Broken French: A widowed, billionaire, single dad romance Natasha Boyd (i read books .TXT) 📖

a strand of my hair that had fallen out of its braid, rubbing it between his fingers.

“I want to hold you,” I admitted, and I thought my chin might be wobbling. “Comfort you. I wish you’d looked to me for help instead of pushing me away. It’s all right to need someone, Xavier.”

He blinked slowly, looking into my eyes and searching my face but didn’t respond.

And my words now felt silly and far too vulnerable bouncing off his silence. “It’s late,” I said, swallowing his silent rejection. “You should go and be with your daughter in case she wakes up.”

He let go of my hair and rubbed the back of his neck as if to ease an ache. He took a shallow breath, then stopped. Words seemed on the tip of his tongue.

“What?” I asked.

“This thing between us … je sais pas … it was … I am not … I do not want you to go, but I cannot ask you to stay.”

My hopeful heart leapt at his words. Though I hated how weak that made me, especially after his lackluster apology.

“I do not want to use Dauphine to try to ask you to stay,” he went on. “She will miss you very much. The first question she had for me was where you were. And I hoped you would be here.” His head bowed. “But I would have understood if you left after the reaction I had. After what I said. I’ll understand if you leave.”

I stared at the top of his head, at his glossy brown, warm and soft hair, and tried to read between the lines of his words. Was he using Dauphine as an excuse because he wanted me to stay? Or was the idea of me leaving really just that minor to him. No, I was sure it was the former. The night and day we’d spent together had been so incredible, but it had been the natural course of so many feelings building up over weeks. We’d connected in a way I’d never felt in my whole life. I knew it was the same for him. It had to be. I’d felt it. Before everything went sideways. “Xavier. You know you deserve to feel good things too.” My conversation in the car with Madame came back to me. “I think you believe you do not.”

“Perhaps.”

“I’m certain,” I insisted.

“Josephine, I am half a man, but with a whole heart devoted to my daughter.” He looked up, his eyes pleading with me. “That is all I am capable of right now.”

Oh.

Oh.

I looked down to my chest. My hand was already pressed against it as if trying to hold everything together, to stop the pain. I should say something, I thought. I should put on a strong face so he didn’t know the extent of the damage. I blinked and attempted to swallow the ball of grit that had formed in my throat without success. My pulse pounded in my throat and ears. Count to ten, Josie. Breathe. My voice, when it came out, was a scratchy whisper. “So you want me to stay, but only for Dauphine’s sake?”

He grabbed my hand, making me wince at the contact, relief evident on his features. “Oui. You are very good with her. She needs you. After the shock, she needs stability. You will stay with us for a little while longer?”

I snatched my hand away, the backs of my eyes burning. My skin flashed hot, then cold, and a chasm of aching emptiness began to yawn open inside my chest. The chasm was going to swallow whole pieces of my heart. And it was going to fucking hurt.

“Josephine …” His head tilted sideways.

I held up a palm and pulled it down when I felt my hands shaking.

“You warned me,” I said. “You warned me to protect my heart. I’m afraid it was probably too late already.”

He winced, his face paling, and closed his eyes.

“It’s true. You’re sitting here talking as if you don’t know that I’m in love with you.”

“Do not say this.”

“I’m in love with a man who thinks love is looking for ways to hurt him. To destroy him. But that’s not love.” My voice shook. “Maybe you have never truly known it.”

Xavier had pulled down the iron curtain of nothingness over his expression. “Perhaps not.”

Silence ensued, my ears filled with the throb of my heartbeat and the damn fucking clock ticking louder than ever.

Awkward vulnerability made my skin crawl as seconds ticked by with no response. Not that I was expecting one. I cleared my throat before the humiliation of being so raw and exposed choked me. Wasn’t love supposed to make one feel invincible? I had never felt so weak. “It wasn’t one-sided,” I said. “I know it wasn’t. I know it in my bones. But you’re pretending it was. When you found yourself attracted to me, instead of looking inside yourself and rejoicing, you blamed me.”

“Non.”

“Yes. You have had a problem with me from the start. You said it yourself, I terrified you. And I thought you weren’t a coward.”

His lips curled in a hiss. “You have no idea what I’ve been through!”

“I know I don’t.”

He stood and came toward me. Then he seemed to think better of it and stopped, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He then pulled a hand out and raked it through his hair. “I barely know you, and yet I let myself get distracted by you for one day and look what happened to Dauphine.”

What the fuck?

Pain took my breath away, my gasp loud in the silence.

He snapped his head to look at me, remorse filling his eyes. “Non. I didn’t mean that.” He walked toward me and I held a hand up, shaking my head.

“You did,” I choked out. “I’ve discovered you rarely say anything you don’t mean, and this is no exception.”

“Merde. I don’t know how to say the right thing. I do not want to hurt you. But yes, I did mean that. In