AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She looked at me, her eyes flashing with challenge as if she was reminding me of the lessons she’d taught me in my young life. In that moment, the mood of the room rearranged itself and I stopped feeling defensive. I had my own life to live, not an obligation to follow her beliefs. She’d made her choices. She should respect mine. If she didn’t, that wasn’t my problem.
She put her elbows on the table and sank her chin into the palm of her hands. “Really?”
“Yes, I could. Of course, I could. But why would I? Would it make you like Simon more?”
“I can’t promise anything, but I’d respect you more for trying.”
“What do mean respect me more? Because I gave into what you want instead of what he wants? He gave me that contract to protect me. Don’t you respect that? Are you asking me to choose between you and him? Because that’s not a good idea. I love you, Mom, but Simon is my future. I’m going to stay with him, no matter what.” I folded my hands in my lap. Calmness settled over me as she unintentionally strengthened my commitment to Simon.
“You mean you’re going to stay with him until he loses interest in you because he can buy and sell you like a commodity?”
“What are you talking about? He’s not one of those pathetic men who has a series of increasingly younger wives. He had one wife before me, and she died.”
“Ronnie says he’s had a steady string of girlfriends for the past couple of years.”
“She’s a troublemaker. I warned you. I know that Simon has had some dates, enough female company to prove he’s not a monk. But he doesn’t allow much time for a personal life, which is why he hired me to be his PA. It combines business and pleasure for him. Besides, he didn’t snag a trophy wife. He picked me! A working class, compulsive shopper, ditzy me.”
“He doesn’t know about Jacques though, does he?”
I folded my arms on the table and rested my forehead on my wrists. Papers were stacked an inch deep, and the smell of dusty utility bills made me cough.
“Not the whole story,” I said quietly. “Do you think it’s going to make a difference?”
“You have to tell him.” Her voice was firm.
A sly victory grin crossed her face.
“I will. As soon as I’m back in Vancouver.” I stood and pushed my chair back against the table.
“That may test his love for you.”
“Why should it? I was a kid and didn’t know any better. And you encouraged it. I would never have called Jacques Dad if you hadn’t let me.”
“I didn’t mean about Jacques so much. I meant you have to tell him who your real parents are. I’m not concerned about Victorian morality coming into play here, but the fact that you’ve kept such an important secret might make a difference to his feelings.”
“You really hope this won’t work out, don’t you?” I tried not to sound bitter. She was just trying to protect me, after all.
She shook her head. “That’s not true. But you may not know each other as well as you think. Nothing destroys a relationship like dishonesty.”
Simon
As soon as I kissed Sadie goodbye and slid out of the limo, my mind clicked back to business mode. I filed my decision about Ronnie in my mental ‘done’ box. That situation was handled, problem solved.
I considered my next appointment, which involved a bright new search engine and dynamic social media hangout created by two high school kids in their parents’ basement. With over two million hits, they’d set their price high, and I was still debating whether the value was there or not. Today’s meeting in the city included the kids’ parents, their lawyers, and my team who had just completed a due diligence on the entire operation.
I took the leather chair at the end of the boardroom in the law firm’s swanky office. For the first hour of negotiation, I pushed and prodded my analysts, the girls’ business manager (their mother), the lawyers on both sides of the deal, and the consultant I’d hired to test the new platform five ways to Sunday.
The two girls and their mother looked more like three sisters than a mother and her daughters. As I studied them, my mind drifted to Sadie, Cynthia, and the photo on Ronnie’s blog. Once again, thoughts of Sadie distracted me from the business at hand. Falling in love with her had seriously compromised my powers of concentration.
My consultant cleared his throat, and I realized I hadn’t heard the last two or three moments of conversation.
The meeting ended after three hours without a deal being struck. Everyone but me left the office with action points that had to be completed for a teleconference on Friday. I walked out of the office lost in thoughts of Sadie.
I grunted at the limo driver who picked me up and hunkered down in the backseat. Crunched against the window, I stared at the passing scenery without seeing a thing. Sadie. She had turned my world upside down.
Several times in the past I had jokingly suggested that she was hanging onto to her old apartment as an escape strategy. I realized she’d never actually denied it.
Now, more than ever, I wanted a commitment from her. Her last-minute nerves worried me. I didn’t like the uncertainty that she was dishing out. Even though I’d told her to stay in Montreal as long as her family needed her, I had to fight the urge to ask her to fly home with me that night.
