The Princess and the Billionaire

by Barbara Bretton

  “Now I know why Daniel is such a wonderful chef,” she said to Connie as she moved the eggs around in the pan. “He comes from a family of wonderful chefs.”

  “I’m not so sure wonderful is the right word,” Connie said, “but I always say if you like to eat, learn to cook.”

  “I wonder why I never thought of that.”

  “Because you’re a princess,” Daniel said, buttering some toasted slices of rye bread.

  “But your family is rich,” she persisted, lowering her voice. “Nobody has to do any of this. Why do they bother when it could all be done for them?”

  He didn’t say anything for a long time, long enough for her to worry that she had said the wrong thing.

  “Daniel,” she whispered as they carried their plates to the table. “If I’ve said anything untoward, I apologize. I just want to understand.” Normal everyday life was so far beyond her experience that she found it difficult to grasp.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, princess,” he said, holding her chair for her. “Maybe it has to do with being a family.”

  She looked around the huge, sunny kitchen. Connie and her daughters. Cathy nursing her baby. Little Katie sitting on her grandfather’s lap while he read to her from the newspaper’s comic strips. Three generations under one roof, gathered together to thank God for the blessings of the past year.

  Daniel touched her arm. “The eggs are great. Give them a try.”

  She nodded. In truth she wasn’t sure she could swallow around the huge lump knotted in her throat. You’re a rich man, Bronson, she thought. Richer than you’ll ever know.

  * * *

  After breakfast Daniel loaded the dishwasher, then went outside to lend a hand stacking the woodpile. Isabelle offered her help with the vegetables, and Connie handed her a knife and a pile of potatoes. Isabelle stared at them for a long moment, then began to scrape away at the skins the way she’d seen the kitchen maids at the castle do. She scraped away as much potato as she did skin, but nobody uttered so much as a peep of criticism. From potatoes she moved on to cauliflower, breaking apart the snowy white heads into florettes. She rinsed the florettes beneath cold water as Connie instructed, then piled them high in the basket of an enormous steamer.

  “This is quite enjoyable,” she said, drying her hands on a linen dishtowel. “It’s really a very satisfying endeavor.”

  The women laughed, but there was nothing mean-spirited about their laughter. “Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t,” said Cathy, a psychologist and new mother. “It’s the one household chore, however, that I won’t turn over to someone else.”

  “Cooking is love,” said Connie. “Plain and simple.”

  “I had never thought of it as anything more than nourishment,” said Isabelle. She stopped for a second and smiled. “Except when Maxine would smuggle Sacher tortes and warm milk upstairs when I was home from boarding school.”

  “Oreos and cold milk,” said Pat with a sigh. “Best snack in the world.”

  “Oreos?” asked Isabelle. “Is that a sweet?”

  “She doesn’t know Oreos!” Cathy leaped to her feet. “Ma, you do have some, don’t you?”

  “With this crowd?” Connie rolled her eyes skyward. “Pantry. Second shelf from the top, right-hand side.”

  Oreos were a success as were Fig Newtons and graham crackers. Isabelle was less than impressed with packaged chocolate chip cookies and cheese-filled pretzel nuggets. Twinkies, however, were the hands-down favorite.

  “Junk food,” said Isabelle, savoring the words as much as the taste. “I fear I will not have room for dinner.”

  Matty, who had just popped back into the kitchen to look for his glasses, heard her. “You need a long brisk walk along the beach,” he stated in a tone that brooked no argument. He glanced at her attire. “Those little shoes aren’t going to cut it.”

  “I have some Reeboks upstairs,” Cathy said. “I think we’re about the same size.”

  “And a heavy jacket,” Matty advised. “The winds can be pretty brutal.”

  Five minutes later Isabelle, bundled in borrowed clothing, set off across the back lawn with Daniel’s father. Daniel, who was playing football with his brothers and brothers-in-law, started to join her, but Matty waved him off. Daniel met Isabelle’s eyes, but she smiled and gestured for him to continue playing. There was something familiar about Matty Bronson, even though she had met him less than twenty-four hours earlier. He emanated a sense of solidity, of strength, that she found herself drawn to, much as she was drawn to those same qualities in his son.

  She followed Matty down a steep wooden staircase.

  “We lost a lot of beachfront a few years ago during the nor’easter,” Matty said as they crossed the sand. “A lot of the newer houses got washed out to sea.”

  He pointed out one of the rebuilt houses, precariously perched on stilts that tempted Mother Nature to lash out and prove her power over mankind’s follies. How typically American to believe in a future so bright that not even the untamed forces of nature could dampen your optimism. It was a far cry from the stone castles and brick estates of her own upbringing, where homes were built to withstand not only the forces of nature but the onslaught of man as well.

  They talked idly as they walked along. Matty told her about the lighthouse at the tip of the island. “I suppose two hundred years of history doesn’t sound like much to you,” he said with a shake of his head. “Around here it borders on antiquity.”

  “One of the boarding schools I attended was built during the reign of Queen Elizabeth.” She paused, then laughed. “The first one, that is.”

  “A lot of history within the walls of your own castle, Isabelle. I only wish I’d made it back to Perreault for the Tricentennial. It would’ve been great to see Bertrand one more time.”

  Isabelle looked out toward the water, focusing on a fishing boat cutting across the choppy waves.

  Matty put his arm around her shoulder and gave a quick, awkward squeeze. “Didn’t mean to bring up a sad subject, Isabelle. I apologize.”

  “You need not apologize for a thing,” she said, meeting his eyes. “I know my father thought highly of you. Now I understand why.”

  “One thing I never did understand was what your old man saw in Honore Malraux.”

  Isabelle stiffened slightly. “Honore is a lovely man, Matty. He’s been very good to my family.”

  “The only family Malraux is good to is his own,” Matty said. “That conniving son of a bitch has left a trail across Europe you wouldn’t believe.”

  “I have heard the talk,” Isabelle conceded, “but the man I know is different indeed.”

  “Glad you’re out of there,” Matty said. “You’re better off over here, making a fresh start.”

  Isabelle smiled. “Fresh starts, as you put it, can be frightening.”

  “Not for you,” Matty said with a grin much like Daniel’s. “I’ve got a feeling you’re going to do just fine on this side of the Atlantic.”

  They sat down on an overturned rowboat near the water’s edge. Isabelle drew her knees up under her chin and wrapped her arms about her legs.

  “Do you miss Perreault?” Matty asked, zipping up the front of his jacket as high as it would go.

  She considered his question. “Not very. In truth I never spent all that much time there.”

  “You and your sister were in boarding schools.”

  She shook her head. “Only I was,” she said quietly. “Juliana was tutored at home.”

  “Nothing wrong with being homesick. Danny had a beaut of a case when he went off to college. He called so much I threatened to get a WATS line installed in his dorm.”

  “But you still took his calls.”

  His expression was puzzled. “He’s my son. My flesh and blood. You don’t turn away from family.”

  “But there are times when family turns away from you.”

  “I know what happened,” he said, his gruff voice sounding oddly gentle. “It won’t las
t, Isabelle. You and your sister will get back together. Blood tells.”

  “I’ll never go back there.” The vehemence in her tone shocked even Isabelle. “I no longer care what happens to any of them.”

  “You feel that way now, but it’ll change. Home is the one place you can’t escape.”

  “That’s not my home, Matty. I don’t think it ever was.”

  He patted her hand, and they sat together in silence, watching the play of sunlight on the gray-blue ocean and the way the seagulls darted beneath the whitecaps in search of food. What would it be like, she wondered, to be part of a family like Matty’s? To know you were loved no matter what, that home was there waiting for you, however far away you wandered.

  * * *

  As the day wore on, the house continued to fill with family and friends until Isabelle wondered if the crowd would spill out onto the deck and down to the beach. She helped set the enormous table in the dining room and the three additional tables in the foyer and kitchen. Apparently it was an American custom to seat the children at their own table, separate from the adults. Graduation to one of the adult tables was viewed as a welcome rite of passage. One of Daniel’s nephews, a handsome young man named Tony, was having his first holiday meal with the adults, and he didn’t hesitate to lord it over his siblings and cousins.

  Sal and his wife Rose arrived en famille a little after three o’clock. Isabelle greeted the retired butcher with a warm hug.

  “I told ya so,” Sal said, turning to grin at his wife. “I did meet the princess at the pool hall last night.”

  “Oh, great,” said Rose, rolling her eyes in mock dismay. “As if he doesn’t already think who the hell he is.”

  The Brooklyn contingent of Matty’s friends arrived in Bernie Pearlstein’s rented minivan while the rest of the Queens brigade came out on the Long Island Railroad.

  Dinner was loud, raucous, filled with arguments about everything from sex to politics to religion. Sal argued energetically with his best friend Matty, a multimillionaire, about the stock market. Cathy, the psychologist, tried to mediate, but both her father and godfather told her to mind her own business because they were thoroughly enjoying themselves.

  Everyone, it seemed, also had an opinion about Daniel’s business dealings in Japan. She listened as Daniel detailed the hotel-convention center he was building outside Tokyo. “You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you, Danny,” said his father. “Better brush up on your Japanese. After New Year’s, you’re gonna be needing it because you can’t postpone the trip any longer.”

  “I don’t see why you can’t send one of those fancy executives,” Connie grumbled. “You pay them enough. Can’t they make sure things get off to a good start?”

  “This company was built with hands-on supervision,” Matty said with conviction, “and that’s the way we’re gonna continue.” The Bronson name stood for quality, and nobody cared more about keeping it that way than another Bronson. “Bad enough you’ve put this trip off as long as you have.”

  January, thought Isabelle, feeling a wave of sadness wash over her. January is when it will end.

  Daniel made them all laugh with his attempts to speak Japanese. Isabelle did her best to join in, but her heart simply was not in it. It was one thing to realize nothing lasted forever. Knowing when it would end—and how—was something else.

  Cathy, the psychologist, tossed a piece of dinner roll in her brother’s direction. “Wouldn’t you love to be the poor sap stuck next to Danny on a fourteen-hour flight?”

  “Claustrophobia?” Isabelle asked when the laughter died down.

  “It’s not the space,” Daniel said, glaring at the rest of his family. “It’s the altitude.”

  “You’re afraid of flying?”

  He nodded. “Despite the best efforts of my psychologist sister.”

  “I cannot imagine you being afraid of anything.”

  “Yeah, well, we all have our Achilles’ heels. Mine kicks in about ten feet above sea level.”

  “You must have hated Perreault,” she said with a shake of her head. “Especially the castle.”

  “Let’s say I didn’t spend a lot of time looking out the window. When I get around to building my dream house, it won’t be five thousand feet up.”

  After dinner, Isabelle volunteered to help with the cleanup, but Connie wouldn’t hear of it. “You’re our guest, honey. We put you to work this morning. That’s enough for one visit. Go! Have fun!” With that she placed her hands at the small of Isabelle’s back and gave her a gentle shove in Daniel’s general direction.

  “I feel so useless,” she said to Daniel as they went for an after-dinner stroll on the beach. “Everyone is so accomplished, so productive. All of your sisters are doing something marvelous with their lives, raising families, helping people, running companies. I cannot think of one productive thing I have done in my entire life.”

  “You put Ivan’s factory on the map.” Daniel stopped walking and drew her into his arms. “He’s made more money in the past two months than he has in his entire life. I’d say that’s being productive.”

  A brisk wind was blowing off the water. She reached up to brush a lock of hair off his forehead, then looped her arms around his neck. “I haven’t seen much of you today, Bronson.”

  “I didn’t think you’d noticed. You and my old man were thick as thieves.”

  “Jealous?”

  He chuckled. “Should I be?”

  “He’s a wonderful man,” she said in a teasing voice. “Warm and funny and quite attractive.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Almost as handsome as his son.”

  “My whole family is taken with you, princess. Even Uncle Quinn who doesn’t like any of us.”

  “I’m taken with them—even Uncle Quinn.”

  “They want you to come back for Christmas.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “I want you to be with me for Christmas,” he said bluntly. “The rest of it is negotiable.”

  Her heart seemed to turn over in her chest from the sheer force of the emotions his words evoked. Nothing lasts, a small voice warned. Especially not anything as wonderful as this. The specter of Daniel’s trip to Japan threw a long shadow.

  They made love that night in the big bed near the window, bathed by the light from the full moon. Once again he took her to a level of passion that bordered on the mystical, and she found herself crying softly against his shoulder after she climaxed.

  She couldn’t explain it when he asked, couldn’t find the words to describe the bittersweet mélange of joy and sadness that filled her heart as she lay there in his arms. She knew that in this world nothing lasted forever, but would it be tempting the fates if she asked that the wonder they’d found together last a little bit longer?

  Chapter

  Thirteen

  The offices of Patrick Marchand were situated a few blocks from Harrod’s in an office building that had never quite recovered from the blitz.

  Juliana, wearing dark glasses and with her pale hair hidden by a Hermes scarf, waited for the driver to open the door of her limousine.

  “You will wait for me here,” she instructed the driver as she stepped from the car. “I do not know how long I shall be, but I expect you to be here for me.”

  The driver tipped his hat. “Right you are, miss. You look out the window and you’ll see Clarence waiting here just like you asked.”

  She wrinkled her nose at the clumsy attempt at familiarity. How odd it felt to venture forth without the protective trappings of her position. It made her feel vulnerable, a feeling for which she had little patience.

  But it simply couldn’t be helped. She needed secrecy, someone who understood the necessity for discretion. Certainly she could never have turned to anyone at home. Indeed, not even in Paris could she have been guaranteed the confidentiality necessary for the task. The Malraux name was even more famous than her own, at least within certain cosmopolitan circles.

  Quickly she made
her way through the crowd of pedestrians that clogged the sidewalk, hurrying about on their sad little chores. It was hard to imagine what they did with their time. She rarely gave much thought to how other people lived their lives. She found the problems of others to be of paramount disinterest, and never more so than now when her own life teetered on the verge of ruin.

  Marchand’s office was on the second floor. Juliana stepped carefully over some cigarette butts and disgusting wads of chewing gum scattered like confetti on the stairs. She hated disorder; dirt was incomprehensible. If the man hadn’t come so highly recommended, she would turn on her heel and flee.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when she stepped into the anteroom. The walls were lacquered a restful shade of icy gray with the slightest blue undertone. The fitted carpet was the same hue but in a darker tone.

  His receptionist, a slim young woman with a sleek cap of honey-blond hair, smiled up at her. It was obvious the receptionist recognized Juliana, but she gave no indication of undue curiosity. “I’ll let Mr. Marchand know you have arrived.”

  Moments later, Marchand stepped into the anteroom. He was a tall, good-looking man of about fifty who understood the proper way to treat a woman of Juliana’s position. Instantly she felt as if there might be hope.

  He ushered her into his office, then offered her a chair. She removed her sunglasses and unwrapped the scarf, folding it into a neat square and placing it in her lap.

  “May I offer you some tea, Princess Juliana?”

  She shook her head. “I should like to proceed.”

  “As you wish.” He looked down at a foolscap pad positioned in the center of his desk blotter. “You say your husband has been straying...”

  * * *

  After a weekend in Montauk coping with his family’s brand of controlled chaos, Daniel usually was glad to return to Manhattan. The city’s insanity seemed tame compared to a few days spent in close proximity to the rest of the Bronson clan. More often than not, he was glad to say good-bye to the woman who had accompanied him. He was a loner by nature. Sharing space didn’t come easily. Solitude was as important to him as companionship was for someone else.