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Lucian growled and slid his phone in his jacket pocket. It wasn’t that Jamie was a bad guy. He just had similar appetites to his own, and Toni wasn’t the type of girl to be bossed. She was the furthest thing from submissive and Shamus, that voyeur pervert, only slept with girls who gave him control of the ropes. Literally.
Maybe it won’t work out.
And maybe Hughes changed his mind.
His sister was right. He had to get real.
“Bienvenue, Monsieur Patras. Votre limousine est de cette façon,” an attendant said as he waited for Lucian, his bags already loaded on a cart.
He followed him to the limo. “Merci.”
Jacques, a long-term employee of Hôtel Patras and the last chauffeur he had had when in Paris, stood awaiting him at the door to the limo. “C’est bon de vous revoir, jeune Monsieur Patras.”
He took the chauffeur’s extended hand. “Good to see you again, too, Jacques. How have things been in my absence?”
“Très bien, monsieur. Et où allez-vous aller aujourd’hui?”
Where would he be going? Good question. He supposed it was only proper to visit his father first since it had been about five years. He sighed. “Je voudrais voir mon père et le Tibet, s’il vous plaît.”
“Ton père va être content.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Lucian mumbled as he climbed into the limo. While most fathers were happy to see their sons, Lucian had never been the typical son. Christos Patras also was not the typical father. As the limo pulled away, he shut his eyes and prepared for the worst.
Chapter 19
Resign
To concede the loss of a game
Jacques pulled into the rounded cobblestone drive of his father’s primary residence, and Lucian climbed out of the car. The brick façade of the mansion stretched high and wide. Nothing in America was this old and therefore could never be as beautiful. The chauffeur lifted his bags from the trunk.
“Oh, don’t bother. I won’t be spending the night. You can take my things to the hotel and I’ll call when I need a lift home.”
Jacques frowned at his English.
“Shit.” Lucian thought for a moment. Changing gears, he recalled the French lessons he’d been forced to endure since the womb. “Je vais dormir à l’hôtel.”
Jacques raised an eyebrow. “Mais votre famille est ici.”
Exactly. If his family was here, he wouldn’t be. At least not with this side of his family. The driver nodded his understanding, not masking his disapproval well, and placed the luggage back in the trunk of the car.
“Je vais telephone l’hôtel quand je suis prêt,” he said, waving the chauffeur off. Jacques slowly pulled out of the stone drive, leaving Lucian alone on the steps of the mansion. “No time like the present,” he grumbled as he climbed the stairs and rang the bell.
“Juste une minute,” a female voice called from the other side of the door. When the door opened, Claudette, his father’s maid, stood on the other side, her hair a bit more gray, her build a bit softer. She looked at him and he saw the moment he’d been recognized. “Oh mon dieu, Lucian! Que faites-vous ici?”
“Bonjour, Claudette,” he greeted, and she reached up, grabbed his ears and pulled him down so that she could kiss both his cheeks.
“Your père shall be so pleased to have you here! ’Is son ’as finally returned. It is magnifique!”
She tugged him over the threshold and stripped him of his jacket. “’Ave you been in Paree long, mon garçon?”
“No, I’ve just landed.”
She covered her smile with her fingers. “And you decided to visit your père first? You ’ave grown up, no? And ’ow ’andsome you ’ave grown.”
Lucian refused to let this butterball of a woman make him blush. He was Lucian Patras for Christ’s sake. He did not blush.
Claudette hung up his coat and turned to face him again. She tilted her head to the side and studied him for a moment. “Ah, but what is this, Lucian? You are déprimé.”
He frowned at her. She was the only woman who refused to speak to him as an adult. She met him when he was twelve and treated him as such ever since.
“I am not depressed, Claudette,” he assured her.
“Do not lie to me, garçon. I see it in your eyes. What has you so?” She suddenly jumped and smiled. “And you ’ave come to see your père! Per’aps whatever it is that weighs on you can act as a bridge to mend this silly rivalry the two of you share.”
They walked toward the back of the house, their steps echoing to the tops of the fifteen-foot ceilings. Christos called Lucian’s taste gauche. Lucian called his father’s taste pompous Parisian chic.
Claudette leaned close and whispered, “Is it a woman? You have the sad look of a man amoureux. Has she captured your poor tortured heart and scorned you, my sweet garçon?”
