39. Tarte Tatin #2
“I’m going to get ready,” I said, already removing my apron. “You and Louis should do the same when you can.”
“Take your time, Mama,” Kate called as she fiddled with one of the centerpieces. “It’s your night. You want to look your best.”
My favorite part of the chateau, even more than my kitchen, had to be the private suite of rooms on the top floor that I had designated for myself.
After the main work had been completed downstairs, I was shocked to find I had enough cash reserves to finish the attic of the maison into a primary suite consisting of a bedroom, bathroom, nursery, and a sitting room simply for my personal use.
The suite looked up toward the abbey, keeping watch over the village, and I could hear the rush of the Dordogne River through open windows on nice days.
Wide rustic beams ran the length of the room, which had been finished with creamy stucco walls, warm oak furniture, and a bed that was far too big for just me.
That, combined with the walk-in closet and the bathroom that looked out to a small orchard, meant I had more space in this one area than I’d ever been afforded in my entire life.
This wasn’t a girl’s corner of a tiny bedroom.
It was a grown woman’s place to call her own.
I slipped out of my clothes and into the shower. The steam curled around me, quieting the aches in my lower back that had gotten a bit more pronounced as I entered my second trimester.
Fourteen weeks.
And still no word from him.
Not that there should be. I hadn’t told him, despite my family’s consistent bids that I absolutely must, if only to receive appropriate financial support.
I would tell him eventually. I would. But only when I was ready for the reality that while Lucas Lyons would, without a doubt, do right by his child, he didn’t want to be in my life for me .
I had told him to go, and he had obeyed.
Why that bothered me so much, I still couldn’t say.
I got out of the shower and dried off in front of the full-length mirror, taking a moment, as I often did, to examine the changes happening in my body.
The added fullness to my already ample chest. The slight rounding of my belly was just beginning to show beneath my navel.
Was there a glow to my skin the way people said?
I honestly couldn’t tell, but my hair was growing like crazy.
Wanting to feel my absolute best tonight, I took some time to pamper myself with shea butter, lotion, and a spritz of my favorite scent, then combing out my hair and setting it with a bit of gel to let my natural curls come out.
Taking care of myself had new meaning now. After all, it wasn’t only me who would be depending on me soon enough.
While waiting for the gel to set, I paused at the vanity. And then, against my better judgment, I reached for my phone.
I only let myself do it once a week now. That was the deal. One search. No spiraling.
I typed his name into the search bar.
Lucas Lyons
Most of the searches revealed the same things. A Wikipedia profile. The article about him in Forbes from two years ago that I must have read at least twenty times. The occasional one-liner in the papers, usually referencing some statement about a new investment.
Unlike Daniel, Lucas stayed out of the spotlight. I couldn’t get the misery I’d seen in the wedding photographs out of my mind, though.
I just wanted to know he was okay.
To my surprise, a few new headlines appeared.
The first was from Bloomberg :
LYONS CORP SHAKES WALL STREET: Lucas Lyons Announces transfer of shares to trust managed by non-profit. “We’re Done Profiting Off Collapse.”
That was…shocking. We’d had a few conversations, of course, about the morality of his family’s wealth. About how they profited from the exploitation of others, whether they wanted to or not. But I hadn’t realized that my opinions—the opinions of an assistant cook—had actually mattered.
Maybe they didn’t. Maybe this had nothing to do with those conversations.
The second headline from the Post hit harder.
WHERE IS LUCAS LYONS? CEO Vanishes After Controversial Market Shift—Stock Dips, Board Members Panic
I stared at the screen, where a particularly handsome picture of Lucas was embedded below the headline. My heart did that stupid thing it still sometimes did when I saw a picture like this. Skipped. Stammered. Remembered.
He loved me, he’d said.
And then he’d disappeared.
I set the phone down on the vanity and faced the mirror, then pressed a hand to the curve of my belly.
“For you,” I whispered. “For us. We don’t chase men who don’t show up.”
An hour later, I went back downstairs.
“Beautiful!” Louis crowed when I walked outside, where the jazz trio was setting up under his and Kate’s watchful eyes. “I knew this dress would fit you perfectly.”
I tugged at the skirt of the tea-length dress Louis and I had found at a vintage shop in Périgueux last week.
It was a pretty green silk thing from the forties with loose sleeves and a bloused bodice over an A-line skirt that swished just above my ankles.
Festive enough for the occasion without being too elfin.
Flattering without making it noticeable that I was pregnant.
And conservative enough that I would feel at ease.
It had been fun for a while playing the vixen, the girl who wore skimpy swimsuits and cropped shirts and see-through blouses in wild nightclubs while billionaires fought for her kisses.
Educational, to say the least. But in the end, that wasn’t me any more than the wallflower had been either.
The real Marie Zola was somewhere in the middle.
“I do love it,” I told him honestly.
Kate finished turning on the last of the space heaters that would make the patio usable even in mid-December, then plugged in the extension cord that lit up the fairy lights strung from the rafters of the pergola.
And just like that, my dream was happening.
“Is this the right place?” called Jacques, the handsome young guitarist from the trio and the mason who had overseen the work on the chateau’s exterior.
“I’ll show you the right place,” Kate murmured next to me. “Or maybe you should, Marie.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “That’s great, Jacques, merci .”
“ D’accord. And Marie?” He flashed an amiable smile that had charmed half the village, young and old. “You should know that everyone is talking about tonight. The whole village is excited to see what you’ve done with this place.”
My cheeks heated under his frank compliments. “I hope they won’t be disappointed.”
“Impossible,” he said with conviction. “Everything here is absolutely perfect.”
Louis and Kate exchanged glances beside me.
“Everything?” Louis muttered to her. “Or every one ?”
“Maybe only one,” Kate said with another pointed look my way.
I huffed. Apparently, they were back to being best friends.
But before I could tell them that Jacques and I were also just friends, we were all interrupted by a deep, solemn voice that sent a shiver up my spine with only one word.
“Marie?”
Kate’s eyes widened as she looked over my shoulder at the visitor. “Holy shit.”
Louis followed her gaze. “ Putain . He came.”
I, however, couldn’t quite manage to face the owner of that voice. Mostly because I knew that the moment I did, all my hard work to forget him would wash away down the river like it had never happened at all.
“Marie?” he said again.
I took a deep breath and finally turned.
Lucas looked the same as ever, and yet somehow completely different.
His customary black suit had been traded for more casual traveling wear: gray wool trousers and a thick cashmere coat over a dark blue sweater that emphasized his eyes, even under the dim fairy lights.
The facial hair that he had always kept clean shaven had grown to what must have been a week’s worth of stubble, making a dapple of silver sparkle over his cut jaw and the hollows of his cheeks.
Those storm-cloud eyes, however, were just as dark as ever, swirling with untold depth and shadowed emotions that echoed the sadness I couldn’t quite shake either.
Or maybe I was just imagining that part.
“Lucas,” I said in a voice much stronger than I felt. “What are you doing here?”
His eyes brightened considerably when they looked over me, floating over my hair, my dress, and a million other details I was sure only Lucas ever seemed to see.
“Marie,” he said for the third time as he continued across the patio to where I stood. “I?—”
His greeting was cut off by the sound of car doors closing and raucous voices carrying over the creek as footsteps crunched across the gravel walkway. I turned toward the gate and saw several familiar faces waving and laughing.
Right on cue, the band began to play, drowning out any possibility for a conversation.
Lucas Lyons would have to wait. My guests had arrived.