11. CHAPTER 10 #3
“A box of chocolate croissants and a few of the fruit tarts, specifically the berry tarts from that place she frequents near Saint-Germain… no lemon tarts.”
I heard her complaining to the baker two weeks ago that the lemon ones were too tart. Not sure why I remembered that.
I adjusted my cufflink, my eyes narrowing. "Then some of that loose-leaf mint tea she orders every friday from the tea shop nearby.”
Severin knew the ones I meant.
“Also, chocolates—the expensive truffles and the Maison Le Roux caramels she likes. Her sweet tooth is a liability; she isn't eating, and I need her blood sugar stable.”
Hopefully these would coax her into eating something. Even if it was a bite of sugar.
I’d never personally bought anything for a woman before, let alone curated a gift. Never had to pay enough attention to the details to bother; my assistants handled everything, right down to my mother’s birthday presents. This was uncharted territory.
Severin didn’t interrupt, so I added one more thing.
“There’s a bookshop in the Sixth,” I went on. “La Galerie des Mots where she buys those romance books she talks to her friends about. Ask for the ones with the HEAs.
“HEA?”
Severin’s tone briefly wavered. I could tell he was one question away from asking me what the fuck was going on.
“Happily Ever After. Apparently she likes those.” I replied, like everything about this was normal.
The acronym felt like lead in my mouth. I’d had to Google the term after overhearing her tell her friends that a story was worthless without a Happily Ever After.
The search results had been a nauseating sea of mushy nonsense.
She’s unredeemable when it comes to that garbage. Explained some of her choices.
“How much of these… HEA books are we buying?”
“All the bestsellers, limited editions… enough options to keep her mind preoccupied. I’ve seen her talk about them. They seem to make her happy.”
Not that I care about her happiness.
Severin exhaled, a sound halfway between a laugh and disbelief. I could imagine the faces he was making right now.
“Anything else?” he asked. “Flowers? Handwritten note? Your pulse rate?”
I ignored him. Giving him an answer would only invite a diagnosis, and Severin was good at finding an opening. A response would have given him the data he needed to dissect me, and I wasn't providing any more ammunition today.
Instead I gave more instructions for delivery.
“Have one of your people in the mansion deliver it. If she asks who it’s from, she’ll be told it’s a courtesy delivery arranged by the house. Something her mother approved and forgot about.”
I ran my thumb along my lower lip, considering.
“Also add macarons to the pastry orders. And no pistachios.”
She liked nuts, but she had an irrational loathing for pistachios. A buried, inexplicable part of me was curious to know why—what memory or bitterness was attached to that specific green nut.
The line went silent, as if Severin were waiting for me to add more to a list that already felt like an exhaustive inventory of my future wife's psyche.
“Really impressive,” he said, clearly amused. “For someone who insists he doesn’t care, you’re alarmingly invested.
“I’m invested in stability,” I clarified. “She’s clearly destabilized.”
“Whatever helps you sleep,” Severin quipped.
“You know,” he went on in a mild voice, “most men would’ve sent a bouquet.”
I looked at the documents still pending signature on my desk.
“Most men are sentimental.”
“Most men don’t know which chocolatier she prefers or what tea she likes to drink or what flavors she prefers.”
He was right. I shouldn’t know any of these things, but for some unexplained reason, my brain had chosen to hold on to every trivial information concerning her.
It was a waste of head space, considering how boring she was.
“I’m protecting an asset.”
That was the only logical explanation. I hated instability in any form, and I particularly hated it in the woman who was supposed to be the most predictable part of my plans.
“I hear you. I’ll handle it and send you a notification once it’s delivered,” he said. A hint of amusement still in his voice.
“And what if she refused to eat after she receives your love package?”
Acting like I didn’t hear the last part, I responded: “Then she’ll be forced to—” I signed a document on my desk. “—one way or another.”
Severin hummed. “Very romantic.”
“Goodnight, Severin.”
“Goodnight, Orion.”
The line went dead, and I tapped the screen in front of me. The feed in the corner showed her walking across her room, wearing a t-shirt and shorts that exposed her long legs. She might be boring, but her body wasn’t. It was a constant, unwanted distraction from my work.
She sat by the window, her hair down, and her gaze fixed outside.
I forced my eyes back to the documents in front of me, repeating the lie until it felt like the truth. Justifying all of it the way I did everything else.
She needed to be stable and functional. I didn't care about the sadness in her eyes or the way her shoulders slumped.
I just needed her to be herself again. Not this fading version I couldn’t recognize.