Chapter 6
“STOP FIDGETING.”
“I don’t mean to,” she promised, stilling her hands. “I’m nervous.”
“We talked about this. You have nothing to be nervous about.”
“Come on, Matthieu. We’re about to land in the middle of all the gossip blogs and scandal rags. You don’t think that warrants a little apprehension?”
His smile was deliberately charming. “A little, perhaps.” The words were tinged with a French accent she rarely heard. “But I’ll be right there with you.”
She didn’t tell him that that was a huge part of her anxiety.
“We only need stay a short time. Long enough for someone to notice your ring and take a photograph. A dance. A kiss. Nothing more.”
“A kiss,” she repeated, her temperature skyrocketing. It was too late to back out now, even if she wanted to. She’d already told her mother and stepfather that she was getting married. She’d hated lying to them, and if it weren’t for the financial security and independence she was on her way to attaining, she never would have, but this was an offer too good to refuse. Besides, they wouldn’t be surprised when, in a few months, the attention of a man like Matthieu de Garmeaux wandered elsewhere.
“As an engaged couple,” he reminded her with a nonchalant shrug.
“Of course.” She couldn’t show him how panicked the idea made her.
“You’re not actually a virgin are you, cherie?”
Heat burst through her. “I’ve certainly been kissed before, and as that’s all we’ll be doing, nothing else is relevant.”
He laughed, her haughty tone amusing even to her own ears, so she grinned and waved a hand at him. “Just…stop staring at me.”
“I’m practicing.”
“What exactly?”
“Being a man in love.”
“Is that so hard for you to imagine?”
“I never intended to be in that position again. I’m out of practice.”
Curiosity spread through her, but before Skye could ask any further questions, the car pulled to a stop in a narrow laneway. When she stepped out of the vehicle, she heard—or rather felt—
the solid bass beat coming from a nightclub somewhere.
A little further down the street, a crowd had formed a loose line, and bouncers stood in front of a dark black door.
“What is this place?”
“A club.”
“A nightclub?”
“A private members’ club.” He reached for her hand, weaving their fingers together in an intimate gesture she hadn’t been expecting. Her pulse went crazy. “I don’t come here often.”
“If it’s so private, why come here at all? I thought the point was to be seen?”
“The right people will see you, believe me.”
“Who exactly are the ‘right people’?”
“Gossips.”