His reply was typical Koranda. “Cut the crap and tell me what color panties you’re wearing.”
One Friday evening toward the end of February, she returned from the housewarming Michel and Damon had thrown to celebrate moving into their new co-op. Just as she let herself in, the phone rang. She smiled and picked it up. “I said I’d call you, lover boy.”
“Fleur? Oh God, baby, you’ve got to help me! Please, baby—”
Her fingers tightened around the receiver. “Belinda?”
“Don’t let him do this! I know you hate me, but please, don’t let him get away with this.”
“Where are you?”
“In Paris. I—I thought I was rid of him. I should have known—” Her words grew muffled, and she began to sob.
Fleur squeezed her eyes shut. “Tell me what’s happened.”
“He sent two of his henchmen to New York after me. They were waiting in my apartment when I came home yesterday, and they forced me to go with them. They’re going to take me to Switzerland. He’s going to lock me up, baby. Because I stayed away from you in New York. He’s threatened me for years, and now he’s going to—”
There was a sudden click, and the line went dead.
Fleur slumped on the edge of her bed, the receiver still clasped in her hand. She didn’t owe her mother anything. Belinda was the one who’d chosen to stay married to Alexi. She’d been too attached to the limelight his world cast over her to get a divorce, and whatever was happening to her now was her own fault.
Except—Belinda was her mother.
She set the receiver back on the cradle and forced herself to examine the relationship she’d avoided looking at for so long. The memories of their times together slipped before her like the pages of Jake’s manuscript, and she saw with new eyes what she hadn’t been able to see before. She saw her mother for who she was—a weak, frivolous woman who wanted the best from life but didn’t have either the ability or the strength of character to get it on her own. And then she saw her mother’s love—selfish, self-serving, laced with conditions and manipulations—but love nonetheless. Love so heartfelt that Belinda had never been able to understand how Fleur could ever doubt it.
She booked herself on a morning flight to Paris. It was too early to call Jake, so she left a note on Riata’s desk telling her to let him know she had some emergency business out of town and not to worry if she didn’t call him for a few days. She didn’t want either Jake or Michel to discover where she was going. The last thing she needed was for Jake to show up in Paris with a pair of Colt revolvers and a bullwhip. And Michel had suffered enough from Belinda’s indifference.
As she left the house, she played out various scenarios in her head, each one uglier than the last. Belinda might think this was only about her, but Fleur knew better. Alexi was using Belinda as human bait to bring his daughter back to him.
The house on the Rue de la Bienfaisance stood gray and silent in the Parisian winter twilight. It looked as unfriendly as Fleur remembered, and as she gazed out the window of the limousine she’d taken from her hotel, she thought about the first time she’d seen the house. She’d been so frightened that day—afraid to meet her father, aching to see her mother, worried that she’d dressed wrong. At least this time, she didn’t have to be concerned about her clothes.
Beneath her satin and velvet evening wrap, she wore the last gown Michel had designed for her, a wine velvet sheath with tight-fitting sleeves and a deeply slashed bodice embroidered at the edge with a web of tiny burgundy beads. The dress had the uneven hem that was becoming Michel’s trademark, knee-high on one side, dipping to mid-calf on the other, with beadwork emphasizing the diagonal. She’d put her hair up for the evening, arranging it more elaborately than usual, and added garnet earrings that winked through the tendrils fanning her ears. At sixteen she might have thought it wise to appear at Alexi’s door in casual dress, but at twenty-six she knew differently.
A young man in a three-piece suit answered the door. One of the henchmen Belinda had referred to? He looked like a mortician who just happened to have a degree from Harvard Business School. “Your father has been expecting you.”
I’ll just bet he has. She handed over her evening cape. “I’d like to see my mother.”
“This way please.”
She followed him into the front salon. The room stood cold and empty, its only ornamentation a display of white roses that fanned the mantelpiece like a funeral spray. She shivered.
“Dinner will be ready momentarily,” the mortician said. “Would you like a drink first? Some champagne perhaps?”
“I’d like to see my mother.”
He turned as if she hadn’t spoken and disappeared down the hallway. She hugged herself against the cryptlike chill of the room. The wall sconces cast grotesque shadows on the gruesome ceiling frescoes.
Enough of this. Just because the mortician had closed the door to seal her in didn’t mean she had to stay here. The heels of her pumps clicked against the marble as she slipped out into the hallway. Head held high against invisible eyes, she walked past the priceless Gobelin tapestries on her way toward the grand staircase. When she reached the top, another mortician with neat hair and a dark suit stepped out to block her from going farther. “You have lost your way, mademoiselle.”
It was a statement, not a question, and she knew she’d made her first mistake. He wasn’t going to let her pass, and she couldn’t afford an early defeat when she needed to conserve all her strength for her battle with Alexi. She cut her losses. “It’s been so long since I was here that I’d forgotten how large the house is.” She retreated to the salon, where the first mortician waited to lead her to the dining room.
Another spray of white roses and a single china place setting adorned the long mahogany banquet table. Alexi had launched a war of nerves, carefully orchestrating everything to make her feel powerless. She glanced at the diamond watch Jake had sent her and pretended to stifle a yawn. “I hope the food is decent tonight. I’m hungry.”
Surprise flickered across his face before he nodded and excused himself. Who were these men with their dark suits and officious manner? And where was Belinda? For that matter, where was Alexi?
A liveried servant appeared to attend her. She sat alone in her wine velvet gown at the end of the vast, gleaming table, her garnets and beads winking in the candlelight, and concentrated on eating her dinner with every appearance of relish. She even asked for a small second helping of chestnut soufflé. At the end, she ordered a cup of tea and a brandy. Alexi could dictate how he played his portion of their game. She would determine how she played hers.
The mortician appeared again while she toyed with the brandy. “If Mademoiselle would please come with me…”
She took another sip, then dipped into her purse for compact and lipstick. The mortician made his impatience known. “Your father is waiting.”
“I came here to see my mother.” She snapped the compact open. “I have no business with Monsieur Savagar until after I’ve spoken with her. If he won’t permit that, I’ll leave immediately.”
The mortician hadn’t anticipated this. He hesitated and then nodded. “Very well, I’ll take you to her.”
“I’ll find my own way.” She returned the compact to her purse, swept past him into the hallway, and headed back up the grand staircase. The man she’d encountered earlier appeared at the top, but this time he made no effort to stop her, and she walked past him as if he were invisible.
Almost seven years had gone by since she’d last been in the house on the Rue de la Bienfaisance, but nothing had changed. The Persian carpets still muffled her footsteps, and the fifteenth-century Madonnas continued to roll their eyes heavenward from their gilded frames. In this house, time was measured in centuries, while decades slipped by unnoticed.
As she walked the opulent, silent hallways, she thought of the house she wanted to share with Jake—a big, rambling home, with doors that banged and floorboards that squeaked and ban
isters children could slide down. A house that measured time in noisy decades. Jake as the father of her children…their children. Unlike Alexi, Jake would yell at them when he got mad. He’d also hug them and kiss them and fight the whole world if necessary to keep them safe.
Why was she hesitating? Marrying him was what she wanted more than anything. If it meant she had to accept both sides of him—well, she was wise to his tricks by now, and he wouldn’t find it so easy to shut her out when something bothered him. He also wasn’t exactly getting a bargain. She wouldn’t give up her career, and nothing would ever make her work up any real interest in housekeeping. Besides, he wasn’t the only one who’d gotten good at shutting people out.
In the cryptlike chill of the house, her doubts fell away. There was no other man on earth she’d trust to be the father of her children, and she was going to call him that night and tell him so.
She’d reached Belinda’s room, so she pulled her thoughts away from the future to deal with the present. A few moments passed after she knocked before she heard movement. The door eased open, and Belinda’s face peered through the crack. “Baby?” Her voice quivered as if she hadn’t used it for some time. “Is it really you? I—I’m a mess, baby. I didn’t think—” Her fingers fluttered like a captive bird as her hand went to her cheek.
“You didn’t think I’d come.”
Belinda pushed aside a rumpled lock of hair that had tumbled over her eye. “I—I didn’t want to count on it. I know I shouldn’t have asked you.”
“Are you going to let me in?”
“Oh…Yes. Yes.” She moved out of the way. As the door shut behind her, Fleur noticed that her mother smelled like stale cigarettes instead of Shalimar. She remembered the bright bird of paradise who used to arrive at the couvent carrying a fragrance so sweet it instantly dispelled the musty scent of worn habits and lost prayers.
Belinda’s makeup had faded, leaving only an oily trace of blue shadow in her eyelid creases. Her face was too pale to hold its own against the saffron silk of her rumpled Chinese robe. Fleur noticed a stain on the bodice, and the saggy front pocket looked as if it had been forced to hold one too many cigarette lighters. Belinda’s hand once again went to her cheek. “Let me go wash my face. I always liked to be pretty for you. You always thought I was so pretty.”
Fleur caught her mother’s hand. It felt as small as a child’s. “Sit down and tell me what’s happened.”
Belinda did as she was ordered, an obedient child bowing to a stronger force. She lit a cigarette, and in her breathless, young woman’s voice, she told Fleur about Alexi’s threats to put her in a sanitarium. “I haven’t been drinking, baby. He knows that, but he uses the past like a sword over my head to threaten me whenever I upset him.” She blew a puff of smoke. “He didn’t like what happened when I went to New York. He thought I’d try harder to be with you. He expected me to embarrass you, but all I did was embarrass him.”
“You had an affair with Shawn Howell.”
She flicked her ash into a porcelain ashtray. “He left me for an older woman, did you know that? Funny, isn’t it? Alexi closed off my accounts, and the other woman was rich.”
“Shawn Howell is a cretin.”
“He’s a star, baby. It’s just a matter of time before he makes a comeback.” She looked at Fleur with her old reproach. “You could have helped him, you know. Now that you’re a big agent, you could have helped an old friend.”
Fleur saw the displeasure in her mother’s eyes and waited for the old guilt to wash over her, but it didn’t come. Instead she experienced the exasperation of a mother confronting an unreasonable child. “I’m sure I could have helped him, but I didn’t want to. He doesn’t have any talent, and I don’t like him.”
Belinda set her cigarette in the ashtray, and her lips formed a pout. “I don’t understand you at all.” She scanned Fleur’s dress. “Michel designed that, didn’t he? I never dreamed he was so talented. Everyone in New York was talking about him.” Her eyes narrowed vindictively, and Fleur understood she was about to be punished for refusing to help Shawn. “I went to see Michel. Such a beautiful boy. He looks just like me. Everybody says so.”
Did Belinda really think she could make her jealous? Fleur felt a flash of pity for her brother. Michel hadn’t told her about the visit, but she could imagine how painful it had been.
“We had a wonderful time,” Belinda said defiantly. “He told me he’d introduce me to all his famous friends and design my wardrobe.” Fleur could hear the echo of a child’s voice in her mother’s words. And we won’t let you play with us.
“Michel’s a special person.”
Belinda couldn’t hold it together any longer, and her face crumpled. She bent forward in her chair and shoved her fingers through her hair. “He looked at me like Alexi does. Like I’m some sort of insect. You’re the only one who’s ever understood me. Why does everybody make things so hard for me?”
Fleur didn’t waste her breath pointing out that Belinda’s own choices were what had made her life so hard. “It would probably be best if you stayed away from Michel.”
“He hates me even more than Alexi does. Why does Alexi want to lock me up?”
Fleur stubbed out her mother’s smoldering cigarette. “What’s happening with Alexi right now doesn’t have very much to do with you. He’s using you to bring me here. He wants to settle old scores.”
Belinda’s head shot up, and her petulance fell away. “Of course! I should have thought of that.” She stood abruptly. “You have to leave right away. He’s dangerous. I should have realized…I can’t let him hurt you. Let me think.”
Belinda began pacing the carpet, one hand pushing her hair back from her face, the other reaching for her cigarettes as she tried to figure out how to protect her child. Fleur was annoyed and touched. For the first time, she understood how blurred the roles between mothers and daughters could become as they grew older.
It’s my turn to be the mommy. No, you be the baby. No, I wanna be the mommy.
As Belinda paced the floor, trying to figure out how to shelter her daughter, Fleur knew her time of being Belinda’s baby was gone forever. Belinda could no longer control the way Fleur viewed either the world or herself.
“I’m staying at the Ritz,” she said. “I’ll come back in the morning, and we’ll settle his.” She needed to take Belinda with her, but the mortician and his cohorts would make that impossible. She had to find another way.
Belinda gave her a swift, desperate hug. “Don’t come back, baby. I should have realized it was you he wanted all along. It’ll be all right. Please, don’t come back.”
Fleur looked into her mother’s eyes and saw that she was as sincere as she knew how to be. “I’ll be fine.”
She made her way back through the maze of hallways to the staircase. The mortician waited for her at the bottom. She regarded him evenly. “I’ll see Monsieur Savagar now.”
“I’m sorry, mademoiselle, but you’ll have to wait. Your father is not yet ready to see you.” He indicated the rococo chair that sat outside the library doors.
So the warfare dragged on. She waited until the mortician disappeared, then made her way to the front salon, where she plucked one full-blown white rose from the mantelpiece and pushed it into the deep V of the velvet bodice. It gleamed against her skin. She carried its heavy fragrance with her as she returned to the hallway and the library doors.
Even through the heavy paneling, she could feel Alexi’s presence on the other side—grasping for her, clinging to her as tenaciously as the scent of the rose. Alexi, malicious and confident, marking off the minutes in his war of nerves. Slowly she turned the knob.
Only one dim lamp burned in the ornate room, throwing the periphery in shadow. Even so, she could see that the vigorous man she remembered had shrunk. He sat behind his desk, his right hand resting on top, his left hand hidden in his lap. He was dressed as immaculately as ever—a dark suit and a starched shirt with a platinum collar pin at the
neck—but everything seemed too big. She saw a small gap at the neck of the shirt, took in a looseness at the shoulders, but she didn’t let herself believe for a moment that these were signs of frailty. Even in the room’s shadows, she saw that his narrow Russian eyes missed nothing. They slid over her, taking in her face and hair, sweeping along her dress, and finally coming to rest on the white rose between her breasts.
“You should have been mine,” he said.
Chapter 28
“I wanted to be yours,” Fleur replied, “but you wouldn’t permit it.’
“You are a bâtarde. Not pur sang.”
“That’s right. How could I forget?” She wished she could see his features more clearly, and she stepped closer to the desk. “All my Irish Flynn blood is too uncivilized for you, isn’t it?” She had the satisfaction of seeing him stiffen. “I understand one of his ancestors was hung for stealing sheep. Definitely bad blood. Then there was all that drinking and whoring.” She paused deliberately. “His young girls…”
The hand resting on the desktop curled in upon itself. “You are foolish to play games with me that you have no hope of winning.”
“Then let’s end the game. Stop terrorizing Belinda.”
“I intend to institutionalize your mother. Lock her up in a sanitarium for incurable alcoholics.”
“That might be difficult considering that she no longer drinks.”
Alexi chuckled. “You’re still naïve. Nothing is difficult when one has money and power.”
The day had been long, and she could feel her own weariness catching up with her. She wanted to go back to the hotel, call Jake, and feel that life was sane again. “Do you really think I’d sit by and let you do that? I’d scream so long and so loud that the whole world would hear.”