even if he hates it that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “Where would you rather be?”
His tongue slips out, wets his lips. “I would at least like to have the option to follow my wife when she leaves.”
My heart stutters. I decide to skip over sloth and wrath, far more interested in pursuing this subject. “You’re married?”
He nods, but his expression isn’t playful. Not even a little. “Yes, I’m married.”
“And where is your wife right now while I’m sitting on your naked lap, wearing this tiny scrap of lingerie?”
“She’s not here,” he whispers conspiratorially.
“Do you make a habit of this?” I ask, wearing a teasing smile. I want to lift the serious cloud that’s descending. “Letting in women while your wife is gone? It’s good you brought her up, since infidelity is next on my list.”
His face drops and oh shit. I’ve hit a nerve. I close my eyes, remembering what he told me about his father, how he was never faithful to Ansel’s mother, how the parade of women through the house was finally enough to drive his mother to the States when Ansel was only a teenager.
I start to apologize but his words come out faster than mine. “I have been unfaithful.”
An enormous black hole opens up inside me, swallowing my organs in the most painful order: lungs, then heart, and then, when I’m sure I’m suffocating, my stomach drops out.
“Never to my wife,” he says slowly and after a long pause, apparently oblivious to my panic. I close my eyes, dizzy with relief. Still, my heart feels like it returns to my body slightly withered, beating weakly at the realization that he’s more like his father than his mother when it comes to cheating. “I’m trying to do better this time.”
It’s several long seconds before I can speak, but when I do, my words come out reedy, a little breathless. “Well, this certainly tilts the negotiation in my favor.”
“I’m sure it does,” he whispers.
My voice wobbles a little. “I’ll need the details, of course.”
Finally, a tiny, unsure smile pulls at one corner of his mouth. “Of course.” He leans his head back against the couch, watching me with wary eyes. “I met a woman from here,” he says, adding, “or, rather, near here. From Orléans.” He takes a small break, closing his eyes. I can see the way his pulse is fluttering in his throat. Even though his explanation is so factual, so detached, he seems amped up.
Is it just that I’m wearing lingerie and he’s completely naked? Or is he worried about my reaction?
I press a hand to his chest. “Tell me,” I whisper, anxiety sending a tight thrill through my veins. “I want to know
everything.” I do, and I don’t.
Beneath my palm, he relaxes. “I was in law school, and we stayed together even at a distance; she studied fashion here.” He pulls back and watches me before saying, “I can be impulsive with my emotions, I know. After the first couple of months . . . I knew we were more friends than lovers. But I was convinced it would be passionate again when I moved back here. I assumed it was the distance that made it not so exciting for me.” Each sentence is carefully composed. “I was lonely and . . . two times I shared my bed. Minuit still does not know.”
Minuit . . . I search my limited vocabulary, remembering after a beat that it means “midnight.” I imagine a raved-haired beauty, her hands sliding over his chest the way mine do now, her ass pressed to his thighs the way mine is now. I imagine his cock, hard for her the way it is for me now.