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His father’s fast, angry tone barked at him in Franglais, a sure sign that he was mad.
‘You’re seeing la putain who tried to corner me at the gala soirée?’
Louis sucked in a deep breath. Then another.
He would not allow himself to be baited.
‘I’m seeing Alexandra Vardy, a respected doctor at Silveroaks Hospital. She’s Gordon’s protégé,’ he added with painstaking breeziness. ‘I know you’d be impressed if you saw how skilled an anaesthetist she is. Oh, and I should also inform you that Alex is coming out to the estate.’
‘No, she most certainly is not.’
‘Too late, I’m afraid,’ Louis injected with deliberate calmness. ‘She’s already around thirty-six thousand feet.’
The silence suggested his father was uncharacteristically apoplectic in his characteristic rage. Louis almost smiled into the silent phone, though it was a hard, brittle excuse for a smile.
‘I forbid it,’ Jean-Baptiste spluttered eventually.
And there again was the easily enraged man Louis knew all too well. It was gratifying to know that not everyone had been fooled by the knight-in-shining-scrubs reputation that the media had painted all these years.
‘I’m not asking permission,’ Louis stated in a tone so cold he could bet it would rival the Norwegian ice hotel where his father had taken his latest squeeze. ‘The estate is my home, too. I’m merely taking this opportunity to inform you. Call it courtesy. This way, you don’t have to engage in another disagreeable phone call to verify what will no doubt be in tomorrow’s papers.’
‘I know you lied to my security team to save her from the humiliation of being ejected from the ball like the unwelcome stray dog that she was. I know you play to your reputation as a playboy, Louis, but even you could have done better than scraps like that.’
Jean-Baptiste was goading him. Louis knew it. And still he clenched his fists at the barely disguised snide tone. He couldn’t let the older man think he was winning. Not where Alex was concerned. Still, he had no idea how he managed it.
‘Alex did mention you and she had had a little...misunderstanding that night.’
‘Un malentendu?’ the older man exploded, as much at Louis’s calmness as at his words, but it still felt like a hollow victory. ‘It was no misunderstanding. She threatened to go to the press with how the Lefebvre Group and the Delaroche Foundation are composed of one and the same board. The vitriolic little putain tried to claim she knew that I was transferring assets simply to sell them off and line my own pockets.’
‘We both know that isn’t true although, to be fair, her assumption was based on her knowledge at the time.’ Louis forced himself to stay civil. He would not lose his cool. He could not. ‘But don’t worry, I’ve since set her straight.’
‘Meaning?’ The snarl rolled down the line.
‘Meaning that I assured her you weren’t using the Delaroche Foundation to shut down Rainbow House simply for financial gain.’
Deliberate, aimed, striking true. The silence was almost lethal.
‘You told her about your mother’s ac
cident.’
‘More or less.’ Louis shrugged. ‘They weren’t my exact words.’
The gutter-level curses his father was uttering were another long-overdue, satisfying strike. Louis had a few choice names of his own he would like to throw back. But he didn’t. He restrained himself, knowing Alex wouldn’t approve, and it was amazing how her good opinion was suddenly driving his actions.
The cursing stopped abruptly and silence cracked instead. Air practically whistled down the phone. Icy and foreboding.
‘Be very careful which side you choose to be on, Louis. Or you may find yourself dealing with questions about your mother concerning things I’m certain you would far prefer the press didn’t know.’
The threat insinuated itself through the ether, filling up Louis’s office until he was reaching for a window, as if the toxicity was as real as the air he was breathing.
He reached a hand up to tug at the shirt collar that suddenly seemed to have closed around his neck. He had no idea how he kept his voice as calm, as level, as he did.
‘Are you threatening to tell them she committed suicide?’
‘What do they say, the truth will always out?’
Emotions coursed through Louis so fast and so violent that he wasn’t sure how he remained upright.
