Chapter 37
Elena
At the peach tree, he positioned himself slightly behind me, his free hand coming to rest on my lower back, and began explaining the symbolism of red in European tradition. But I could barely focus on his words because I was too aware of his presence, the way his breath stirred my hair, the way his fingers flexed against my spine.
"In French rural traditions," he was saying, his voice dropping into that professorial cadence that somehow made everything sound intimate, "red cloth was tied around sick trees, around the wrists of feverish children, around doorframes during plague years. It was meant as protection, as a ward against harm."
His hand on my back was warm, grounding, and I found myself leaning back into his touch. "But why does it frighten you?" he asked, and his voice had gone soft, coaxing.
"In Bulgaria, they used red to mark failures," I admitted, and his hand tightened on mine, his body shifting closer until I could feel the heat of him all along my back.
"They weaponized a color," he said, and there was anger in his voice now, protective and fierce. "Took something meant to represent life and twisted it into control." His thumb stroked over my pulse point. "But here, with me, red means protection. It means hope. It means I won't let anything hurt you."
The promise in his words made my breath catch, and when I turned to look at him, his face was so close our noses almost brushed. "I want to touch it," I whispered. "The cloth. I want to stop being afraid."
Something blazed in his eyes—pride, maybe, or desire, or some complicated mix of both. "There's a small rise there," he said quietly. "You'll need to step up. Let me help you."
His hands came to my waist, steadying me as I stepped onto the uneven ground, and even after I'd found my balance, his hands remained, warm and possessive, as I reached up to touch the red fabric. When I turned back, triumphant, his face was alight with something that looked almost like reverence.
"Brave girl," he murmured, and the praise sent warmth flooding through me.
I stepped down and immediately his hand found mine again, our fingers interlacing with the ease of long practice, and we began walking back through the garden. But this time, he pulled me closer, until our shoulders brushed with every step, until I could feel the heat of him all along my side.
"Thank you," I said softly, looking up at him, and he stopped walking, turning to face me fully.
"Elena," he said, my name rough on his tongue, and his free hand came up to cup my jaw, his thumb brushing over my cheekbone with devastating gentleness. "You don't need to thank me for—"
Whatever he was about to say was lost as his eyes dropped to my lips, as the air between us went taut and breathless, as his head began to lower fractionally, as my eyes started to flutter closed in anticipation—
Maxime
The scene that greeted me when I rounded the hedge was like a punch to the gut.
Elena and my uncle, standing in the garden path, so close they were almost touching. His hand was on her face—actually cupping her jaw in a gesture so tender, so intimate, it made my vision go red—and she was looking up at him with an expression I'd never seen her wear, something soft and yearning and completely unguarded. They were frozen there, caught in a moment that was clearly building toward something, and the way they were looking at each other made my stomach turn because I'd seen that look before, in movies, in other couples, that moment right before a kiss when the whole world narrows down to just two people and nothing else matters.
His other hand was holding hers, their fingers laced together like lovers, and there was something about the way they fit together—the height difference, the way she tilted her face up to him, the way his body curved toward hers protectively—that looked practiced, natural, like they'd stood this way a hundred times before.
I must have made some sound because they both startled, Elena's eyes going wide with something that looked like panic, and my uncle's hand dropped from her face like he'd been burned, though he didn't immediately let go of her hand, his fingers tightening briefly before he seemed to force himself to release her.
"Good morning," I said, and my voice came out cold, harsh, nothing like the casual greeting I'd intended, and I watched as Elena took a quick step back from my uncle, putting distance between them that only emphasized how close they'd been standing.
"Maxime," Uncle Étienne said, and his voice was carefully controlled, but I could see the tension in his jaw, the way his hand flexed at his side as if it wanted to reach for Elena again. "This is unexpected."
"Clearly," I bit out, and I couldn't keep the bitterness from my voice as I looked between them—Elena's flushed face, her kiss-swollen lips even though they hadn't actually kissed (or had they? how long had they been out here?), the way she was unconsciously leaning toward him even as she tried to maintain proper distance. "I didn't realize morning walks were part of Elena's training regimen. Or is this some new recovery technique Coach Laroche recommended?"
The sarcasm was ugly, childish, but I couldn't help it because the cold fury in my chest was demanding outlet, was demanding acknowledgment that what I'd just witnessed was wrong, was a violation of every boundary that should exist between guardian and ward, between uncle and niece, between a man of twenty-nine and a girl of twenty.
"Elena had a concerning reaction to something in the garden," Uncle Étienne said, his voice taking on that infuriatingly reasonable tone he used when managing difficult situations. "I was helping her work through it. Nothing inappropriate occurred."
But the way he said "inappropriate" made it clear he knew exactly how inappropriate the scene had looked, how inappropriate his feelings were, and the fact that he was being forced to verbalize the denial only made it more damning.
I looked at Elena, who was staring at the ground, her face scarlet, her hands twisted together in a way that suggested guilt and confusion and something else I didn't want to name. "Elena," I said, trying to gentle my voice, trying to reach her through whatever spell my uncle seemed to have cast over her. "I thought we might have breakfast together. Unless your uncle has other plans for you?"