5. Roman
There was a knock on my office door. Emily had messaged me earlier, asking for a five-minute meeting. I presumed it had something to do with my father.
I stood up as Emily entered. “I have something to ask you and it’s a bit out of the ordinary,” she said, in the way only Emily could. “And I want you to bear with me.”
I presumed it wouldn’t actually be a question. Just a vital demand phrased as one.
“Emily, you can ask me anything. Please sit.” I waited until she was seated before I sat down again.
“Well, it has to do with your father’s reader, Isabel,” Emily said. “Remember the one I told you about?”
You mean my sweet honey badger who has taken up permanent residence in my mind?
“Yes, I do remember.”
“Well, this morning it came to my attention that she’s still working at Le Petit Chateau as pastry chef at night. Can you believe that?”
My heart sank. This wasn’t good news. “Why?” I asked, very aware that I had made it my mission to get her job back at Le Petit Chateau. And now here we were.
“Apparently they have trouble finding another pastry chef, so she’s helping out until they do,” Emily said. “And what I’m afraid of is that she decides to go back there, which would be detrimental. She’s really wonderful with Henry and everybody here loves her.”
I smiled all of Emily’s concerns away. “I’ll take care of it. We…you, won’t lose her.”
Emily sighed with relief. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
“Well, what use is all this power if you can’t take advantage of it,” I said, meaning every word. I had no qualms about waving the power wand to keep Isabel here.
An elegant little laugh escaped Emily. “Now you sound exactly like your father, Roman.”
She kept my gaze intentionally. “Last night you said something about my and your father’s arrangement, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Why so suddenly? Have you met someone?”
I pursed my lips, unsure how to approach the subject without giving Emily the full picture. “I was just curious, and someday when we have more time I’d like to know how the arrangement between you and my father worked… That’s all.”
“I wouldn’t call it an arrangement,” she coolly corrected me. “It was more complicated than that. As you know, no agreement entered into with the Belmont Trust is a simple one.”
“You’re telling me,” I replied wryly. “But more important right now is to make sure we keep my father’s reader here. I have a phone call or two to make in that regard.”
Emily issued her maternal smile. “Yes, you make those phone calls. And hopefully Isabel can get more rest too. She’s so delicate and yet so incredibly fierce… You should meet her sometime.”
“Perhaps one day, yes.”
Emily stood up. “I’ll let you get to it then. Thank you, Roman.”
“And I’ll see you later on when I do the rounds,” I said.
What I didn’t mention was that I also wanted to get a whiff of Isabel’s scent from her leg blanket, and take that fragrance to my dreams tonight.
On her way to the door, Emily turned back to me. “You still haven’t answered my question, Roman. Have you met someone special?”
I wanted to say yes, but I didn’t. I needed to see what happened first. The last thing I wanted was to give Emily any reason to hope for my happiness.
“I’m not sure how to answer that question,” I said honestly. “I don’t think anyone is more aware of this screwed-up situation I find myself in, than you.”
“There are ways around it, as you know,” Emily said. “But it will depend entirely on the type of woman she is… I have to admit I’m curious about her. It must take someone quite special to get your attention. But I’ll leave it to you to decide when you’d like to talk about it.”
I watched the office door close behind Emily. If only she had the slightest idea.
I spent the next ten minutes keeping the nymph in our midst. It took a couple of phone calls, and suddenly there was a line of pastry chefs available to work at Le Petit Chateau, starting tonight.
Isabel’s attention would now be fully reserved for Belmont Manor and the whims of its occupants.
A message appeared from Nelson, with a link to the audio feed from my father’s room. An unaccustomed eagerness was brewing inside me. I deliberately delayed tuning in for a few minutes. Hearing her voice again might cause a reaction that had the potential to distract me from my work this afternoon.
Then again, it wasn’t as if the business would suffer, since there were plenty of competent people overseeing things. I was there to make the major decisions. But like my father, I was of the opinion that my imperious meddling prevented potential disasters.
It took Isabel to cause the first small crack in what I considered my shield of invincibility. And for me to realize that the business side of things would continue regardless of my temporary absence.
I messaged Andy, my daytime assistant, to hold all calls. And then I tuned into the audio feed.
Isabel’s voice suddenly filled my immediate space, and as much as I wanted to stay level-headed, a wave of wonder coursed through me.
She was in the middle of reading Lady Chatterly’s Lover to my father, while narrating her own thoughts.
“Can you believe this? Sir Clifford suggesting to Lady Chatterly that if lack of sex in their marriage is going to disintegrate her then she should just go out and have a love affair… So, you’d think she’d be more on the fence, right? No, not this one. Girl’s all in…”
I found myself smiling. Alone in my office. Listening to Isabel having an entire conversation with my father without breaking stride.
“…Lady Chatterly was a little overwhelmed by Sir Clifford’s words… She was to be content to weave a steady life with Clifford, all one fabric, but perhaps broaded with the occasional flower of adventure…”
There was a pause. I could hear the incredulity sprouting in Isabel’s voice.
“Occasional flower of adventure. Really. Now that’s a really delicate way of describing your regular roll in the hay. Not to mention how some flowers of adventure can turn into Venus flytraps from Hell. But anyway…”
The sting in her comment hit me head-on. There was not a shred of mercy in Isabel’s tone, and I couldn’t imagine it was referring to anything other than her experience with me. With my own happiness about her being at Belmont Manor I forgot that, should she discover my presence here, the feeling might not be mutual.
Isabel continued reading the novel, and I listened to her voice, mesmerized. It was the same throaty voice that breathed my name as she clenched her legs around mine and begged me for more.
And it was the same voice that breathlessly whispered in French as she reached the heights of pleasure. The same voice that softly pleaded with me that we needed to find out what happened to Daphne and Pierre before she drifted off to sleep in my arms. A sliver of time that would play in my mind for eternity.
An involuntary sigh escaped me. For all the savviness I have in the business world, I couldn’t have handled Isabel with any less savvy. Listening to her read left me with this strange feeling, an emptiness within, caused by her absence beside me.
All I had to do was walk to my father’s room and sweep her into my arms and tell her that somehow we’d figure this out. But I also didn’t know how she felt at this point. Isabel’s feelings were not to be trampled on without repercussions. Even if hate was a strong reaction, I suspect her defense mechanism would call for no lesser response. And who could blame her?
A soft persistent beep sounded over the speaker, like a phone alarm.
“Okay Henry, time for me to go the library. I’ll be gone fifteen, twenty minutes tops. Got to find a book on chess and get the Scrabble game. You keep the home fires burning, I’ll be back shortly, okay?”
She was going to the library. And a sudden idea struck me. Yesterday. In the library. Isabel was there. I thought I was going insane, that my imagination was running away with me.
But those two books were put away by her, and the noise…that familiar little toe crack. I’d heard it once before in the penthouse, when she stretched out and pointed her feet. “Ballet feet” she called it, and I laughed, the tiny imperfection making the nymph even more perfect.
So, Isabel had to know I lived here. What went through her mind when she found out? I couldn’t even imagine her surprise. And I ate those madeleines with her watching me from the second floor in the library.
Today it was profiteroles, and she knew I’d be getting those too. I could feel myself getting hard just thinking that she might have made them on purpose, to remind me of the good use she’d put one to in the penthouse.
For the first time in my life, I was unsure exactly what to do next. There were two options. One was to storm the library and beg her forgiveness. The other was to go to the library and gradually lure her back on her terms. I opted for number two.
Her ingenious yet subtle tactic of baking the profiteroles persuaded me to choose that. My honey badger was subconsciously trying to seduce me. Or perhaps that was wishful thinking on my part.
Regardless, I wanted to believe there was some intent behind the profiteroles. And the fact that she didn’t run away after discovering I lived here was a good sign. I thought. Hopefully.
My only goal now was to ease her back into my life.
I was more than aware that my seduction skills might be lacking the finer proficiency needed here. Money and status were very reliable sources of enticement. To Isabel, however, money and status were of no consequence, which was what I loved most about her.
Our mutual fascination with each other was the one pivotal thing here, and my saving grace. But getting her back into my corner depended entirely on how willing she was to forgive me. And how open she was to being a part of my life, as completely different as it was from hers.
I gave her five minutes to get to the library, and onto the second floor before I leisurely wandered over myself. The moment I entered, Isabel’s faint fragrance met me at the door. She was already there.