Chapter Seventeen - Cotija Charm

BY THE TIME I spot the cheese shop lights down the street, my giddy smile is gone. Cheddy and Cam's light banter debating my ass versus my breasts fades.

He's waiting for me in there, and he's gonna yell at me. I hate that I care, but I also hate that he hates me.

Both Cheddy and Cam walk past me, their arms slipping over my head as I freeze in place. Cam pauses and glances back. "Have your legs given out? Unsurprising after the night."

"We can carry you," Cheddy adds.

"No!" I cry out, nearly leaping away as he reaches for me.

Both men's easy grins drop. "What's wrong?" Cheddy asks.

With a glance over his shoulder to the shop, Cam sighs. "Is it something big, bossy, and blue?"

"Who? Roq?" Cheddy catches on after a second. "Why?"

"He's very angry with me," I say, not wanting to elaborate on all of my damn mistakes. I've got my gremlin to do that for me.

"Nah, I'm sure he's already forgotten. He's really a big teddy bear once you get to know him."

Cam catches my eye, his look writing a thousand pages on how wrong Cheddy is, but he doesn't say a word. Instead, he curls his arm around my waist and pulls me to his chest. "You should slip inside before you catch your death."

"But, what if…?"

"Should our veiny villain emerge from his lair, I will chase him off," Cam assures me.

It's silly but I breathe a sigh of relief at the idea. Still, I let both men walk in first, even if they keep trying to hold the door for me. There's no reason for me to go back in there. I could go to my motel…except I already checked out. Find another motel. Get on a plane. Go home. Just turn my back on all of this.

Cam darts his gaze to my less soaked chest, then my eyes, before he boldly bites his lip. My brain, numb from too many orgasms, sends me stumbling inside after him.

"You're back!"

I flinch at the loud voice but realize it's not Roq just as I turn. Brie, his cheeks and fingers stained yellow and orange, clings to a square canvas. It's turned to hide the front, and he keeps bouncing on his feet. "Did you have fun?" he asks.

"I'd like to think so." Cam slips behind the counter, leaving me standing alone by the door. "I'll give you the full tale later."

"We had sex on a bench!" Cheddy shouts, then he whirrs a drill in his hand and screws a plank of wood to the wall.

"Or he can sum it up for you."

"That's good." Brie's smile doesn't falter, but he nervously scratches behind his ear. With his news done, Cam wanders off to inspect the refrigerated counter while I linger beside Brie.

"What about you?" I ask and point to the canvas. "Did you have any luck?"

"Oh? Um…" He starts to scoot back. "It's not very good. I haven't done it in years. I'll just…"

"Are all of these yours?" Cam's voice cries out. He stands up with two paintings in his hands. One is a sunset or sunrise between two rocky cliffs with golden light streaming into the sea. The second is of a sunny sky in a meadow where deer nibble on wildflowers.

"Yeah, yes, maybe?" Brie dips his head.

I'm in awe. "They're beautiful."

"Really?"

"I never expected you to…" I take the one of the sea, blown away by the burst of color contrasted by deepest shadow. It's so bright I'd swear there's actual light coming from the painting. "It's amazing. You're amazing."

Brie's entire face blushes and he tries to hide behind the hidden canvas. "It's just something I've been thinking about, a lot. If I ever got my hands on more paint."

"What about that one?" I ask, pointing to the last hidden painting. "Is it a sunset?"

"No." He shakes his head, then he stuffs the canvas under a tarp. "It's not finished. But I'm glad you like the others. I fear I went a tad feral with the yellow and white."

"No kidding." Cam slides around the counter and I follow. Behind it is a makeshift easel from scraps of wood. Brie used one of the old charcuterie boards for his palette. There's white and yellow paint everywhere from the slate board to the counter and up the walls. "Looks like you had a bit of fun yourself."

"Oh, did I cause that?" Brie picks up a cloth and tries to wipe away the paint, smearing it across the walls. "Um…?"

"It gives the place character," I say.

Cam drapes his arm over my shoulder and twists his head to stare at Brie's accidental paint splotch. "Is that my mother?"

"Everyone leave."

The jolly mood shatters. Air sucks from my lungs. Roq rises the last few rungs up the ladder and stops before the empty drop with arms crossed. "I need to speak with Miss Reely alone."

No one moves.

"Now," Roq thunders. Cheddy leaps in the air and dives for the ladder. Brie carefully lays down his paints and brushes then slips on by.

"Thank you," he whispers to me before ducking under Roq's nose.

The man nods to the two who obeyed him, then he zeroes in on the one who didn't. "Camembert." He stretches the word out like a parent using the dreaded middle name.

"Why? Are we being secretive again, Roquefort?"

Flaring his nostrils, Roq looks about to grab Cam by the scruff and hurl him down the ladder. Then he steps back and shakes his head. "No. I only wish to speak with her without your usual distractions."

Cam beams as if that's a compliment, then he drops his arm off of me. "Very well…"

"Wait!" Realizing he's about to leave me alone, I reach for him.

"Don't worry, my dear. His bark is far deeper than his bite." Despite his promise that he wouldn't leave me not five minutes ago, Cam disappears down the ladder.

I'm alone, in the middle of the night, with a very large man that hates me. I shove my hands into my dress pockets to find my keys. Roq doesn't talk to me. Instead, he inspects Brie's paintings.

Is he going to yell at me for them?

A teeny tiny smile rises with the little sunrise. It almost soothes me, until he walks toward me. I leap back, struggling to get all of those keys between my knuckles. My back slams into the center counter. Lumbering like the gigantic, muscular bear that he is, Roq pins me in.

My neck heats up as I stare at his hands crossed over his chest, then at his hip cocked to the side. He could lurch forward in a heartbeat, grab me by the hair, take my ass, and…

"You're wet."

How the hell does he know that?

Unlike Cam's lascivious once-over, and Cheddy's blatant staring, Roq gives a quick glance to my chest. I slap my hands over my wet breasts, jangling the huge ring of keys. "There was an incident with a fountain."

He snorts to himself. "The park. Of course, he went there. We need to speak."

"Aren't we?" I ask, my brain useless in panic mode.

For a second his lips twitch up as if he's about to smile, but they crash to that familiar pouty frown. "About your intentions with this shop."

"I forgot to tell the realtor," I insist. Roq's body sways closer to me. My first thought is to throw my hands up to stop him. My second is to let him bend me over the counter, leaving my third thought shaking its head in confusion.

Roq picks up my uncle's old sign and staggers away from me. Holding the blank whiteboard in his hands, he takes a steadying breath. "I've been testy of late with you. I'm sorry."

Wha'? The idea of an apology, especially from him, makes my skin shrink. "That's okay," I say, wanting to escape this awkward conversation now.

"You've been quick to offer help without much thought to what it will entail. A rare trait to find in someone." Roq places the sign back on the counter, then he paces to the register. Staring at the pictures on the wall, he says, "It leads me to wonder why."

"Well, we're in this together."

"I'm sorry, do you also become a curdled dairy product when the sun rises?"

The back of my neck burns and I rub it while staring at the floor. "No. But, I just thought, since you have all that cheese and need to sell it, why don't I help you do that?"

"You do not reside in this city," he states instead of asking.

I nod.

"Ergo, your life is elsewhere."

I shrug. It's hard to say I have a life anywhere.

He plucks one of the pictures of my uncle off the wall. "Yet you agree to remain here for three months while a million dollars sits on the table."

"Five."

Roq jerks around to face me. "What?"

"It's five million now. Or ten. I'm not sure."

"I will never understand the price of land in this city." He places the picture back on the wall, though it leans to the right. "So, five or ten million. Enough for your children's children to survive on."

"Eh…" His grasp of economics is worse than mine, and I flunked a budgeting class in sixth grade.

"I ask you again, why are you helping us?"

Because you're pathetic, the gremlin taunts. Because you're a pushover. Because you'll do anything anyone asks of you for a pat on the head.

"Because it's the right thing to do."

Roq slams a hand to the counter beside me, and I jump. My feet paddle me away, but he doesn't pursue. Instead, he glares and hisses, "Lies. Is it Brie, or Cam, or Cheddy? Or all of them?"

"Uh…?"

"I don't care if you're sleeping with them. I want to… I must know why, or else we'll leave tonight and you can host your open house tomorrow."

I like Brie's sweet artistic heart, and Cheddy's exuberance for life, and Cam's whole charming bandit vibe. And the sex is mind-blowing. I'd be a fool to not stay just to cram all of my life's orgasms into these three months.

But it's not why I agreed to this. And he can tell.

You're a rotten, no-good person, Violette Reely.

I frown, trying to silence the gremlin bleating in my heart. The louder it gets, the more it sounds like me.

"I'm…"

She did everything for you. You're going to kill her. How can you live with yourself?

Screwing my eyes up tight, I clasp my hands in prayer and whisper, "My mom."

Roq leans closer, his dark blue eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Your mother…?"

"Uh-huh." I gulp, knowing I'm on my way to hell. My gaze slips past him to the door where the lock is wide open. My hands start to shake and the gremlin screams at me to lock it, five times. Do it right now or she'll get in a terrible accident. It'll be all your fault.

"I believe you." Roq's bone-quaking voice wrenches me from the door.

"You do?"

"Family can cause us to take the most foolish actions." He reaches into his apron and pulls out a mess of papers. "If we are to continue this partnership, we must discuss opening the shop."

"Uh, yes. Please. I'm low on funds, and the way Cheddy eats is—"

"First, you will mail this to your realtor." He shoves over a letter that's been folded and stamped with wax. Where did he get that? I take a little sniff, and the overpowering scent of cheese hits me. "It will inform him of your intentions to keep this store open for three months. Then he can sell it to the highest bidder."

I think I'll email him instead. Roq stares at me as if he expects a response. "Okay," I say, and move to slip the envelope into my pocket. He catches the letter between his fingers and pulls it away.

"Your wet clothes will cause the ink to run."

Jesus, did he use a quill to write it out? I start to laugh, then drop my gaze at the immense focus in his eyes. "What else do I need to do?"

"Many things. I'm afraid I am uncertain what the modern laws are for opening a business, but you can no doubt find information at city hall."

Or Google.

"Here is a list of what I assume we will need. Money to make change for the register, advertising in newspapers and in church flyers."

"I don't think any of that's…" I gulp at his stare. "Can do."

He shoves over that list, then pulls out another. "We'll need signs to label the cheeses. Also fresh toothpicks for samples. Banners to announce sales." Roq looks over his shoulder at my uncle's sign the same moment I do.

"How long?" I ask, fighting off the stew of emotions bubbling inside.

Roq cracks an eyebrow better than a Vulcan.

"Until we can open. How long?"

"If you put your back into it, and everything goes smoothly, I believe we shall have it open in a week."

One week, then the three-month countdown starts.

Which means I'll be five million dollars richer. Well, some will go to the agent, and taxes, and my mother will get her share, of course. But I'll be left with a good amount. Probably.

Yay.

"Good. So what should I do first?"

"Change out of those clothes before you catch your death, then go to bed." Roq flips the switch, killing all of the lights except for the ones from the street straining in through the glass.

Man, he's bossy. I bet he can't turn it off, not even in bed. Telling her where to sit, when to suck, how to hold it.

Rewarding her with a "good girl."

Uh…

"Why?" I challenge him as he returns to the ladder and his domain.

Roq stares at me and his voice drops to a near growl, "Because you're going to need a full night's rest after being tag-teamed by Cheddy and Cam." He glides down the ladder without saying another word.

My face heats to a million degrees. I try to slide out of the empty dark store without anyone seeing me. My body aches to do everything Roq ordered me to, but I make sure to lock up five times. I don't want anything bad to happen to my cheese men.