“Like so many women you are focussed on this area, thinking this defines you.” He drew an imperious circle around the stomach of the drawing, his eyes meeting mine for a second. “In some ways, it does. It’s where you’ll hold your children when you are blessed with them, but not now. Hourglass is this shape, no?” He drew a simple shape beside the caricature. “Out, in, out. Now you are out” —he pointed to the bustline, then moved his pen to just under that— “in and out again. The narrowest point is up here, not down here, like on this waif.”
He poked his pencil into the thin slice of flesh peeking out the bottom of Fabian’s shirt, to the sound of the other man’s giggles.
“This is how we will make your dresses, drawing attention to the primal shape that has always drawn a man’s eye.”
Lucien crept up on me like a predator, so I didn’t feel him until his arms went around me.
“It’s what’s always caught my eye.” He nuzzled his face into my neck.
“We will make you feel like a queen, Sage, just you wait,” Henri promised.
57
“Iknow why you did this,” I told Lucien as we drove back to the hotel. I just stared at him, not the stunning views of Paris beyond.
The morning and much of the afternoon had been spent looking at a dizzying array of fabrics, some laid against my skin to check against my colouring, still others draped around me to check for fall. I didn’t know what Fabian and Henri had planned, because they’d discussed every garment in French and perhaps that was the point.
“Why did I do this?” Lucien asked me with a small smile.
“Because it prepares me for surrendering control to you,” I said. “Because you’re showing me that if I do it sometimes, you’ll make sure the end results are awesome. Because you want me to feel happy and comfortable if we have to go to swanky events.”
His smile widened.
“Some of that is true. I didn’t consciously think that much about the control thing, but yeah, it’s there.” He reached over and took my hand. “It’s always there. You call it control, but I call it caring for you. You told me when we first went to Sydney that you couldn’t just stroll into a shop and find clothes that would work. When you told me that, there was a weight to your words, like it was holding you down somehow. I wouldn’t have the faintest fucking idea about how to dress a woman, whatever her shape was. I’m about taking the clothes off, not putting them on, but I didn’t want you carrying that anymore. I want you to have a damn walk-in wardrobe of clothes you love wearing, so I did a bit of research and found the best in the biz.”
He shrugged and stared out the window as we pulled up out front of the hotel.
“Henri has made clothes for First Ladies and prime minister’s wives. I figured if he could make them feel hot, he could do the same for you.”
When we got out of the car, I followed him inside, feeling much more at ease in the fancy foyer, even as we went upstairs to our suite. He drew me inside by the hand, turning to face me once the door closed.
Lucien had slammed into my life, so it was strange to see him so quiet and still right now. He reached up and smoothed a stray hair back and over my shoulder, then followed the line of my cheek down to my lips.
“Someone made you feel ugly. I don’t know who and I don’t know how. If I find out the details, I’m not entirely sure I won’t rip their head off and shit down their neck.”
I snorted, visualising him doing just that to Mum. Shit, Mum. She’d rung me like a million times, but I hadn’t returned any of her calls after her last lot of bullshit.
“For me, there’s no more beautiful woman in this world, just you, Sage—only you. I think you’ll find there’s not a lot I’m prepared to do to help you see what I see.”
I got a glimpse of that now, reflected in his eyes as he stepped closer, his thumb tracing the shape of my lips before his mouth did. I wanted it to get passionate, hungry, to claw off our clothes and have hot monkey sex in a fancy-pants hotel room, but he pulled away with a rueful smile.
“Shit took a little longer than expected at the atelier, so maybe we should just order some room service in?”
“Why are you…?”
I was going to ask why he wasn’t eating me for lunch, but he just smiled, waiting for me to say it, ask for it, but I didn’t. I nodded instead, letting him select something as I grabbed my phone. I tapped out a quick message to Nik, keeping the promise that I’d make sure I updated more regularly while we waited for the food to arrive.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked, once we were full of good food and a little wine. I was sitting sprawled across the gold and white upholstered couch, and he’d lain across it, placing his head in my lap. I traced the strong shape of his brow, where his hair curled slightly, then down the sharp slopes of his cheeks, then across that square jaw. He looked sleepy, indolent, replete. Perhaps because his defences were down, he actually answered me.
“You’ll need to go in for some fittings with Henri,” he replied. “It won’t take anywhere near as long, he tells me. Once he’s got an idea of how things fit, he’ll be able to mock up all the pieces he has in mind and then work on finishing them. The end result won’t come back home with us, not yet.”
For some reason, that had my heart sinking, which made him smile.
“Great beauty takes time, right?” He reached up and touched my nose with his fingers. “I figured we’d do the tourist thing—go to Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Musée d’Orsay, and anything else you wanted to see. Then…”
He watched me lean forward, smiling as I did so.
“Then I’d take you to the winery we own in the south of France, stay there for a few days before we fly back.”