“Are you joking? He wears Armani all the time. But on surgery days, it’s always Valentino.”
Don looked at the driver. “How would you know that? He doesn’t call up the car every single time he has to perform a surgery. Some days he drives himself. He doesn’t even want me on some days.”
“Most days he has both of us. And I’m telling you it’s going to be Valentino.”
Don was still skeptical. But when the front door opened and Edmund stepped out of his mansion, his driver and bodyguard both smiled. He wasn’t wearing either designer.
“Hugo Boss,” Don said with a grin as he opened the car door and began hurrying out. “I told you it wasn’t going to be Valentino. I told you that!”
“I don’t know what you’re laughing at,” said Wyatt. “It’s not Armani either.”
But as Don opened the back passenger door of Edmund’s Rolls Royce Phantom luxury automobile, Don didn’t care about the details. Wyatt was wrong. That was all that mattered to him. “Good morning, sir,” he said to the boss.
Edmund, who was usually extra grumpy on surgery days because he had to get up so early, groaned a good morning as he got onto the backseat of his car. Don closed the door and got back in on the front passenger seat. And Wyatt, who had justsaid his good morning as well with a mere grunt from the boss in return too, drove off.
But as Edmund sat on the backseat, he felt a sense of drain. For some strange reason, his usual peaceful sleep had turned into a fitful night of unrest for him. He tossed and turned. He got up a couple of times to just walk around. The first time he walked around the third floor landing where his bedroom was. The second time he made himself a glass of wine and went out on his back terrace.
The only answer to his uncharacteristic restlessness was Maude Drayton. There was no other answer for it. Although he didn’t want to admit that some young woman could have put his entire night into turmoil, she had to be the reason. He went to bed thinking about her. He woke up thinking about her. He was on his terrace thinking about her!
And what was remarkable about his thoughts was that they weren’t his usual sensual way of thinking about a lady. When it came to Maude, his thoughts weren’t sensual at all. He was worried about her. In some ways he was worried sick about her. He knew why he closed that door on her and left her outside to fend for herself. He didn’t need another woman in his life agreeing to an open relationship, and then demanding that it be closed at once or they were out of there. But was that really the reason?
It seemed as if the real reason he closed that door on her last night could have been because he wasn’t at all sure if he would be the one breakingherheart. He closed that door on her because a part of him felt she just might be that one woman capable of breaking him. She just might have the chops to do it.
And that, to anybody who knew Edmund Keating,including Edmund Keatinghimself, was a nonstarter. It wasn’t going to ever happen if he had something to say about it.
But thinking about her endlessly wasn’t the only odd thing he did last night.
“Alexa,” he had said out loud as he sat on his terrace last night, “play the theme song from the TV showMaude.”
“PlayingAnd Then There’s Maude, the theme song from theMaudetelevision show written by Marilyn Bergman, Alan Bergman, and Dave Grusin. And sung by Donny Hathaway:”
“Lady Godiva was a freedom rider.
She didn’t care if the whole world looked.
Joan of Arc with the Lord to guide her.
She was a sister who really cooked.
Isadora was the first bra burner.
And you’re glad she showed up.
Oh yeah!
And when the country was falling apart.
Betsy Ross got it all sewed up.
And then there’s Maude.
(And then there’s Maude).
And then there’s Maude.
(And then there’s Maude)
And then there’s Maude.
