Slower Read online

  Slower

  Deana Birch

  Copyright © 2018 by Deana Birch

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  For permission requests, write to the author at the e-mail address below.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to characters or events portrayed within are purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

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  [email protected]

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  Developmental Editor: Carly Hayward of booklighteditorial.com

  Copy Editor: Grace Laidlaw of booklighteditorial.com

  Proofreader: Jeni Chappelle of jenichappelleeditorial.com

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  Cover design: Ramon + Pedro ramonandpedro.com

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  SLOWER / Deana Birch

  ISBN 978-2-8399-2412-2

  Created with Vellum

  For my dad.

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  Because when I told him I wrote a steamy book he said, “I need to read that.” And for teaching me the importance of being an independent woman. Love you, always.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Smut-O-Logue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Deana Birch

  1

  LOUANA

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  A familiar laugh. My eyes fluttered, and my feet refused to make forward motion. I begged reality to be lying. Not him. Please, no. And sure as shit, not now. My landlady had no doubt ushered him into our courtyard without hesitation. A handsome, well-dressed man, who smelled amazing and could charm a lamppost? She wouldn’t have been able to resist. Not many could.

  I stopped at the green iron gate and saw my fears realized as Dimitri and Fern giggled poolside and sipped her self-proclaimed world-famous sangria. He had probably sold her a line like of all the sangria he’d tasted in Barcelona, hers was better. And Fern had probably bought it. Because Dimitri was smooth. Smooth like silk. Smooth like his divine, clean-shaven olive skin.

  Damn it.

  I glanced back at my current boyfriend, who was still in his Jeep and waiting for me to fetch our neighbor Richie. He bobbed his head from side to side and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Blissfully clueless. If only I could freeze time.

  As I turned back to the courtyard, Fern’s dog, Archie—with his black-and-white markings and lopsided ears—spotted me and trotted over. Also clueless. Dimitri’s attention followed the adorable beast and landed on me. He bit his bottom lip, a habit I used to find sexy, and his hazel eyes gleamed behind thick lashes.

  Putain.

  Manners nudged me from the spot in my gut they had occupied since childhood. I swallowed hard, pushed the gate open, and walked over to the past.

  The breakfast in my stomach churned with each step toward him.

  Him.

  Dimitri Le Clerc. “TriTri” to his fans. French soccer player. Son of my grandmother’s best friend. Man to whom I’d willingly offered my virginity below the silver platters in his parents’ living room in Marseille. Ex-boyfriend for six mostly long distant years. Man my grandmother wanted as my husband. Man I’d thought had been the love of my life.

  Him.

  That Dimitri Le Clerc. Standing in the courtyard of my apartment complex next to my sweet elderly landlady and sporting a guilty-as-charged-but-didn’t-give-a-shit smile on his still-striking face. He’d never been the possessive type, but after hearing of my new relationship status, it was no accident he wasn’t at home in France.

  Dimitri wore a tight, button-down, light blue dress shirt tucked into his dark jeans, and his brown leather shoes matched his belt. Physique ever fit, maybe thicker than before. As always, his short black hair was perfectly groomed, and his Spanish features echoed his mother’s side, the warm amber eyes the only sign of his French father.

  I hid my frown while his cologne transported me to my grandmother’s garden in the South of France and the day we’d moved from vacation friends to much more.

  I shook my head before he leaned into me and kissed each cheek. Damn him for his grace and poise. Because manners trumped everything. Always. Even the fact that he was the last person on Earth I wanted to see at my apartment. When I had a boyfriend. Whom I’d fought like hell and all its demons to keep.

  Fern excused herself and led the dog inside her apartment.

  “You should’ve called.” My nostrils flared.

  “Minette…” he purred and reached for my arm.

  “Don’t.” I raised a hand and pulled away. “This is the worst timing possible.”

  Dimitri studied my face, tilted his head and asked, “You’re not ‘appy to see me?”

  I wanted to tease him about his inability to pronounce an h, but that would have meant this was okay. And it was very much not okay.

  I let out a long breath before saying the words I knew he wouldn’t care about. Words he already knew. “I have a boyfriend.”

  “So you said. But I don’t think your grandmother is aware. You might want to tell ’er.” So casual. But so much truth and power.

  Stella was most definitely not aware of Jake. Jake who sat one hundred feet away, waiting for me to come back with Richie to help carry in a newly purchased and obnoxiously large flat-screen television. Jake, the drummer of one of the most popular rock bands on the rise. The man who had completely swept me off my feet. The man I loved and had officially moved in with the day before. Jake, with a jealous ugly giant inside him. Jake, whom I’d made promise me his past was behind us. Jake who would walk through the green gate wondering where I was any minute. That Jake.

  “Did you find Richie?” This Jake. Jake, who called from over my shoulder and whose arms crossed and eyes narrowed as he swaggered closer.

  Dimitri sized him up. He knew about my grandmother’s social standards, and a scruffy California boy in a T-shirt, baseball cap, and Vans wouldn’t cut it. Shit. There was no way to win. Maybe I could drown myself in the pool. Then everyone could just take a piece of me and be done with it.

  “This is Dimitri. Dimitri, Jake.”

  “From France?” Jake’s eyes widened, and his chin tucked.

  “That’s the one.” I cringed. It was hard to know which of us to be maddest at. Dimitri for abracadabra-ing his way to California, Jake for his annoying jealous streak, or myself for being at a total loss as I stood between them.

  Jake’s jaw flinched, and his arms stayed glued to his chest. I guessed shaking hands was out of the question. Manners were apparently
not the most important thing to him.

  Dimitri pretended to fix his watch, but he kept a curious eye on us. The squirmy dance in my feet brought a small grin to his face. How many times had he corrected my fidgeting in the past? At least he had enough sense not to reach out to me. Between the anger waves crashing off Jake and the uncomfortable nerves pinballing inside me, my ex was probably thoroughly amused.

  Jake’s tongue moved behind closed lips as if he was tasting his disgust. He stared me down as his chest rose and fell, and he shifted his weight to one side.

  “I need a minute,” I said—and held my breath.

  Jake stiffened, and his eyebrows reached for his hairline.

  I closed my eyes for a beat to break his hold. “Please.”

  After a once-over of Dimitri, Jake’s attention turned back to me while he rubbed the stubble on his face. “I’m gonna get Richie.” He stomped up the exterior steps to Richie’s apartment and banged on our resident computer geek’s front door.

  Dimitri and I sat down at the round wooden table where Fern had left him. Jealousy was not in his emotional palette, and the arrival of Jake had done nothing to his nerves. Confidence, however, came in all colors. He also knew he had the upper hand. He always did. I searched my brain for an antidote to his control, but if I hadn’t found it in six years, six seconds weren’t going to help.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” I tried puppy dog eyes with a frown. Had they ever worked?

  “I did. I told you I was thinking about traveling. And I didn’t like the way you sounded on the phone. I was worried. De toute façon…”

  I held up my hand with my fingers spread wide. “Do you mind if we keep it in English?” If Jake was eavesdropping, I wanted to be sure he would understand me rejecting my ex.

  “English, Spanish, Italian… whatever you like.” He waved his hand in the air. “By the way, it’s nice to see you. California agrees with you.” He bit his damn lip again. I reminded myself I was immune to his charm. Dimitri and I didn’t work. Loving him meant losing me. Besides, I loved Jake.

  Jake huffed down the steps with Richie in tow, shot us a dirty look, and clanked through the metal gate to the car park.

  “It’s nice to see you, too.” Whatever we weren’t, our childhood and family would always connect us. We were still friends—I thought so anyway. It was easy to forget about him when he was across the globe. But in the flesh and two feet away, reality smacked me upside the head. And then there were those unshakable fucking manners. “How’s your knee?”

  “It’s better, I’m doing physio and will be back to playing in two months.” His tight smile lacked conviction and touched a tiny soft spot inside me. For all the bad, there had been more good. Dimitri and I had been family friends—vacation siblings—before we’d been anything else. I’d stood on too many sidelines over the years not to sympathize with his injury.

  I dumped my head into my hands and resisted the urge to scream.

  He was killing me. Slaughtering me. My past and all my grandmother’s expectations slicing through me with sharp precision right there next to the pool in sunny L.A. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, and Dimitri had traveled with my greatest weakness in his luggage. If arranged marriages had been an option, Stella and Dimitri’s parents would have signed on the dotted line ages ago.

  “Why did you come here?” I asked as I shook my head.

  He shrugged. “Stella and Mama were naming our babies. I thought you should know.” While probably true, his answer still set off my bullshit meter.

  The gate squeaked. Jake and Richie were back, carrying the huge box and maneuvering around the pool in the center of the courtyard.

  “I’m just going to put this in our apartment,” Jake said with a snarky nod, moving in the direction of our front door.

  “You’re living with ’im?” Dimitri asked with a blink.

  “Yes.” The cat, or the “minette” in this case, was out of the bag.

  “Aye!” Dimitri clapped his hands together in joy, then scolded, “Ooo lala, Minette. Stella is not going to like this.” A slow shake of his head said he didn’t either.

  Merde. He had me. Probably exactly where he wanted me. How had this happened in less than ten minutes?

  “Please don’t tell her… I need some time.” I leaned in. Part of me wanted to reach out to him but the hovering stank of Jake’s mood stopped me.

  “Those two women are going to want to know why we didn’t make our babies.” He tapped the table with a finger.

  “Sisplau?” My one great hope was asking “please” in Catalan, his mother and uncles’ native language. I hated using it. History told him I was desperate when I did.

  His lips twitched, and the smile came. My plea had worked, but at what price?

  “I’ll think about it tonight and tell you what I’m going do tomorrow at dinner.”

  “You can’t show up and demand I go to dinner with you.”

  “It’s a shame about those babies…” Now he was the one with the puppy dog eyes, but his held an underlying threat that he would bite.

  There would be a gelato store in hell before I would chance Stella finding out about Jake from Dimitri. He could skew the details in any direction he wanted. And as much as I wanted to scream at him for trying to control me, he would be a far better ally than an enemy. Asshole. “One dinner, then you have to leave me alone. And stop calling me Minette.”

  “But I’m here for a week, and I don’t know anybody else.” He spread his hands out in front of him and his lips pouted into a fake frown.

  Jake was back. There was more to get out of the car. “Any time you’re ready to be done here,” he spat as he passed by the table.

  “Je t’appelle demain.” Dimitri stood up and I followed his lead. “Ciao, Minette.” He kissed me twice, gave a fearless nod to Jake, and left through the main gate of the complex.

  Jake planted his hands on his hips as he watched Dimitri leave. Then, he mocked, “What happened to, ‘he lives in France, Jake’?”

  Lordy, his jealousy stank with immaturity. For a second, I wondered if he might go out and piss around the perimeter of our building to mark his territory. My day was officially a clusterfuck. Damn Dimitri and his terrible timing and damn Jake’s jaundice-eyed monster within. And triple damn me for having zero ideas on how to better the situation.

  I pursed my lips and looked away, because I had bigger fish to fry than dealing with Jake’s insecurities. My grandmother would go ballistic if she knew I had let a man move in with me after knowing him for such a short amount of time. Jake and I had happened so fast— with her on the other side of the globe—I hadn’t given it any thought.

  And now that I was faced with the urgency to do so, a thousand scenarios rushed into my mind. My mom would take my side against Stella, creating an even deeper divide between them. Dimitri’s parents, whom I loved like family, would hate me. Would Stella shun me as she had done with my mother?

  I needed to pump maximum oxygen into my lungs to keep myself from suffocating in the mess I’d created. I stormed into my apartment and Jake fumed behind me.

  Richie sat with a rounded back on the floor in front of the TV and connected red and blue wires. Jake handed him the bag from the Apple Store, then followed me to the walk-in closet. I pulled my sundress overhead and reached for my sports bra.

  “Where the fuck are you going?” He stalked into the doorway, blocking my way out. But at least he wasn’t yelling.

  I searched for my running shoes while I pulled on my shorts and socks.

  “Louana?” His tone remained even.

  I squatted as I tied the laces and looked up. “I’m going for a run.”

  “Thanks, Captain Obvious,” he scoffed. “But I’d like to know what the fuck that guy was doing here.”

  “I’m not ready to talk about this. I need a minute to clear my head.” I popped back up and motioned for him to move out of the way. I knew my fight-or-flight option had grown wings. I knew Jake hate
d it. I was making the situation worse. But I was more afraid of hurting Jake by admitting Stella would be disappointed in me than I was of him getting pissed at my avoidance behavior.

  “Are you fucking kidding me? Your ex-boyfriend shows up out of the blue and you’re not ready to talk about it?” His mouth twisted.

  “I need to think. I need a minute.” I stared through him. Making eye contact would have been overload. I needed space. Air. A retreat. And I needed to move my nervous body before my mind could clear.

  Still firmly planted in his stance, he asked, “What the fuck is there to think about?”

  Shit. The anger was bubbling. But I wasn’t ready. Talking to him in that moment would make it worse. I knew it. Processing through movement was how I’d always coped.

  “You’re not helping. This”—I motioned back and forth between us—“is not helping.”

  I dipped under his arm and went to fetch a hair-tie, my phone, and earbuds.

  “Thanks for doing this, Richie,” I said. Because manners.

  I hoped Jake would calm down with a bit of space, but experience told me he would be more like a pressure cooker and explode when I got back. It didn’t matter. My mind would never be able to work through what was happening until my body had massaged out its kinks and found the calm. Another lesson I cursed Dimitri for as I slammed the gate. How many times had his hand on my knee stopped my legs from bobbing? How many times had a small wink promised a massive reward if I’d just stop fidgeting?