Sophia
I wake up disoriented. I can guess from the amount of sunlight coming through the blinds that it’s midmorning. I slept late for turning in so early.
I sniff the air. It smells of something sweet and bready. There’s that idyllic sound of a wooden spoon tapping a bowl. I get up out of the sheets like a zombie, entranced. I shuffle into the kitchen to see James standing over the stove.
“I was afraid I was going to have to wake you up,” he says with a smile.
I look him over for a moment. I know he’s trying to make up for the last few days of being gone all the time. I come over to him and hug him from behind. “I’m pretty sure you did wake me.”
“Were you dreaming of lemon sugar crepes before you woke up?”
“Is that what you’re making?” I break the hug and lean forward to look in the pan. Golden brown deliciousness. The crepes sizzle in butter.
James is in a good mood, and it infects me. When he plates the crepes, I dash to the breakfast nook, where he’s already put silverware. I sit and hold my knife and fork up at the ready and grin like an idiot.
We dig in, and when I’m leaning back and moaning after my last bite, James asks a question. “Are you free next week?”
“Alana and I were going to catch a movie Thursday. But… that’s pretty much it,” I say honestly. In the beginning of our relationship, I pretended to be busier than I was while practically unemployed. I don’t care to hide it much anymore.
“How about we go somewhere?”
“A trip?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Where?”
“I do have an investor’s meeting I have to be at on the thirtieth.” James holds his hands out. “So maybe somewhere close since we’ll just do a long weekend.”
“Okay.” I squint. “I’m not really feeling the beach.” I don’t tell him why. I think it’s because Morocco was such a bust.
“Do you care if it’s warm?”
“Not really.”
James tilts his chin up as he thinks. “Do you like French fries?”
“Yes,” I say with a question in my tone, curious where he’s going with this.
“Do you like gravy?”
I begin to get an understanding. “Also yes.”
“What about French fries smothered in gravy?”
“You want to go to Quebec?”
“Quebec City. It’s an old favorite of mine. I can get the master suite at the Chateau.”
“There’s a Chateau?” I ask.
“Oh, you’re in for a fun surprise.” James smiles as he picks up our dishes and carries them to the sink.
That morning was as much of James as I saw until we got on the plane to Quebec. He says he’s doing some restructuring at Aquarius to lessen his workload, so I’m not about to feel bad about him working so he can spend more time with me.
We cuddle and laugh on the plane ride.
I’ve never been, and it’s a little disorienting to realize that there are millions of people just a little north of New York who all speak French.
We take a private car downtown, crossing the St. Lawrence River. I’m more than impressed by this place. The town is built on a hill. It’s all cute cobblestone streets lined with narrow brick buildings. I need to come here for Christmas.
Towering above it all is the Chateau Frontenac.
It looks like an enormous castle. Green turrets pop up from its lower level, and the main tower stretches another ten stories into the air. It’s capped imposingly with a dark copper roof.
“This has always been here?” I say in disbelief, staring out the car window. “Where have I been living?”
“In America,” James says a little teasingly.
“This place is like Europe. It’s gorgeous.”
“A little gem if you’re willing to get cold,” James says as the car rolls up to the main entrance of the Chateau.
Porters open our doors and take our luggage. Inside, the lobby is white marble. The ceiling is adorned with brilliant chandeliers, and the walls are dark gorgeous wood.
I’ve been surrounded by untold wealth the last few months, but when we get up to our suite, my jaw still drops.
French architecture doesn’t pull any punches. It’s as opulent as a room in Versailles. There’s a gold-framed mirror as large as a car greeting us in the foyer. The plaster on the ceiling curls and twists in designs like frosting on a cake.
“James…”
“Nice, isn’t it?”
“It’s incredible.”
“I know. You’d never think their most famous food was something served at state fairs.”
“I’d think they only ate caviar.”
“Do you want to get some?” James asks.
“Poutine?”
“Yeah.”
I look around the suite, thinking of the possibilities. “Do you want to fuck first?”
“You’ve got better ideas than me,” he says and cups my cheek. He kisses me, and that’s all it takes. My heart is soaring. I have the same rapture from when James and I first started seeing each other.
“You find a couch and make yourself comfortable. I’ve got a surprise for you,” I say. Yesterday evening when James was finishing up some work so he’d have less on the trip, I ran out and got some lingerie.
I walk towards what I assume is the bedroom and freeze. There’s a bouquet of flowers the size of a Vespa on a round marble table in the living room. It’s all roses. White. Red and pink. A white card lies next to it.
To ,
Here’s to seeing each other for far longer than just an hour…
I smile. “This is your handwriting.” I pick up the note. “How’d you get this here before we walked in here, Houdini?”
“I mailed it. Priority. I thought a note in the handwriting of the French concierge would be a little less romantic.”
“You try hard for a guy who says love is just a chemical.”
We both freeze at my mention of the word love. It’s something that’s been between us the last two months. Something unspoken.
“Well, it is a chemical.” James comes closer, and I look into his eyes. Their emerald shine. Danger and tenderness all in one. “A very, very good one.” He kisses me and then pulls back.
My heartbeat is strong, yet the muscle itself feels weak, like it could stop beating at any time. Is he about to say it? Before I even have the guts to myself?
“In fact, it may just be my favorite.”
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“That whatever the feeling is that dances in my heart when I’m with you is stronger than anything I’ve ever felt. Stronger than success. Stronger than money…” He trails off.
I may have said these words on the ski slope, but never loud enough for him to hear.
I can’t hold it back any longer. The words jump out of my mouth like a jail break. “I love you, James.”
He smiles, but his eyes tell a different story. There’s a storm brewing in them.
“I love you , ,” he says, and it’s like he’s never let himself realize this fact before. He looks… vulnerable. Damaged.
James Callaway. Heart splayed to the world.
We fling ourselves to each other and kiss. We keep kissing as we both walk over to the leather couch, and we both misjudge the height of it.
It’s a good half a foot lower than we think, and we plop down hard. We laugh for a moment and then keep kissing.
My lingerie in my suitcase will have to wait. My heart throbs too hard to care about being sexy.
I’ll admit it—I’ve been James’s since Egypt. Since he rescued me and kissed my forehead. But this is the first time he’s admitted that his heart belongs to me.
We sit on the couch and kiss for five minutes. Ten.
We keep kissing without a care in the world like a couple of teenagers.
The amount of love we feel for each other keeps the lust away. But it’s only so long before I want more of James than just his lips.
He’d left his phone on a hall table by the entrance to the suite, and it’s rung twice since we started kissing. Now, we can hear it vibrating on the wood a third time.
“Fuck. Just let me mute it.” James stands up.
“Even better. Just take me to the bedroom,” I shout, but James is already walking towards his phone. My request was intentional. I didn’t want him to be distracted if there was some work problem. But he wouldn’t let anything interrupt us now, would he?
I can’t see him from where I sit on the couch, and he’s not back in the few seconds it would take for him to turn his phone off.
The butterflies in my stomach turn into little lead sinkers one by one until there’s nothing but a plummeting feeling in my gut
“James?”
He comes into view ten seconds later. I can tell from his eyes that something happened. “What? What is it?” I ask.
“I have tickets for the orchestra tonight. The Vienna Philharmonic is in town. To be honest, it’s part of the reason I wanted to take you here. Not just for fries and gravy.”
“Oh.”
“They’re doing Tchaikovsky. It’s romantic.”
I’m nervous where he’s going with this.
“It starts in seven hours. We’d have to be there in six and a half.”
“And?” My eyes stare up at his forehead. He’s started to sweat. Suddenly my heart kicks into overdrive. Seeing James this anxious is unnerving.
“I have to go.”
“No, you don’t.” I almost laugh out the words. “You’re joking.”
“I wouldn’t say this if it wasn’t serious.”
“What is it, James? You have to save another client?”
He’s quiet for a moment. I can tell he’s debating telling me the truth, and I don’t interrupt. I let him spit it out. “I’m being blackmailed,” he says finally. “For the second time this year.”
“Blackmailed with what?”
“I don’t know exactly. But I think I have a pretty good idea.”
“You did something bad?”
James is facing the floor, but he lifts his green eyes to stare at me. Dangerous.
He knows that I know he is. But am I okay with that? I can’t even answer. I’d walk on fire to be with this man.
“Morally, not really,” says James. “But laws are laws.”
“Will you tell me what it is?”
“Today?” he asks, like such a thing would taint our confession of love. He’s right. But maybe for this love to work, I have to hear it. I chew my lip, and James walks closer. He puts a hand on my shoulder, but I shrink away.
I can tell the gesture hurts him, but I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep watching him leave as soon as I have him to myself. Every time. Every damn time he has to leave.
“I will be back for the orchestra.”
“Are you flying to New York?”
“It’s less than two hours each way. I’m meeting not far from the airport. I will make it back tonight.”
“It’s supposed to snow here.”
“I know.”
“A lot.”
“It’ll be fine, . I know this seems like a scumbag move, but I’m doing this for you as much as for me. I need to get this off my back. It could ruin me. It could ruin us .”
Blackmail is different than his other common business problems. I give him that. I can only nod because I feel like I’m going to start crying.
I don’t want to seem dramatic, but James leaving now of all times just feels wrong. It feels like fate. Intervention.
Like something larger is warning me that this is what our love will always be. “Go. You don’t have much time,” I manage to say.
He kisses me quickly, but my lips don’t move. The big heavy door clanks shut, and he’s gone. I could almost laugh if I didn’t think it would turn to sobs.
We just got to the hotel, and he’s getting back on his plane.
I’ve felt a lot in my body throughout this relationship. Warm honey in blood when he holds me. A hiccupping heart when we kiss. Butterflies. Sparks. But something cold is settling over me. I feel it in my bones.
This.
Us.
It’s never going to work, is it?