The Paris Secrets trilogy: includes: Window, Screen, and Skin (54 page)

"No, Margot used to dance competitively."

"Margot?  Is she a former girlfriend?"

He shimmied and shook his head.  "My mother.  I've always used her first name.  Same with my grand-mere, Beatrice.  My eleventh summer I was Margot's fill-in practice partner while my dad, Pierre, was off having yet another affair."

"Oh." 

That was a sobering explanation.  But he didn't elaborate, so I tried to follow his moves.  I couldn't keep time musically, no matter how well I thought I could.  Blame it on my adamant refusal in grade school to learn to play an instrument or join choir. 

"Song change!" I announced as the music switched to a jingle-bell tune.  It was catchy and demanded I bounce on the balls of my feet.  I pumped the air with my fists.  "Mashed potato!"

"Ah, I know that one."  We matched each other with our actually-kinda-good renditions of the dance.  But who can screw up the mashed potato?  "Excellent!  Now, how about the waltz?"

My lover swept out my arms and stepped to the side.  His chin lifted and for a second I thought I'd fallen into one of my more recurrent fantasies of dancing with the sexy Ukranian dance pro on Dancing With The Stars.  (I'm waiting for you Maksim.  Call me.)

"
Un, deux, trois
," Jean-Louis directed as we moved around the vast practice area and farther from the Christmas tree.  Good thing, because if he dipped me, I might take out the decorations with a graceless sweep of hand.  "
Très bien, mon abeille
.  You are a natural."

"You're just saying that."  I pushed him out of my grasp and assumed a haughty rock-slut pose, one arm extended over my head.  "Let's do eighties headbanging.  Now that I can handle."

I stretched up both arms, flashing the devil's horns signal with my fingers and pumped my head. 

"I love the 80s hard stuff!" 

Jean-Louis swung up an air guitar and strummed a few chords.  Head banging, he whipped back his non-existent long hair and landed on his knees, stretching back his shoulders as he plucked out a burning riff on his Rickenbacker.

"You know, long-haired rockers make me cream my panties," I said.  I shimmied over to him and straddled his legs, shaking my bootie to—okay, so Frank Sinatra was crooning about chestnuts right now, but we were in another world.  "So do guitar players."  I drew my hands over his hair, pretending it was long as I drew it out.  "Will you take me backstage and fuck me?"

"Wait for my guitar solo first. 
Oui
?"  He winked.

Pompous rock star.  I fake screamed like a crazy fan girl.

Amidst the silliness, the door buzzer rang.  Weird, only because it was a Friday evening and we knew Jean-Louis had no fencing students scheduled until after the holidays.

"You expecting someone?" I asked my guitar hero, who was in the middle of his solo.

"No."  He stood and handed me his instrument.  "Hold this."

I accepted the air guitar like a true fan and clutched it to my chest while Jean-Louis answered the door.  Turning, I skipped and bobbed my head.  I'd missed the 80s completely, but that didn't mean I hadn't tried to resurrect it in the early 2000s for lack of any interesting music on the radio.  Oh, to have been the age I am now when the rockers wore their hair long and their spandex tight enough to reveal every contour of what lie beneath. 

I heard the door close and spun around with a dramatic strum of an air chord.  Jean-Louis didn't notice my antics.  Head bowed, he stood reading a yellow card.  His face tightened.  His brow furrowed.  His hand hung at his side, and his whole demeanor suddenly exuded quiet.

"Jean-Louis?"  I dropped the guitar and actually stepped over it.  "What is it?  What's wrong?"

Gliding a hand over his bicep, I felt him flinch beneath my touch.  Words barely whispered from his throat, "
Mon pere est morte
."

I didn't even have to think to interpret that muttered sentence.  He'd said his father was dead.

Pushing away from me, he walked to the sofa and sat.  The card flicked in his grip.

I rushed to sit beside him, but didn't do more than touch his knee.  Tension wavered off him, and I didn't want to make a wrong move.  I'd received news of my mother's death six years ago.  I can still remember that sudden hit.  The world changed.  Instantly.  And yet, it had not.  And I had been left struggling amidst a mire.

"Can you talk to me?" I persisted, sensing he was being sucked away from me with every breath I took.  Even though we sat next to one another he grew remarkably distant.  "Do you want to?"

Finally, he handed me the yellow card.  I took it and glanced over the words.  All in French.  But I was pretty deft at making out most words.  This is what I pieced together:

To whom it may concern: We regret to inform you of Monsieur Pierre l'Etoile's passing yesterday afternoon at four p.m.  A massive coronary stopped his heart.  He has requested no funeral services.  A will is scheduled be read December 28th at the offices of Montreaux & Gische in Marseilles.  You are requested to attend.  Condolences.

To whom it may concern?  I gasped at the utter cold delivery of his father's death.  He'd had a heart attack.  Poor man.  Jean-Louis was in his mid-thirties.  His father couldn't be older than fifties or a young sixty. 

My breath hushed out in a sigh. 

"My father," he said on a raspy tone. 

I nodded.  Ran my fingers along his arm.  When he didn't open his fingers for a clasp I rested mine on his wrist.  Unsure what to do.  I wasn't the most compassionate person, but I could relate to how he was feeling.  That mire that I knew so well.  It was a muffling, loud, and yet, wickedly silent place to stumble into.

Moments ago we had been dancing and having a great time.  I glanced to the Christmas tree where beneath sat boxes of glittering ornaments.  This was the worst Christmas present a man could get.

"Do you want to talk about this?"

He pushed up from the sofa, unsettling the telegram so I had to grab it before it slipped to the floor.  I set it aside on the coffee table, next to the laptop and a thick computer manual.  He strolled down the hallway toward his bedroom.

He didn't want to talk.  Of course, he needed time to digest the news.  The cruel method of delivery stabbed at my heart.

Pierre l'Etoile. 

Etoile
meant star in French.  My lover's last name meant star.  This was the first time I had learned his surname.  Can you believe it?  While it should have fascinated me, gave me a giddy feeling to have the knowledge; instead I could only wrap my arms across my chest, grasping high at my shoulders, and bury my face against a forearm. 

He must feel so alone right now.  He'd lost his father.  I didn't know much about his family.  His mother was a world traveler and Jean-Louis saw her once a year, if that.  But they had a good rapport and emailed each other often.  Yet he called her Margot.  Weird.  His father, on the other hand, I knew nothing about.  I recall Jean-Louis saying he and his father were not close.  And he had just dropped the comment about his father's affairs.

I wanted to know everything.  To feel as if his family was familiar to me.  But now was not the time to have that conversation.  I just wanted to wrap him in my arms and be there for him.

I glanced down the hallway.  No sound from the bedroom.  The door was open.  Men didn't cry.  They should.  But they rarely did.  He needed to cry over this. 

Well, that was my thinking.  I didn't know what was best for him.  It was selfish of me to think tears would help.  Wiping away my own tear, I stood and tiptoed down the hallway.  Couldn't let him see that I was so easily affected by sad news.  I had to be the strong one.

Once at the bedroom door, I didn't hesitate crossing the threshold.  He stood before the window, looking out.  The view framed my bedroom window across the street.  The thick, nickel-sized snowflakes falling through the sky were too fantastical for such a somber mood.  I assumed he wasn't seeing anything, his vision unfocused on everything before him.  But he must be feeling so much.

"I'm here for you."  I approached slowly.  "Tell me to leave if you need me to.  But otherwise—"

He turned and tugged me into his arms and bowed his head against mine.  His body subtly shivered, wracked with grief.  I hugged him tightly, and we stood there before the window for a long time.  We didn't speak.  It wasn't necessary.  Bodies consoled.  Skin offered comfort.  And when finally he did speak, his voice was strained, as if he'd talked for days and his vocal chords had but a few tones remaining.

"We weren't close," he said, still clutching me to his hard, shivering body.  "We had differences.  I didn't know the name of his third wife."  He sniffed back tears.  "That I received a telegram announcing his death was no surprise."

I rubbed my palm up and down his back.

Suddenly he pulled away but held me by the arms.  His gaze met mine so intensely I blinked.  "I should go to Marseille."

"Of course, for the reading of the will.  Were you his only son?"

"Yes.  Though I can't be sure if he had other children with his other wives.  If I go, it'll change our plans for Christmas."

"We didn't have any plans, lover."  I smoothed a hand along his cheek.  "And this is more important.  I'll go along with you.  If that's okay?"

"I'd like that."  He hugged me and I felt as though he were comforting me.  And maybe he was.

"I love you, Hollie.  I'm blessed to have you in my life."

No, I was the one blessed to have found such a kind and lovely man.

Chapter Twelve

The day after Christmas I boarded the train with Hollie, destination Marseilles.  What was our Christmas like?  Subdued.  I made us
coq au vin
and we drank two bottles of wine then made slow love in the moonlight that spilled through my bedroom window.

No presents.  Much as I'd love to shower Hollie with diamonds, I had managed to grab a bit of the moon for her.  Sprawled upon my bed, her skin had glowed in the moonlight.  It is a memory I will never lose. 
Mon abeille et le luna
.

Besides, I can give her a gift anytime. 

And I neither want nor need any material object from Hollie.  Holding her in my arms on Christmas eve and waking to her smile the following morning was more than any man deserved. 

I admit I've been at odds about Pierre's death since receiving the cold, heartless telegram.  Shouldn't I be heartsick and sobbing?  I couldn't find that place in my heart.  Though I sensed it would open up when I least wanted it too.  I trusted sharing my pain with Hollie, but it was still difficult to see her giving me the big, sad eyes.  I did not want her to have to comfort me.  That was what the man was supposed to do for the woman. 

Maybe.  Grief was new to me.  Hollie had experienced it with her mother, so I sensed she was anticipating my fall into a funk.  Yet again, I wasn't feeling it.

I wanted to focus on getting to the will reading, and then return to Paris and get on with my life.  I didn't expect Pierre to leave me a thing from his multi-million-valued estate.  We'd had a falling out six years ago.  Right around the time Hollie's mother had died.  Hmm...  

Anyway, I'd chosen to go the route of entrepreneur in the vast and unknown world of online business and computer software.  My father, a University of Paris alum, who held a degree in art history (I'd never paid attention to his exact study; yes, one strike against me) had been appalled I'd not wanted to follow in his esteemed footsteps.  He insisted I accept his money to cover university courses.  My refusal had brought the worst out of him.  I'd never in my lifetime heard my father curse.  He'd said fuck that day.  Not a common oath for a seasoned Frenchman to use.  The word had resounded with disappointment and resentment over his independent son's staunch refusal to conform.  To be like his old man.  He'd ordered me out of his office that afternoon. 

I hadn't returned since.  Nor had I called him.  I had emailed him when I'd put up VSquire's business shingle.  No reply.  When I'd made my first million I'd thought to email him, but had decided against it.  I wasn't much for bragging, and it would have only been a desperate attempt to win Pierre's attention.  I didn't need his attention.  I'd been doing fine on my own. 

I believe we all love in our own manner.  Some need to constantly shout it out and perform displays of affection.  Others can know love and yet not need the other person's shit in their lives to bring them down.

The l'Etoile family has never been close.  (Did you get that from my use of my parents'
prenoms
?)  We've never gone on yearly vacations, nor has Margot stayed home to bake cookies and treats for me.  I'd been closer to the nanny in my younger years, and when I'd hit puberty, my teen years had been spent alone in the afternoons studying, or with a few select friends gazing at the girls at the local coffee shop, or hitting the trails on our mountain bikes. 

I have grown accustomed to taking care of myself.

Probably why hooking up with my wife had felt right.  Though she'd traveled extensively, it had felt natural not to have her in the home and always by my side.  I hadn't needed reassurance that she loved me with frequent platitudes.