Ménage Material [La Belle sans la Bete Ménages] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (24 page)

His mind switched to his view upon awakening this morning. “I am,
maman
, never fear. But she is gradually coming to terms with it.”

On the other end of the line, Suzette blew out a breath. “We’ll keep this between ourselves, Bastien. Your
papa
tries, but I don’t think he’d understand Alex’s need to have a
ménage à trois…
”

He interrupted. “It isn’t just Alex’s need.”

Not anymore.

Another sigh. He knew she wanted to understand but couldn’t. It didn’t make her judge him. She loved him too much for that. “No, but still. It was hard enough when you brought Alex home that first time.”

His father, now nearing eighty-five, had been a perplexed sixty-seven-year-old when Bastien had turned up at the house with a boyfriend.

Bastien, once again, had been fortunate. His parents’ love for him was absolute. Henri had never ceased to be confused, but he accepted Alex, simply because Bastien loved him.

Not that Suzette would have let it be any other way.

Unlike his lovers, he was lucky. His parents loved him, regardless of his flaws, and they went out of their way to understand him.

He was a bastard for being so distant. It wasn’t intentional. The last two years, he’d spread himself so thinly between work, Devvy, and Alex, he’d had little time to spare.

He resolved to rectify that.

It was hard to remember his parents’ ages, at times. They had both gone out of their way for so long to be young. To never come across as fuddy-duddies that it always came as a shock to realize they were elderly now.

“How was I so lucky to have you for parents?” he muttered, more to himself than Suzette.

She laughed, the sound belonging to a woman half her age. “The stork decided to be kind,” she teased.

He smiled. “It was more than a kindness. I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting the two of you recently.”

“You’re a busy boy,” she said, immediately defending him. “We understand that.”

Her defense of him just made him feel guiltier. “Devvy and I will come for a visit.
Soon
. I promise.”

“We shall look forward to it,” she murmured, sounding content. “And I’m glad Devvy understands, Bastien. I’d have hated for you to lose her. She is a good girl.”

He eyed his computer, ignoring the hundreds of unread e-mails in his inbox, and settled back into his desk chair.

“She is,
maman
. Don’t judge her for accepting us. She almost didn’t.”

“Well, I’m not surprised she found it hard to acclimate to this new situation. But I’m relieved she didn’t walk out. I was around in the sixties, Bastien,” she retorted, sounding amused. “Far worse things went on back then, you know. I don’t judge her and I won’t. Not even your father would. He just wouldn’t understand. That’s all. And I don’t want him upset.”

“But you can handle it,” he teased, not even making it a question.

“Of course! In time, you will realize Devvy is your backbone,” she mocked. “Just as all strong women are.”

“She’d probably disagree. You know how self-effacing she is.”

Suzette tutted. “With two men at her side, she’ll soon grow out of that.”

“
Maman!
What are you implying?” His grin was so wide, his jaw ached.

She sniffed. “You don’t all sit around watching television, do you, Bastien? I might be over eighty but I’m not an idiot!

“No woman with that amount of physical attention, could ever stay shy! And that is all I’m going to say on the subject.”

“Silence never was your virtue,
maman
. When do you go to Greece?” he asked.

“Next week.”

He grunted. “I’ll try to make it over before you go. If not, as soon as you get back I will. You’ll call me when you get there.”

“Yes,
cher,
” she murmured, amused. “There’s no need to check up on us.”

“There’s every need,” he countered. “What’s a phone call?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t miss our calls! Now, I have to go. Be a good boy,
non?
”

“Never,” he retorted with a smile, easily using their code words for “I love you.” “Stay safe.”

When she promised she would, he disconnected the call and immediately eyed the clock. He looked between the time and his inbox, hesitating over how long it would take to sort through them.

Deciding it wasn’t worth it, he switched off the computer and asked his PA, Adéle, to call for his car.

She handled his request with only a faint tinge of surprise in her voice. It was becoming a frequent occurrence for him to leave the office before he should. A perk of being the boss, he told himself. But he knew his love of the game had disappeared, and that was the reason behind his leaving earlier than he ought.

As he made it out of the private elevator and into the lobby, he spotted one of his top chemists flirting with the receptionist.

Lucian Davidson was a serial flirt. He’d worked his way through a few dozen skirts in his lab and down through the secretarial staff. For the most part, Bastien left him alone, even though Lucian’s man-whore ways, as Devvy would call it, had actually been brought to his attention by a few departmental managers.

Perhaps he should intercede, but Lucian ruled the labs with an iron fist. His service record had never suffered, which was why he tended to leave him alone. And even though he wanted to get out of the building, he veered over to the reception desk and stood behind Lucian. Deciding that a nudge now was better than a rebuke later, especially as this was the first time he’d seen the other man in action.

The receptionist, a girl who according to her name tag was Sophie, saw him and blanched, her smile disappearing. Lucian spotted this and turned around with a frown that turned into an easy smile when he spotted the boss looming over him.

“Good morning, Sebastien.”

Bastien nodded, his features set in a serious cast. Only the execs were allowed to call him by his name. Technically, Lucian wasn’t one of them, but he’d never made a move to rectify the other man’s tactlessness.

“Don’t we have a deadline on the new anti-wrinkle cream?” he asked, tilting his head to the side in a mock show of concern.

“It’s all under control.”

Lucian’s confidence had Bastien’s eyes narrowing. “And how would you know that if you’re downstairs chasing skirt?”

His gaze flickered to Sophie, in rapid French, far too fast for Lucian, he ordered, “This company does not pay you to be picked up, or to be asked out on dates. Get on with your work.”

He felt like a bastard, when Sophie looked on the brink of mortified tears, but those tears were fewer than the ones that would fall when Lucian got her into his bed and then dumped her.

He was saving her from herself. She just thought he was being a bastard to work for. Sometimes being the Good Samaritan was a real pain in the ass.

Bastien turned his attention to Lucian. At the same as Devvy had come to work for
La Belle sans la Bête,
he’d been recruited from a pharmaceutical company in Britain. Apparently his accented French worked a real number on the ladies.

“Well, Lucian?” Bastien asked, polite as can be.

The other man’s eyes narrowed, his head jerking in an irritated nod. “I’ll just go and make sure everything is how I left it five minutes ago.”

“You do that,” he retorted pleasantly and waited for Lucian to head to the elevators, and physically leave the lobby.

Sophie’s head was bowed over the papers she was collating. Bastien rested an arm on the desk and said, in a much softer voice, “Sophie, he might look and sound pretty, and a huge chunk of the female work staff probably agreed with you at one time.” Her eyes widened, her naiveté astonishing him for a second before he continued, “You don’t want to be another notch on his belt, do you?”

She shook her head.

“Stay away from him, then.” He smiled to lessen the inappropriate advice he shouldn’t be handing out, and then strode away deep into the hall. Aware at all times that it was his wife’s influence that had made him help the girl. Devvy had never liked Lucian, didn’t like working with him or his arrogant ways.

While she’d never said anything, Bastien believed Lucian had come on to her at some point. Getting her away from the male slut had been a major factor in his decision to build her a lab on the grounds of their home—as was her comfort, the fact that she hated getting up on a morning, and the fact that he didn’t want her to be bothered by the commute.

He came from a traditional enough background to not want his wife to work. That she loved her research was the only reason he hadn’t gently suggested she become a “lady of leisure.” Devvy and botany went hand in hand. The idea of her not working on some soap or unguent was impossible to imagine. So, he’d settled for a solution that would please both of them. Devvy could work in her own environment, close to nature, and away from colleagues—she wasn’t the most sociable of sorts. He, on the other hand, could rest easy, knowing she was safe and happy in her lab.

Striding down the lobby’s long corridor, Bastien acknowledged that this was his favorite part of the building, and mostly because his wife had helped him to appreciate the luscious indoor garden that ran down either side of the path leading to the reception desk. It had cost a fortune to install, never mind maintain. Enough so that most of his directors had thought him insane.

Thanks to Devvy, he even recognized some of the plants. In all his years of making his grandmother’s recipes, he’d always bought in the ingredients, never grown them from scratch, unlike Devvy who always used the flowers from her garden in her recipes. He didn’t possess a green thumb but he was slowly growing to appreciate those who did, and the beauty they created for people like him.

Considering the company was founded on nature’s bounty, Sebastien had only thought it wise to ensure they didn’t lose touch with what they were actually doing. The first impression of the company was of this indoor garden, and
La Belle sans la Bête’s
desire to use nature instead of man-made chemicals wherever possible, to use nature to enhance and rejuvenate, was reinforced.

The greenery soothed him as he walked past fragrant flowers, and heard the spit-spat of the automatic watering system. He nodded at one of the gardeners as he pruned a bush. The lobby reminded him of Devvy’s pride and joy, her herb garden. There were less pungent scents here, but the flora did improve his mood.

The journey to Devvy’s favorite restaurant had that mood plummeting a little. Traffic, road wars, jams…the beeps and honks of horns, the stress, and the flustered air of the city at midday, made him wish they’d arranged to eat at home.

Usually, he did. But once a month, they dined out.

Devvy was just as bad as Alex in some ways. She tended to stay at home a lot. Before Alex, she’d rarely gone out at all. Now, she wasn’t as house-bound as before, but he saw no reason to break the habit. Meeting with his wife once a month for a private lunch was certainly no hardship. And thanks to the emergency over in his vineyards, this month’s date was later than it should be.

The car slipped stealthily through the traffic. The smooth ride was painless for him, but Bastien could only imagine how stressful it was for George, his driver. Had he wanted to, Bastien could have afforded a fleet of cars, and he could have driven through the city himself.

But, for the same reason he preferred Devvy to use a chauffeur, the stress of driving through the city took any pleasure away from owning a luxury vehicle. And he didn’t give a damn if he was the only person on Earth to think that way.

His two Bentleys and George were quite adequate for their needs. Something that was hammered home when a car shot out of nowhere and nearly blindsided them. George swerved out of the way just in time, and it was with relief that minutes later he pulled up outside of
Esprit
, Devvy’s favorite bistro.

As soon as he stepped out onto the street, the noise bombarded him once again. He refrained from wincing, just, but slipped on his shades as the light pierced his eyeballs with the precision of a red-hot poker.

Grimacing, he escaped into the bistro. The maître d’ spotted him, and immediately guided him over to the private room they always hired when they came here. The corridor they took bypassed the main hall of the restaurant.

The instant he saw Devvy, her back to the door, looking through the two-way mirror that overlooked the dining room, his heart sighed at the sight of her.

That sense of something loose inside finding its other half, once again reconnecting, had a smile twisting his lips as the door shut behind him.

The best thing about
Esprit
was the private room and the extras that came with it. For him and Devvy, they always took advantage of the intercom, where they made their orders without having to see anyone. There was also a dumb waiter, which meant they could serve themselves.

This extra privacy made it so Devvy had, more than once, acted as starter and main course in this particular restaurant.