His Paris Affair (The Albury Affairs) (19 page)

“Would you not curse when you are talking about Esme?”

“Melody!”

She jumped running around him towards the door. “Look. I’ll
explain later, right now we shouldn’t leave your mother alone. It’s rude.”

“Melody, don’t you dare—” he reached for her when she opened
the door, but she quickly slipped him dashing out of the room. She drove him
nuts especially with this new stunt. She knew it hurt that Esme wasn’t his and
now she was rubbing it in with this new story. Ruiz weighed his fist wishing he
had a body to pound out his anger. He was going to lose his mind if he stayed
in Paris any longer. The best thing to do would be to call Matthew or Allan,
have one of them come and take over. Ruiz had done most of the work all that
was left was hiring a new general manager and publicity. He knew he was being a
coward, but he needed sometime away from Melody. First, he needed to get away
from his mother. Melody could figure out what to do with her because at that
point he was beyond caring.

He stepped out of his room and Melody came rushing to his
side visibly rattled.
Now what?

“Ruiz, I was just suggesting to your mother that we visit
Les Champs Elysées. It’s a large boulevard that runs through the eighth
arrondissement spanning from the Arc de Triomphe down to Place de la Concorde.
There are so many boutiques, bistros and restaurants—L'avenue des Champs
Elysées is the main attraction if you ask me. And the best part is there are so
many boutiques with top designers like
Louis
Vuitton
,
Cartier
,
Benetton
and many others! We’ve been
there before remember how much we liked it?”

Her voice had gone a pitch high and she was turning red—she
was nervous, worried and scared—signs that she was about to have a panic attack
if he didn’t do something about it. He placed his hand behind her neck and
rubbed gently. That used to calm her—it worked like magic when they were going
to Allan about their new role in Red Roses. Reno made broaching that subject
easier by speaking to him before hand. Ruiz’s big brother also made it easier
on them when it came to formally announcing their relationship to the rest of
the family. Melody was panicking about what Allan would do and how he would
change his mind about them travelling alone on visits to the hotels. He sighed
to himself. He could really use his big brother right about now.

“Yeah mother, you’ll enjoy yourself.”

His mother rolled her eyes. “Fine, but if the baby is coming
the nanny should come along as well.”

Melody looked up at him desperately for some direction. Ruiz
wondered what she wanted him to say. The child was hers so it was her decision
whether or not she came. That irked him that he had no say.

“That’s fine as well. Melody, go tell Jackie she’s coming
along to our family outing. Just make sure whatever restaurant we are going to
eat at serves alcohol at midday.” He lowered his head and whispered in her ear,
“You’ll be doing yourself a favor if you don’t tell her which Sinclair you
are.”

* * * *

Why the hell did I
agree to this?
Ruiz asked himself that for the umpteenth time that
afternoon. They’d walked down…whatever street Melody had brought them on for
what felt like hours, his mother stopping them countless times to step into a
boutique and buy clothes, shoes and hats just because she did have them in that
color or design and by design she meant it had one button or bow more or less
that what she had at home. Countless times he’d been seconds away from dragging
her out of the boutique only to have Melody swat his plans. She was trying to
make nice with her mother-in-law she said, dragging her out of a boutique would
make her efforts futile she said, never interrupt a lady having a conversation
about Gucci and Armani she said. And to all those fun facts he reminded her
that Clarissa wasn’t her mother-in-law. The first few times he said that she
would turn away from him with hurt in her eyes but in the fifth or sixth store
she found clever come backs. It became a game for him after that, threatening
to drag his mother out of the boutique just to see what Melody would do or say.
Then she caught on and began giving him the silent treatment and his only form
of entertainment was over. So he did the only thing left to him, he called Jon
Luc to discuss the things he’d left pending at the hotel.

Jon Luc was in the middle of updating him of the new
applicants for general manager when Melody yanked the phone out of his hand,
turned it off and slipped it into her purse with a lecture on how rude he was
being. And to make matters worse, his mother supported her! So he was back to
dragging behind the new friends as they talked the nonsense rich society women
did. If it wasn’t for Jackie who was as miserable as he was, he would have
gotten into a cab and gone back to work.

He was so grateful when they got to the restaurant and he
finally got a whiskey in his hand despite the glares from the ladies at the
table. He needed it like a druggie needed his next fix, especially with the
crowd he was rolling with. He didn’t know how, but he found himself in the
middle of his mother and Esme’s stroller. He didn’t want to be next to his
mother, especially next to a baby that was ‘pretend’ his. His mother drove him
nuts and the baby…it hurt too much knowing that he wasn’t her father, that her
mother had her with a despicable man and that he was a masochist for sharing a
suite with the wife that was no longer his, for agreeing to go along with this
charade of being her father and for pretending to be a happy family with a
family that wasn’t his in the first place. Which made him wonder again why the
hell did he agree to this?

Why was he pretending to be married let alone happily to
Melody? Why were they lying to his mother when there was no need to? If he knew
his mother well there was only one reason why she was here and it had nothing
to do with caring for her only child. She wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if Ruiz was
happily settled or doing twenty to life in a maximum-security prison. She had
only one goal in life and that would be looking out for number one—herself. So
aside from making fake friends with Melody what was she doing here?

“Mother, you never did say what brought you to Paris.” Ruiz
interrupted whatever comical conversation his mother and Melody were having with
his question.

She turned to him with a thin smile and chilly glare. “Ruiz,
it’s rude to interrupt people while they are talking.”

He nodded, taking a sip of his whiskey. “Yes, but if I
remember my etiquette classes right, it’s also rude to stop by without a
forewarning phone call, especially if the trip is from Argentina.”

“You had etiquette classes? I never would have guessed!”
Melody hissed through one of her well-rehearsed smiles.

God it was like he’d been dropped into the twilight zone and
he was seeing into his future with Melody and his mother sitting side by side.
Well, it was no longer his future because they were getting a divorce and she
was staying married to Antonio. He swallowed the remaining whiskey and lifted
his hand to signal a waiter for a refill. He was going to need help getting
into a cab when the lunch was over.

“Oh yes, Ruiz did have etiquette classes as short as they
were. They only lasted a few weeks because no teacher could tolerate his
abhorrent behavior. The rudest child they’ve ever met, all three of his
teachers said and they made sure everyone else knew that and I could never find
another teacher to tutor him.”

Ruiz lifted his glass up and yelled, “Refill, now!”

Melody gave him a wide eyed gaze that matched his mother’s
smug look. Why was he putting himself through this again? To his immediate
relief, a waiter rushed to their table, a bottle of whiskey in his hand. He
poured Ruiz a tot, but nodded for him to keep pouring until the glass was half
full.

When the waiter stepped back Ruiz grabbed the hand that held
the bottle. “Leave it.”

“
Oui monsieur
.”
He placed the
bottle on the table and retreated with a slight bow.

“Like I said, abhorrent behavior,” Clarissa said with a sad
sigh. “It was my husband Jorge who suggested military school.”

“That would be husband number two,” Ruiz mumbled taking
another gulp on his way to oblivion.

“We’d barely been gone two hours from dropping him off when
the school called to say Ruiz had run off to God knows where! We searched for
him for hours, well into the next morning.” She made a grand gesture of
fluttering her hand over her chest.

“If you’d taken a look in the front seat of your limo you
would have found me,” he commented dryly with another gulp of whiskey. “And if
I remember correctly, you and
Jorge
went to the mountains while others searched for your nine year old truant son.”

With wide eyed surprise his mother said, “You surely didn’t
expect us not to go? We were honored guests it would have been rude—”

The rest of her words were drowned out by Esme’s crying. He
was glad too because he wasn’t sure how well his whiskey soaked mind could have
tuned her out. He’d learnt to turn her voice off in his head at an early age.
With listening to nothing but critics, scolding and campaigns against his
biological father every moment of his waking day he had to learn or he would
have been committed to an asylum by the time he was a teenager instead of
joining a gang.

Why was he going through this again? He thought about that
as he watched Jackie fuss over the baby and Clarissa and Melody pick up their
conversation like he was no longer there and reached the conclusion that he had
no reason whatsoever to be putting himself through any of it.

He took several more gulps from his glass and stood up, shakily
at first before he centered himself.

“Ruiz, where are you going?” Melody asked panicky.

Ruiz stared at her and watched as she grew uneasy. She
didn’t want to be left alone with his mother. Well too bad. He’d reached his
limit of self torture for the day. He couldn’t stay one more minute with the
three things that caused him the most pain in his life—Esme for not being his
daughter, Melody for no longer being his wife, and his mother who would pick a
Prada bag over him any day of the week. He’d had enough and all he wanted to do
at that moment was take the rest of the afternoon off to wallow in his miseries
before he built his shield up again and this time, it would be impenetrable.

He took out his wallet and dropped a few bills then, turning
a deaf ear to Melody’s calling he walked out of the restaurant and into a free
cab.

“
Ou?
Where to?”

He leaned his head against the window and watched as the
world walked by him, a hell of a lot happier than he was at the moment. “A bar,
where normal people go to.”

Chapter Nine

Melody paced the living room in a panic. It was well past
midnight and Ruiz hadn’t gotten back to the suite. Going out to lunch with his
mother had been a bad idea, a really bad idea. She’d been too eager to please
the woman she completely forgot about Ruiz.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” She slapped her forehead with her
palm repeatedly.

She noticed too late what effect his mother’s callousness
was doing to him. He was well into his second glass of whiskey by then. She
should have known Ruiz wasn’t being rude when he tried several times to cut
their day short, but how was she supposed to understand why he wouldn’t want to
spend time with his mother, she spent every minute she could spare with her
own. Melody couldn’t understand Clarissa and how cold she was towards Ruiz.
Even the stories she told about her ‘thoughtless son’ sounded exaggerated to
make herself seem as the victim of an uncontrollable child. Being a mother and
having a wonderful mother, she just couldn’t understand how that could be.

“Melody, sit. You’re making me dizzy,” Jackie grumbled from
the couch.

“I can’t! If Ruiz leaves me after today, I wouldn’t blame
him,” she lamented. How could he not leave her, she would leave her. How could
she just sit there and listen to Clarissa tear into Ruiz? She could see the
hurt in his eyes and yet she did nothing! Some wife she was.

“He won’t leave you, he loves you.”

“How could he not?” she sobbed. “I’m a terrible wife. First
I marry another man, then I let his mother bash him and do nothing to stop her
how could he not leave me for not having his back?” She dropped onto the couch
next to Jackie and sobbed into her hands. “My mother would be ashamed of me!”

Jackie patted her back. “There, there. Don’t be too hard on
yourself. I would reason the shock had you tongue tied, it sure as hell did me.
Which makes me wonder, why is it that woman is here?”

Melody drew her face away from her hands to stare at Jackie.
“What else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t let her pay for a room when we have
three free ones here! That’s just—”

Jackie groaned rolling her eyes. “Rude, I know. God I never
thought I would be tired of hearing a word spoke, but I would be too happy if I
never hear that one again. As insufferable as that woman is you did the right
thing giving her a room, she is your mother-in-law, but that’s not what I was
referring too.”

“What then?”

“Ruiz kept asking her what she was doing here as if he
suspected her motives, which makes me suspicious too. It’s clear she isn’t here
to inquire on the welfare of her son and his family so that means she’s here
for—”

“Money,” Melody sighed miserably. “Of course she’s here for
money what else? She did try to steal Reno’s inheritance and since that didn’t
work she’s here to hit her son up for money.”

“I thought you said Ruiz already settled her?”