“It sounds like you come here a lot.”
“Reasonably often.” He shrugged. “As I said, I love the food.”
Matthieu lifted his wine glass in the air, holding it towards her. Skye did the same, her throat suddenly constricted, as their glasses clinked together and the wine formed a dark ocean against the bowl. “Cheers, Skye.”
“Matthieu.” It felt strange to say his name here. Surrounded by people, it somehow brought others into the intimacy of their private relationship, and it was hard for Skye to relish that.
“Do you come here on your own?”
As soon as she asked the question, she wished she could withdraw it. She didn’t want to know about the other women he brought here. She didn’t want to know about his love life before her. And she sure as heck didn’t want him to think she was prying for information, as though she cared about any of that stuff. It wasn’t her place to care.
So why is your heart heavy whenever you think of leaving him?
She sipped her wine, doing her best to look calm and serene, but then, her fingers slipped to the necklace, and she was toying with it in what she recognized was already becoming a nervous habit.
“Most of the time.”
It was an answer that gave little away. He was hiding things from her. For her sake? Or because he too wanted to keep certain boundaries in place?
“I didn’t mean to ask that,” she said after a small pause, that Skye found uncomfortable. And that awkwardness sat like a lump in her throat, because for three blissful weeks, it had seemed as though she and Matthieu were perfectly, completely in synch.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s personal—you made it clear you don’t want to talk about Clare, or your love life, with me, that there are certain things you want to keep separate from this—from us, and our arrangement.”
His eyes bore into hers. “Our arrangement has changed.”
Her heart did a little treble.
“Hasn’t it?” He pushed, eyes not leaving her face.
She swallowed, her mouth dry, nodding slowly.
“After all, we agreed not to sleep together.”
“Yes,” she whispered, sipping her wine, wondering why the ground felt shaky beneath her feet.
“It’s not easy for me to talk about. So I don’t.”
“Ever?”
“Ever,” he confirmed, reaching for his wine and clasping the stem without moving the glass from the table.
“Break ups can be tough,” she said gently.
A waitress approached, her blonde hair piled into an elegant bun on her head. “Good evening, have you had an opportunity to look at the menu?”
Matthieu flicked a glance to the thick laminated folder. “No.”
Skye smiled at the waitress. “Would you just have something brought out? We both eat anything.”
The waitress didn’t express even a flicker of surprise, taking the menus and leaving, but Matthieu regarded Skye wryly once they were alone.
“I’m sick of interruptions,” she said with a soft laugh.
He sipped his wine then replaced the glass on the tabletop, before lifting his eyes to her face. “I come here on my own, for the most part,” he said. “I eat in the kitchen, to avoid being seen.”
“That’s the last thing I expected you to say.”