LITMIR.BIZ

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the role of odd kid out—not quite like many other kids from single-parent families but not quite like the whole families, either. Her reality had been years of loneliness, confusion and pining for an absent father. Yes, he’d sent endless gifts and she’d never gone hungry, but her reality had been an illusion. Just as her and Ash cruising the Seine drinking champagne was an illusion.

      ‘You look sad—Paris not what you expected?’ He sat next to her.

      She shook her head. ‘It’s beautiful.’ Her lip took a severe nibbling while she tried to marshal her conflicted thoughts. ‘Your parents’ divorce... Was it while you were growing up?’

      Ash sniffed as if the warm summer air offended him. ‘They’re in the process of it right now, actually. Turns out my mother could tolerate one affair, but not two. Why?’

      She took the glass of champagne he offered and sipped. ‘Just imagining what your childhood was like.’

      He looked away. ‘Pretty normal, I guess.’ He shrugged and slid his arm along the back of the seat.

      ‘Did you come here with your family?’ She picked at the scab, imagining fun-packed but rowdy Jacob holidays. All five of them together.

      He nodded, eyes wary.

      Essie’s glazed-over stare found the view again. ‘I only remember one holiday with Mum and my father. I was ten.’ The memories rushed in like a tidal wave, stealing the last of her high. ‘I’d begged and begged to accompany him on one of his business trips to New York, promised I’d be so good he wouldn’t know I was there. He appeased me with a trip to Chester Zoo.’ She picked at a sliver of peeling paint from the seat. ‘I didn’t mind—it was the best trip ever. He bought me a stuffed elephant, we got our faces painted and he taught me to play chess back at the hotel.’

      Ash’s hand slid to her back, his palm warm between her shoulder blades, the rhythmic sweep of his thumb strangely unbearable.

      ‘So you didn’t see much of Frank?’

      She shook her head, her face hot. Why had she even confided such a deeply personal moment with the power to shrivel her insides? The memory of what she’d done to that beloved stuffed elephant five years later when she’d finally discovered her father’s deception still brought heat to her face.

      ‘When I discovered the truth, that he’d lied to me and to Mum and his real family...’ She met Ash’s stare, shame and defiance warring inside. ‘I...I built a bonfire in the back garden. It didn’t end well for the elephant.’

      Ash pulled her close and pressed his mouth to the top of her head, the gesture more than that of fuck buddy. But she wasn’t naive enough to see Ash’s display of romantic, even comforting, touches as anything but good manners and an attempt to keep their insatiable chemistry on the fun track where it belonged.

      She sipped the frigid wine, pushing dark, dangerous thoughts away, and focussed on the view to stop the dangerous slide towards obsessing. It wasn’t just the fact that Ash was way out of her league. He possessed a quick wit and was sexy personified. He had a dry sense of humour and regularly called her out on her more outrageous bullshit. A very addictive combination for a girl sadly lacking in healthy, long-lasting relationships, either in her own life, or displayed by her parental role models. A girl who’d spent two years in a dysfunctional, emotionally abusive relationship because she was so desperate to be the opposite of her parents.

      She’d promised Ash she didn’t want more than sex.

      But if she ever changed her mind, ever considered herself capable of maintaining the kind of trust and commitment she frequently wrote about from a theoretical point of view, Ash represented exactly the kind of man she’d want.

      Pity it was never going to happen. Not because he couldn’t be sweet and romantic as he’d just proved, as well as an astounding lover. But because he’d meant what he’d said.

      The ex Ben mentioned had clearly hurt him badly enough that he’d sworn off anything beyond casual for good. Those closest had the most power to cause lifelong pain.

      She shuddered. She’d certainly never been back to a zoo.

      ‘Oh, look.’ She latched onto a distraction and pointed at a couple on the walkway lining the riverbanks. A bride and groom, having their picture taken.

      Ash followed the direction she indicated, and they stared for several stilted, silent seconds. Essie squirmed, covering the awkward moment with a blast of verbal diarrhoea to put him at ease.

      ‘Ah, the city of love... Oh, fun fact. Did you know that falling in love has the same effect on your brain as snorting cocaine?’ She wasn’t fishing for a proposal, but she wasn’t carved from stone like the gargoyles atop Notre Dame. Just because love hadn’t worked out for her parents, for her, perhaps for Ash, didn’t mean others couldn’t find it.

      Ash looked away from the beaming couple, his stare skittering anywhere but on Essie.

      ‘Did you know the divorce rate in the Western world averages fifty per cent?’ He curled his lip and sipped his wine.

      She gaped. She wasn’t wholly surprised—if more men were like her father and her ex...and his father... His cynicism was more than a hardened lawyer thing—it must be the woman...

      The set of Ash’s mouth told her now wasn’t the right time to pry. Time to drag the conversation back to fun town. ‘I didn’t. But you’re ruining the ambience, counsellor.’

      He shrugged, a smile on his face, but his shoulders didn’t drop to pre-shrug levels.

      She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not hinting.’ She nudged him with her elbow, trying to lighten the mood. ‘From a scientific standpoint, I find it fascinating that something as nebulous as—’ she made air quotes ‘—“love” is powerful enough to induce such a rush of euphoria on a neurological level.’

      He stared for long silent seconds.

      Essie brazened it out, but inside she wanted to roll into a ball and protect her soft parts.

      ‘Do you really believe all that relationship babble?’

      She bristled. Had he just ridiculed the basis of her entire research doctorate? The foundation of her precious and increasingly popular blog? The very doctrine she hoped to live the rest of her happy and contented life by, next time she was brave enough to dip a toe back into relationship waters? At least next time she met someone, she’d also have a sexual standard to measure them against, thanks to Ash.

      For the first time in her life, she knew what all the fuss was about.

      ‘I don’t need to believe it. Just because we’ve never experienced it—it’s science.’

      ‘It’s bullshit.’ He flushed and then winced. ‘It may be science, but science isn’t for everyone. It isn’t for me.’

      Essie’s heart rate accelerated. He was opening up. Had her earlier confessional mood infected him?

      ‘Without changing my plea, I meant what I said last night—just fun—why the hefty dose of cynicism?’ She glugged more champagne in case this conversation blew up in her face. The psychologist in her couldn’t help but pry. And the woman who’d had fantastic sex with him was pretty interested, too.

      She couldn’t look too closely at why, preferring to believe her interest was a side effect of the spectacular orgasms, professional curiosity or her constant need to help her fellow man.

      With his eyes shielded behind sunglasses, she had no non-verbal cues to help—Ash sat as still as a statue.

      ‘I had a fiancée. Years ago. I thought myself in love, the kind you think exists, scientifically.’

      Essie’s throat tightened until she expected to hear choking sounds when she breathed. She clamped her lips shut, desperate for him to continue. To learn more about this closed-off man who had so much to offer and what had shaped him.

      ‘Right

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