Broken French: A widowed, billionaire, single dad romance by Natasha Boyd (books like beach read txt) 📕

“I have told the pilot to put us on a separate channel. Can you hear me?”

I nodded, my belly nauseous.

“Start talking.”

I took a calming breath and counted to three. “About what?”

“Don’t be diff—”

“Difficult? I’m trying really hard right now to give you the benefit of the doubt,” I snapped. “I didn’t resist when you basically frog-marched me onto this death-trap of a machine only because I’m also terrified for Dauphine. And every second you think I had something to do with her being taken is wasting precious time figuring out who actually has her.”

His eyes narrowed. “What did he say to you?”

“Morosto? You already asked me that on the beach that afternoon.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“Because there was hardly anything to say,” I said and leaned toward him. “He made a pass at me. He told me I could come and be a nanny in his house.”

Xavier’s jaw tightened and he bared his teeth. I was guessing he knew Morosto didn’t have young children.

“Or,” I lifted a shoulder, “spy on you for him.”

His head cocked. “And did you?”

I gave a humorless laugh as I shook my head in disbelief, sitting back. “Fuck you.”

Xavier made a strangled sound in his throat, and his fist pounded the seat in front of him.

I gasped, my jaw dropping. “You asshole,” I hissed, my heart leaping into my throat with fright. It was in no way aimed at me or even close, but the violence of it left me shaking. “Calm down or I’m not speaking to you ever again. I had nothing to do with this, and you damn well know it,” I barreled on, shaken. “Alfred Morosto is a creep. He asked me if I was interested in an ‘arrangement.’ I said, no. He called me an icy bitch and asked me if I warmed up more for you. He assumed we were fucking.” I dragged in a breath. “Like father like son, right?”

Xavier flinched.

Fuck. I looked away, squeezing my eyes shut, so I didn’t have to look down and see how high we were over nothing but water. “And he called you a nerd.” I remembered the final detail. “Are you happy now?”

Xavier was quiet and when I glanced back, he was leaning down, cradling his head in his hands.

Silence crackled between us over the airwaves.

His muscular shoulders outlined against his shirt heaved as he breathed deeply, and I itched to reach out and soothe him. To comfort him about Dauphine, to take back my biting words. Even after his actions.

But I turned my head to the window, hanging onto my anger.

“Where was Dauphine?” he asked after a few moments.

“In the bathroom. I was waiting for her outside it. He cornered me in the hallway.”

“Why did you take his card?”

“Because it was either that or he was going to slip it between my breasts himself.” I glared at Xavier, and he stared right back. He was a master of non-expression, and I knew I wasn’t. I only hoped he could see in my face how utterly outrageous his accusation was and how much he’d hurt me with it. To think how differently we’d gazed at each other not so long ago, our bodies slick with sea water and desire.

I’d known our relationship was temporary, but there was no way I could have predicted the hammer that would come down on us. I swallowed and set my chin. “I think you’re forgetting who I am. I have a life waiting for me back home. A career.” If I could build it back up. “I am an architect. Something I worked hard for. I didn’t ask to be here. And I don’t even work for you anymore.” My chest heaved. “I was going to leave, Xavier, remember? This trip to Corsica, that I’m now regretting with every fiber of my being, was your idea because you were horny and lonely. And don’t you forget it.”

Without his brief display of rage a few moments ago, and his general dishevelment, you wouldn’t even know what he was thinking. His gaze on mine flickered, the only clue that he heard what I was saying.

I tore my eyes away and stared out at the graduated blue canvas of the horizon. Then I closed my eyes and conjured Dauphine’s sweet, joyful, laughing smile. She was going to be okay. That certainty struck me deep. “Stop pointing fingers at me, and let’s start thinking about how to find her,” I added tiredly.

“You are correct.”

“Excuse me?” I opened my eyes.

He looked back at the phone in his hand and read a text and then began texting someone back. “I should be focusing on Dauphine, not you,” he said after a few moments not looking up.

I blinked at his coldness. My eyes flooded, and my breath left me like I’d been winded. A little girl was missing. This wasn’t the time to indulge the tsunami of rejection and pain engulfing me. But my heart was breaking, tearing off in great jagged chunks. And I simply couldn’t hold it together anymore.

My chest constricted, unable to hold back the choking sob. Yanking my mouthpiece down so he didn’t have to hear it, I stuffed my fist in my mouth and curled over as if I could keep my heart from falling out of my chest.

The rest of the helicopter ride was silent for me. Xavier had gone onto a channel with the pilot, and I was left hanging in the muffled silence as we sliced through the air to mainland France. I could see the coastline, littered with the towns and cities of the Riviera.

I’d barely registered we were coming down on the roof of his mother’s house and then we were touching down. Clearly, I’d missed the flat roof and helipad on my tour. I glimpsed Madame out the window. She clutched the sleeve of her secretary, Jorge—both shielding their eyes from the sun and the wind of the blades.

My legs were jelly as we disembarked.

The elegant grand-mère I’d met had