by J. D. Fox
“Surely you know that you are a beautiful woman,” Olivier said, making sure the salad dressing was properly emulsified.
“It’s just a little strange and unexpected, coming from the father of the child I’m nannying,” Genevieve said.
“I am surprised that you are not hearing it constantly when you go around the town,” Olivier observed.
“I am actually thankful that I don’t, considering I usually have Mathilde with me,” Genevieve said.
“Ah, oui, that would be difficult to explain to her,” Olivier agreed.
They sat down to their meal, and over their steaks, fries, and salads with glasses of wine, Genevieve explained what she had read in the paperwork that Olivier had printed out for her. “So how does it come about that you're in a position to open a new business in finance here with American financial backing?” Olivier’s jovial mood subsided somewhat at Genevieve’s question.
“I met a business partner interested in expanding into France,” Olivier said dismissively.
“From what I understand, France has much stricter laws regarding finance and establishing businesses,” Genevieve mused, sipping her wine.
“Well, I have an established reputation here,” Olivier said.
“That does tend to help,” Genevieve agreed.
“How do you know about these things?” He had read over the resume and background information she’d provided, and it had been sparse on details apart from the fact that she had a degree in business management and had worked for a major finance corporation. It occurred to Olivier that her profile had not mentioned what her position there had been, or even what kind of corporation it had been.
“I worked in a brokerage,” Genevieve said with a shrug. “I was on the board of trustees, so I learned a lot about different jurisdictions and laws and all that.” She waved away her professional experience as if it was irrelevant, but hearing the news made Olivier wonder if he had made a grave error in showing her any of his documents at all.
“That is an interesting background for someone who has become an au pair,” Olivier said.
“I decided I didn’t want that life for myself anymore,” Genevieve explained. “It was too cutthroat and fake.”
“This would be a good reason to leave,” Olivier agreed. “I am glad, again, that you are willing to allow me to borrow your expertise.”
“I am happy to be able to lend it,” Genevieve said, smiling, “especially since I won’t have to make any decisions or help you actually run your business.”
Olivier chuckled. “Ah yes,” he agreed. He raised his glass to her, and Genevieve mirrored his movements. Olivier thought he would need to be far more careful about getting her help in the future.
Chapter Nine
Gen strolled down the cobbled street, looking around her. It was a rare day utterly free of au pair responsibilities, and she was determined to enjoy it. Olivier was visiting his parents with Mathilde, leaving Gen to her own devices for a long weekend. He had invited her as a courtesy, but Gen had known that the rapid-fire French-speaking that would be going on around her would make her feel lost at sea; besides which, it would be good, she had thought, to have a little time to explore the town by herself. And if I get lost, I can find my way home using the GPS on my phone, she reminded herself.
The market was in full swing in the central square of the little town, and Gen found herself smiling again and again as she went from one stall to another, browsing the summer produce, the fresh and cured meats, seafood, and other goods for sale.
“Qu’est-ce que vous cherchez, mademoiselle? Un melon? Des fraises? Un ami?” Gen felt her cheeks warm at the question, and she grinned, rolling her eyes with a grin at the man. “What are you looking for, young lady? A melon? Some strawberries? A boyfriend?” She knew she was batting her eyelashes slightly as she replied, egging him on, but it was a dance that Gen knew was all in fun.
“Mais combien coûterait un ami?” How much for a boyfriend?
The merchant chuckled. “Pour une belle demoiselle comme vous, je ferais une bonne affaire,” he told her. “For a beautiful lady like yourself, I would make an excellent deal.”
“Je n’en doute pas, monsieur,” Gen countered. “Vous avez un air juste. Un autre jour, je pense.” I don’t doubt it; you seem like a fair person. Another day, I think. She beat a quick retreat before he could flirt with her any more and she ended up out of her depth in the conversation, moving onto a stall with soaps and bath products run by an older woman and her adult daughter.
After about thirty minutes, Gen wandered back out of the market, consulting the map of the town on her phone briefly to orient herself. She decided that since both the grocery store and bakery were on her way to the Metropole, she would grab an easy dinner for herself on her way to visit Sadie. She stepped into Monoprix and browsed for a bit before deciding on a dinner of snacks: beaufort and brie cheeses, rillettes de poulet rôti, and serrano ham, along with some olives and early pears.
Once she had dinner sorted out and had grabbed a baguette from the boulangerie, Gen stopped at the Metropole, greeting Sadie as she chose a seat outside to enjoy the bright, sunny day.
“Salut, ma poule! Tu vas bien?” They had reached a point where both felt comfortable calling each other ‘tu,' which relieved Gen—she still couldn’t quite tell what the rules for formal versus informal address were.
“Oui, je vais bien,” Gen replied. “Et toi?” Sadie sat down with Gen’s usual order.
“I must say that you are looking well,” Sadie observed.
“I have the day off— Mathilde and Olivier are at his parents’ house for the long weekend.” Sadie frowned slightly, and Gen wondered which of the words had been unclear.
“Long weekend, this means the days off next to le weekend?”
Gen nodded. “That’s how we call it in America, at least,” she said.
“Ah--it makes sense,” Sadie observed. “So you have the big house to yourself?” Gen nodded again, sipping her coffee.
“It’s a little lonely, but also very peaceful,” Gen told the older woman.
“Have you been tempted to...comment dit? Sneak around?” Gen smiled wryly at the question. Ever since Olivier had asked her to translate the whole passages from the forms he’d received (as opposed to the bits and pieces of other documents), she had wondered about her new boss. She hadn’t seen everything that was involved in the deal that Olivier Laurent was making, but from her background, Gen was concerned.
“There are places in the house I am forbidden to go,” Gen said. “It is—I admit—tempting to try and check them out while the house is empty, but I don’t want to risk getting caught.”
Sadie chuckled a bit. “Certainly, Monsieur Laurent has his secrets he would prefer to keep,” she commented.
“Okay, you can’t say something like that and not explain what you mean,” Gen told the older woman. Sadie looked at her for a long moment, seeming to consider.
“I do not know anything for sure,” she cautioned her new friend, “but there are the things one hears.”
“Okay, and what things have you heard about my boss?” Sadie pursed her lips for a moment and glanced away before meeting Gen’s gaze once more.
“He wasn’t always wealthy,” Sadie explained. Gen noticed that she still had a tendency to pronounce -th sounds as almost anything else: as an F sound, or a Z, or sometimes, oddly, an S sound. “I have heard that he is someone it is not always safe to do business with.”
“From who? Is he not paying his bills or something?”
Sadie smiled wryly. “There is a saying: no one pays better than he who has been poor,” she replied.
“So he’s not ripping people off in town or anything,” Gen pointed out. “What are you getting at?” Sadie sighed.
“From what I have heard about him, his fortune is—how do you say it?” Sadie cont
emplated a moment. “Here, we would say he is louche—his fortune is composé de l’argent sale.”
“So the rumor is that he’s shady, that he has dirty money? Is that what you mean?”
Sadie nodded. “That is what I hear about him,” she said, almost dismissing it. “My mother had a saying, let me see if I can translate: there are many clean ways to make a living, but only dirty ways to make a fortune.” Gen had to chuckle slightly at that.
“Your mother wasn’t wrong,” she observed. “Certainly I never heard of any completely clean ways to make a fortune.” She sighed, thinking about the paperwork she had read and translated for her boss. She had been working with him and taking care of Mathilde for a month.
“One can be a genius, but even then…”
Gen nodded. “So why are you telling me this about my boss?” Sadie shrugged, looking around to make sure that no one was trying to get her attention.
“It is something you should know,” she said simply. “If it were me, I would want to know.” Gen had to admit the woman had a point. Someone called for the bar owner, and Sadie rose to her feet quickly to answer the summons. She smiled at Gen and hurried off, promising to come back as soon as she took care of Monsieur Chauve.
Gen sipped her coffee and thought about what Sadie had told her, adding it to what she had been piecing together about her new employer. As things had become more relaxed and she’d settled into her job with the Laurent family, Olivier had started to almost be flirtatious with her, casual to the point that it almost felt like a relationship between friends rather than that of an employer and employee. Indeed, when they were out in public together with Mathilde, she was treated as if she were part of the family unit, as opposed to the hired help.
And then, too, there was the way that her skin tingled whenever, in the course of perfectly mundane activities, her skin brushed against Olivier’s. He had begun greeting her in the French way—air-kissing her on each cheek—when she came in with Mathilde, or when they met in the street as she went about on her own business; that, too, sent a jolt, a kind of frisson, through her.
Gen was no stranger to ill-gotten gains. Hearing about Olivier had reminded her of her parents, who she had managed to stop thinking about a couple of weeks before. It hadn’t only been their disgrace that had made her abandon the life they had set her to pursue; it had been a kind of stunned realization that it could easily be her in five, ten, twenty years facing down a ten-year or more sentence for fraud and embezzlement. If she stayed in that industry, Gen had known she would be putting herself at risk of becoming intoxicated by the allure of more money and bigger “killings.”
“Pardon-moi. Tu t’appelles Geneviève?” Gen looked up to see a woman about her same age, with curling blonde hair and big, bright blue eyes. She was dressed in the comfortable-yet-chic way that all French women seemed to find some variation of tights with pristine sneakers, a skirt that fell just above the knee, and a loose, boat-neck blouse in pale blue-gray.
“Oui,” Gen replied, wondering who the woman was and how she knew her name.
“I am Claire,” the woman said. “Sadie said that you are an au pair aussi?” The jumbled up French and English took Genevieve a moment to unravel in her mind, but she smiled.
“Yes, I am,” she said, enunciating a little more carefully than she would have for an American.
“May I sit?” Gen glanced around quickly, wondering what Claire was going to say to her.
“Sure—of course,” she said, her heart beating faster. Had Claire worked for Olivier before? Did she know more about the rumors that Sadie had hinted at? Claire seated herself, smoothing her skirt against her legs.
“I apologize if I am being rude,” Claire said, “but Sadie told me that you are from America?” Gen nodded again.
“I am,” she confirmed. Claire’s eyes widened slightly.
“Where are you from there?”
“I was born in Connecticut, but I lived in Manhattan,” Gen explained, preparing herself for the lengthy explanation that would come next.
“Like in Friends?” Claire’s voice took on an excited note, and Gen couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Something like that,” she said. “Why?”
“You might think I am a bit silly, but…” Claire licked her lips nervously. “I dream of living in America, in New York.”
Gen grinned broadly. “It is much more glamorous on TV than in real life,” Gen said, finishing off her coffee.
“Were you about to leave? I do not want to keep you,” Claire said. Gen shook her head.
“No. No, I have nowhere to be,” Gen replied quickly.
“Would you mind…” Claire looked faintly nervous. “I would love to speak to you about America if that’s okay?”
Gen smiled again. “Sure thing,” Gen said.
“Can I buy you something to drink? Another coffee?”
Gen glanced at her empty cup. “Maybe some water?” Claire nodded and rose to her feet quickly.
“Stay right there! I’ll be right back.” Gen chuckled quietly to herself as the other woman hurried off to order their drinks. She hadn’t realized it, but in the month since she’d arrived, Gen had missed having friends close to her own age. Sadie was wonderful—and still determined to get her story out of her—but there was something different about meeting someone her own age, experiencing the same things at the same time.
Chapter Ten
Olivier paced across the floor of his office, waiting for it to be time for his phone call. After a little more than a month, he was ready to get into the final details of the deal. With Genevieve’s help, he was as confident as he could be that he wouldn’t be getting screwed in the process. But thinking of Geneviève, who had taken his daughter to a nearby park to play while he worked, made Olivier nervous again.
She asked questions that made him wonder. He had carefully worked to discourage any interest in his dealings, but the woman’s sharp, agile mind seemed to be ahead of him, and he sometimes wondered what she thought he did in his affaires. Elle ne sait rien, he reminded himself. She only knew that he had dealings with an American financier to bring a business to France that he would be running.
It was time for the call. Olivier stepped towards his desk and sat down, exhaling heavily. There was the familiar thrill of working a deal like the one he had in front of him, but with Mathilde depending on him, there was nervousness as well. And now he had to worry about the possibility of his au pair figuring out the con. He shook his head and dismissed any agitation. He’d been working schemes—in one way or another—since he had barely been an adult; he knew what he was doing.
The notification chimed, and Olivier accepted the call. “Hello?”
“Good afternoon, Olivier,” the man, who Olivier knew as Clinton—no last names as yet—sounded wide-awake, given that it was about six in the morning where he was.
“Good afternoon,” Olivier said. “I believe that we are both ready to move to the next phase of our deal, are we not?”
“Indeed we are,” Clinton said. “I trust you've gone over everything?” Olivier nodded to himself.
“I have,” he replied.
“Then let’s go over how this will work,” Clinton said.
“From what I am seeing, the situation seems simple enough, no?” Olivier had gotten better at English since speaking regularly with Geneviève, but he saw no reason to demonstrate his prowess to his partner. “The investment paperwork is prepared, and I can find investors here for our purposes.”
“Excellent,” Clinton said. “I will finalize the incorporation paperwork this week and send it to you to sign.”
The plan, as it was laid out to Olivier, was a fairly straightforward one: Clinton was a go-between and would be transferring funds to open a European branch of an American firm that Olivier would be the official owner of. He would attract investors in France,
who would provide private funding, and the business would essentially function as a laundering operation for the American investors—a funnel for their funds to leave the country while avoiding taxes and insider trading laws, and come back as legitimate. The company would exist just long enough to complete the transactions needed, and then it would mysteriously fold, leaving Olivier with five hundred million dollars.
“Can you confirm that the initial investment will be 750 million?” Olivier knew that by American corporate standards, it was a moderate amount of money; it was enough to justify the investment, but not so much that the authorities might be alerted.
“I can absolutely confirm that,” Clinton said. “We expect you to be able to attract an equal amount in funding on your end, just to make sure everything goes smoothly.”
“I have initial promises of 650,” Olivier told the man. “I will have the final one hundred million by the time you arrive to complete the formal launch.”
They continued discussing details for another thirty minutes, hashing out how long it would take to “clean” the money that Clinton’s investors wanted to launder, and how the process would go. It was by far not Olivier’s first scam of this nature; he had come to Clinton’s attention specifically because he had previously helped a mutual acquaintance move some money around, taking a percentage of that money as a fee. He had a certain reputation in the back-room spaces of financiers, Olivier had learned. He could be trusted—within reason—to get a job done and keep things neat and tidy.
“I believe that settles everything,” Clinton said finally.
“I agree,” Olivier replied. “I will wait to receive the paperwork I need to sign, and then plan on seeing you within a month.”
They concluded the call, and Olivier closed out the program, automatically encrypting the conversation. It was a double precaution, for his safety as well as his partner’s, and though it wasn’t foolproof, it was safer than doing nothing. He exhaled slowly, reviewing the plan in his mind. As far as Genevieve knew, he was opening a new financial company in France for investors to take advantage of some differences in laws. He reminded himself that there was nothing in the paperwork that he’d let his au pair review for him that would give her a clue into his true dealings.
