Lucy finally caught up with me at the bar. She’d gotten wind of what Suzanne had done with the reporters. “That woman is a barracuda,” she announced. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head as I said, “I’m fine.” I motioned to the bartender for another double. I’d given up champagne for straight bourbon.
“No matter what she does, he’s going to be with you for the next four weeks in France. Take heart.”
I watched as Dev interacted with her, with that charming smile he had perfected over the years. There wasn’t even a hint that he hated her.
Apparently he was an exceptional liar; that much was easy to tell. The only real question was who was he lying to?
I watched as she clung onto him, laughing and making small talk with the press. She leaned into him, her hand lingering on his strong arms or his solid chest.
Again, Caz’s voice echoed in my ear.
“We’d take it whenever she danced dangerously close to inappropriate behavior, like a lingering touch, or standing too close, or flirting. The really smart guys, like Dev, used it to their advantage. He flirted back. He was just as brazen. He stood a little too close. His touches lingered. Basically he saw an opportunity and he took it. Sound familiar?”
I watched my husband play her game to perfection. He was charming and engaging as he spoke. He looked comfortable on her arm, like he had been there many times before. And of course, he had. He leaned toward her, he smiled for photos. No one who looked at them would even think there was any animosity at all. They looked positively friendly. Familiar. Intimate.
I had to turn away. Lucy followed me to the bathroom. “Don’t let her get into your head, Ceece. That’s all she’s trying to do. That’s all she can do.”
“She’s pretty good at it,” I mumbled before I glanced at my watch. I was waiting for the first opportunity to split.
But a quick getaway was not to be. After dinner, the speeches began. Even my father spoke on the importance of electing the right kind of leader, ones that rigorously defended traditional American ideals. They wanted to protect the family, whatever that meant.
What it really meant was fiscal policies aimed to benefit that particular audience full of the one-percenters. I knew that on social issues they were mostly tossing a bone to the evangelicals, who wanted to see progress shutting down controversial things like abortion and gay marriage. When they started in on the drug war, I had to leave the room. You couldn’t swing a dead cat in that place without hitting someone hooked on prescription meds or guzzling any assortment of liquor, but God forbid we legalize a plant.
I was never particularly political, certainly not like Lucy had been, but even I had a limit of bullshit I could tolerate.
I wasn’t surprised to see that Lucy had exited the fundraiser first. She handed me a small glass pipe that she had smuggled in her purse. “You can’t do that in your condition,” I admonished at once.
“It’s not for me, silly. I just had a feeling you could use something with a little more oomph than all the free-flowing booze in there.”
I grinned and we both said together, “No hangover.”
We walked along the path till we found a secluded area just down the way from the party, where I could take a hit in private. I’d never loved marijuana so much as when it eased all the tension that had been building for weeks. So much better than the booze, which had only given me a dull headache and a queasy stomach the more of it I had to use.
Thankfully pot worked for that, too.
“I’ve decided something,” Lucy declared. “This is my last command performance. I’ve got my own household now. My own family. I don’t need to do Sylvia Lyon’s bidding just because she snaps her fingers. She paid for the tickets. So what? Like I want to be photographed in the same room as some of these yahoos, especially that misogynist, Harvey Everhart. Please. I’m honestly surprised that Suzanne has been able to hold onto him for so long. She must have something really juicy on him.”
I turned to her. “What do you mean?”
“The relationship just doesn’t make any sense. He’s married like four times, and three of those looked like supermodels. In fact, I think two were supermodels.”
I laughed. “I think you’re right.”
“So here’s this really rich guy, this stupidly rich guy, who can have any woman he wants and he picks a pre-Devlin Suzanne. Not only does he marry her, but he looks the other way while she has this parade of studs stampeding through her stable. Why would he do that? It doesn’t make any sense. She has to have something on him.”
“You watch too many soap operas, Luce,” I teased.
“You live a freaking soap opera, Ceece,” she shot back. I could hardly argue. “Speaking of which, I’m surprised your buddy Caz didn’t make an appearance. I thought he couldn’t pass up opportunities to make your life hell.”
“Right? I honestly don’t know what’s up with him. He even told me I could even skip this week. Who knows what’s going on?”
“Maybe he’s growing up or some shit,” Lucy commented, making me laugh again. It was some really good pot.
I even found myself smiling when I walked back into the club, where Harvey was breathing fire from the podium, whipping the crowd into a frenzy about ‘taking the country back.’ I had always wondered where it had gone, or who had taken it.
I sat next to Devlin, who had finally shaken Suzanne free when she returned to the lead table. He spared me a smile. I returned it.
Before Harvey could finish his speech, Devlin discreetly pulled me up from our chair so we could sneak out. Our job was done. There was nothing left to do but survive all the hot air. I grabbed my purse and followed, to make our escape while everyone was preoccupied. He practically broke into a trot towards the parking lot, so we could make a clean getaway.
We were running by the time we got to the valet, where we huddled together, laughing. It was such a relief after so many rough weeks. He picked me up into his arms and twirled me around. “There she is,” he murmured. “My beautiful wife.”
I looped my arms around him and held on. It felt so good to feel good; I just didn’t want it to end. I even broke out the pipe and the flower after we got into the car, on our way past the exit. “Why Coralie Masters,” he admonished with a grin. “I had no idea you were a pothead.”
“Some days you need a little more help than others,” I commented as I took a hit. “That back there was a total cannabis emergency.”
He must have agreed, because the minute he parked the car he grabbed the tiny glass pipe for a hit of his own. By the time we reached our apartment, we both felt like we were flying.
He picked me up at the threshold and carried me towards the bedroom. He didn’t stop until we tumbled onto the bed, laughing until we couldn’t breathe. As the giggles passed, he cupped my head with his hand. “You were so fucking beautiful tonight, baby. You shined. At last everyone could see what I see.”
I so badly wanted to believe him. I traced his face with my finger.
“What?” he probed softly.
I sighed and pulled him down to me. “I just can’t wait to get to Chateau du Cabot. I’m tired of sharing you with the world.”
He kissed me softly. “Ditto.” His hand trailed down my body until it rested against my tummy. “I’m going to share you soon enough,” he said before he leaned forward to plant a long peck against my tummy.
“Is that what you really want, Dev?” I asked. And I hated how pathetic I sounded when I asked it.
He gathered me close in his arms. “I want you, Coralie. Everything about you. Every day of my life. I love you, baby.”
Whether I was high or just in denial, I decided to be happy with that answer, just in that moment. I kissed him back before turning him onto his back so I could make up for some lost time.
The next day we went house-hunting. Since Lucy had found such a gem in Brentwood, we expanded our search there. We found a beautiful five-bedroom home secluded behind a wall of t
rees keeping guard along the quiet street. The house had two living areas, one with a bookshelves built in all the way to the ceiling, with a sliding ladder attached. The kitchen featured blue granite countertops and cobalt shaded light fixtures, and the focal point of the formal living room was a large fireplace framed with blue marble, which opened up on the other side of the wall to the library.
The floors were hardwood, all polished cherry, and it had over four-thousand square feet of living space.
The true selling point of the house was the back yard, which was large enough to be zoned for horses. “Chloe will like that,” Devlin grinned.
“As much as Remi will love the pool,” I replied with a grin of my own as I surveyed the swimming pool, which was separate from the house, secured by a white picket fence all the way around it, to make it safer for a household with small children. Mature trees stood around the property, keeping it secure and private, with lots of space for a family to grow.
That estate was everything great about the Golden Age of the 1950s, and California itself. We knew in a second that it was the house we wanted. Devlin didn’t even bother haggling. He offered the full asking price. It was worth it, just to make sure we got it.
We made the offer on Saturday. By Wednesday, we were at the realtor’s office, signing our life away for our very first home, a modest $8,000,000 estate that we financed all for our very own. Best of all we could move in right as we returned home from France, which meant I only had a few more days stuck in that luxury high-rise.
That, along with the fact that Caz had made himself scarce, and Suzanne had joined her husband on the campaign trail, allowed me to relax a bit and enjoy myself, especially since I was now a bit of a superstar. Apparently my transformation was the talk of the town. I was featured on news feeds and fashion blogs across the country after my oh-so-fabulous debut at the fundraiser. Several fashion magazines wanted to talk to me, particularly about our new clothing line, so I couldn’t turn them down. This dominated my duties at Cabot’s for those last days of July. I became the face of Youniquely Cabot whether that was the original plan or not, with my own personal quest to feel empowered and beautiful at the heart of the campaign. I did at least six interviews before we boarded our plane that afternoon on July 31st.
The further we climbed into the air away from Los Angeles, the better I felt. It was as if everything was finally falling into place. I grabbed Dev’s hand and squeezed. He smiled as he squeezed back.
He had teased about joining the mile-high club during our flight, but we had decided that we wouldn’t do anything until August 8th, when I was scheduled to ovulate. I had already bought the kits and learned the positions that would make this the easiest conception known to humankind. All we needed was one of Devlin’s little soldiers to find my egg and we were in business.
Since Dev and I were the kinds of people who knew how to make things happen, we made every single one of our plans accordingly, even if it meant we had to deny ourselves. It wasn’t always easy to do that, particularly when he would run his hand down my leg under the blanket we shared as we dozed crossing the Atlantic. I gasped when his fingers slipped under my dress and slid up my thigh. “Dev,” I started, but he simply shushed me.
“You’re dreaming,” he murmured.
I held my breath as his hand disappeared between my legs. When he slid a finger under my underwear, I gasped out loud. If he was going to insist that I scream and wake up a darkened plane full of sleepy passengers, I was going to be in serious trouble.
Instead he just teased me, making me squirm in my seat, whimpering for a release I knew wasn’t coming for another week. “You’re driving me crazy,” I groaned as I pushed my body into his hands.
“It’ll be worth it,” he assured. I knew he wanted our child’s conception to be perfect, and was approaching the whole process reverently.
This was what mattered. Not all that drama with Suzanne and Caz.
We arrived in Paris a little before noon local time. We stayed there for that first weekend, so I could show him the town. We ate delicious food in outdoor cafes. We drank wine for no reason at all. We prowled the Louvre. We rode up to the top of the Eiffel Tower, where we took a selfie and posted it online like the rest of our romantic trip.
Now that we had so much attention on us, and by extension Youniquely Cabot, Father had tasked me with taking these kinds of shots to promote our clothes, particularly the new ones I wore, which essentially brought Cabot’s to the 21st century on social media. By August 2nd, when we posted the Eiffel Tower shot, I had over ten thousand followers.
That Suzanne made a point to “like” the photo, to remind us that she was still around and still watching, was a dark blot on an otherwise perfect weekend.
We ate well. We drank a lot. We held each other. We kissed. We promised everything and nothing all at once. And as we stared out over the grand old city of Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower, we realized how far we had truly come in such a short amount of time. It had only been eleven weeks since we stood at the top of the Eiffel Tower replica in Las Vegas, and here we were, in the City of Lights, one of the most romantic cities in the world.
At least that was how he tagged the shot of us kissing with the Eiffel Tower behind us.
We even used some useful hashtags, including the ever popular #TBT hashtag when Devlin posted a photo from Vegas I didn’t even know he had taken.
#elevenweeks #fullcircle #perfectlove
The photo showed in stark contrast how much I had changed, particularly when he paired it with a current photo. I didn’t even look like myself anymore. I looked more like my beautiful mother. It proved just how magical Devlin Masters really was.
Suzanne liked that photo too.
I rented a car to drive us to Châlons-en-Champagne, which was a little over a hundred miles east of Paris. We stopped in the middle of our two hour drive for a picnic, eating soft cheeses and fruit along with even more wine. Dev pulled me down next to him on the blanket we’d spread out on the countryside, to hold me tightly in his arms. “This is perfect,” he murmured. “You are perfect.”
He kissed me then, and we almost forgot that we were voluntarily celibate for the next five days. It was almost as if denying ourselves made the longing that much stronger, so much stronger than all of our challenges back home.
We arrived at the chateau early that afternoon, just shy of one o’clock. We ambled up the gravel driveway around the enormous estate that dated all the way back to the 16th century. The old stone buildings were stately, and the water-filled mote surrounded the outer stone walls decorated with large green garland and creeping vines.
“Wow,” Devlin breathed as we finally pulled to a stop.
Before we could exit the car, two men ran immediately out to greet us. They were Henri Picard and Jean-Luc Roelle, a lovely couple we had hired to look after the place shortly after Mama died, and Father knew we wouldn’t be coming back as much.
They greeted me like the beloved old uncles that they were. Henri and Jean-Luc loved Chateau du Cabot as much as their very own home. They painstakingly took care of the place, tending the grounds, maintaining the house, overseeing the vineyards and always keeping the house available to any Cabot who might want to visit.
For the last ten years, that had been only me. We had other family in France, extended family, who owned the different vineyards for our award-winning wines. But Chateau du Cabot had always really belonged to Adrian Cabot’s America offshoot of the family tree.
It was so deeply a part of me from the time I was born that it had always seemed fairly unremarkable. Until I saw the place through Devlin’s eyes, anyway.
It had a courtyard and remains of a fort, with tall stone walls surrounding the main house. There was a chapel on the grounds, near my mother’s final resting place, a special spot among the meadows watched over by an old stone angel that time had cracked and weathered.
There were eight bedrooms, six bathrooms and seven reception areas.
The grounds included a heated swimming pool, and there was modern furniture in all of the rooms, with just a few antique pieces scattered without. Yet I could still feel the ghosts of my ancestors as we walked the spacious halls.
I took Devlin up to the master suite, which I had taken over when I realized that Father was either too sick or too distraught to return to Chateau du Cabot. It was the largest room, with dramatic beamed ceilings and a large bed facing the window to look over the grounds.
Again Devlin took me into his arms. “I never realized you were royalty,” he said before he bent for a kiss. “My queen.”
We changed into something more comfortable to wear as we prowled the grounds. I took him to the chapel first, which was kept much like it was found–in ruins. This old building hadn’t fared as well as the rest of the house, though we were partly to blame for that. We didn’t mind the broken stained glass windows, or the dusty, cracked wood floors. There were several pews, but most of the space in front of the altar was clear of anything except a beam of light that shined through a hole in the ceiling.
He kissed my hand. “My favorite spot so far.”
I nodded. I had always felt the same, considering this was where my own family started when Father married Mother here more than twenty years before.
After that I walked him along the pathway towards the river, where a stone statue sat among the fallen leaves. “Hi, Mama,” I said softly to her lingering ghost, who guarded over our woods. She didn’t have a grave. Her ashes were scattered, so she could be free to fly in death as she had been in life.
When father died, his ashes would be spread here as well, to unite with her at last. They’d become part of the trees, part of the river… part of our home.
After the sun set, we headed back to the chateau, where dinner waited for us. Henri and Jean-Luc were extraordinarily attentive to guests, mostly because we didn’t get them that often. They tried to communicate with Dev, who didn’t speak much French. I ended up having to translate, and we still had a fabulous time where we laughed and joked all night long.
Masters for Life Page 24
