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“Yes.”
“And your father?”
“Dead.”
She doesn’t offer up any condolences. Instead, her eyes flit over my face, searching for more clues. “Any other family members I should know about?”
“My sister-in-law, Cyrille. And my nephew, Ilya.”
“How old is he?”
“Nine.”
She makes an odd, strangled noise. Half-wince and half-exhale of sympathy. “He was young…” she whispers, mostly to herself.
The doors swing open again and the kitchen staff enters with steel trolleys loaded tall with steaming dishes. I forgot that I asked for dinner to be served after the papers were signed.
“We’re having dinner here?” she asks.
“Would you like that?”
I’m surprised as soon as the words leave my lips. Not because they’re caustic and cruel, but because theyaren’t,actually. Before I thought to filter myself, part of me actually gave a damn if Paige would like to eat dinner in the greenhouse. Part of me was pleased that it might make her happy.
Weird.
Even weirder is that she does in fact seem to like that idea. But the melancholy doesn’t really leave her as she walks to the table and greets the staff by their first names. They all smile back, friendly with her already. I don’t know why I’m surprised by that—of course Paige would become friendly with the help. Of course they would like her.
When we’re alone again, she walks around the table to the other side of the greenhouse. I follow her at a distance, waiting for the storm building up inside her to break.
I don’t have to wait long.
She turns to me suddenly, her skirt whipping against a nearby plant. Torn petals flutter to the stone floor of the greenhouse. “Does your mother even know about me?”
I shake my head. “No.”
She frowns. “Why not?”
“Because she would want to make a big deal of it,” I admit reluctantly. “Of you.”
Her face falls. “Right. And this is not a big deal. It’s just business.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s certainly a cruel thing, if nothing else,” she retorts.
That pisses me off. I guess my storm is breaking before hers. “Is that so? I beg to differ. I’d say deluding your woman into thinking she was your wife is crueler. I’d say running from her in the middle of the night is crueler. I’d say lying and stealing and disappearing like a fucking ghost is much, much crueler than anything I’ve done.” I fold my arms across my chest and regard her as my words land like hail on her unprotected face. “But that’s just my opinion. I’d like to hear it from you. What was your last ‘marriage’ like?”
She shudders as her eyes fall down. I watch her toe the scattered petals sadly. “It was… marriage,” she says with a shrug. “It wasn’t easy. We had ups and downs. We struggled. Sometimes, we hated each other. Sometimes, we didn’t. We promised ourselves that we’d never go to bed angry, but that rule went by the wayside pretty quickly. I don’t really know, to be honest. It just… was.”
“That sounds hard.”
She lifts her gaze to mine, trying to glean where I’m going with all this uncharacteristic sympathy. “Itwashard.”
“This won’t be. That’s the point, Paige. I’m proposing we avoid all the hard parts and keep things straightforward. Simple.”
“By sleeping together but not actually being together?” I can see her mind turning over the possibility.
Maybe she’s actually starting to see the light.
