by Laura Del
After I showered and discovered that I was covered (in very unusual places) with charcoal, I went back outside in the safety of the wing. I saw Charlie waiting for me, following him as he showed me down the stairs to the left. It was strange that I hadn’t noticed the large white doors before, but I figured I’d been preoccupied. I mean, they were huge, and they were situated right next to the stairs. No one could’ve missed them. No one except me, that is.
“Here’s both your and Mr. Satané’s study,” Charlie said, a smile in his voice. And for the first time, I was excited that he was opening the doors. Something in me wanted to know what was behind them, and when he finally opened them, I wasn’t disappointed. At all.
The room was picturesque and covered from the floor to extremely tall ceiling with leather-bound books—fathom after fathom of books all looking as though they had never seen the light of day, and in pristine condition. The room reminded me of the scene in Beauty and the Beast where the Beast shows Belle the library, but this room was much bigger than that. There were books everywhere, even some piled next to a brown leather-reading chair and lamp in the middle of the room. My eyes moved very slowly, seeing the beautiful stained-glass window spray a ray of sunlight across the room, sending specks of dust around like glitter. And as I walked through them, I looked to my left, where I saw an antique wooden desk with my modern laptop and printer on it. They were both set up for me to write. I also saw that the desk had one of those old telephones on it. You know, the ones with the rotary dial, but someone had replaced that with modern buttons.
Charlie’s smile had returned, and I knew it was because of my stunned silence. “Will that be all?” he asked politely.
I nodded, more to myself than to him, adding a soft, “Yes.”
“Happy writing, Pat.” He bowed, but this time he kept eye contact with me.
“Happy serving, Charlie,” I said, and as he straightened up, I curtsied. That made him laugh all the way out of the room.
When the doors shut, I sighed happily. I was comfortably alone at last. I pulled out the swivel chair from behind the desk, sat, typed in my password, waited, and opened a new document as soon as my settings had uploaded.
For a while I just stared at the blank blue and white screen, trying to remember everything that happened yesterday. Most of what I thought of consisted of after I got married, which was rather strange. Everything before that was obscure, as if it was years ago instead of just a few hours. But I just chalked that up to adrenaline.
I blinked, feeling the muse hit me, took a couple of deep cleansing breaths, and began to write. I started at ten-thirty and ended around one.
Pleased with myself, I sent the thing to my editor by email, and hoped that he liked it. If not, I would have to redo it, and I was not in the mood.
My body was stiff as a board, so I stretched, leaning myself back in the chair. “Wow!” My mouth dropped when I saw the ceiling. I had never seen anything like it before. It was covered in a reflective copper, which stopped in the center of the room, circling around a copper chandelier with cherubs that were painted to look as though they were flying into it.
It truly amazed me what money could buy.
I was still gawking at the ceiling when there was a light knock on the door. “Come in.” I yawned, and my neck cracked.
Charlie cleared his throat. “Are you finished, Pat?”
“Yes,” I said, waiting for him to open the door. He didn’t. “I’m finished. You can come in if you’d like.” The door creaked open, and his head barely made its way through. “All the way is fine, Charlie.”
He still didn’t come in, but I dismissed it. It seemed he was very nervous around people. “I just wanted to tell you that lunch is served,” he said with a smile.
“Oh, great.” I was on my feet, bounding out of the chair to the door in less than a second. “I’m starved.”
When we walked into the living room, I stopped. “Charlie?” my mouth ran away with me.
He turned, looking confused. “Yes?”
I smiled at him. “Can I eat out here?”
“If you wish,” he said with a shrug.
I sat on the sofa, crossing my legs in order to make some sort of defiant point. “Well, I want to eat here.”
Charlie scurried off, bringing back a tray filled with sandwiches. Then he set it down on the coffee table in front of me, and made a little bow.
“Thank you, Charlie,” I said, and he started to back away. “Wait.” My voice was louder than I’d anticipated. “Will you stay and have lunch with me?” I asked at a much better volume.
“Oh, no, I…” his voice trailed away as he pointed to some imaginary work he had to do.
I gave him my big hazel-eyes stare and said sweetly, “Please.” You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. “I insist.”
He blushed. “Well, if you—”
I held up my hand interrupting him. “I insist.” I was getting to know Charlie fairly well. After all, I was pretty sure that I’d know him better than I knew my own husband. At any rate, I was sure that Charlie knew more about him than I did anyway. That’s when it hit me.
I bit into my sandwich, considering the questions I could ask him without some sort of deflection. Then I decided on one that he would have to answer no matter what. It was so simple. “Charlie?”
“Mmm?” he said through a mouth full of turkey and cheese.
“What do you know about Samuel?” I asked, the smile on my face tight and fake. I mean, at that point, I would have done a cartwheel if it meant he would tell me something about my husband.
His eyes widened and he quickly looked down at his lap, chewing and swallowing carefully. “A lot,” he spoke in a whisper, “I’m afraid.”
“What does he enjoy?” I asked; his odd reaction was not stopping me.
“Women,” he blurted, which made me laugh. Then I realized that he was serious.
“Oh.” My voice was steadily somber. “Really?” he nodded. “He told me he’d had about thirty?” Give or take.
He glanced up at me with a distraught half-smile on his face. “More,” he managed to say without breaking eye contact.
“How many more would you say? Three?” I shrugged, lifting my hands, “Four?” I begged silently that he would say that little.
“To be exact…” He paused, and I could see the wheels turning in his head. In my experience, that’s never a good thing. “Two hundred and seventeen.”
“Really? That’s not…” What? I almost choked on the piece of bread in my mouth, and he handed me a glass of water. The only thing I could do was gulp the whole thing down. “Two hundred and seventeen,” I said, my throat still dry, even though I’d just guzzled a glass of water. “How is that possible?”
“Sometime there were two or three at a time.” Charlie’s voice wasn’t above a whisper. But to my ears, it sounded as though he was screaming.
I think I’m going to be sick. I dropped the sandwich on the tray, and it went down with a thud. Two hundred and seventeen was way more than thirty. What did the man think “give or take” meant?
“Are you…?” Charlie began, as I placed my hand over my mouth to calm my stomach.
“I’m fine, Charlie,” I said after a long pause and deep breaths. “No need to worry.” The only thing I could do was pat his forearm in order to calm his now troubled expression.
“Should I go now?” he asked, looking as though I’d smacked him.
I dropped my hand away from my mouth, tilting the corners up into a semi-smile. “No, don’t leave. I have more questions.”
“I’ll try to answer them as best I can.” He stroked my hand, giving me a wink. I know he was trying to make me laugh, but I wasn’t in the mood.
I sat back on the sofa, letting my hand fall from his arm. He did the same, but folded his hands in his lap. This was business, no time for jokes or laughter. “Where was he born?” I asked, knowing that I on the verge of a mental breakdown. But Samuel int
rigued me too much for my own good. “He speaks rather proper. Was he born in England or Scotland?”
Charlie shook his head. “No, he was born in France.”
That baffled me. “But…”
“He has no accent?” he provided, and I nodded. “That’s because he has been in America for a long time.”
I narrowed my eyes, asking, “How long?” The way he said the word long made it seem like he was trying to tell me something, but I was too stupid to understand.
“Long enough,” he answered.
A sane person would have run at this point. “Does he have a family?” Clearly I was not a sane person. “Brothers, sisters, father? I know he has a mother.”
Charlie frowned. “He has no one but you.” That made me feel bad for him.
“So his mother’s dead?” What do you think he meant, Patricia? I asked myself sarcastically. Sometimes I swear my brain is somewhere else.
“Not exactly.” There was the emphasis again.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked. My investigative journalist was showing. Once I get on the scent of something big, there is no possible way that I will ever quit. Even if it does seem insane.
“His mother left him a long time ago,” he answered, “and hasn’t been heard from since.”
He doesn’t have a mother, just like me. Except technically, his mother’s alive, Pat. “How old is he?” I asked again, hoping he would answer this time.
“Considerably older than you are.”
“You lost me.” I grimaced against the huge headache that was forming deep in my brain.
He shrugged. “I can’t tell you how old he is, for I don’t know the exact age. But I do know he is older than you.”
I laughed at him. “He looks about twenty-six, and I’m almost twenty-seven. How much older can he be?”
“A lot older.” He was serious. “Next question, please.”
I huffed, folding my arms. I didn’t like it when people deflected. “Where does he work?” I thought that was a safe question, but Charlie looked confused.
“Work?” he asked, shaking his head trying to make sense of the word. “I don’t think Mr. Satané has worked a day in his life.” There was just a hint of envy in his voice, but I ignored it. All I could think of was Samuel’s letter. “Went to work,” it said, and I wondered why he would’ve lied over something so silly.
My brows furrowed as I bit down on my thumbnail. “But that’s what he told me.”
“Oh,” something must have clicked in his head, and my hand dropped. “He goes to Mr. Wolf’s office and helps with the pro-bono work. That’s probably what he meant.”
Pro-bono? This man was too good to be true. “He seems generous.” It wasn’t a question, but Charlie nodded anyway.
“Oh, he is, Pat.” He glowed from the inside out. “Very generous. Almost to a fault,” he sighed.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that Charlie had a thing for his boss. But I could read that his love wasn’t like that.
I studied his face very intently. “Charlie, you really love him, don’t you?”
He stared down at his hands and sniffed. For a moment I wondered if he was crying. Then a tear rolled down his rosy cheek, and that answered my question. “No one has ever asked me that before.”
I smiled to make him more comfortable and leaned forward, touching his knee. “You can tell me.”
“Yes,” he admitted, looking me in the eye. “I do. I love him like the son I’ve never had.”
I shook my head. “Charlie, that’s so sad. Have you told him?”
“No.” When he spoke his lower lip quivered. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” I asked, all concerns for Samuel gone.
His face was becoming redder by the minute. “Because he’d fire me.”
I was walking on eggshells at this point, and I didn’t want to upset him further. But I just had to know why he was so attached to Samuel. “How long have you been with him?”
He sighed. “Over twenty years.”
That explained it. When you’re with someone for that long, they become family to you. However, one thing did bother me a little. “So why don’t you call him Samuel instead of Mr. Satané?”
He smiled. “He likes it, and I don’t wish to disturb what he likes.”
I got up off the sofa and hugged him, I just couldn’t help it. “Oh, Charlie. You are the sweetest man in the world.” My lips found his cheek, and I gave him a quick peck.
He hugged me back, saying, “I really like you.”
“I like you too,” I said, sitting back down on the sofa.
“Is there anything else you wish to ask me?” He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief, and I nodded. “Anything, my dear.” He smiled. “You name it.”
I grimaced. “Where’s the bathroom?” I asked, and he laughed.
chapter
FIVE
The rest of the day went quickly.
I had gotten an e-mail from my editor telling me that my article was the best thing ever written. Of course he said that. Editors always say things are good when they want your name in their magazines.
After I had checked my e-mail and shut my computer down, I found myself looking around the study at all the book titles. I searched them carefully and found a first edition Jane Eyre just waiting to be read. It looked, like most of the books, as though it had never been opened, which was good for me but didn’t say much for my husband.
I sat myself down in the reading chair and found it comfortable enough, so I propped my feet up onto the pile of books in front of me and settled in for a good long read.
It must have been three hours or so (I had gotten a little more than halfway through) when there was a knock at the door. “Come in, Charlie,” I said, still distracted by the book. But when the door opened, it wasn’t him. It was that Michael person.
“Am I interruptin’ somethin’?” he asked, smiling from ear to ear.
I couldn’t help that gut reaction to make a fool out of myself by flirting. My spine straightened, and I placed the book down on the pile where my feet once were. “Did you forget something?” When I asked, my mind screamed at me to get out of the study before it got too personal. So I jumped out of the chair and walked out of the room, closing the door behind me.
He rubbed the back of his neck. We were so close I swear I could hear his heart skip a beat. “No,” he said. “I just came by to have dinner. I always have dinner here.”
“Oh. No one said anything to me.” It seemed I would have to get used to him being here a lot.
“That’s probably because I’m lyin’.” He grimaced. I’d been giving him my mother’s “look.” It worked every time. “Sam sent me a note sayin’ that he would be late and that he wanted me to have dinner with you.”
Something he said bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe I was just overreacting to what Charlie had told me earlier about Samuel and his women. “Did he say what time he’d be here?” I asked, and he smiled at me.
He shook his head. “No.”
We walked together, our elbows brushing, into the sitting room. Then we sat on the sofa, and he stared at me. I couldn’t help staring back. Suddenly the thing that bothered me hit me like a bull’s horns. “Wait.” I blinked away from his green eyes. “I thought he was working with you today. Why would he send you a note if he saw you?”
He opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it. He leaned forward, hanging his head and taking a deep breath. “You’re awfully quick on the uptake.”
“He doesn’t work with you, does he?” I know I should’ve been afraid when he shook his head without looking up. “Then what does he do all day?” Again, I should’ve screamed when he shrugged. “And you’re not going to tell me, are you?” I asked, and he glanced up shaking his head again. “And I shouldn’t ask Samuel, should I?”
“No,” he blurted, placing his hand over mine (which was on my lap). Then he sat up, pushing back a piece of ha
ir that fell into my face. My heart skipped a beat when his finger accidentally brushed my bottom lip. Then he leaned in, and I leaned in…
“What are you doing?” Charlie had walked into the room without either of us noticing, and his eyes widened when he saw us on the sofa together.
I stood as if someone had electrocuted me, and I pointed down at Mike. “Samuel sent him.”
“Oh,” Charlie said warily, narrowing his eyes at Mike. “Dinner is served.”
We all walked into the dining room. Mike and I sat in the same chairs, and after some reassurance from me, Charlie turned, leaving us with a mountain of food. Again.
We ate in silence for a while, and I began to wonder why Mike was really here. That is, until he ran his fingers through his hair. “Talk to me, please,” he blurted. “The silence is killin’ me.”
I turned in my chair, so I could get a better look at him. “Why doesn’t Charlie like you?”
He shrugged, frowning. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Are you lying to me again?” I asked. And when he nodded, I laughed. “Then I’ll ask it again. Why doesn’t he like you?”
He stared into my eyes for a moment, I guess contemplating whether he should tell me, and then he sighed. “Okay. I’m the one who deals with Sam’s women.”
“What is that supposed mean?” I asked, distracted by how darling he was. Then I blinked back to reality.
His green eyes filled with trouble. “I pay them off, tellin’ most of them to get lost…and…well, I guess Charlie’s afraid I’ll do the same to you.”
“That still doesn’t explain why he doesn’t like you,” I pointed out. “After all, you’re just following orders.”
Mike took a sip of water. “That’s because he really likes you.” Something in his voice told me that he liked me too. “I’ve never seen him take to anyone as fast as he’s taken to you,” he said with a smile.
