Moments Lost and Found (26 page)

Laurent looked deeply into her eyes as if trying
to see if he could tell that this was really what was best for her. He moved
closer to her and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand and smiled ever
so slightly. Then he leaned in and kissed her tenderly on the lips, still
cautious of her emotions and her split lip. It was mostly on the mend, but
still, he was careful as he deepened their kiss. It was obvious by the way that
her mouth reacted to his that she wanted this. Her soft moans reinforced what
her lips and tongue told him. He put his hands on her hips and lifted her
carefully onto his lap so that she was straddling him, never breaking their
kiss, but he could feel her smile under his lips. When they finally broke apart
they were both panting. Laurent spoke first, “God, I’ve missed you Samantha.”
She smiled down at him, and rubbed her crotch against his already hard cock as
he started to unbutton her blouse.

 “Oh God Laurent, you have no idea how much
I’ve missed you.”

Laurent smiled that sexy mischievous smile of his,
“God Laurent. I like the sound of that.” He teased and then leaned up to kiss
her again. Flirty Frenchman was back, and Sam vowed to never, ever again let
him go.

Sam had never wanted to get married. She was never
one of those girls who dreamed about it. Never imagined herself in the white
dress walking down the aisle. Never bought the wedding magazines or doodled
some man’s last name next to her own. It was never even on her radar much less
a goal or something she aspired to. It all just seemed so superficial, like it
was all about the wedding. More than that, like those girls who dreamed about
it were dreaming of a knight in shining armor coming to save them, and that
once they were married then they could just sit back and let the man in their
lives take care of everything. Sam never wanted that.

But a funny thing happened once she fell in love
with Laurent. She realized that it was ok to want it. She had already proven
that she could take care of herself. But now that they were finally, officially
together, it wasn’t an either / or. It was both. For the first time in Sam’s
life, she knew that it was ok to relax knowing that Laurent could, and did take
care of her. She finally, reluctantly, accepted that being taken care of wasn’t
being weak, it was being loved.

Looking back, Sam was grateful that she didn’t
meet Laurent until she was ‘older’. As hard as it was for her to finally embrace
the idea of a relationship when she did, she was sure that if she had met him
when she were in her 20s or early 30s, they would never have made it. By the
time they met, Sam knew who she was as a businesswoman. But it took a man like
Laurent to help her get to know who she was as a woman. To the outside world,
calling a man like Laurent “patient” sounded either absurd or pathetic or both.
But Sam knew that’s exactly what he was with her. Just as she understood the
total man, all the sides that no one else saw, he understood her. He knew the
woman that he fell in love with, even if she didn’t know exactly who that was
yet. And he knew not to give up on her. So he waited, and gave her the space
she needed to screw up, and to say no, and to leave. He wasn’t omniscient, but
he knew, in his heart, that they would end up together. Mostly, because they
had to. As screwed up as they might have been, they were perfect for each
other. And they came along at the right time for each other. He knew this. It
took Sam a little while longer, but eventually, she got there. Without
compromising who she was, or what she valued, she got there. And neither of
them would have had it any other way.

Laurent had never wanted to get married either,
but for very different reasons than Samantha’s. All of the women in his past
were playthings, arm pieces, sex partners… there wasn’t any good, acceptable
term, but that’s what they were. It wasn’t his intention to objectify them, but
he never wanted much more from anyone than a warm, willing body, not that he’d
admit that to anyone, not even Samantha. He had intimated on several occasions
that what they had together was very different than any relationship in his
past, but she’d never know just how different. Looking back, the judgment he
had on himself was bad enough. He couldn’t bear to hear her views of how he
used women solely for his pleasure.

But when Samantha came along, something changed,
something clicked. He had spent countless hours trying to figure out what it
was. Was it her initial refusal? Was it as simple as that, that he had never
been rebuffed before? No, he knew it was much more than that. As he got to know
her, that maybe was part of the initial allure, the challenge, but he found
that he really, genuinely liked her company. He enjoyed talking with her. He
respected her. And then, when their relationship changed, he realized that
perhaps it was because of all of those things that what he experienced with her
physically was so much better than anything he had ever experienced before.

And then, as their relationship grew, he found
that, unlike the women in his past, he never tired of Samantha. In fact, when
they weren’t together, he missed her. And then there were their breakups. As
painful and upsetting as they were, Laurent realized that if she didn’t mean as
much as she did, then he wouldn’t have been feeling what he did.

So it was all of that. But mostly, it was the
simple fact that Laurent realized that he loved her more than anything. And
falling asleep with her, and waking up next to her, was something he wanted to
do for the rest of his life. Even after everything that happened, he couldn’t
imagine life without her. So that’s what changed his mind towards marriage.
Correction, that’s what changed his mind towards marriage with Samantha.

It took a long while for Sam to be comfortable
with the words, “My husband.” In fact, they felt foreign to her for a long,
long time. But whenever she would hear Laurent refer to her as his “wife” the
warmth and happiness that one word could produce was overwhelming. And pride.
Sam never knew she could feel so much pride being married. If anything, she had
always thought of getting married as lacking pride because she always thought
people gave up so much of who they were. But she was truly proud. Proud of who
he was and who they were together. Proud that he chose her. Proud that she
recognized what was important before it was too late. Of course, work was still
very important to Sam, it continued to be for both of them. But Sam realized
that she couldn’t share sunsets or take walks along the beach or hold hands
with her career. She knew that her job couldn’t ever give her mind blowing sex,
and yes, even years later, they still had the most amazing sex.

Sam learned that she could be with Laurent without
losing herself. Not that everything had been easy. Compromising on where they
would live for example. For a while there Sam thought it might just be best to
maintain separate residences. That was an interesting discussion. In the beginning,
compromise was a challenge, or some other similar euphemism. As a shorthand,
Sam had started raising her left hand in a combination of saying “F- you” and
“look at this ring, Mister. You have to stay and talk, even when you want to
just walk out the door.” So he did, and in the end, he won. Sam admitted that
his house was bigger, and all the land was a great treat for Max and Ben to
roam and explore. But moving in with someone, and not just that, but moving out
of her house, that was a tough one. Sam still kept her house and rented it out.
And Laurent teased her that she was still hedging her bets. She maintained that
it was simply a smart investment. Real Estate on the Westside, you don’t ever
want to sell if you don’t have to…

Being with Laurent continued to change Sam’s life,
all of it for the better. They travelled at least once a year to France, and
his family got into the routine of coming out to LA during the summers while
the kids were on break, so they all got to spend a lot more time with Laurent
than ever before since he had left France. And, for the first time in Sam’s
life, she became part of a big family. They may not have been blood, but she
learned there are some things that are thicker. Like love. In addition to still
skyping with Mme Román, little Anabelle and Sam talked regularly. Sam couldn’t
believe how much she grew to love that little girl. There was a connection
between them from the get-go, and just thinking about her always made Sam
smile. Her other nieces and nephews were great too, but Anabelle held a special
place in Sam’s heart. She was the flower girl at the wedding and Sam was pretty
sure she’d never seen anything so precious or adorable. Of course, Max and Ben
were there too, scaring some of the guests. But not brave little Anabelle. When
she would visit Sam and Laurent, invariably Sam would find Anabelle curled up
with the boys, the three of them passed out on the rug, or, when Laurent wasn’t
looking, up on the couch. But even he never had the heart to break up that cuteness
when he found them there. He’d pretend that it was just because he didn’t want
to interrupt Anabelle’s nap, but Sam could see the way he looked at the three
of them there.

And speaking of the wedding, whenever Sam told the
story, she would always say that, while she might be a little biased, it was
true perfection. They had it at the winery right around harvest. Sam needed
time to heal, and Laurent wanted his family to experience a harvest season, so
they decided to combine the two. The ceremony itself was a very small, intimate
affair. Laurent’s entire family came out and stayed for two weeks. It was two
weeks of eating, drinking, dancing, laughing and then scurrying to pick grapes
at 3am. Everyone had so much fun together, Sam never knew she could be so
lighthearted. Sam, serious, business-minded Sam. But she realized she had just
never before found the right group that she could relax with. And, according to
them, Laurent was a different person now too, though he feigned ignorance,
claiming he had always been light and fun-loving, which always earned him
snorts of derision and just out and out laughter. But that was just one more
thing that made Sam so happy. To know that they’d helped each other grow.

Sam started teaching English to Anabelle when they
came out for the wedding, and continued to do so. They had their own inside
joke that whenever she wanted something from her uncle, she should start by
saying, “
Oncle
Laurent, honey…” which immediately made him laugh, and
soften him up for whatever it is that she was asking. Not that she ever needed
to butter him up. He was pretty much putty in that little girl’s hands. Every
time they visited, Sam couldn’t get over how much she’d grown. From who she met
in France, to the little flower girl to almost a tween. Sam loved her like she
were her own, and for everything else she had Laurent to thank, her
relationship with Anabelle was very near the top of the list.

In fact, it didn’t take long for Anabelle to tell
her parents and Laurent that she wants to come and work for Sam when she was
old enough. She started emailing Sam campaign ideas for random products, and
even Laurent had to admit that the girl had a flair for marketing. He just
shudders when she says, “I want to be just like
Tante
Sam when I grow
up!”

Mme. Román continued to press for grandchildren,
and Laurent assured her that he and Sam continued to try. Sam knew that he
hated lying to her, but, in this one instance, she agreed that the truth would
be far worse for her to hear. And, they did, um, go through the motions in
earnest.

They both also kept trying to get her to move in
with them, but she held onto her independence, fiercely. And, as much as Sam
knew that it would give peace to Laurent to have his mother closer to him,
where he could care for her, Sam understood why Mme. Román clung to what she
had. It was hers, it’s what she knew, it was her security. And, at the end of
the day, she was happy there. She had her routine and a place to call her own,
something she would remind Sam and Laurent of that most of her ageing friends
didn’t. Perhaps it was the simple pride she took in the fact that she lived on
her own, albeit still with Marie’s care, and Sam knew just how hard it would
be, after all those years, to give that up. Because after that, then what? It
would be like an admission that life, as Mme. Román knew it, were over, and if
she were to move to LA with Sam and Laurent, it would be to come to die.

Sam’s relationship with Mme. Román grew to talking
about all kinds of things, not just romance novels, giving Sam the mother
figure she never really had. Rarely would a conversation go by that Sam wasn’t
chastised for not eating enough or for working too hard. Instead of being
annoyed by it, Sam continued to be charmed by the love and care behind the
words.

Sam went public with the story about her attack.
She gave an interview to Vanity Fair for the national story, but she also gave
an interview to Le Monde. Much as she hated the spotlight, she wanted to make
sure that if George were indeed hiding somewhere in France, that she would do
what she could to make sure he would have to hide for a long, long time. She at
least wanted to prevent him from ever getting a high profile job again and
hopefully get his picture out there, as well as the pictures of what he did to
her, so as to warn any women who were unfortunate enough to run into him.

After the story, she negotiated with TimeCap to be
paid out the remainder of their 3-year retainer. The executives were only too
happy to do that to avoid a lawsuit. Little did they know that Sam and Laurent
agreed to get that deal done, to ensure that she would receive her payout,
before he leveled his charges against them. Before the case went to trial, when
TimeCap’s lawyers saw the amount of evidence Laurent’s team had against them,
they settled out of court, bankrupting them, and, because they didn’t have the
technology they were so desperate to steal, they had nothing to offer
consumers. Not long after the bankruptcy, they closed their doors for good.

Laurent also filed criminal, and then civil
lawsuits against the employees who broke their NDAs and shared privileged
information. The cases were so clear cut that they all served time, white
collar time, but they went to jail none-the-less. And Laurent made a point of
decimating any personal wealth they had amassed so that when they got out, they
would come back to nothing but their smeared reputations. Laurent certainly
didn’t need the money from the lawsuits, so, as a way of making a statement, he
donated all of it to a local rape crisis center.

Sam continued with her self-defense lessons,
though through the years Craig would tell her that there wasn’t much else he
could teach her. But she liked brushing up on her skills, being ready. She
never wanted to be vulnerable or feel helpless again.