26. Roman
When I stepped into the kitchen with the two champagne flutes and a cold bottle of Laurent-Perrier Grand Siècle, afternoon light streamed through the window, making no secret of Isabel’s beauty, bathing her in a shimmering glow.
And let’s not forget how adorable she looked in that white frilly apron, a sultry siren turned domestic goddess in a wink.
I’d be forgiven if I entertained the thought of what it would be like to return to the apartment every day to have dinner with Isabel. For her face to be the last thing I saw at night before I went to sleep and the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.
I poured each of us a glass of champagne, ignoring the urge to abandon this lunch and simply throw her over my shoulder and drag her to bed. There was no question as to how soaking wet the luminous nymph would get were I to do something so primal as that.
It had become very clear in the penthouse that she wasn’t to be treated like a porcelain doll when it came to her carnal needs. I reined these thoughts in for the time being, and held my glass of champagne to hers with a cheer. “To you, my beautiful Isabel.”
“And to you, Roman. Thank you for inviting me into your home.”
When our glasses clinked, her fingers whispered over my cheek. She took a few sips of champagne, licked her lips clean of any stray drops and targeted me with a smoldering gaze. “May this birthday be everything you want and more,” she added in that raspy voice of hers.
“So far we’re edging toward way beyond expectation, all thanks to you,” I said, and leaned back against the wall. Captivated as Isabel poured a small heap of flour on the counter, making a hole in the middle and breaking two eggs inside. She mixed it together with her fingers, forming a dough. An economy of movement, all in one elegant sweep.
I watched her every motion, delicate and precise, and the way she stood like a ballerina, as if awaiting her turn to dance.
“Do you know where cheering comes from?” she asked.
“I’ll bet I’m about to find out,” I said, totally committed to this blissfully domestic scene.
She started kneading the pasta dough. “It”s said that during the Middle Ages, people clinked glasses to avoid poisoning, which was a common occurrence apparently. When their glasses were full, clinking them made drinks spill from one glass into another, so if there was poison in one, there would be poison in every glass.”
It was as if Isabel held all this secret knowledge, to be shared only if she deemed you worthy of the sweet little anecdotes that only she would think to tell.
“I can’t vouch for the evil spirits,” I said. “But let me be absolutely clear, poisoning you is not foremost on my mind.”
She chuckled. “Well, as dates go, this is going pretty well then, don’t you think? Not even a half hour in and you’ve assured me that I wasn’t lured into the south wing to be murdered and buried in a wall, only to be discovered a hundred years from now.” She drained her glass of champagne. “Always nice to know that kind of thing right off the bat on any formal date.”
“Would you like more champagne, Miss Jane Doe?” I asked.
A soft, delightful giggle rippled through her. It was the kind of laugh that were you to ask me my last wish on my deathbed, it would be to hear this laugh of hers follow me into the afterlife.
“Please, that would be wonderful,” she said. But instead of making it easy for me to reach her glass, she placed it so I had to stand very close behind her to pour, which I clearly had no problem doing.
For the briefest moment, I dipped my head closer to her, my lips hovering over the nape of her neck. I inhaled greedily, her scent wafting into my nose. She’d stopped kneading the dough, and ever-so-slightly pushed herself into me as I continued to pour the champagne, and then fuck it, my other hand found the dip in her waist and I pushed back gently.
I wanted her to feel how absolutely insane she was driving me. And Christ if a raspy whimper didn’t tear from her throat, which had me imagine simply lifting her dress and burying myself deep inside her right then and there.
But I took a step back, and a moment later Isabel started kneading the dough again. “Thank you,” she purred happily. “This champagne is like nectar for the gods.”
“Then you’ll be happy to know I’ve stocked up on Laurent-Perrier Grand Siècle. We should have enough to last us at least a year.”
“Seriously Roman, I’ve told you before, you need to stop being so wonderful.”
I smiled. “Right back at you.”
There was no missing the little frisson coursing through her as she continued kneading the dough. “Let me tell you what’s on the menu today. If there’s anything you don’t like, better I change it now before it’s too late.”
“I can’t imagine there’s anything you make I won’t eat, but sure, let’s hear it.”
“So, I’m making ravioli with four different cheese fillings, soaked in brown butter sauce, with butter I made myself. And for dessert I baked you a red velvet cake with bourbon, brown sugar and buttercream frosting.”
“You baked me a cake.”
“It’s small.”
“No one has ever baked me a homemade cake.”
“Oh Roman, the things I could make you in this kitchen. How does the menu sound?”
“It sounds absolutely delicious. Is there anything you’d like me to do?” I asked. “Fair warning, kitchen skills are not my strong point, but I’m sure I can chop things once you show me how.”
She turned to me briefly. “No thank you, I just like you being here with me while I cook. Why don’t you get a chair, sit down and enjoy the show?”
“I will not sit down while you’re standing, Isabel. It’s not how I do things. I’m perfectly fine over here, watching you.”
“That’s terribly gallant. Did they teach you that at the Swiss School?”
“No, that comes from the How to be a Belmont Gentleman manual I had to study from an early age. My great-grandfather was a stickler for social graces. He penned the manual for the future Belmont generations. And one of the first rules is that in the presence of a lady who stands while in conversation, a gentleman doesn’t sit down.”
“Okay, so you’re not kidding about an actual manual.”
“I’m not. The legend goes that after he met with King George V in England, sometime in 1913, Roman Henry Belmont, the first, returned home terribly impressed with royal etiquette. And so the Belmont manual was born.”
“I’ll bet your great-grandfather would be horrified if he knew a simple pastry chef was ruthlessly stealing the attention of his great-grandson and heir to the kingdom.”
Even if she sounded unconcerned, there was a tilt in her voice that told me otherwise.
“There’s nothing simple about you, Isabel. Nothing at all.”
Her mouth quirked with the shadow of a smile. “So you’ve never told me what exactly it is you do in your swanky office.”
“I presume we’re at the finding-out-more-about-each-other phase of this date,” I said, stalling a bit. I was thinking how to explain my job as simply as possible without sounding like an intimidating corporate prick, which in all fairness I sometimes was.
“You know a lot more about me than I know about you,” she murmured, glancing at me with those big emerald eyes. “And I’m beginning to think that for someone who’s come inside me a few times, and who I sincerely hope will be coming inside me many more times, I should know a little more about you.”
Jesus Christ. Was she even aware that the things she was saying were driving me up the fucking wall? I watched as she wrapped the ball of pasta dough in plastic and placed it in the fridge.
I secretly hoped that meant we’d be postponing lunch to attend to more urgent cravings.
It was as if Isabel could read my mind. “The dough has to rest for a while. I’m going to make the fillings now. While you tell me what it is you do.”
There was no getting out of it, and I drained my glass of champagne. “I’m the CEO of the Belmont Corporation. In a nutshell, I manage overall operations, set the business’s strategic direction, and make the big corporate decisions.”
“That sounds important. And what does Henry do?”
“My father is the chairman and president of the board of trustees.”
“So he’s king of the whole affair,” Isabel said as she gathered cheeses and other ingredients.
“If you want to put it that way, sure.”
“Which makes you the crown prince.”
“Don’t know how comfortable I am about the royal analogy here. I think America waged a war on ditching the king thing. And won.”
It was a plea she ignored vehemently. “Does this mean one day you’ll be taking Henry’s place on the throne?”
“Yes, it does,” I said, wishing we could talk less about the business and more about me being inside of her. “And just to be clear, there is no throne.”
“Most importantly, is what you do something you love doing?” She asked this as if it was the one question to which she urgently needed an answer.
“That’s very difficult to answer,” I said. “I was groomed from a very young age to one day become CEO, and eventually chairman and president of the board. There’s been no room to entertain thoughts of doing anything else. Loving what I do isn’t really an option. It’s just something that needs to be done, and I’m the only one to do it.”
She stopped making the pasta fillings and turned to me, biting her lower lip, always the first sign of uneasiness tempering her spirit. But she gritted her teeth, determined not to lose her poise. “That night at the auction, when you said you didn’t have a whole lot of time or reason to be happy…”
Not a subject I thought we’d be revisiting. “What about it?”
“You said you didn’t need an ounce of sympathy since you were doing all of that non-happiness stuff in a great deal of comfort and of your own free will. What did you mean by that?”
“As I said, I’ve never been given a choice to do anything other than run this empire. But I don’t mind it. I’ve never been that guy who thought he was going to find the dream life and live happily ever after. My expectations have always been limited. And because I didn’t know any better, I’ve been going along with that all my life.”
I went to her and removed a small patch of flour from her chin. “But then along you came, showing me possibilities I never knew existed,” I said softly. “And if it’s any further consolation, you can bet that after today I’ll be skipping into that office with a song in my heart.”
She laughed. “I’d buy a ticket to see you skipping into your grand office.”
“By skipping I do mean, purposefully striding with confidence,” I clarified.
“As long as you’re happy, Roman,” she said, sadness tainting her voice. “I really need you to be happy.”
If only she knew how her concern filled me with warmth. I resisted the urge to soothe her because I was very aware of where that might lead. And none of that spelled anything good for the resting pasta and exotic cheeses.
Instead, I tried to repair some of the unintended harm I’d done to the mood.
“All of that said, I won’t dispute the satisfaction I get when a particularly difficult deal is successful, or when I’m able to do something my father wants done for him. So there are definitely moments of joy. And right now, here with you, I’m incredibly happy.”
I settled back against the wall, indulging myself in the pleasure of watching her work. She took the resting pasta from the fridge and rolled it into a flat sheet before feeding it through the pasta machine.
Of course, the domestic goddess wasn’t done with asking questions. “Imagine you didn’t have this life,” she said. “What’s the one thing you’d want to do?”
“I would have liked to travel the world,” I said without hesitation. “With nothing but a backpack. I’ve been to so many countries and yet I’ve seen very little of them, except the inside of boardrooms and Belmont Hotels.”
A streak of sympathy flickered across her face. “Why didn’t you simply take a gap year and do exactly that?”
“Security would have been the biggest issue. And my father would never have agreed to me taking off to explore the world.”
“Funny how I’ve created this image of Henry as a great dad, and yet it doesn’t compute with any of the things I’ve heard about him. Like sending you off to that Swiss school for twelve years.”
“That’s Belmont tradition. My future was carved in stone since the day I took my first breath.”
“I’m guessing you guys weren’t much into fishing trips,” she said, and I could hear the anguish scrambling back into her voice.
“When you grow up with a father you call sir, it’s hard to think of him as a dad.”
She searched my face for any sign that I’d said that in jest, and when it was clear I hadn’t, she murmured desperately. “Maybe things will change when he wakes up. Maybe he realizes being a dad is worth more than giving you the keys to the kingdom.”
How to explain something as abstract as the Belmont family dynamic to this bundle of pure love? “My father is a man I admire and revere, and he sees in me an extension of himself, the one to carry on his legacy. That’s the extent of our father/son relationship. There’s never been much room for endearment.”
When the sheet of pasta became so thin it seemed impossible to keep it intact, Isabel handled it effortlessly. “No little section in that “How to be a Belmont Gentleman” for the fathers to teach their sons about the power of love?” she asked.
I smiled at the incongruous thought. When it came to the Belmont dynasty, emotions were in short supply. It was all about the empire. First, last, and always.
“I’m afraid How to be a Belmont Gentleman only covers etiquette,” I said. “You’re on your own when it comes to emotional matters. Emily did her best, but her influence was limited to the actual time I spent at home, which wasn’t much.”
“And when you have children, Roman?” she asked quietly. “Will they know their father loves them and that they come before the business?”
That was an easy question to answer because I’d thought about it on many occasions. It felt like a relief to acknowledge this. “Yes, they’ll know I love them. They’ll go to schools close to home and not be shipped off to a strange country for twelve years, that’s for sure.”
Isabel carefully selected the edible flowers from the small bundle of plants she held, blissfully unaware that at that very moment an overwhelming realization manifested itself inside me, begging for my acknowledgment.
It went beyond merely satiating these consuming carnal urges that held me captive to her. The feeling was as simple as it was complicated, and I recognized its gestation from the first night we met.
This was what it felt like when someone else’s happiness became more important than your own. When their well-being became a consuming obsession, overriding every other desire.
This was what it felt like to be utterly in love.