TouchofaDom
Page 13
The older woman grabbed the doorframe to steady herself. Eyes wide, she was as pale as bleached rice when Branko stepped forward.
Alert to the all-around confusion and emotion, he came close, looking from Adele to the older woman and meeting her blue eyes that were wide with shock.
“How did you know my mother?” Adele demanded. “Was it because of my father?”
“Your father…” the older woman whispered. She looked ready to fall and Adele’s clenched fist suggested she was about to pummel her to get an answer.
It was their eyes that explained everything. Facing each other as they were, they couldn’t see it but for him it was like looking into twin mirrors.
“I think,” he said, as a door across the landing opened at Adele’s raised voice, “we need to finish this inside.”
Neither of them seemed inclined to move, so he pushed open the door behind the older woman. “I must insist,” he said. “This doesn’t belong out here.”
“Who do you think you are, young man?” she began. He ignored her and bustled them both inside.
“Forgive me, madame,” he said, “intruding into your home like this, but Adele has gone to great lengths to find you.”
“Adele?” Madame Royer said, her voice gravelly with shock. “You are truly Adele? No wonder you like so like Pauline.”
“How do you know her?” Adele asked again.
The woman shook her head, confusion and worry etched all over her face. She waved a hand at Adele. “Best you leave now. Or I’ll call the police, say you forced your way in here.” She glared at Branko but made no effort to reach for the mobile within reach on the table beside her.
“You wouldn’t do that to your daughter,” Branko said.
“Daughter?” Adele shook her head.
Tactless should be his middle name but there was no way to do this gently or delicately. “Adele, despite all appearances to the contrary, this is your father.” It was the only explanation.
Madame Royer sat and looked as if she’d been steamrollered. Understandable. “Do you mind talking to us?” Branko asked.
For a few moments he thought she’d make good on her threats, but she nodded. “It’s not me who’d mind,” she said, looking at Adele. “It’s your mother who will have my carcass.”
“Mother is dead.” It came out rather curtly.
“Pauline, dead.” She wiped a tear from the corner of each eye. “What happened?”
“Cancer.”
They all went silent.
“So, you came looking for me.” She looked at Branko. “Who are you?”
“He’s my friend,” Adele said. “He’s been helping me.”
There followed an even longer, protracted silence. It brought to Branko’s mind his grandmother’s saying about angels passing overhead. If they were, they had one wild conversation to carry up to heaven.
Madame Royer was the first to speak. “You’d best have a seat,” she said, “and I think we all need a fortifiant.”
She brought three glasses to the table and filled each with dark liquid from an unmarked bottle. She passed the first to Adele. “You need it as much as I do. I never imagined this day would come.”
“You didn’t want to know me?” Adele asked, her voice tight and harsh.
“It was, is, very complicated,” her father replied. “Perhaps now you understand why I left you and your mother.”
What now? Adele was in shock, her father still alarmingly pale and her hand shook as she passed Branko his glass.
Adele sat down and raised her glass. “To the truth.”
“Ask me what you want,” her father said.
“Why did you leave us?”
“Isn’t that obvious? Am I the father you imagined or would have wanted? When I decided to change, your mother insisted I leave and never see either of you again. I understood why. She was hurt, confused and felt deceived. I had deceived her and myself trying to be what I wasn’t. So I went as far away as I could and still be in France. I made financial provisions for you and your mother and then I had to start working and preparing for my change.
“I understand your hurt and anger, Adele. I missed seeing you grow up but Pauline was adamant and I don’t blame her. Perhaps today we might have made it work, but back then a family with two mothers would have shocked and scandalized. I did what your mother wanted.”
“You could have stayed with us, just as you were,” Adele said.
“And lived a lie? No, I did that for far too long as it was.”
Another long silence followed. Branko wanted to say something but honestly couldn’t think what. Better keep quiet.
“Did everyone in your family know?” Adele asked.
“My parents did and my brother. I don’t think my sister was told, she was so much younger than us. Do you know my parents?” he asked. “Have you met them?”
She shook her head. “I met my Uncle Alain for the first time, a few weeks ago. He used to send me birthday presents when I was little. He said your father had died but your mother is old and frail. I didn’t meet her.”
“How is Alain?”
“Well. He runs a restaurant in Paris.”
“What did he say about me?”
“Nothing really but he urged me most strongly not to try to find you.”
“He did, did he? And you ignored him.”
“Yes, I wasn’t going to let him change my mind.”
“Are you glad you stayed on course?”
What a question. Adele reached out and took Branko’s hand. Needing reassurance perhaps? “I’m not sure. This is confusing.”
“Yes, it is. Very confusing but, Adele, if you don’t find the reality of your father too upsetting I would be happy to see you if you are ever back down here again.”
“I live down here. I have a job. I’m a cook. In Eze.”
“So close,” she sighed. “How long have you been there?”
“Only a few weeks. I took the job after Mother died.”
“I see.” She turned to Branko. “And you, young man, were you the reason she moved down here?”
“Actually no. I met her when she came. We work for the same employer.”
“I see and you’ve become very good friends. Better treat my daughter well, young man, or you’ll explain yourself to me.”
Female she might be but she sounded just like a father. “I intend to, madame. I would never hurt her. I love Adele.”
Now he was the one in shock. Where had that come from? But it was true. He looked across at Adele, her eyes wide in astonishment, and smiled.
“Good!” Madame Royer sighed. “Part of me wants to suggest we go out to dinner but I think it best if we do that later. I need some time to grasp the full reality of this and so, I think, does Adele.”
“You’re not disappearing on me again, are you?” Adele asked.
“No, I have a business here and my entire life is here. And now you’re here. Is your job permanent?”
“I’m on six months trial.”
“It’s permanent,” Branko said. “I can vouch for that.” He’d damn well have a word with Luc when they got back.
They parted shortly after that. Adele was quiet as they got in the car and headed back east along the Croisette.
“Are you okay?” he asked. Stupid question. How could she be anything but in shock?
“Over the years I’ve made up all sorts of wild and wonderful stories about who my father was, where he was or what he might be doing but that possibility never entered my mind.”
“It’s a lot to come to terms with.” That was the understatement of the year, if not the decade. “But he wants to see you again. Will you?”
“I’ll see him, or rather her. I’m not sure how I’ll ever get used to saying that,” she said. “But what I really want to know is did you mean it?”
“That I loved you?”
“Yes. We barely know each other.”
In the biblical sense they “knew” each other darn
well, but she meant something much deeper than that. “True, and there’s a good bit you should know about me. Like my criminal record—juvenile, I hasten to add—and my family members in jail, and that may put you right off me. But never doubt, I love you and soon I’ll have the opportunity to prove it with your lovely, bright-pink flogger.”
She looked at him sideways and smiled. “Can you drive faster?”
The End
About Madeleine Oh
Madeleine Oh is an expatriate Brit, retired LD teacher and grandmother now living in Ohio with her husband of thirty-five years. She has published erotic short fiction, novels and novellas in the U.S., UK and Australia.
Madeleine welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Madeleine Oh
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Power Exchange
Power Play
Sunday Afternoon with Mac
Trick or Treat
Print books by Madeleine Oh
Power Exchange
R.S.V.P. anthology
Single White Submissive anthology
Summon the Masters anthology
Tied with a Bow anthology
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Touch of a Dom
ISBN 9781419947735
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Touch of a Dom Copyright © 2014 Madeleine Oh
Edited by Grace Bradley
Cover design by Willo
Cover photography by Guryanov Andrey/shutterstock.com
Electronic book publication January 2014
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