Page 154 of Boss of the Year

With a regretful smile, I untangled myself from their grasp and turned back to my new friends, who were still dancing with each other. I closed my eyes and gave myself up to the music, allowing the darkness to wash over me as I processed the three kisses. Three different people. Three different ways of being wanted that had nothing to do with family schemes or business arrangements or anything other than simple human attraction.

It was freeing, yes.

But it also felt wrong.

I glanced down at my body, at the revealing clothing, the way I’d put myself on display. It was the opposite of the clothes I once wore to cover up.

But it was just another costume, no different from the dress Celeste put on, except the only difference was that when she did it, it was a genuine part of her on display for the world.

This person wasn’t me any more than was the girl who used to hide in skirts and sweaters.

Not really.

I tugged at the shirt, suddenly wanting to rip it off, right here in the middle of the club.

I wanted out. I wanted to leave.

I wanted to rip off my own skin if it would make this feeling stop.

“That was quite a show.”

The voice behind me was dark. Deep. Impossibly familiar.

I opened my eyes to the sight of Sylvie and Riad now making out in the center of the crowd, over which Celeste was now crooning a cover of Tears for Fears’s “Head over Heels.”

I turned, hoping the absinthe and the show were playing tricks on me.

But there he was. Lucas Lyons, in dark jeans and a rumpled white button-down, looking completely out of place among the drag queens and leather-clad club goers. His hair was mussed, there were dark circles under his eyes, and I had to wonder if he’d come directly here from the plane or train or whatever he’d taken to Paris.

Paris. Lucas was inParis.

His storm-gray eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that made my knees weak but also held me in place.

“Do I get a kiss too?” He cocked his head. “Seems only fair.”

I opened and closed my mouth several times, but nothing came out. The club continued spinning around us—musicpounding, people dancing, life happening in all its messy glory—but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t hear anything beyond the thundering of my heart and the roaring in my ears.

Every instinct screamed for me to get out, but my legs were cement, locked in place as the world closed in. All the warmth I’d felt moments ago in the glittering magic of Celeste, the comfort of Sylvie, Riad, even in the arms of a short-haired stranger, fractured into noise and chaos.

I wasn’t dancing anymore. I was drowning.

“Marie—” Lucas started, taking a step toward me.

But his movement was like a button that had just been pressed, unlocking me from my stand.

I didn’t respond. I didn’t say anything.

I just turned on my heel and ran.

31

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*Buy the best quality. Some flavors linger long after you wish they would fade.

At first, I thought I’d lost him. Maybe even imagined him.

I stumbled out onto the street in Pigalle, aptly called Rue de Martyrs, and started through the blurred crowds and jeering lights toward Boulevard Clichy, where I would find a taxi to take me back to Louis’s apartment.