“Okay, sis.”
“Donald!” I shouted. “Don’t call me—”
He hung up on me.
Ungrateful little pig, I thought, and wondered why I bothered with him. Anyway, I didn’t want Lowell’s, that was the absolute truth, and he should have it as our mother’s son. There was no one else, except for those distant Lowell cousins who received annual checks for doing nothing.
Desperate now for a blast of caffeine, I padded into the kitchen and filled a mug with coffee, adding sweetener. I didn’t particularly like it black, but Jake hadn’t returned from his errand to buy milk.
I stood at the kitchen window, looking out, thinking that it appeared to be one of those clear, crisp fall days. The sky was a blameless blue and the sun was already edging out from behind foamy white clouds. I always enjoyed the change of seasons, which is why I had never wanted to live permanently in a hot climate.
The sudden shrilling of the wall phone made me jump, and I grabbed the receiver and said hello, wondering who it was this time.
“Is that you, Valentine?”
I didn’t recognize the woman’s voice, and said, “Yes, it is, who’s this?”
“Good morning, Val, it’s Lauren, Jacques Foucher’s wife.”
“Hello, Lauren! How’re you?”
“I’m fine, but I’m afraid Jacques has had a terrible accident. I was looking for Jake to tell him about it. Is he there?”
“No, he’s out on an errand. He’ll be back any minute, but please, tell me what happened.”
“Jacques is badly injured, but he will recover. Eventually. He’s in hospital, obviously, and he’s lucky to be alive. He was on his way home last night, when he had a heart attack. In the car. He was driving, Val, and he hit a parked van, empty, thank God! And then he careened across the street and slammed into a brick wall head-on.”
“Oh my God!” I said. “You’re right, he is lucky to be alive. How bad are his injuries?”
“He broke his nose and his collarbone, and an arm and a leg, and of course he has a lot of contusions, bruises, some minor internal injuries. But that’s about the extent of it.”
“It could have been worse, let’s face it.”
“Yes, he could be dead,” Lauren said. “Anyway, will you tell Jake I’m at the office now, and I’ll come in every day until you get back to Paris. When do you think that’ll be?”
“Next week, of that I’m absolutely sure. But Jake might want to leave earlier now.”
“It’s not necessary,” she replied. “Everything’s under control, and fortunately Jacques is in the best medical hands. Please tell Jake I can cope with the agency, not too much is going on at the moment anyway.”
“I know you can cope,” I said, remembering just how efficient Lauren Crane was. English born, she was a successful agent running the Paris office of a well-known American talent agency. Like me, she had lived in Paris for a number of years and was a dyed-in-the-wool Francophile. She was Jacques Foucher’s second wife, and he adored her and their four-year-old daughter, Jasmine.
“But how are you going to run your own office?” I now asked Lauren.
“I’m going to spend the mornings here at Photoreal,” she explained, “and the afternoons at my own office. Since I’m dealing with New York and Los Angeles, the time differences work in my favor.”
“I see,” I responded. “And I’ll have Jake call you the minute he gets back. It won’t be long. And give Jacques my love, and tell him I hope he’s feeling better soon.”
“I will, Val, and thanks.”
III
After we had both hung up, I stood drinking my coffee, continuing to gaze out across the East River, though a little absently now, I must admit. I was thinking of Jacques and trying to remember his age. I knew he was older than Jake, by about fourteen years I thought, which would make him around fifty-two. Still, that was relatively young to have a heart attack, wasn’t it? Luck was running with him, I thought, just as it was with me and Jake in Kosovo. Our time wasn’t up then, and neither was his last night. It’s all to do with destiny.
When the phone began to ring again, I cursed under my breath and reached for the receiver once more. “Yes,” I said somewhat sharply, which wasn’t like me at all. But this unexpected early morning activity was suddenly getting to me.
“Val, ’allo, it is me, Françoise.”
“Françoise, hello, how are you?” I asked, my voice instantly softening. “You must be glad to be out of the clinic and back with Mike.”
“Oui. Yes, I am very happy with him. He is wonderful. But, Val, it is Olivier, he will grab me any minute and take me back to Marseilles, I feel this.”
“Listen to me, Françoise,” I instructed, “and listen carefully. You must get out of Paris after you have seen that lawyer tomorrow. And I think I can arrange for you to stay with a friend in England. How do you feel about that?”
“I will go. Mike explained it to me. About the Pig on the Roof lady. I am so frightened of Olivier. And so are my parents now. He is going to see them at Les Roches Fleuries. All the time.”
“I’ll bet he is! And I also bet he’s got the phone tapped and the mail monitored. Stay away from them, Françoise, if you want to be safe.”
“Oui, oui. I know this must be the way. They are worried about me.”
“Things will turn out all right,” I reassured her. “I’m going to phone my friend in London, and I’ll get back to you. Or, rather, I’ll call Mike. That would be better. Just be careful, Françoise, and don’t take any chances.
“I understand. Merci, Val. Au revoir.”
“Bye, Françoise, keep your chin up.” As I put the phone back in the cradle, I wondered if she knew what that phrase meant. Too late to explain.
I walked out of the kitchen, now more baffled than ever by Jake’s prolonged absence; I was heading down the corridor to the living room, when I heard the key in the lock. Then the door slammed.
As I hurried into the entrance foyer, I saw Jake struggling with three large bags from the supermarket. He was dressed in a heavy white fisherman’s sweater, blue jeans, and a baseball cap worn backward. He looked a little flushed, or perhaps it was windburn.
“Hi, Kid,” he said, grinning at me over the top of the bags. “It’s bitchy out there, cold all of a sudden. Sorry I took so long, but I bought stuff for dinner tonight, to save time. I thought we could—”
“There’s bad news, Jake,” I interrupted, going forward to help him with the overflowing supermarket bags.
“What bad news? What’s wrong?”
IV
Jake went immediately into the study to call Lauren in Paris.
I retreated to the kitchen to make fresh coffee and toast the bagels Jake had bought.
While the coffee perked and the bagels browned, I set up a tray with milk, sweetener, butter, and apricot jam. I added mugs, plates, spoons, knives, and napkins, and then stood watching the bagels, not wanting them to burn.
Earlier, I had planned a cozy little domestic scene. A blissful breakfast with Jake, since our sojourn in New York was soon coming to an end. I craved intimacy with him. All kinds of intimacy, and most especially the domestic kind. I asked myself why I needed this; then it had occurred to me the other day that domesticity with Jake made me feel safe, secure, and nurtured. Things I’d never really known. But today, unfortunately, life had intruded.
Once the coffee was ready, I put the pot on the tray, then peered into the toaster oven to evaluate the bagels. They looked perfect, and I lifted them out with a clean kitchen towel and dropped them on one of the plates.
As I carried the tray into the study and put it down on the big coffee table, Jake hung up the phone after saying good-bye to Lauren.
“What a lousy thing to happen to Jacques,” he said, walking over, sitting down on the sofa, and pouring coffee for us both. “The funny thing is, there’s no history of heart trouble. Lauren says he had a checkup only two weeks ago and he was fine.”
“T
hank God he’s alive,” I said, flopping down next to Jake. “He could have so easily been killed. He had a narrow escape.”
Jake nodded, buttered a bagel, and spread it with apricot jam. He bit into it and nodded his approval.
While he munched on it, I relayed the news about Françoise and the rampaging husband out to get her and Mike and his two daughters. And whoever else got in his way. Like little old Val, perhaps.
“Shit!” he exploded, almost choking on the bagel. “I knew that situation spelled trouble right from the beginning!”
“And then some,” I muttered, and rapidly told him about my idea of asking Fiona to take Françoise under her wing for a few weeks.
“But you’re doing it again, Val!” he exclaimed, impaling me with his blue eyes.
“Doing what?” I asked, feigning sudden innocence.
“Meddling, for God’s sake!” he almost shouted.
“Having meddled once, and created a problem called Love with a capital L, certainly not anticipated by me, I feel I have to help them overcome the newer problem. The problem which that love has brought upon them. In short, the fury of Olivier.”
“Mike’s a big boy,” Jake snapped. “He can take care of Françoise, and I don’t want you getting mixed up in this any more than you already are. A guy like Olivier can easily go berserk, and if you get in his way, he’ll think nothing about exterminating you.”
“What you say is true, but calm down, Jake—please. All I want to do is put a call in to Fiona, explain the situation, and ask her if Françoise can go and stay with her for a while. Surely there’s no harm in that?”
Jake let out a long, exasperated sigh, took off his baseball cap, flung it to the other side of the room, grabbed me, and pulled me into his arms. “You’re . . . you’re just . . . incorrigible, Valentine Denning, the most impossible, stubborn, interfering, meddling, beautiful, sexy—”
I stopped this flow of words by planting my lips on his. I gave him a long, soulful, passionate kiss, then slid my tongue in his mouth and let it linger there. Which was a big mistake on my part, because it only inflamed him, gave him all the wrong ideas.
Except that they were not so wrong, I decided as he slowly but deliberately began to make love to me on the overstuffed sofa.
What a lovely intimate breakfast it turned out to be after all, I thought, smiling to myself.
Chapter 25
I
When Donald turned up on my doorstep at exactly one o’clock, carrying a large bunch of expensive-looking flowers wrapped in cellophane and tied with pink ribbon, I was immediately suspicious. I had to curb the impulse to snarl at him.
Did he think I was a fool? Didn’t he realize I saw through this ruse, this sudden loving gesture, the first one in years? Flowers, indeed.
He underestimated me if he thought I hadn’t twigged that he was cozying up to me, being sweet and ever so friendly because I had suddenly become vital to his future.
But somehow I managed to swallow the acerbic words that had leapt to my tongue. I might as well be pleasant; I had nothing to lose. I laughed inside. Sex with Jake for breakfast was infinitely more satisfying than coffee with bagels for breakfast; our unexpected and wonderfully fulfilling lovemaking on the overstuffed study sofa had put me in a generous mood. And so I allowed Donald to get off unscathed.
Smiling sweetly, I offered him my cheek to kiss, thanked him for the flowers, and told him to throw his coat on the bench in the entrance foyer. After putting the flowers on the kitchen counter, I led him into the paneled study overlooking the East River.
“Where’s the Costner clone?” he asked, glancing around.
“Having lunch with Gwyneth Paltrow,” I said in a snippy voice, knowing that this would make him crazy. Donald the Great had always groveled at the feet of female movie stars.
“Is he really?” my brother asked, impressed, his eyes widening.
“Donald, come on! Don’t be daft. I was kidding. Jake’s gone to have lunch with the publisher. At the Four Seasons.”
“You’ve got a publisher?”
I nodded. “Sure do. He apparently gave a terrific presentation, and the deal’s made. They’re drawing up the contracts now.”
“Congratulations, sis.”
“Donald,” I said threateningly, glaring at him.
“Sorry, Val.”
I pointed to the sofa where earlier Jake and I had enjoyed our delicious sexy romp and said, “Sit there and start talking. What did she tell you?”
He did as I said as I stood hovering over him, my eyes riveted on his face.
“She didn’t tell me much—”
“What!” I exclaimed, cutting across his sentence. “You come here with no information, expecting me to welcome you with open arms. Is that why you brought the flowers? As a peace offering?”
“No, no. And you didn’t let me finish!” he whined.
“Okay, shoot.”
“Listen, Val, you don’t let me get the words out. You’ve certainly reverted to your old self. You’re so fucking bossy and bullying again, I can’t stand it.” He started to get up. “I think I’m going to leave and you—”
“You’re not leaving, Donald,” I snapped. “So put that idea out of your head. And please refrain from using bad language. You know it irritates me.”
“Okay, okay. Let’s get back to Mom. She didn’t say much when I first got there. Just sat like Elizabeth the First on her throne, looking regal and imposing. Then she eased up after I’d stroked her ego and yabbered at her for half an hour. I finally managed to establish that there’s no legal document. About The Tradition thing.” He sat back, looking pleased with himself.
“That’s good to know,” I exclaimed, and beamed at him, hoping to encourage him to keep talking. “What else did she say?”
“She explained about The Tradition. And that’s all it is, Val, a tradition started by Amy-Anne, who wanted to give the women in the family the power, not the men. But even though there was—is—nothing in writing per se, Mom says the Lowell women have taken it very seriously for a hundred years. It’s kinda . . . like . . . well, I guess it’s like their Bible.” Leaning forward slightly, Donald looked up at me and confided, “Mom says that the women descendants of Amy-Anne believed that it would bring bad luck to the family if a woman stopped being the head of Lowell’s. Maybe she believes it too?”
“Goodness me, Donald, where does that leave you?” I asked sweetly, and walked across the room, stood leaning against the fireplace, trying to hide the amused smile that had sprung to my lips.
“I’m getting engaged. To Alexis. She accepted my proposal.”
“How fortuitous for you, Donald,” I purred sarcastically, thinking what an opportunist he was. He wasn’t wasting any time or taking any chances. But what did I care. It suited my purpose to give him the family business. I certainly didn’t want anything to do with it. Nor did I want anything from her.
He said, “I think Mom wants to see you again, Val.”
“What for?” I demanded, turning frosty with him.
“I don’t know, she didn’t say.”
“God, Donald, you are dim at times! Why didn’t you ask her?”
“I did. And stop being a bitch!”
I ignored this and said, “And how did she answer you?”
“She didn’t, at least she wouldn’t tell me her reason, except that she said something about owing you an explanation.”
“No kidding,” I murmured, wondering what had prompted this sudden need for truth-telling on my mother’s part.
Donald nodded and sat back against the pillows.
I softened my attitude toward him and said in a pleasant tone, “Well, Donald, this is really good news for you. About there not being a legal document. That makes it so much easier for me to give you the company.”
“I told her you wanted to do that, and she says she won’t let you.”
“I don’t inherit Lowell’s until she dies, Donald, and when she’s dead she won’t
be able to stop me handing the business over to you. Now, will she?”
“Mmmm. Yes, that’s true, I guess.”
“No guessing. It is true.”
“You’re going to have to see Mom again, Val.”
“No way, brother mine.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“I bet you would, under the circumstances,” I said.
“Please, Val. Be nice. You used to love me, and when you stopped, I was really hurt. You damaged me when I was a child because you dumped me, withdrew your love.”
“Cut the crap, Donald, you know she took you away from me the moment it suited her.”
“Bad language, Val, really!”
“Donald, tell me something, why the hell do you want Lowell’s anyway?” I asked, truly perplexed by this and genuinely wanting to know.
“Because you don’t want it and it should stay in the family.”
“But would you work there?”
“Sure as hell I would.”
“But you’ve got your dream job on the magazine. You always wanted to be a gossip columnist. After all, you cut your teeth on gossip in the family.”
“There you go again, being a bitch.”
“Oh, stop using that word. You’re getting monotonous. So tell me, why would you want to give up your column? Which, I hear from Muffie, is very influential, to go and work in an office every day, making and selling cosmetics that nobody’s ever heard of or really cares about.”
Donald looked at me alertly, his eyes narrowing slightly, and after a split second he said, “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” I asked swiftly, noting the sudden change in his demeanor, and wondering what bombshell he was about to drop.
“About Lowell’s, and what’s happened to the company?”
I shook my head. “How would I know? I spend most of my life shooting pictures of the dead and dying on the battlefronts of the world.”