Burned by morning.

ELARA'S POV.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of low, tense voices. They were speaking in French. 

I didn’t understand a single word, but I didn’t need to. The tension in their voices made me know that there was something wrong. Terribly wrong. 

I kept my eyes closed, pretending to still be asleep. My brain was slowly telling me how stupid my decision was last night. 

How does a friendly conversation turn to a steamy sex episode? I don't even know them. 

I had truly outdone myself.

I slowly pulled back the covers and reached down for my clothes, moving as quietly as I could. 

But they noticed. I quickly picked up my dress and covered the sensitive areas. 

Antoine looked at me first. His jaw was tight. His eyes moved over me once, filled with something I rather not name. And whatever he saw there seemed to confirm something he had already decided. He grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair without a word. 

“Antoine—” Luc started.

Antoine said something in French. From his words he looked pissed. 

Then he walked to the door and pulled it open.

“We are not done talking,” Luc said, switching to English, maybe for my benefit, maybe out of frustration.

Antoine stopped in the doorway. He turned around slowly and looked at Luc for a long second. Then he looked at me. Something moved across his face that made me pray for the reaper to come to harvest my soul. 

“We are done,” he said quietly. Then he walked out. The door swung shut behind him hard enough that the walls felt it.

The room went quiet.

Luc stood with his back to me. I could see the tension in his shoulders. He exhaled slowly. Then he turned around.

He didn't look like the same man from last night. Last night he had been easy. Relaxed. Funny, even. This morning he looked like someone who was capable enough of trafficking me. 

How did I not notice his build before now? 

I was so bent on getting any form of action that i slept with two strangers — who fucked good by the way— that i didn't think of the aftermath— death. 

They could have easily thrown me into a bus and drove away if they wanted to. 

He reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet.

I watched him.

He pulled out a thick fold of cash and walked over to me. He held it out without a word.

I looked at it. Then I looked at him. “What is that?”

“Take it.”

“I heard you. I asked what it is.”

He didn't answer. He just kept holding it out, patiently, like he was waiting for me to stop asking questions and do what he said.

“What happened between us last night was private,” he finally said. “It needs to stay that way. If anyone finds out—” He paused. “You will be in a very dangerous position. Do you understand me?”

I stared at him. “Are you threatening me?”

“Yes.”

I almost laughed. I would have, if I wasn't so completely stunned.

He took my hand, turned my palm up, and folded the cash into it.

“For your services,” he said.

The words hit me like cold water straight to the face.

I looked down at the money. Then back up at him. “Services.”

“Should I say that in French?” He frowned. “pour vos services.”

“You think I'm a prostitute.”

“I didn't say that.”

“You literally just paid me.”

“I paid for your silence,” he said. “Not the same thing.”

“It feels like the same thing.” I opened my fingers and let every single bill fall. They scattered everywhere. Some hit his shoes. Some drifted to the floor between us. 

He didn't move.

“I am not a hooker,” I said.

He looked at the money on the floor. Then at me. And then he smiled, like I had said something mildly amusing.

“No,” he said. “You are just an average American girl who wanted to sleep with two French men.” 

My mouth fell open. “That is racist.”

“It is a fact.”

“It is a stereotype.”

“Call it what you want.” He crouched down and started picking up the bills from the floor, unhurried, like this was all very normal to him. He straightened up and held the money out again. “Take it. Consider it a gift if that makes you feel better.”

“I don't want your money.”

“Everyone wants money.”

“I don't want yours.”

He studied me for a moment. Then he reached back into his wallet, pulled out another bundle, thicker than the first, and dropped both on the bed between us. “Everything that happened last night was a mistake,” he said. His voice had lost whatever was left of its warmth. “Poor judgment. From both of us. It won't happen again and it cannot be spoken about.”

“Yeah,” I rolled my eyes. “Like I'd go tell the whole world I had sex with two strangers on my first day in Paris.” I wrapped my arms around me. “You know that would make a good story plot,” my voice dripped with sarcasm. 

“I don't know you,” he said simply. “That is the problem.”

I looked at him. “You didn't seem too concerned about not knowing me last night.”

Something flickered across his face. Gone before I could read it.

“Last night was last night,” he said. “This is this morning.”  He straightened his collar and looked at me with steady, cold eyes. “Do not show your face to me again. If you do, do not blame me for what happens next.”

I didn't say anything.

He picked up his jacket, shrugged it on, and walked out.

The door closed behind him. Quieter than Antoine. But somehow that was worse.

I stood in the middle of that room for a long time, looking at the money on the bed, at the scattered bills on the floor, at the pale morning light pushing through the curtains.

What the fuck just happened? 

I left every single bill where it was.

I got dressed, picked up my bag, and walked out.

I had a job interview to get to.