28. Interlude #2
Just like that, every generous thought was erased from Lucas’s mind. “I think the right thing was not drinking a bottle of vodka before you fucked a nineteen-year-old senator’s daughter, Daniel.”
“Jesus, Lucas.” Daniel’s voice turned down a curve of petulance, the way it had done since he was five years old and his nanny had asked him to pick up his toys. “So what, now I have to give up my whole life to protect this family’s assets?”
“Could be your turn,” Lucas muttered.
“I didn’t ask to be born into this shit. I didn’t ask for any of this responsibility.”
“What responsibility?” Lucas erupted. “This is the first thing you have ever been asked to do for this family, while I’ve dedicated every second of my adult life to building the fortune you spend hand over fist on women, cars, yachts, and God knows what else.
The least you can do is marry the girl, even if you barely see her after that.
She’s already having your child. Tying it up with a bow will keep her father in line with the appropriations bill and give you in a new Aston every fucking month if that’s what you want.
Just do the right thing for once in your pathetic life and think of more than just yourself! ”
Lucas was shouting now, loud enough that Nigel, his London driver, had the good sense to put in headphones before he turned onto the thoroughfare that ran alongside the Thames.
All the resentment Lucas had buried for years, all the anger at being treated like the family fixer rather than a person with his own needs and desires, came pouring out.
“Lucas. That’s quite enough.”
The sound of his stepmother’s voice on the line made Lucas feel like a scolded child, which only fueled his anger further.
“Winnifred.”
“I can hear you’re upset, but there’s no need for theatrics. Now, what’s this about the cook? Your assistant has called us at least three times about her. Really, Lucas, I thought you had the situation handled.”
“She’s missing,” Lucas said through gritted teeth. “She left without telling anyone where she was going.”
“Missing?” Winnifred’s tone suggested she found the entire concept absurd. “Well, I’m sure she’s just off somewhere licking her wounds.”
“Wounds from what?” Lucas’s voice dropped dangerously low. If Winnifred had done anything to hurt Marie…
“Oh, who knows? Maybe she saw some pictures of Daniel. Or maybe she realized that a future with either of you was pointless. Maybe she got a rude text. You know how dramatic these working-class girls can be.”
Lucas only barely stopped himself from pointing out that Winnifred herself had been a “working-class girl” when she had met his father.
“Give her a day or two, and she’ll come crawling back when she needs her next paycheck. They always do.”
The casual cruelty in his stepmother’s voice made Lucas see red. The idea of Marie “crawling back” to people who clearly saw her as nothing more than an inconvenience, a problem to be managed, was obscene.
“Daniel needs you to be his brother right now,” Winnifred rattled on. “Not chasing after some chit who’s clearly gotten ideas above her station.”
“He needs rehab,” Lucas shot back. “Again. Because apparently the last three times didn’t take.”
“That never works with him, and you know it. He needs support from his family, not judgment. Now, your little mission with the girl hasn’t turned out, so if she wants to run away, let her. Come home and help your brother if that’s what you care about so much.”
The idea of Marie out there alone, possibly hurt or scared, burned through Lucas like acid.
“I can’t just throw her to the wolves,” he said through his teeth.
“Why ever not?” Winnifred sounded genuinely puzzled. “It’s not as if you care for the girl. There are thousands like her. She’s just a cook, for God’s sake. ”
“SHE’S NOT A FUCKING COOK!”
In the silence that followed, Lucas could hear his own tattered breath alongside the cutting truth buried in his shout.
He was in love with Marie Zola.
Not just attracted to her, not just fond of her, but completely, irrevocably in love.
When had that happened? In Brazil, when he’d seen the delight and shy pride when she’d walked through the park with him at night?
In the ryokan, when he’d peeled away her layers, little by little, until he discovered the hidden depths of her?
In London, when she’d knocked on his door, as stunning for her bravery as for her lucious, mind-melting body?
If he were being honest, it might have been in the conservatory, when the courage that lurked below her calm, sometimes petrified surface had literally slapped him across the face.
He closed his eyes, but then she was there, smiling in jest, crying beneath him, arching in ecstasy, or just falling asleep in his arms.
He was completely and truly fucked.
“I see.” Winnifred’s voice yanked him back to the present. “Well, regardless of your…feelings, we have a situation. Senator Hubbard has demanded that Daniel marry his daughter before she starts to show. He won’t do it unless you come home, Lucas. You know he won’t. And if that bill isn’t passed?—”
“You don’t have to tell me what happens,” Lucas cut her off, his voice flat. “Our lobbyists practically wrote the fucking thing.”
“Then I also don’t have to tell you how much of our personal assets are wrapped up in the investments depending on this bill,” Winnifred said.
Lucas had to roll his eyes. Winnifred had known nothing about their family’s problems until one of her accountants whispered in her ear.
Still, she wasn’t wrong.
The truth was, the company had been overleveraged for years, since his father made his last terrible deal in the chip sector before leaving Lyons Corp completely.
Six months later, they’d gotten the Alzheimer’s diagnosis, but not before he had overcommitted their investments in ways that had taken Lucas years to mend.
His family would never know the personal sacrifices he had made to rebuild their fortune.
Bills like this one were a hassle, but better than some of the backroom deals, blackmail, and other blackhearted tactics he’d used over the last twenty years.
People said men like him were morally grey. He was morally black.
And at what cost? He could easily imagine one of Marie’s slender brows arched in her wry way. Daring him to look at the situation from the other side of the lens, challenging him to be better. At what cost to you? she might ask. Or people everywhere?
She had reminded him point-blank of a question he had asked himself every day: did someone like him really even have a right to exist while people like Marie worked multiple jobs just to survive, completely unaware of how men like him thought nothing of making their lives harder as long as it increased their profit margins.
He thought about Marie’s strong, capable hands as she cooked and the way she approached her craft with such dedication and artistry.
The pride she took in creating something beautiful and nourishing from simple ingredients.
The way she talked about her dream restaurant, somewhere small and intimate where she could really connect with the people she fed.
It was more meaningful than anything he’d ever done.
“Lucas?”
“I’m here.” He stared out the window as the car passed the Tower of London, vaguely wondering if some of the prisoners who had once been kept there had been half as bad as some of his family members. As bad as him.
The Rolls slowed, crowded by other cars and people and the chaos of a big city. Somewhere out there, Marie was alone and possibly frightened. And here he was, having a philosophical crisis about wealth inequality while she might be in danger.
“Good,” Winnifred said. “Now, as I was saying, Daniel really needs?—”
“Winnifred.” Lucas was quiet but firm. “Shut up.”
“Lucas! You have no right to speak to me like?—”
“I have to go,” he cut her off again without a shred of remorse. “Tell Daniel that he needs to—actually, tell Daniel you want. I don’t care anymore.”
“Lucas, wait. We need to discuss this!”
Lucas looked out toward the rest of the city, wondering where exactly Marie had gone. Down which street. To which refuge.
That was when the idea first occurred.
“Tell Daniel he knows what he needs to do—otherwise, the consequence is that he’ll be cut off. As for Marie…I’ll take care of it.”
Winnifred was uncharacteristically. “Does that mean?—”
“It means I’ll take care of it.” Lucas felt heavy. Like there were stones in his belly. In his gut.
“If you pursue this,” Winnifred said. “If you pursue her, you’ll be ruined. The board will remove you. The family will support it. You know that.”
“I’m not pursuing anyone,” Lucas said, feeling the lie settle into his bones, just like all the rest. “I’m doing what needs to be done.
And as for the family…” He leaned forward in his seat, as if that would somehow get him closer to the viper on the other side of the line.
“I think you know exactly what will happen to you and the rest of the family if you get in my way, Winnifred. So, let’s not play that game. I’ll win. Every time.”
She was silent for long moment. “You’ll deal with her, then?”
“I will.”
They ended the call, and Lucas sat back in his seat, watching the rest of London fly by for a moment more before he called Robbie.
“Mr. Lyons?”
“Robbie. We’re changing the schedule. Cancel the rest of my meetings after tomorrow. I have a few more calls to make, but I suspect there will be one more stop before we go back to New York.”
“Where will that be, sir?”
Lucas sighed. He didn’t want it to be true, but his gut had never been wrong before. “Book a hotel in Paris. We may have to stay there a while.”