I laughed, setting down my fork and knife. “So how did you manage that exactly?”
“I went to Westminster, which is this pretty posh school in London where half your year ends up going to Oxford or Cambridge. And instead of that route, I decided to convince a couple of mates who I’d sung with there to join me in forming a group. We were initially supposed to be more of a pop band, but we kept losing our drummer. And Simon’s bass sucks … and we all wanted to sing lead,” he laughed. “So it was quite a bit of an interesting start. But we were lucky. We were really, really, truly lucky.”
His eyes were dancing. He was so comfortable, animated, happy.
“Is that all stuff I can find online?”
“Um, probably. Yes.”
“Hmm.” I returned to my omelet. “Tell me something I can’t find online.”
He smiled then, leaning back in his seat. “You want to know all my secrets, do you?”
“Just the big ones.”
“The big ones? Okay.” He was fingering his lower lip. I assumed it was an unconscious habit, but it worked wonders in drawing attention to his ripe mouth. “I lost my virginity to my best friend’s sister when I was fourteen. She was nineteen at the time.”
“Whoa…” It was both horrifying and impressive. “What … What did you look like at fourteen?”
“Kind of like this, but shorter. I’d just gotten my braces off,” he laughed. “So, you know, instant swagger.”
“Fourteen is so young.” I was doing my best not to picture Isabelle. Fourteen was around the corner.
“I know; it was naughty. I was naughty.”
“She was naughty. Nineteen? I assume that’s not legal in England.”
“Yes, well, since I spent two years hoping and praying it would happen, I didn’t exactly rush to file charges.” His smile was salacious. “Anyway, you’re not going to find that on the Internet, and if it ever got out it would ruin everything: friendships, the band—”
“The band?” It clicked. “Whose sister did you sleep with? Who’s your best friend, Hayes?”
For a moment, he didn’t speak, just sat there tugging on his lip, debating. And then, finally: “Oliver.”
He reached across the table for his Ray-Bans and placed them on his face.
The waiter arrived to clear our plates. Hayes declined dessert but ordered himself a pot of green tea. I did the same.
“Was it only once?”
He shook his head, a mischievous grin playing over his lips.
“Who else knows?”
“No one. Me. Penelope … that’s her name, Ol’s sister. And now you.”
It hit me, the weight of what he was saying.
“I need to see your face,” I said, reaching for his glasses. He surprised me by grabbing both my wrists. “What?”
He did not speak, lowering my hands to the banquette between us. He’d hooked his thumb inside the double leather band of my watch, and then slowly, deliberately, rubbed it against my pulse point.
“What?” I repeated.
“I just wanted to touch you.”
I heard my own breath quicken then and knew that he’d heard the same. And there I sat, transfixed, while he stroked the inside of my wrist. It was decidedly chaste, and yet he may as well have had his hand between my legs, the way it was affecting me.
Fuck.
“So,” he said after several moments had passed. “Did you come here to sell me art?”
I shook my head. Was this how he did it? The seducing? Subtle, effective, complete. They had rooms here, didn’t they?
He smiled, releasing my wrists. “No? I thought that was your intention, Solène.”
I loved the way my name sounded in his mouth. The way he savored the en. Like he was tasting it.
“You, Hayes Campbell … You are dangerous.”
“I’m not really.” He grinned, pulling off his sunglasses. “I just know what I want. And what’s the use in playing games, right?”
Our tea arrived just then. It was a flawless presentation. A still life.
“You’re on tour,” I said once we were alone again.
“I’m on tour,” he repeated.
“And then afterwards, you’re where? London?”
“I’m in London, I’m in Paris, I’m in New York … I’m all over.”
I took a moment to collect my thoughts, gazing out the window at the greenery. Nothing about this made sense. “How is this going to happen?”
Hayes slipped his hand beneath the table, grabbing mine on the banquette again, curling his finger inside my watchband. “How would you like it to happen?”
When I didn’t say anything, he added: “We can make it up as we go.”
“So I just meet you for lunch when you’re in L.A.?”
He nodded, biting down on his bottom lip. “And London. And Paris. And New York.”
I laughed, looking away. The realization of what I was agreeing to sinking in. The arrangement.
This was not me.
“This is insane. You realize that, right?”
“Only if someone gets hurt.”
“Someone always gets hurt, Hayes.”
He said nothing as he slid his fingers in between mine, squeezing my hand. The intimacy of the gesture threw me. I had not held a man’s hand since Daniel’s, and Hayes’s felt foreign. Large, smooth, capable; the coolness of an unexpected ring.
I shifted in my skirt, legs sticking to the leather cushion. I needed to get out of there, and yet I did not want it to end.
We finished our tea like that: fingers entwined on the banquette away from prying eyes, and the knowledge that we’d made a promise.
When the bill was paid, the ma?tre d’ returned to our table. He asked if everything had been to our satisfaction. And then, very matter-of-factly, he said, “Mr. Campbell, I regret to inform you, it appears someone got wind of your whereabouts and there are a few paparazzi awaiting you out front. I apologize. They’re not on the premises, but they are just across the street from the valet. I wanted to give you fair warning, should you want to stagger your exit.”
Hayes took a moment to digest the information and then nodded. “Thank you, Pierre.”
“What does that mean exactly?” I asked once he’d departed.
“It means that unless you want to be on all the blogs tomorrow, you should probably leave before me.”
“Oh. Okay. So now?” I reached across the banquette for my Saint Laurent tote.
He laughed, pulling me back into him. “You don’t have to go this very moment.”
“I should, though.”
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “If we don’t walk out of the restaurant together, we risk looking guilty. But if we walk to the valet together and the cameras catch us, we risk looking guilty to a much larger audience.”
“So it’s a game?”
“It’s a game.” He slipped on his sunglasses. “You ready?”
I began to laugh. “Remind me how I ended up here again.”
“Solène”—he smiled—“it’s just lunch.”
If I’d managed to forget Hayes was a celebrity during our near two-hour meal, there was no ignoring it when we walked across the terrace of the Hotel Bel-Air restaurant. All six feet two inches of him, in black jeans and black boots. Heads turned and eyes widened and patrons gestured among themselves, and he seemed not to notice. He’d grown accustomed to tuning them out.