“I have no idea,” I admitted. “How much further do you think you’d be in life if your imagination was in good working order?” I walked to the picture on the wall. “You’d see everything so much clearer,” I said wistfully.
“Nonsense.”
Infuriating him was easy. Holding my ground until I was ready to end the conversation was trickier. I refused to lose this round. I was losing too often where he was concerned.
“Two fairies from Egypt,” I announced, holding two fingers at him. “Habibah and Eshe.”
“Stop it, Charlotte,” he warned. “I’m not interested in the punch line.”
I wandered back and sat down, making sure I had his full attention. “There is no punch line. It’s not a joke. I’m telling you something very important.” The king slouched and sighed. As far as I was concerned, it was permission to continue. “They were very talented seamstresses. The finer the threads, the more nimble their fingers.”
“Move it along, please.” He waved his hand in a circle.
“They sourced the finest cotton and crafted it into the most fabulous –”
“Sheets?” he asked, smugly cutting me off. “Or towels. Egyptian cotton is supposed to be the best.”
“No.” It was impossible not to smile. “Dresses. They made dresses.”
“Fascinating,” he drawled insincerely.
I shrugged. “It paid their bills.”
His level of interest was low to begin with, but it was almost non-existent by that point. I got out the rest of the story as quickly as I could. Eshe fell in love with a boy with a wandering eye, so she hatched a plan to make keeping an eye on him a little easier.
“One night while he was sleeping, Eshe snuck into his room and sewed a thread of cotton to the cuff of his shirt,” I explained. “Then she went all the way home, unrolling the spool as she went. The plan was to keep him tied to her so she’d know what he was up to at all times.”
“Keeping a man on a leash is hardly a good plan,” the king pointed out.
My heart skipped a little, secretly thrilled by his input. “It was a terrible plan,” I agreed. “The boy, Ufa, woke up the next morning and saw the thread. He was furious.”
Jean-Luc let out a chuckle. “Trust issues, I suspect.”
I half-smiled. “She wasn’t done. Eshe decided that essentially her plan was a good one – she just needed to conceal the thread better; so the next night, she sewed the finest string she could find.”
“Silk?”
I shook my head. “Spider web.”
Despite the fact that the story had strayed further than anything his closed mind could believe in, Jean-Luc allowed me to continue.
“It held up perfectly and from that day forward, every time Ufa strayed a little bit, Eshe tugged on the spider web and pulled him back to her side. They stayed together forever.”
My time was up. The king whacked the edge of his desk with his hand. “Right, well that was an education,” he teased. “Pointless, but –”
“I’m not done yet,” I interrupted. “I was just getting to the good part.”
He slumped back and stretched out his arms. “The floor is yours.”
“Eshe’s sister Habibah took it a step further,” I continued.
“As if tying a man to herself against his will wasn’t far enough?”
“Habibah sold the spider web thread to all and sundry. Any woman burdened with a man with a wandering eye bought it.”
The king smirked. “A little entrepreneurism never hurt anyone.”
“In this case it did,” I said gravely. “Men far and wide were tied by invisible threads. Thousands and thousands of yards of tiny strings of fate. Everything was fine until the most powerful imp in the land, Pipui, caught wind of it.”
Pipui was a stickler for rules. As soon as she found out that Eshe and Habibah were running amok with the fate of others for profit, she intervened.
“She conjured up a massive storm,” I said theatrically. “The wild winds broke all the webs and sent them flying off in different directions.”
“And the men were freed?” he asked.
“Not exactly.” I shook my head. “Spider webs are sticky, right?” Unbelievably, he nodded. “When the weather calmed, each web attached itself to someone new. In one short storm, Pipui changed the fate of everybody in the whole world.”
If Adam had been the recipient of the story, he would’ve been content to leave it at that. But Jean-Luc was no Adam. He hit me with a barrage of questions in quick succession, probably the same way he examined people in court.
“And what did that achieve?” he asked.
My shoulders lifted. “People who ordinarily would never have met were now destined to be together, bound by invisible strings of fate.”
He straightened up. “One generation,” he said holding a finger up. “At best, it would’ve been good for only one generation.”
My smile was one of pure triumph. I’d won, and that never happened when Jean-Luc was my opponent.
“Have you never heard the term ‘storm of the century’?” I asked smugly.
“Of course.”
“Well, Pipui was so thrilled with the result that she now spends her days travelling the earth, conjuring up storms all over the place. Her invisible strings of fate have endured many generations. To this day, unlikely lovers from all over the world are finding each other.”
Jean-Luc stared at me for a long time, deliberating. It wasn’t uncomfortable. The mere gesture of thinking it through was good enough incentive to sit there and await his verdict.
“Spider webs,” he mumbled finally. “You think they are the ties that bind?”
“Maybe,” I shrugged. “I’m yet to hear a better explanation of why a boy from New York would find a girl from Tasmania.”
Jean-Luc groaned as if he’d just sat through an ordeal. Far-fetched, totally implausible and incredibly ridiculous was his summation.
“But you listened,” I reminded him. “There was a time that you wouldn’t have. No one is immune to magic, Jean-Luc, not even the king.”
14. LUCKY STARS
Adam
My days ended best when I escaped my office during daylight hours. Sometimes that was all it took to turn a bad day good. When Charli called and asked me to collect Bridget from Ryan’s that afternoon, I didn’t think twice.
They were watching a movie when I arrived. The only thing that hit me harder than the pang of jealousy when I walked in was Bridget crashing into me as she launched herself off the couch.
In a perfect world, I would’ve been the one suffering through Little Mermaid marathons, not Ryan. But our New York world wasn’t perfect.
Making the most of the situation was the best I could do, and making the most of it that afternoon meant settling in and watching the rest of the movie. Bridget snuggled into my side, and before long I felt her little body relax against mine as she drifted to sleep.
Ryan and I continued watching Ariel as if it was our calling for the day. I enjoyed the downtime, and considering Ryan had spent the afternoon in the company of his niece, he probably did too – even if he did complain.
“The girls are on a bender and we’re here watching cartoons,” he said. “Do you see anything wrong with that picture?”
“No,” I replied quietly. “The picture is good.”
Charli never took time out. Cocktail bars in the afternoon weren’t usually her scene, and I was glad she’d made an exception.
“You’re so whipped, Adam,” he teased. “You should call your wife and demand that she comes home.”
I reached into my pocket for my phone, trying not to wake Bridget. “Call Bente,” I urged. “Tell her to come home.”
Ryan smirked. “I might.”
“Yeah,” I scoffed. “And after she tells you to go to hell, I’ll help you box her stuff back up.”
***
It turned out to be a late night. Bridget woke not long after Charli and Bente arrived. She wa
s well rested and raring to go, which made getting her back to sleep when we arrived home almost impossible. Sweet-talking quickly gave way to threats – none of which she took seriously.
“I want to go back to Ry’s house,” she complained.
I tucked her in a little bit tighter than usual as if that was all it would take to keep her in her bed. “You’ll see him tomorrow,” I assured her.
“We’re going to the park.” She sounded much too excited, considering the late hour. “To look for Secret North.”
I’d been enamoured by Charli’s tales for years. She could hook me in with just a hint of the story to come. Bridget held the same power. I pushed a mountain of girls aside and sat on the edge of the bed. “Can you tell me about it or is it really a secret?”
“It’s only a secret from Ryan,” she replied. “I’m going to find it for him.”
My curiosity was piqued in an instant. “How, Bridge?”
“If you listen nicely, I’ll tell you,” she whispered.
I couldn’t tell if the longwinded story she told me about finding Ryan’s secret place was the truth as she knew it, or a ploy to keep me in the room. Either way it was epic. I’d given Bridget nothing more inspiring than the basics when explaining how the compass worked. That was the seed. The story that grew from there was completely her own.
“There are flowers on the roof and it’s very lovely,” she explained.
I kissed her forehead. “I hope you find it, baby,” I said sincerely.
“I will,” she said. “I hope you find your place here too, Daddy.”
At times her words were just too profound to be anything less than magic. She was her mother’s daughter, and I thanked my lucky stars every day for gracing me with both of them.
“Me too, Bridge.” I smiled. “But for now, I’m going to bed.”
15. NOBILITY AND TITLE
Charli
Our room was never completely dark. The intrusive lights of night-time Manhattan bled through a crack at the edge of the blinds. It didn’t bother Adam – he could sleep through a hurricane – but occasionally it kept me awake.
I wasn’t blaming the light for keeping me awake that night. I was restless because the conversation I’d had with Bente was still playing on my mind.
The three fruity daiquiris we drank probably offered her more comfort than I did, but I saw no point in lying to her. I didn’t envy the position she was in and I told her so.
Gaining acceptance into the Décarie fold would be a marathon process. Her plan of behaving and following the rules was a good one, and I didn’t get the impression that it was dishonest. Bente was charmed by more than just Ryan. Despite the initial awkwardness, she liked his extravagant lifestyle. That didn’t make her superficial and materialistic; it made her normal. I was the weirdo who couldn’t adjust, even after seven years of exposure to it.
The Décarie fortune was massive, that much I knew. As to how massive, or how it came to be, I had no idea. It made me wonder. Too curious not to find out, I asked Adam if he was awake.
He tightened his hold on me. “Almost. What’s wrong?” he mumbled.
“Nothing. Can I ask you something?”
“Uh huh.”
He didn’t sound the least bit interested, but I continued anyway. “How much money do you have?”
“What do you mean?”
He must’ve really been tired. It wasn’t a complex question.
“Bente and I were talking about money today.”
“Why?”
I turned over, resting my chin on his chest. It was just light enough to see that his eyes were closed.
“Because Ryan’s been throwing his around again. She’s a little freaked out by some very expensive presents he bought her.”
Adam almost laughed. “He’s good for it, Charlotte,” he muttered. “It won’t break the bank.”
I turned his face toward me. “Can you please just answer my question?”
His blue eyes looked even darker in the low light. “I forgot your question.”
“How much money do you have?”
“We have a lot of money.”
“Where did it come from?”
“France,” he mumbled, pulling up the covers. “A long time ago.”
“How did the French Décaries get it?”
He groaned, a deep sound that did strange things to my insides. “How come you wait until midnight to start these conversations?”
“I’m just curious.”
In a move I wasn’t expecting, he shifted, pulling me on top of him. The corner of his mouth lifted and suddenly he didn’t look sleepy any more. “Kiss me, then we’ll talk.”
It wasn’t a bad trade-off. I lived to kiss this man. But I wanted him to talk to me, so the touch of my lips against his was intentionally short and uninspiring.
“That’s it?” he asked. “That’s all you’re going to give me?”
“Tell me what I want to know and I’ll give you everything.”
The darkness of the room did nothing to hide his smile. His vision obviously wasn’t impaired either. He reached for the thin strap of my top, pushing it off my shoulder as if he needed to busy his hands.
“The money started accruing in the seventeenth century,” he began. “Back then, prestige and power was held by the nobility – upper-class people who owned lots of land.”
“Seventeenth century?” I choked. “The 1600s?”
It was impossible to grasp that a family’s history could be traced back centuries. My genealogy extended no further than Alex’s mother.
“Yes.” He slipped the strap off my other shoulder. “It’s going to be a very long story if you keep interrupting.”
“Okay.” I grabbed his hands to stop them wandering. “I won’t do it again.”
“The Décaries didn’t have land or title, but they had great business sense,” he continued. “France was renowned for good agricultural production, but in order to get rich doing it, they needed land to farm.”
I was expecting to hear that they formed their own army and pillaged the countryside, claiming land as they went. I was glad I held off saying it out loud. It wasn’t even close to Adam’s version of events.
“So agriculture wasn’t for them. They needed to come up with something else. When trading agreements between countries came into play, the ports were opened up,” he explained. “The Décaries saw a niche in the market. They set sail with an empty ship and travelled all over the place picking up exotic wares to sell in France.”
As soon as I let go of his hands they settled on my hips, holding me exactly where he wanted me. The heat between us was palpable, and far more distracting than I let on. “They were wanderers,” I murmured, walking my fingers down his bare chest. “Your people were wanderers.”
“I guess so,” he replied, catching my hand at the last moment. “Before long, their importing business was huge – many ships travelling the world. They did a roaring trade.”
I wanted to hear more but I was having trouble concentrating. I dropped my head and kissed him, which did nothing to clear my thoughts.
“Are we done now?” he breathed.
“One more thing,” I whispered. “When the Décaries became rich, did they achieve nobility or title?”
I had no idea what possessed me to ask. Perhaps it might’ve explained Jean-Luc’s supercilious attitude toward the world.
“No, they never did,” he breathed against my cheek. “You married a lowly commoner, Charlotte.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered in his ear. “You hail from a long line of wanderers.”
The way it felt to be kissed by Adam was exactly how I always wanted to feel – not merely wanted, but desperately needed. I craned my neck, savouring the touch of his mouth against my skin.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured.
I gripped his arms, feeling his biceps tense as he fought hard to keep things slow and gentle. His eyes never left mine, which made the next words o
ut of my mouth easy to say.
“I am beautiful for the one who loves me.”
16. MEAN GIRLS
Adam
We purposefully held off telling Bridget that we were releasing her into the wild via ballet lessons until the big day. It was one of our wiser parental decisions. She spent the whole morning bouncing off the walls, driven by the pure excitement of finally having a reason to wear a tutu.
A dance class full of ramped-up little girls wasn’t exactly my scene, but it would make a nice change from Saturday mornings at the office. It was Bridget’s day, and I was prepared to endure anything to make sure she enjoyed it.
I could ignore junior’s skittish mood. Containing Charli was harder. I found her in the bathroom. At first it looked like she was fixing her hair, then I realised she was just trying to keep busy.
“What if she doesn’t like it?” She fluffed her hands through her hair, giving her a reason to pick up the brush again. “The other girls will be way ahead of her.”
I stooped down to rest my chin on her shoulder. “She’ll be fine,” I assured her. “No worries, okay?”
Charli nodded at me through the mirror. She looked calm but her body was tense. “I just want it to go well.”
If it didn’t, I got the impression that Charlotte was going to take it much harder than Bridget. I spun her around by the shoulders and forced her to look at me. “What’s really the matter?”
She tried to shake her head but I held her firm. “You were never that kid, Adam,” she said, poking me in the chest with the hairbrush.
“What kid?”
“The weird, awkward kid who never gave a damn about fitting in because she was too busy being weird.”
I smiled. “Sounds like my kind of kid.”
Charli pulled my hand away from her face. “What would you know about it?” she asked. “You were Mr Popular, probably from the very first day of kindergarten.”
There wasn’t a reply I could give that would make her feel better so I stayed quiet. If I’d been the most socially inept kid ever to set foot in the playground I still would’ve been popular. I was Ryan Décarie’s younger brother.