He’d thought about the look on Sylvie’s face when he’d told her plenty of marriages started without love. It hadn’t been the answer she’d wanted, but he hadn’t been able to lie to her.
“There is nothing missing in you.” Louis had leaned in, his eyes intent on Rene. “And there was nothing missing in your father. He knew how to love. Maybe he wasn’t demonstrative enough for you, but that had to do with the way he was raised.”
“I’m not judging him.” He loved his father. He’d been a good father, but he hadn’t taught him how to be the kind of man Sylvie seemed to need, and he was at a loss for what to do. He wanted her. He wasn’t sure he could have her, and he was a little scared that losing Sylvie would have far more of an effect on his life than he was willing to admit.
He’d missed her for years, and when she’d returned, she’d seemed uninterested in him. Now he knew she wanted him, but he couldn’t seem to give her what she needed to take the last step that would start their physical relationship.
Then he could show her what he could offer. He could make up for his lack of emotions by being everything she needed in bed. A passionate lover and a good life partner she could count on. He had to hope that would be enough.
“I’m glad to hear it, because your parents went through enough judgment,” Louis said, his eyes going to the portrait of Rene’s parents he kept on the wall. In it they looked every bit the sophisticated, stately Southern couple. Educated. Polite. Respectable. “I was your father’s best man. I know how he felt about your mother. In many ways she saved him.”
“From what?”
Louis seemed almost startled by the question, but he recovered quickly. “The same thing you’re going through now. He was under pressure to marry, too. Your mother’s family was more relaxed, but she felt like it was time to settle down. She wanted a baby. They were happy together. Does love have to be one way? Does it have to be the crazy passion you see on a screen for it to be real?”
It had to be whatever Sylvie could accept. He breathed a sigh because he wasn’t going to fix the problem by talking about it. He wasn’t sure he could fix the problem at all. Louis had never married. As far as Rene could tell, Louis had been a confirmed bachelor all of his life. He’d been married to his job, too. “Of course not. Now let’s talk about what’s happening downstairs. You heard we lost the Gateway account?”
Louis looked like he wanted to argue but he merely sighed and plowed ahead. “We’ve got a leak somewhere. A corporate spy, to use dramatic language. Someone is leaking our bids and allowing our competitors to swoop in and underbid by pennies. The question is, who’s working for Charles?”
Rene thought along the same lines, but he had to be fair. “We don’t know it’s Charles.”
“No one else benefits,” Louis said firmly. “Everyone else wants the company to make money. Charles wants a bad quarter so he can point the finger your way at the board meeting. Someone is feeding him information, and we need to figure out who it is before we put in another set of bids next week.”
Louis was right. “Nothing is more important than this. I’ll clear my afternoon and we can strategize.”
He might need to hire someone to come in and audit his systems for suspicious activity. He didn’t want to do it, but he might have to call home and let them know he was in for a bunch of late nights. More proof for Sylvie that he wasn’t a good bet.
There was a knock on his door.
Hopefully it was his assistant with some information. “Come in.”
The door opened and pure sunshine walked in. Sylvie had changed out of the business suit she’d worn this morning and into jeans and a yellow T-shirt, hiking boots on her feet, and her hair up in a pretty scarf. She held a picnic basket in her hands. “Hey, I’m sorry to barge in but no one was at reception. I took the afternoon off and was wondering if you wanted to have lunch. I thought we could go out to the island.”
“Yes.” He couldn’t stand up fast enough.
Louis’s lips had curved up in a grin. “Nothing is more important?”
He’d said that about finding the spy, and now he realized what a lie that had been. The most important thing in the world had just walked through the door. “You can handle it, right?”
Nothing was more important than her.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.” She bit her bottom lip in a way that nearly had him panting. “It was a silly idea. I didn’t think about the fact that you probably couldn’t get away. Maybe we could go to the cafeteria.”