10. Isabel
“Ilike how you’re telling me all this like it’s not about to change the trajectory of your life,” Meg said as she poured a scary concoction of vodka and whatever mixers she could find in the fridge.
I was preparing the very tricky puff pastry for the mille-feulles, which meant a thousand layers in French.
It was one of the most difficult French pastries to perfect, and it was also one of the four pastries I’d critiqued to shreds in the penthouse. Obviously before I knew Roman’s family owned the Belmont hotels. Now I had to show him what a mille-feulles should taste like. You could say I had something to prove.
Meg handed me a cocktail. “And I have to tell you, the more I hear about this romance, the more I’m wondering what kind of reward I can expect on your wedding day.”
I had to smile. “Please stop with that, I’m not kidding.”
“Listen, since I basically brought the two of you together, I’m allowed to dream,” Meg insisted. “And unless you’re not telling me everything, I don’t see the problem here.”
I took a sip of the cocktail and nearly spit it out. “What the hell is this?”
“Vodka and Pepsi with a splash of orange juice to give it a kick,” Meg said. “Anyway, the guy sounds pretty perfect. I’m just saying, pay attention to what the Universe is trying to tell you.”
“Oh God, here we go again. Please just don’t.”
I had to put the cocktail down until I was done with the mille-feulles. It was going to take all my wits to do this puff pastry. The last thing I needed was to get plastered while trying to perfect the pastry that was going to steal Roman’s heart.
“Isabel, what I’m saying here, as your BFF, is that in all of your twenty-five years I’ve never seen you even remotely in love. No one was praying harder to the goddess that you would fall in love with Sergei eventually. And I know you tried. But with this guy Raymond—”
“His name is Roman, Meg.”
“See how indignant you are when I get his name wrong?” Meg continued relentlessly, taking huge gulps from her cocktail. “That tells me a lot. In fact, it tells me everything… Anyway, with this guy Roman…you fell in love with him at first sight, just accept it.”
“That’s bullshit,” I defended myself as I pressed two pounds of homemade butter into four flat squares. “I fell in lust. Huge difference.”
“How would you know? You’ve never been in love before! Breaking news, the first thing you want to do when you fall in love is have lots of sex!”
I sighed. “Well, if this is what falling love is like, no wonder the world is coming apart at the seams.”
Meg frowned. “That doesn’t make sense at all because the world is fine. So there were a few hiccups with you and Roman, so what.”
“Hiccups? Really? My still-beating heart was basically ripped out, stomped on, glued back together and somewhat unsuccessfully I might add, and you call that hiccups? Hand me the rolling pin, please.”
Meg handed me the rolling pin with a sigh. “Way to be overdramatic, Isabel.”
“You know what, Meg, I already said I’m giving him another chance. Let’s see what he’s got. And yes, I’m crazy about him, more than I’d like to be, and yes he’s pretty perfect apart from that creature he has cleaning up after his one-night stands and sure, he’s all I think about… Oh God I don’t want to be in love with this man, I really don’t.”
“Oh honey, I think you already are,” Meg said, as if relaying some terrible news.
I kept folding and rolling the pastry dough. “This is a guy who, in no uncertain terms, told me there was no future. It’s confusing.”
“You show me the romance that goes smooth sailing from the get-go,” Meg insisted. “And I show you a big fat monstrous lie.”
“This is not a romance. It’s basically two people who wanted to rip each other’s clothes off the minute they set eyes on each other.”
“Oh, how prudish of you, Isabel. Romance comes in all forms. Besides, from what you told me he’s either the actor of the century or he thinks you’re the bee’s knees.”
I folded the dough squares around the butter squares and started rolling. But then I stopped and exchanged a glance with Meg. “I’m in a bit of trouble I think.”
“Okay, that’s a bit out of the blue. Why would you say that?”
“There’s something I have to tell you, Meg.”
“Do I need another cocktail for this?”
“Take mine, I really can’t drink when I’m making these mille-feulles.”
Meg snagged my cocktail and leaned against the fridge, curiosity flooding her expression. “Please don’t scare me. What is it you have to tell me?”
I gently folded the dough in a triple layer and rolled it out again. “Well, it’s Roman’s family—”
Meg emitted a groan the entire neighborhood could probably hear. “Oh God no, please tell me they’re not the Mob!”
It took me a second to hold my giggle. “No... But their last name is Belmont, and they are the Belmont brand.”
Meg’s face distorted into disbelief. “Say what now? You mean like in the hotels and stuff?”
“Yes, they’re pretty wealthy,” I said, folding the dough and rolling it out again, carefully creating those many layers in the pastry.
“Wealthy?” Meg asked as she stared at me incredulously. “I don’t think wealthy covers it. I gathered he was very rich, but this is on a different level. How do you only tell me this now?”
“I didn’t know myself until yesterday. The house should have given it away I guess.
“What about the house?”
“I told you it’s big. It’s called Belmont Manor.”
Meg scraped her phone closer and punched in Belmont Manor. Sure enough, there were those two pics of the place on the internet. Taken decades ago, but still the same house. These people definitely knew how to keep their online presence to a bare minimum.
“I’m buying you a fucking dictionary for Christmas,” Meg said. “Seriously, this isn’t a house, and big is not the word I’d use to describe it. And what I’m looking at doesn’t just give away that he’s richer than God; it kinda holds you down and rubs it in your face.”
I was triple folding and rolling out the last sheet of dough, my cheeks flushed with the effort. “The first time I saw the place, I was pretty intimidated. But I got used to it, and now I don’t mind it at all.”
Meg doubled down on her astonishment. “Okay, I can see why you think you’re in trouble. Imagine cleaning all those windows.”
I carefully lined the baking pans with the sheets of dough. I could only fit one pan into the oven at a time, and there were four pans. This was going to take a while. “Megan, you know that’s not why I think I’m in trouble, right?”
Meg shrugged and chugged away on the cocktail. “Yeah, sorry, just using humor to cover up my state of what-the-fuckness over here. I thought you were talking about some McMansion. I just don’t get why you didn’t tell me it’s all classy and shit.”
“Because my mind was preoccupied with other things. I honestly didn’t think it mattered.”
“Well, now we know it does.”
“Meg, what if it’s all just a game to him?”
“What if it’s not?
The thought of that possibility caused a sensation to ripple down my spine. “I’m going to take it one day at a time and see how it goes.”
Meg sucked the dregs of that concoction down and stared at me intently. “Fine, we’ll go with that. But as God is my witness, I want a full report every day so I can guide you back onto the tracks when you threaten to derail the Universe’s plans.”