I remembered a similar look one night eons ago when I’d slunk back home, easing my father’s Porsche back into the garage at three in the morning after stealing it to go on a little joy ride. I’d done it in a bid to impress my friends, and a girl of course, though it had backfired royally when the girl’s father had found us, her passenger seat reclined, my hand up his daughter’s nightie, and my tongue down her throat. I guess I should have felt lucky we didn’t live in the land of guns. But back then, the hot humiliation of being caught was like being held up against a wall by my throat. I drove home, carefully mind you—my earlier bravado and machismo gone, and praying like a dying man that a phone call about my behavior didn’t beat me home. Alas, my mother waited in the dark of the garage until I’d thought I was almost home free, the idle engine silenced, the dust cover eased back over the sweaty beast, before she’d flicked on the fluorescent garage light and scared the shit out of me. “You will not become your father,” she’d growled.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I said to her now across the lunch table. “I’m not sixteen. And I’m not sleeping with her.”

“Xavier. I’m not blind. And I’m not being judgmental. At least not about what you think. There’s no wife to cheat on,” she bulldozed over the scoffing sound I made.

Ouch.

“But mon dieu, Xavier. Did you learn nothing from your father’s behavior? You don’t sleep with the help. How extremely uncouth. Certainly, not in your position. If a lawsuit were to happen now with everything you’ve built, or the media got wind of it—well, and not to mention how very awful it would be for Dauphine. So confusing.”

“Again. I’m not sleeping with her,” I snapped. “That’s—that’s why I didn’t stop her when she resigned.” I felt the wince at my admission, even as I tried to remain stoic.

“Ah, but you wanted to sleep with her.” Trust my mother to just put out there what I was dancing around.

I blew out a breath. For all that I’d been an impossible teenager and was mostly responsible for the silver streaks she paid a fortune to have blended into her salon blonde, we’d also become close after my parents’ divorce. Grabbing my glass of rosé, I downed the last sip and filled it back up with water. God knew I needed my wits about me. “Whether I want to or not, it’s irrelevant. She’s leaving.”

“Not until at least tomorrow.”