“Did you need something?”
He turned on the smile, recently whitened by the look of it. “I came looking for you at lunchtime, but they said you had a meeting.”
“I was with marketing, trying to nail down the concepts for the new print campaign. We’re not quite there yet, but we should have—”
Luc cut her off with the wave of a hand. “Come out with me after work. I was going to take you to lunch, but dinner’s better, don’t you think?”
No, she didn’t think, though it didn’t surprise her that he did. He was used to getting his way. And why wouldn’t he be? The man positively oozed charm. It didn’t hurt that he looked like Johnny Depp without the eyeliner, or that he’d retained a hint of his mother’s French accent. But those things had quickly lost their appeal.
They’d done their best to keep things quiet. No office flirtations or public displays of affection. No lunches that didn’t include a spreadsheet or a PowerPoint handout. But the night her promotion was announced they’d gone to Daniel to celebrate, and run smack into Reynold Ackerman, an attorney from legal, who happened to be there with his wife, celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary. That was when she knew she had a choice to make—end things or become the office cliché.
She’d ended it the next day. Luc had taken it well enough, perhaps because they’d established ground rules early on. When the time came, either party could walk away. No tears. No recriminations. But lately, he’d been signaling that maybe they should pick up where they’d left off. A nonstarter, as far as she was concerned.
“So tonight, then?” he prompted from the doorway. “We can do Italian.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll book us a table at Scarpetta. The cannoli alone—”
“My grandmother died,” she blurted. “I just got the letter.”
Luc had the good grace to drop the smile. He stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was sick.”
“Neither did I.” The words stung more than Lizzy expected, and she found herself having to look away. Crying on each other’s shoulders hadn’t been part of their arrangement, and she wasn’t about to start now. “Apparently, she’d been keeping it from me.”
“I don’t remember you talking about her much. Or any of your family, for that matter. Were you close?”
“We were,” she said evenly. “She basically raised me.”
“Tough break.”
Lizzy stared up at him from her desk chair. Tough break? That’s what you say to someone when a person they love dies? And yet she shouldn’t be surprised. She’d seen him deal with death before.
They’d been seeing each other on the quiet for several months when Luc’s mother, and Lizzy’s mentor in the world of fragrance, finally lost her battle with cervical cancer. Lizzy had watched him at the funeral, shaking hands and accepting condolences, playing the dutiful son. But as the afternoon wore on, she couldn’t help thinking that that was precisely what he was doing—playing a role. Initially, she had attributed the lack of grief to the lingering nature of his mother’s illness. He’d had time to prepare, to make his peace and say goodbye. Now she wondered if she’d given him too much credit.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said finally, reaching across the desk to lay a hand over hers. “You’ll want to go home, of course, for the funeral.”
Lizzy slid her hand free, tucking it in her lap and out of reach. “There isn’t going to be a funeral. They’ve already scattered her ashes.”
Luc’s brows shot up. “What—without you?”
Lizzy nodded, unwilling to say more. When it came to family, she preferred to keep the details to a minimum. If you wanted to be taken seriously—and she did—there were places you just didn’t go.
“We don’t make a fuss in my family,” she said, blinking back a rush of tears. Unless you consider having your ashes scattered in a lavender field on the first full moon after your death making a fuss. “Besides, it was my fault. I forgot to send a change of address when I moved, so there was a mix-up with the letter. She died two months ago. When I didn’t respond, the funeral home must have gone ahead and taken care of her ashes.”
Luc nodded, as if it all made perfect sense, then frowned suddenly. “Still a bit odd, though, right? Moving ahead without you?”
Lizzy avoided his gaze. “It’s sort of a family tradition. There’s . . . timing involved. Anyway, it’s done.”
“Just as well, if you ask me. I’ve never been big on funerals. All that grief in one place.” He paused, feigning a shudder. “It’s a wasted emotion when you get right down to it. The person who died has no idea you’re grieving, because, well, they’re dead. And everyone else is just standing around mumbling platitudes and eating deviled eggs. And then there’s family, which is a whole other can of worms. Always messy—or as my mother liked to say . . . compliqué.”
Compliqué.
Lizzy nodded. It was the perfect descriptor for the Moons. “Yes. We’re quite . . . messy.”
“How long since you’ve been back?”
“Never. I left eight years ago and never went back.”
Luc whistled softly. “That’s a long time, even by my standards. Your mother’s gone?”
Lizzy knew what he was asking—was her mother dead? The truth was she had no idea. No one did. And that was almost the same thing. “Yes. She’s gone. Everyone’s gone.”
Luc stepped around to her side of the desk, propping a hip on the corner. “My poor little orphan,” he said softly. “You’re not alone, you know. My mother loved you—so much that she made me promise to look after you. She said, Luc, Lizzy is going to be brilliant one day, and I want you to take care of her. It’s as if in leaving me this company, she left me you too.”
Lizzy resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. “You can’t leave a person in a will, Luc. And I’ve been on my own for a pretty long time.”
He stood, and moved to the window. “How long will you need? Three days? Four?”
She frowned. “For what?”
“I don’t know. Bereavement, I guess. Whatever you need to do. I’m guessing there’s financial stuff to handle, a house to sell.”
“It’s a farm, actually. An herb farm. But I don’t need to go back. I can handle everything from here.”
“Seriously?” He smiled, as if pleasantly surprised. “And here I was thinking you were the sentimental type.”
Lizzy shook her head, desperate to end the conversation before she said something that raised Luc’s carefully groomed brows again. “It’s just . . . a lot of stuff. Memories I’d rather not dredge up. Like you said, it’s . . . compliqué.”
His smile widened, straddling the line between arrogance and condescension. “My mother was the sentimental type. She used to say we all need to go home from time to time, to remind us where we came from. I think she was half-right. We do need to go home from time to time, but only to remind us why we left in the first place, so we can get clear on what we do want. Because in the long run, that’s all that matters—what we want from life and what we’re willing to do to get it. Maybe that’s what you need, Lizzy, to go spend some time with your memories. Things might look different when you do.”