Temptation [h.s.] ✔

Chapter 26.

        My butt has barely touched the seat when he orders for us both in fluent French. I stop and stare at him in disbelief. He can speak French?

        "I spent a lot of time here while my parents were setting up their hotels," he explains, answering my unsaid question. "Speaking French seemed...natural."

        "I can barely speak English." And that's true. Sometimes I forget how to speak my own language.

        Harry smirks. "I lived in London for most of my life. France is a stone's throw away from England. It's not like you growing up in Seattle, where your closest 'foreign' language is French Canadian."

        "Most of your life? Where else did you live?"

        A waiter enters with a bottle of rose wine and two glasses. He pours a little in one glass and asks Harry to taste it. He does, nods, and the waiter pours two glasses before disappearing. I grasp the stem of mine and lean forward.

        "We lived in the US for a few years. My parents were ready to expand over there when Uncle Brandon—Aaron's dad—went international with his business. Mum had been considering it for a while, but Dad really pushed her into the leap."

        "How long did you live there for?"

        "About three years. We lived in New York. It was my parents' central base for the restaurant and hotel business. I sometimes wonder if they would have been as successful if it weren't for my aunt and uncle, but then I think the same for the other way around." He shrugs a shoulder.

        "And you really never wanted to take it over? The business?"

        He shakes his head. "Tessa is my twin, so it would have always been a fifty-fifty stake. I just... I don't care. That makes me sound like a right twat, but I don't. It's not interesting to me. I refuse to do something just because it's expected. I'm not my sister or my cousin."

        I run my finger around the top of my glass. "I respect that."

        "Really? Most people think I'm a fucking idiot."

        "You are, but I still respect it." I take some bread from the basket between us and tear it apart.

        "My dad was a professor in math. He used to give me extra lessons to make sure I got it, you know? But I didn't. I never understood math, despite his best efforts. I barely scraped by to graduate high school. He was pissed when I went to college and studied art, but hey. I didn't see why I should put myself through torture to make him happy."

        A long moment passes between us. Our dynamic shifts. We go from two people drawn together by chance to a couple brought together by fate's coincidental timing.

        "My dad wanted me to run the company with Tessa the way he does with Mum. Of course, that was never going to happen when she got married."

        "Is she okay, by the way? That must suck. I remember Day talking about the wedding after she and Aaron got engaged."

        Harry's lips twitch. "She's a Styles. She's taking his arse and she's hanging it out to dry while wringing it out. Pre-nups are legally binding, something that knob forgot when he fucked about on my sister."

        "Good. He deserves to be trampled by a donkey." I finish my wine just as our food is delivered.

        I dig in as soon as we're left alone. So I'm hungry. I cut a piece of meat off the thigh on my plate and put it in my mouth. Salty but sweet... It's duck. Something I usually cringe at eating.