50 Shades of Drake 3 and 4

Torn: Chapter Twenty-One

    Collette Grand Cafe was a light-filled, airy French restaurant with tables both in- and outdoors. Aubrey chose an inside table near a floor-to-ceiling window boasting a park view.

    A tall, slim dark-skinned waiter presented them with menus once they were seated. "My name is Jovan, and it will be a pleasure to serve you this afternoon. Did you need time to review your menus?" He spoke with a thick Island accent.

    "Yes, please," Aubrey told him.

    Destiny picked up her menu and looked over it. "Thank goodness their menu has text in English. My French is dusty."

    "You speak French?" Aubrey asked, removing his suit jacket and draping it across the back of his chair. He turned back to face her. "I didn't know that."

    "I took it for three years in high school," she said, flipping over the lunch menu. She raised her eyes and looked at him. "You're not looking at your menu. Do you already know what you want?"

    "I tend to order the same thing, whenever I come here."

    "Creature of habit," she remarked.

    He smiled while rolling up each sleeve of his dress shirt. "I tend to be, yes."

    The waiter returned a few moments later. Destiny ordered the wild mushroom soup and Aubrey ordered the chicken paillard. As the waiter walked away with their menus, Destiny asked, "Chicken paillard? Do I want to know what that is?"

    Aubrey leaned forward with his hands folded together on the table. "Your French is dusty. Paillard just refers to the fact that the meat is pounded thin and cooked on a grill."

    She nodded. "Oh."

    "You mentioned that you wanted to discuss a few things with me," he reminded her.

    She glanced around them in the restaurant. It was by no means full, but there were still a lot of patrons seated around them - too many for her to feel comfortable bringing up private matters. "It can wait until we get home."

    "I want to know now."

    She nervously smoothed down the skirt of the navy blue and white patterned dress that felt a little too casual for this restaurant. "I wanted to ask you about Sharon."

    Aubrey's right eye twitched. "Sharon?" he repeated.

    "Yes," she said, allowing her hands to rest in her lap while trying to read the look in Aubrey's eyes.

    Aubrey's eyes reflected no emotion at the mention of the name. "I used to date a woman named Sharon," he said cautiously.

    "I hear she looked a little bit like me," Destiny said.

    He narrowed his eyes. "I wouldn't say that."

    "So, you dated her," Destiny said, after clearing her throat. "When you started dating her, did you know that she was with Brian?"

    He stared at her wordlessly. "Why are you asking about this?"

    "Because I heard the story awhile ago, and I wanted to hear it from you."

    "But...that's in the past," he protested. "It has nothing to do with us."

    "You said that you were going to work on being more open with me, remember?" she asked him. "This would be a good place to start."

    The sounds of clinking dishware surrounded them as they held each others' gazes without speaking. He sighed. "Well...Sharon started working with Graham Enterprises close to two years ago," he began. "She was a high level executive, a liaison between our media and legal departments. Very sharp, very witty. Very attractive."