“He was ill for a very long time. I cared for him and ran the inn. I never planned to come back here—my parents had moved overseas and it wasn’t feasible for them to return. My original plan was to sell the inn or find someone to run it for me. But …”
“But?” he prompted.
Luc gave an exaggerated shrug that made Marielle’s look restrained by comparison. “I realized this was more than a business. It was part of the fabric of the community. L’Auberge Arbousier has been in continuous operation since the 1800s. I couldn’t walk away from that.”
“But what about your own dream, these clothes are magnificent—couldn’t you work from here?” Hanna asked, her voice as sad as Luc’s eyes.
He laughed derisively. “Paris is the center of the fashion world. This tiny fishing village that time forgot may as well be an outpost in Alaska. Even in an age of digital sales and the global economy, my dream was born and died in Paris.”
It was clear from the weight of his words and the sorrow hooding his eyes he’d lost more than professional dream by leaving the city. But it was equally clear he didn’t intend to say anything further. They lapsed into a thick silence.
After a moment he clapped his hands together. “Let me look at you.”
Within minutes, he’d accurately guessed their sizes and plucked several suitable outfits for each of them from the racks.
“How much do we owe you?” Marielle asked, her arms laden with dresses, trousers, and blouses.
“You can’t pay,” Luc rebuffed her, offended.
“Please,” Omar said. “Let us. We don’t have our luggage, but we do have money. Euros.”
Luc waved his hand. “Keep your euros. It’s enough to see my clothes off the hanger and on living bodies.”
“We can’t thank you enough,” Marielle said. “These are beautiful.”
“Gorgeous,” Hanna murmured.
Luc beamed at the recognition of his artistry, then snapped back into host mode. “I’ll show you to your rooms, and you can get settled. While you wash up, I’ll set out a light dinner.”
Dinner? Omar blinked. Surely it couldn’t be time for dinner.
But when they followed Luc out the door and waited for him to lock the shed, the sky was streaked with golds and pinks as the sun shimmered over the water, descending into the sea.
They silently followed their silent host through the courtyard, back into the inn, and up the stairs to the guest quarters. He stopped at the end of the hallway.
“This room has one queen bed, and this has a king,” he said, gesturing to two rooms set side by side.
Omar hesitated. He and Marielle no longer had to pretend to be a married couple. Their cover wasn’t necessary. Elle could bunk with Hanna. But did the women know each other well enough to share the space? He considered asking Luc for a third room or a cot, but something—call it pride, protectiveness, or pure desire—stopped him.
He placed his hand on the small of Marielle’s back and leaned down to whisper. “I’ll bunk on the floor.”
Her spine stiffened under his palm. A moment later, she bobbed her head.
Five
Luc waved them into their respective rooms and headed down the stairs to prepare dinner.
Hanna went into the queen room and closed her door with a soft click.
Marielle and Omar looked at each other for a moment of awkward silence before they crossed the threshold into the king room. She was surprised at the palpable distance between them. After all, they’d just spent several days pretending to be married. But without the cover, the easy familiarity between them had vanished. Omar would rather sleep on the floor than share a bed with her.
As he closed the door, she took in the room.
A king bed dressed in crisp white linens with a single indigo stripe running along the edge of the duvet and the pillowcase dominated the space. Beside it, a chipped white jug on the nightstand held a bouquet of fresh lavender, its sweet scent mixing with the salt air.
Two chairs upholstered in mismatched but complementary fabrics, one a faded floral, the other striped linen, sat angled toward the open window that let in the evening light and the distant lapping of the sea.
A mirror in a flaking gilt frame hung on the dove gray wall above a small writing desk. The art was minimal but meaningful: a single watercolor of the calanque, pale blues bleeding into sandy ochre; an old map of the coastline in a simple wooden frame; and an extreme close-up photograph of a purple spiral-shelled snail in shallow water..