snowfall / cl16

thirty-eight

"I do."

"Je t'aime," I said quietly, and he returned it punctuated with a soft brush of his lips against my knuckles. Conversation quickly and easily slipped into other areas of possibility—my coffee dates with the lovely Eleanor, who had quickly become a good friend of mine whenever I was in Monaco (which was surprisingly often, as I now had an on-site project in Beausoleil, a friend of Charles' apartment), Charles' padel sessions with Lando, George and either Alex or Carlos, as well as the latter's rocky relationship with Emma.

Throughout, we feasted on a wonderful five-course meal, with champagne flowing steadily throughout by the hand of a waiter who was much too happy to oblige in our celebration of Charles' win. Charles' knee rested against mine steadily throughout the entire dinner, reminding me of his presence in the warm and comforting way that was so typical Charles.

"How's the gender reveal planning going?" Charles asked, after finishing the last of his crème brûlée.

"It's going well! I've just placed the order for the cake and the balloons. I know Alf and Lor said they wanted to keep it small, but I still wanted it to feel a little like a celebration, you know?" I said, scraping the last of my own delicious dessert from my plate.

Charles grinned. "Have they started talking about names? Because I'm still a fan of Charles as middle name."

"Charles!" I hissed, motioning for him to keep his voice down. Alfie had enough friends in Monaco to hear about our conversation if it reached the wrong, interested ears.

"Exactly! Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?" He grinned playfully, but it quickly turned into one of pain when I kicked him in the shin. "Hey! I'm just saying."

"Do you want them to find out before the party?" I huffed out in frustration. "But yes, they have started talking about names. They want to keep the A tradition for first names, but I'm not sure if they've discussed middle names yet."

Charles nodded, pursing his lips with his fingers and then throwing away the key. "Lips are sealed. Got it, Jolie."   

"Thank you," I said with the slightest eye roll. "Remind me not to tell you secrets again."

Now it was Charles' turn to roll his eyes. "You know we're not keeping it a secret when we have a baby. There's no point—I'd want to know immediately and I'd be too proud not to tell everyone else the second I find out."

My heart warmed at the shine in Charles' eyes at the conjured fantasy, the idea of our own little bundle of joy to look forward to spreading its wings and settling on a perch in the back of my mind. Charles seemed to notice, flashing me a knowing smile before getting up to head to the bathroom. I immediately knew why—he always did this to then come back and announce that he had paid the bill. Sneaky fucker. I turned my head and watched as he walked straight to the bar, looking over his shoulder once and catching my eye with a devious smirk.

I shook my head, unable to contain the smile caused by the butterflies forming at the ghost of his smile burning in my memory. My entire body ached to be wrapped up in his arms once again—we had had too little time together over the past two days and it was almost as if I were experiencing physical drawbacks. Charles was easily like a drug to my system, and I was aching for another, more potent fix.

Rummaging through my purse, I found my lip balm and applied it and proceeded to check my phone for messages while waiting for Charles to come back. I only had a couple of messages from Ella and a few from Alfie, as well as an email or two from potential new clients. I was itching to open them, but quickly stuffed my phone away. It was 10 p.m., these were not my office hours and I was allowed to spend time away from work (a mantra I had started to recite whenever I felt this exact urge).