50. Isabel
By ten o’ clock it was a struggle to keep my eyes open, although I valiantly raced to the finish line making the chocolate éclairs for the staff’s morning coffee. One could say that the last two days had been a little tiring, and may I add completely unnecessary.
Roman and Meg were arguing about contract law over empty pizza boxes and wine. I let the sight of Roman Belmont sitting around our small dining room table wash over me. To him this had to be like landing on Jupiter. But as I watched him I saw a man content, at peace with himself and the world. At least for tonight.
Truth be told it was the perfect picture of domestic bliss. Even so, Roman’s business side was on full display as he and Meg discussed my future as the Belmont Hotel’s new queen of desserts.
“I’ll have my lawyers send over our contract with Isabel, and then we can have a meeting with them next week to hash out the points,” Roman said to her.
“We don’t need a stinking meeting in person,” Meg protested. “I can hash that shit out with your ambulance chasers via text.”
“I prefer a meeting,” Roman insisted. “Did you just call my lawyers ambulance chasers?”
A light bulb went off for Meg. “I know what you’re doing, you sneaky snake. You’re sending me a fictitious contract to see how my negotiating skills stack up. And since you’re paying the bill, it just went up like tenfold for that little stunt.”
Roman smiled. “Isabel deserves only the best. So yes, consider it a test. An interview if you like. The Belmont Trust needs some new blood but I want to be careful not to bring in someone who’s all mouth and no skills.”
That launched the official standoff at the corral as Roman and Meg tried to outstare each other.
“I hope you’re not hinting at me being all mouth and no skills,” Meg growled.
“Take it any way you want,” Roman replied. “Isabel’s interest is my only concern.”
“Hey Isabel,” Meg called out. “Do you know how much they’re going to pay you for your expertise in creating their new fabulous-if-overpriced dessert menu at the Belmont Hotel?”
I was piping the last éclair but paused to glance up. “No, actually I haven’t thought about it at all.”
The smirk on Meg’s face as she stared Roman down was priceless. “And that is why she needs me as her lawyer. Because that would have been my first question. How much and how soon. Besides, she won’t have anyone else representing her in legal matters. Isn’t that right, Isabel?”
“No one else,” I said. “But Roman already knows that.”
“So, Roman,” Meg said, a storm brewing in her tone. “If you want my client to continue doing her brilliant work, and make your dessert menu something people actually want to order from and not chuck into the nearest fireplace, I’d say lock her in now or get yourself a new menu chef.”
Roman laughed. “God, you’re going to make a great lawyer. Fine, but we’ll still have a meeting. My lawyers don’t “hash shit out” over text.”
His gaze swept over me where I stood in the kitchen, almost as if perpetually amazed that I was there within his reach. He smiled the Roman smile that always managed to steal my breath.
“Besides,” he continued, “when you come for the meeting you can see the place where Isabel will be living one day. I assume you’ll be a regular visitor. Best we prepare the staff in small doses ahead of time.”
Meg nearly fell out of her chair laughing. “You know what, when I met you this afternoon my first thought was, Who’s the dude who looks like someone stole his lollipop and damn, I hope it isn’t Isabel’s crush because he looks boring as all hell. But here you are, engaging in titillating conversation and making me laugh. I think I like you, Roman Belmont.”
I snorted and Roman winked at me.
“I like you too, Meg,” Roman said. “But I still won’t hire you just because I like you. The proof is in the pudding as the saying goes.”
A horn blared outside. Meg drained her glass of wine, jumped to her feet and grabbed her bag. “Ciao you sweet bitches. Don’t burn down the house. Or do, what do I care.”
Gentleman that he was, Roman scrambled to his feet to see Meg off, and his voice stopped her at the front door. “Please tell me that person blowing their horn instead of coming to the front door is not your date for the night.”
Meg rolled her eyes. “Yes, Dad, he is. What can I say, the day I meet my other half I’ll raise my standards. Deal? You two lovebugs have fun now. Although if I were you, Roman, I’d take our girl to bed and just let her sleep. The last two days have been hell for her, no thanks to your brother the antichrist.”
She blew us a kiss and then she was out the door.
Roman joined me in the kitchen, watching me intently, his thumb trailing my cheek. “You look tired, my sweet.”
“Let me tell you about my last two days…” I said lightly.
“I know,” Roman murmured. “You poor little thing. Like I said, next time there’s a misunderstanding, talk to me first, okay?”
“Or maybe, just maybe you should have told me you had an evil brother who looks like you.”
“Fair enough. I’ll take the blame for that./We all have family embarrassments we try to hide./ I still have quite a lot to learn about how this girlfriend-boyfriend thing works.”
“You’re doing fine, Roman. In fact, for someone who rebuked pillow talk not so long ago, you’re making strides in all the right directions, believe me.”
His hand slipped from my cheek and wound around my waist before he scooped me into him and wrapped me in his arms. I buried my face in his chest and breathed him in, his heartbeat thundering in my ear. A few eternal moments suspended in time.
And then I yawned.
A whimper escaped my throat. “I can’t believe I’m about to spend the night with you and I can’t even keep my eyes open.”
“Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder,” he said, and found a stray tendril of hair on my cheek to sweep behind my ear. “Let’s get you to bed, what do you say?”
And so we brushed our teeth together over the tiny sink in the small bathroom. It was also the first time I was introduced to a bespoke toothbrush, made of titanium. Roman saw me staring at the damn thing. “You’re not going to give me a hard time about my toothbrush, are you?”
“No.” I said.
“But you really want to, don’t you.”
“Yes. But I’m too tired, you’re safe.”
“Thank God.”
“Wait, is that the Belmont crest at the bottom of your toothbrush?”
“Oh, here we go.”
“Just saying.”
He muffled a laugh and I wanted to press myself into this man with the titanium toothbrush who never once hinted at the lack of comfort or space in my modest place.
His phone beeped. “It’s Kayla, I’ll have to take this. Give me a minute and I’ll see you in bed.”
I staggered to my bedroom, adamant to perk up once Roman joined me. There was no way I was wasting a night with him sleeping. I stripped down to my panties and stumbled into bed, ready to tear his clothes off once he appeared.
But what do you know, the minute my head hit the pillow I fell asleep. I faintly remember Roman slipping into bed beside me, folding me into his arms and whispering into my ear. “Good night, honey badger. Sweet dreams.”
* * *
The sun peekedthrough the curtains and I woke with a hard chest, among other things, pressed to my back, and Roman’s soft snore in my ear.
It was obvious that we were both exhausted last night because we spent eight hours in the same bed without so much as a kiss.
But now I was torn. Did I wake him and unapologetically ravage him now that I was fresh as a daisy, or did I play the nice girlfriend and let him sleep in?
I decided there was no time to play the nice girlfriend. Soon we’d have to get up and go to Belmont Manor. His home and my place of work.
My body melted into his, turning everything below my navel into molten lava. How many mornings had I imagined this scenario, waking up in Roman’s arms and counting down the minutes before he claimed me for himself.
It took all of ten seconds before he stirred, and then he lazily clinched me closer to him. “First of all,” he grumbled in a sleepy voice. “Good morning.”
“And what a good morning it is,” I replied.
His fingers molded into my waist and he ground himself gently into my hips, his lips skimming the shell of my ear. “Now if I could just figure out who you are and what I’m doing in your bed.”
“How dare you? I’m Lola and we met last night at the bar.”
“Oh Lola, I remember now. You said you’d need more than one drink before you’d consider giving me a little kiss. Is that why my bar tab was so high?”
My laughter quickly became grinding moans as his mouth traced along my shoulders and he kissed his way down my back, his hand gliding over my skin as if it was his first time touching me.
When his fingers wandered to my breasts, his thumbs brushing my tightening nipples, my whole body tingled and yearned. I writhed against him impatiently. “I need you,” I muttered, ravenous for this man.
Suddenly, and I do mean SUDDENLY, there was the loudest knocking on the front door, knocking that could wake the living dead from the deepest pits of darkest Hell.
What was pure bliss moments before switched to terror fueling my veins. I froze. “Oh my God, who the hell is that!?”
Roman plucked himself away from me, his feet hitting the ground in a flash, his sweatpants on before I could take my next breath. “Fuck,” he grumped under his breath, grabbing his phone and checking it. He eyed me apologetically. “It’s Steven. I switched off my phone last night. Let me go and speak to him.”
As Roman left the room, my heart was still thumping against the walls of my chest. And let’s not talk about the need between my thighs that now had no hope of getting less needy any time soon. This was not how the one morning we woke up together was supposed to go.
I slipped out of bed, opened my closet and stared inside, my mind whirling. It had come down to one simple solution and that was packing a bag.
It was a minute later when Roman came back into the room, his vein throbbing and killing every last prospect of picking up where we left off. “I need to get back to the office. We have to leave in twenty minutes. I’m so sorry, my sweet… What are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m just packing an overnight bag.”
“Where are you going that you need an overnight bag?”
“I thought maybe I could stay at Belmont Manor for the night.” I threw a couple of panties and leggings into the bag, along with some shirts. “I mean if that’s okay with you.”
He gave me an amused grin, disbelief lacing his tone. “If that’s okay with me…well yes it’s more than okay with me. Maybe we should talk about more than one night.”
“This is making me nervous enough as it is. One night is a good start, wouldn’t you say?”
“Of course,” he said quickly. “One night is a terrific start.”
I babbled on as if trying to convince myself I wasn’t hurtling down a dark uncertain road. “I mean since only Nelson and Emily know, I’m sure I can still be discreet enough that none of the other staff finds out. The house is huge and I’ll just be really careful—”
Before I could finish my sentence Roman pulled me into his arms, his lips brushing the top of my head. “It’ll be okay, Isabel. You do what makes you feel comfortable, but let me assure you, no one is happier than I am right now and I couldn’t care less what anyone else thinks, and neither should you.”
And with that, he pushed away the tiny tendril of doubt that persisted in nagging my insides. What exactly was I so afraid of anyway? That Roman’s feelings for me would flame out eventually? As if fear of rejection should rule what I decided to do with my life. No, I decided. Screw that.
I offered Roman my best take-charge smile. “Go and shower, I’ll put the coffee on, and then I’ll shower because we now only have sixteen minutes left.”
Roman stalled. “Or we could shower together.”
“We could. But it will be a very tight fit.”
“You make that sound like a bad thing.”
“Fine. But we now only have fifteen minutes left.”
“Thank God, here I thought we had to rush.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later,on the dot, we left the apartment. Me still flushed from our shower which was more of a scorching tryst with a very hot man, in a very cramped shower stall.
Roman was smiling like he’d just deflowered a virgin in the meadows. At the front door he held out his hand to take my bag, while I carried the confectionary box with the éclairs.
“Let’s go to our den, honey badger,” he said. “We’ll get coffee on the way.”
During our ride I got a glimpse into Roman’s world. One might say there was a little backlog from his absence yesterday, because business calls came in one after the other and it was something else to watch him douse the fires so effortlessly.
I found solace in my coffee, trying not to feel stressed for his sake. This is what he had to deal with every day? Not that he didn’t seem perfectly at ease doing it. He even took the time to steal a kiss at a red light while talking to the governor of Maine.
Suddenly my phone dinged. It was too early for Meg, and Sergei was surely too pissed to text with the memory of last night still so raw.
The text was a notice from the bank, thanking me for paying off both of my loans. My mind went haywire. There was definitely a glitch. It took a few minutes for me to remember that Roman was in my room yesterday. He must have seen the Final Notices and simply took care of the accounts.
Relief washed over me, and I wanted to kiss this man and tell him what an incredible burden he’d taken off my shoulders, but something told me he already knew. I had no more debt. The mere thought made all the words I wanted to say to him clog in my throat. There was no stopping the tears from spilling into my coffee cup.
Roman ended a phone call and told Kayla to hold the next one as he pulled the Rover onto the shoulder. “Isabel?” he asked, worry thickening his voice. “Are you okay?”
I nodded and I took his hand. “Thank you, Roman. You have no idea how much it means to me.”
He didn’t have to be told what that was for. “You’re welcome, my sweet.”
As he pulled back onto the road and told Kayla to put the next call through, I wiped my tears and started planning the most amazing dinner this man had ever had.
Forty-five minutes later we entered the black gates to Belmont Manor, and a warm feeling spread through my insides. For all its imposing glory and magnificence, it was a place I’d come to love.
I glimpsed Nelson and Emily standing by the front door at the top of the stairs, as if waiting for the long-lost daughter to return. And it might have been my imagination but I thought I saw a few staff members peering from the grand French windows in the north wing that looked out over the front terrace.
Damn, so much for the discretion I’d planned. But still, I could explain it away as just catching a ride with the boss who happened to come my way, what was wrong with that.
Roman pulled the Range Rover up to the front of the house, and I decided to be as nonchalant as possible. Giving the staff no reason to suspect a thing.
Nothing here to see, move on.
As part of my coverup, I played it cool and barely glanced at Roman before I stepped from the Rover. “Thank you so much for the ride, I really appreciate it, Mr. Belmont,” I said, loud enough to be heard in India.
Roman laughed at my charade, and God I could just strangle him. A few more cars came down the driveway, Steven in one of them, all driving toward the south wing where Roman had his own entrance to the house.
Okay, so that had to be security. Where the hell did they all come from? Roman wasn’t kidding about his security being discreet. But there was no time to give it another thought.
My only goal now was to get into the house and away from prying stares, preferably with my now-wonky reputation at least somewhat intact. I started for the stairs. Nelson could get the pastries from the back seat because I was simply not going near that car again with everyone watching my every move.
Barely seconds later, Roman was behind me. “Excuse me, Miss Le Roche, I think you forgot something.”
Ohfuckinggreat.
He grabbed me by the waist and twirled me around to face him, his head bent toward mine as he whispered in my ear. “What did I say about running away from me? Not even a proper kiss goodbye. Tsk.”
“Oh God Roman, please don’t,” I whispered fervidly. “Just don’t.”
But he smothered my plea with a kiss, causing the goddamn shiver to sneak up my spine like a thief in the night and please, oh please don’t forget the hot pink flush spreading up from my chest to my cheeks.
There was simply no hiding my lapse of proper work etiquette from anyone now.
“Have a lovely day, my sweet.” Roman smiled with a wicked glint in his eye, bobbing my nose with his finger. “Text me. Or you know what, just come and find me. You know where I am.”
Nelson passed us to get the pastries, barely able to hold in his laughter at my flushed cheeks and indignant pout. “Roman…Isabel, good morning,” he chuckled. “Let me get the pastries, shall I?”
When I looked up, staff members were tittering behind cupped hands, giddy, still vying for the best view. Sophia was waving ecstatically, looking absolutely thrilled.
To say my casual charade went tits-up would be an understatement. There was simply no walking back that damn kiss. Roman sprinted back to the car, and just before he got into the driver’s seat he blew me a kiss. And with not much dignity left to lose, I blew him one back.
At the top of the stairs, Emily waited like the queen of the castle. When I reached her, I tried for serene, but my voice came out a little flustered. “Good morning, Emily.”
She bit a smile. “Good morning, Isabel.” And then she embraced me. “Welcome home.”