Chapter 19
I worked hard all day, eating at my desk, and I made significant progress on a new venture proposal that Mr. Frank had asked me to put together. It would involve more travel and a serious amount of negotiating. I was proud of the trust he put in me and worked hard to earn it.
In the evening, as I walked toward the front door of my apartment building, I was feeling ready to kick off my shoes, have a glass of wine, and possibly dive face first into a carton of ice cream.
A figure separated itself from the shadows and my first thought was how to get at the can of mace I knew was at the bottom of my bag.
I had very little cash on me, but I’d be screwed if they took my laptop.
“Eve, what’s going on?” My heart tumbled down to my ankles, hearing that voice. The pain I’d been carefully holding at bay threatened to drown me. Why was he here? Couldn’t he take a hint? We were done.
“Here, let me help you with your bags.” He reached to take my briefcase. Fool. That would make it easier for me to get to the mace.
“I’m fine, Jack,” I said, stiffly. “I am capable of carrying my own bags.”
“I know you are, hon, I just wanted to…to help. I don’t know what happened. What’s going on, Eve?” His voice broke as he asked the question.
I looked at him for the first time. The pain I saw in his eyes mirrored my own.
“Can I come in? Can we talk? Please? I feel like someone cancelled us and I didn’t get the memo. Please? Can I come in?” His voice quavered with a pleading note.
I didn’t want to hurt him. He hadn’t set out to hurt me. He was just being himself. And I guessed I owed it to him to explain that that was not enough for me.
I sighed and gave a small nod as I turned and walked into the building. Jack held my bags for me as I pulled out my keys to open my apartment door. I resisted the urge to use the mace. I’d let him talk first. There was always time for mace later.
I walked in and Jack followed, closing the door behind him.
I put my bag on the entryway table and dropped my briefcase beside it.
I hung up my coat, then turned to the kitchen.
Jack followed. I didn’t care what his agenda was, I had promised myself a glass of wine and I was going to keep my promise.
I pulled a bottle of red out from under the counter, angrily stabbed the cork with the corkscrew, removed the cork and poured myself a generous glass.
I wanted to be a cold selfish bitch, but I could almost feel Grandmère smacking my hand.
“Would you like some wine, Jack?” I offered in a chilly tone.
“Yes, please.”
I took down a glass for him and poured. Not as much as mine. Yes, I could be petty like that. I handed it to him and, leaning back against the counter, I asked, “Well? What did you want to talk about?”
“Can we sit down, please?” he asked.
I heaved a large sigh and said, “Fine.” I led him to the kitchen table, and we sat. Awkwardly.
“Eve, I feel so much hostility from you, and I have no idea why. What did I do? One minute we were having an amazing time and the next you ran away. What did I do to make you hate me like this?”
I took a long sip of wine, letting it roll over my tongue, savoring the flavor. It would be better with cheese. And bread. I set my glass down, got up, and started to prepare a cheese plate. I knew I was avoiding the difficult conversation.
“Eve!” His voice had a genuine pleading note to it. I held up a finger to indicate I’d be just a minute. I came back with a selection of cheeses and baguette slices.
“I haven’t had dinner yet and if I drink this delicious wine on an empty stomach, I will probably say things I regret.”
He nodded as I helped myself to a slice of Brie spread on bread, took a fortifying sip of wine, then spoke. “Jack, I do not hate you.”
“You sure fooled me! You won’t respond to my texts. You dodge my calls. What’s going on?”
“You let me know, in no uncertain terms, that you were only interested in fun, a relationship with an expiration date. And I have no time for that. I’ve had my heart broken before and it’s not something I care to repeat.”
His face looked horrorstruck. “Eve, that wasn’t what I meant! I’m not out to break your heart.”
“You might not have set out to do it, but you would accomplish it,” I replied, softly.
“How do you know that?” he challenged.
“I know because I’ve lived through it before.”
“What are you talking about? Who broke your heart? And can I beat him up for you?”
That coaxed a small smile from me, as he’d known it would. I had to tell him. He deserved to know why we couldn’t be together.
“Let’s go into the living room. It’ll be more comfortable there.
” I picked up my wine glass and walked to the living room, setting it on the coffee table in front of the couch.
Jack placed his glass beside mine, held up a finger and walked back into the kitchen.
I heard the refrigerator opening and closing, dishes clinking, the rattle of the silverware drawer, and then he came back into the living room carrying two bowls of ice cream.
He deposited the chocolate in front of me.
I had to press my lips together to keep from sniffling.
I’d been so rude, and he was still being thoughtful.
He sat down by me, close enough that I could see the concern in his eyes, but not so close that I worried he’d try to hold me.
“You know my deepest, darkest secrets, Eve. It’s time to share yours.”
I took a bite of ice cream, then realized I was delaying. It was time to get it out in the open.
I took a deep breath and started. “I went to the Sorbonne for college. I was thrilled to be there, thrilled to be studying in the international business track. There was a young man in my classes that caught my eye. LCB.”
“What does that stand for?”
“We’ll get to that later. Don’t interrupt.”
Jack mimed sealing his lips shut.
“He was so good looking, my heart fluttered every time he walked by.”
“I hate him already,”
“Jack!” I glared.
“Sorry.” And he pantomimed locking his lips and throwing away the key.
“He was tall, had dark, curly hair, and intense, dark eyes.”
Jack held up a finger, got up, went into the kitchen, opened a few drawers and came back with a pen and my grocery list pad. He wrote, “I think you have a type.”
I rolled my eyes and said, “Thank you. Well spotted, Dr. Freud.”
I continued. “All the girls in our classes flirted with him and even asked him out. But he never paid attention to any of them. But in our sophomore year, he asked me out. Me!” I still remembered the happy, fluttery feeling of having him select me out of the crowd.
Jack raised his eyebrows and spread his hands, palms up, as if to say, “Duh!”
I shook my head and smiled a bit, then went on with the story.
“We dated all that year, and it was wonderful. He was so sweet and thoughtful, full of surprises, and I fell for him hard, so when he asked me to move in with him my junior year, I did.”
Jack’s face showed surprise, eyebrows raised almost to his hairline. I gave him a small glare and kept going.
“I moved into his apartment and lived with him for two years.
We did everything together. He was kind, thoughtful, and made me feel so loved.
Also, he was also my best study buddy. Doing well was very important to him, important to his family, so no matter how much fun we had together, we made school a priority and encouraged each other to excel in school.
We tied for top of the class honors in every class.
“Every semester break he would fly home to be with his family. He told me all the time that family was the most important thing. I would use that time to visit with Grandmère and Bernard, her neighbor. He taught me how to play poker and tried to teach me to bake.” Jack nodded to show he was keeping up.
“As graduation approached, I knew the time was coming that he would propose. We were obviously perfect for each other, both personally and professionally. He’d hinted that he could pull strings to get me a job with the family.
“Our senior year, spring break, he went back home—"
Jack scratched a question mark on the pad.
“Well, let’s just say it’s an area of the world that invented the word ‘harem’”.
Jack wrote, “Uh oh. Cue the ominous music.”
“Anyway, he came back…different. I thought that he was acting strangely because he was sitting on a secret. I had it all figured out, though. He had told me his father was coming to his graduation, which was a big deal, and he was going to introduce me. And I knew that LCB was going to propose in front of his father, get his blessing, and we would fly off to marital bliss under a desert sun.”
Jack cocked an eyebrow.
“Clearly, that’s not what happened. Following the graduation ceremony, he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the knot of people surrounding a tall man in long, flowing, white robes.
He dropped my hand and approached his father and did a very subservient bow and said, ‘Father, I’d like to introduce you to the friend I mentioned.
’ Calling me a friend should have been a clue, but I was just dazed to finally meet his father.
He said, ‘Father, this is Eve Lambert. Eve, this is my father, His Royal Highness.’ And then before I had time to process that, he gave a tug to the elbow of someone standing behind his father and a tall, proud, beautiful woman with dark skin and long dark hair in a designer suit stood beside him and he said, ‘Eve, this is my wife, Nasrin.’”
Jack’s jaw dropped. “Crap on a cracker, Eve, he had a wife?!?”