He laughed. “Eighteen.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“Desmond checked their IDs.”
I paused for a moment, making sense of it. “Is that what Desmond does? Does Desmond check IDs?”
Hayes smiled. “No one on the premises under eighteen. That’s the rule.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “No one asked for my ID.”
“I vouched for you. Come here.” He took my chin in his free hand and kissed me. “Twelve…” He laughed.
“They look twelve to me.”
“Isabelle is twelve. Isabelle is not that. Yet.”
I gave him one of my best withering looks.
“I’m kidding. Isabelle will never be that. She’s going to go from twelve straight to sixty. No stopping in between.”
I looked back toward the pool then. One of the girls was oiling the other’s back. Was this real life? “Aahhh, France…”
Hayes smiled, wide. “It’s like a gift.”
“I imagine it is. I imagine being in a boy band is like a gift as well.”
“Sometimes.” He sipped from his glass.
“Only sometimes? When is it not a gift?”
“When the woman you’re trying to impress reminds you that you’re in a boy band.”
“Touché,” I said. We were making the trek across the lawn down toward the south corner of the property. “Are you trying to impress me?”
“Was that not apparent?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“But you didn’t bring any bags.”
“I’ve got this.” I smiled, proffering my purse: the Céline hobo bag in chamois, perfect for everything but holding a change of clothes.
“Does it have a toothbrush in it?”
“You’re bad—”
“If not, I’m not interested.”
“You would fuck me even if I didn’t bring a toothbrush.”
Hayes stopped in his tracks, pushing his sunglasses up on his head. “You just used the f-word.”
“Imagine that…”
“I have been. For two months now,” he admitted. “You realize this changes everything, right? I was trying to be a gentleman, but why bother?”
I smiled, swilling the wine. “I like that you’re a gentleman.”
“You, Solène Marchand, are very complex. Which I find incredibly appealing.”
“Like unfolding a flower?”
It took a moment, and then he remembered, smiling. “Like unfolding a flower.”
A sudden glare of light ahead caught our attention, and Hayes and I looked up to see a golf cart careening toward us from the direction of what I assumed were the tennis courts. Rory was at the wheel, Oliver beside him, long legs outstretched on the dash, and Raj was seated on the bench in the rear. They made for quite a sight. Bronzed youthful skin, chiseled features. Like they’d rolled out of the pages of a catalog …
“’Ello, chaps!” Rory called, bringing the cart to an abrupt halt alongside us. “Where are you two off to? Hi, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Rory.”
“Solène.”
“Enchanté,” he said in a thick Yorkshire accent. He had a lopsided grin and random tattoos on his arms, and still I could see the appeal. The dark hooded eyes, the leather necklaces, the scruff on his otherwise youthful face.
“You have actually,” Hayes intervened. “In Las Vegas.”
“This year?”
“How was Switzerland?” Oliver asked, which threw me. We hadn’t spoken since that evening at the Mandalay Bay and here he knew my itinerary. It made me wonder how much these boys shared. My mind flashed back to the Crosby Street Hotel. What, if anything, had Hayes told him?
“Switzerland was lovely, thank you.”
He smiled, nodding slowly. I could not discern what was going on behind his gold-rimmed aviators.
“Good to see you, Solène.” Raj waved. In a polo and madras shorts, he seemed decidedly less business wunderkind and more sixth boy band member.
“Are you guys coming from the pool? Are the twins still there?” Rory raised an eyebrow.
“They’re not twins, you know, mate. They’re not even sisters,” Hayes laughed.
“Let me have the fantasy, man.”
“Simon, Liam, and the others are on their way back,” Raj said. “The match is at six. Beno?t is grilling lobster. We can eat at eight. And Croatia and Mexico won’t start until ten.”
I felt like they were speaking in code. “What match?”
“Netherlands and Chile,” Hayes said. And when my expression indicated that I’d registered nothing, he added, “The World Cup.”
“Oh. Right.”
“It’s going to be a hell of a match,” Oliver said. “I hope you’ll stay.”
“We haven’t decided what we’re doing yet,” Hayes said, wrapping his arm around my waist in a manner that struck me as possessive. “We’ll let you know.”
“All right, we’re off!” Rory announced.
“Nice watch,” Raj called back as they peeled out.
Hayes laughed. “She’s keeping it warm for me. I can only wear one at a time!
“We don’t have to stay,” he said once we were alone again. “It’s going to be loud and crazy, and if you’d rather not, I certainly understand. We can go out for dinner. Or we can go back to your hotel, or … whatever makes you most comfortable.”
There was something about Hayes when he was being polite that was such a turn-on. The idea that no matter how famous he was he had this breeding that would endure.
“You know what? Why don’t we go to your room?” Even as I said it, I could feel my face flushing. It was not like me. But none of this had been. I was redefining. This was me trying to enjoy myself. This was me trying not to care.
His eyes widened. “Now?”
“Yes. Now. Why? Is it not tidy?” I smiled up at him.
“Oh … it’s tidy.”
“Well, good then.”
“I just thought you wouldn’t want to … see it … so early in the day.”
“Well, we’re just looking at it, right?” I said, polishing off the rosé.
“Yep.” He nodded, all dimples. “We’re just looking at it.”
*
It didn’t take long to trek back to the house and up to Hayes’s suite. It was, like everything else at Domaine La Dilecta, lavishly decorated: an eclectic mixture of furniture, various objets d’art, trompe l’oeil on the walls.
“So this is where the magic happens,” I said, tossing my bag on an armchair in the corner. There was a sunken alcove off the main room, bright with magnificent wraparound views.
Hayes laughed, setting down his wine. “Magic? No pressure or anything.”
“None at all. Goodness, it’s like Versailles in here.”
“I think they were going for a thing.”
“A thing?” I approached him.
“A thing,” he repeated, reaching out for my waist and pulling me into him. “You are so fucking beautiful.”
“You said the f-word.”
“You started.”
“Maybe.” I flinched. His fingers had found their way beneath the hem of my blouse and were surprisingly cool against my skin.
“Are my hands cold? Sorry,” he said, but he did not remove them.
I stood there, breathing him in. Wondering at how effortlessly he managed to span my waist, making me feel fragile, breakable almost. His thumbs tracing over my bottom ribs, and alternately fondling the material of my shirt.