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

eating make-your-own pizza baked in the brick oven in the garden. We’d also asked Astrid and Jorge to eat with us. Chances were it could have been the best pizza I’d ever eaten, but every bite tasted like sawdust. The evening air was thick with the leftover sunbaked scent of jasmine and lavender. The colors in the sky were fading to faint streaks of smoke and fire. The red wine had loosened my limbs, and I’d tried to laugh along and follow the conversation as it tripped back and forth between French and English.

We were clearing the table and Astrid and Jorge had just shooed Madame back to the house because it apparently upset the order of the universe to have Madame attempt to help. So she’d taken Dauphine by the hand to help her get ready for bed, and I was feeling useless. Astrid and Jorge took the plates to the kitchen, and Evan followed with a handful of glasses. Xavier went to grab the large wooden paddle that belonged to the pizza oven, and turned his back, scooping out the ashes into a metal bin. I looked away and across the yard toward the glowing blue pool. If I hadn’t spent the entire afternoon with Dauphine in the pool playing everything from Marco Polo to mermaids and gymnasts, I’d have done twenty more laps just so I would maybe pass out and wake up the day I was leaving.

Xavier had spent the day working under the fans of the loggia, and I’d felt the weight of his eyes on us all day. On me.

My flip flops made no sound on the worn stone patio as I stood and rounded the table so I could stack the remaining glasses to follow Evan.

Halfway through, I stopped to look up. Xavier’s stillness had caught my attention. His back was to me but as if he knew my every move. The tension was palpable. We were alone. We’d managed not to be alone since the night in the library.

He turned.

His eyes were the deep end, and I wanted to dive in.

I was still, rooted to the spot, as he set down the wooden pizza paddle to the side and came toward me.

He glanced briefly at the house, but I couldn’t let my attention go. Not for a second.

Gently he took the glasses from my hands and set them on the table with concentrated care. I flexed my hands open and closed, dropped them to my sides, and then brought them back up to cross my body.

Xavier frowned at my defensive gesture and circled my wrists, pulling them apart.

My breathing shallowed as his arms snaked around my waist and he gathered my stiff body close. He molded his frame to mine, and I tried not to breathe him in.

“I leave early for a meeting tomorrow. I will not be able to say goodbye to you, Josephine.”

Oh, okay, so this was a hug goodbye.

My throat constricted as I tried to swallow and not breathe. Seconds stretched. It was okay to hug him goodbye. I should, I was being childish by resisting. I mentally counted to three and forcibly softened every muscle I could. But my will against him softened too and suddenly the feel of him holding me close broke through, sent a rush of sadness and longing head to toe. Our bodies melted together, and my pulse pounded.

His face turned into my neck and air stirred my skin. “Joséphine,” he whispered in that musical French accent of his, turning me inside out.

My shallow breaths grew rapid for want of more oxygen and a clear head.

Then Xavier pulled back, his need-filled eyes meeting mine for a searing moment, and taking my hand, he pulled.

I stumbled to follow as he headed down into the darkness of the garden. We followed stone steps down past the terraced level of the pool to a stone gardener’s hut that glowed, barely visible in the shadows, but with enough light from the landscaping above so we didn’t walk right into it.

The wine I’d had with dinner was a bad idea I thought somewhere at the outer reaches of my mind as desire suddenly burned through me like a lit fuse. Because there was no other reason for him to be hauling me off into the darkness. I offered no resistance as Xavier turned, reaching for me, and pinned me against the stone-cold wall of the hut. His kiss when it came was feral, his lips sealed over mine, his tongue demanding.

I gave.

Hands skimmed up my body, shoving my t-shirt up over my breasts and slipping the cups of my bra down impatiently. I couldn’t catch my breath as I clutched his head, my hands gripping his soft brown hair. His hungry mouth left mine and closed over a nipple, sucking so hard, I cried out. His lips gentled, coaxing, teeth scraping, suckling so softly then that I arched and thrust toward him, offering and needing more.

I gave.

And I took. I wanted one more memory.

He gave a groan and straightened. He rested his forehead against mine. Night air swept over my damp, exposed skin, and inside my veins was liquid fire. “Tell me to stop,” he said.

I said nothing.

Suddenly he was unbuttoning my jean shorts and shoving them down my legs. He tilted my head back to look up at him. “Open your eyes, Josephine,” he whispered.

I hadn’t realized I’d squeezed them closed.

“Should I stop?” he asked.

My underwear followed my shorts. Which pair had I even worn? I shivered, but inside I was lava. I should stop this. The words rolled around my consciousness but didn’t seem to make any actionable sense. He kicked my legs apart. “Open your eyes.”

I didn’t want to. But I obeyed, my breath seizing in my chest.

He gazed down at me full of desire and wonder and hunger. A hot hand skimmed up my inner thigh and then his long finger slid into me.

“Oh, God,” I groaned, my voice low. It was too much to