Daddy's Secret Deal

by J. D. Fox

  ​Olivier checked his phone and saw that his partner had signed the paperwork on his side electronically; that would mean their plans were going forward without a hitch, and that Clinton would be in the country within a few weeks to finalize the deal that would make them both very wealthy men. Olivier smiled to himself and thought, hopefully, that if things worked out well, once he put the business behind him, it might be time to talk with Genevieve about what had happened between the two of them. But that would depend both on her keeping her curiosity about his business to herself, and on him pulling the scheme off. Olivier rose to his feet to go back into the kitchen and reminded himself firmly that he needed always to be ready to protect his privacy, even if Mathilde had fallen in love with her new nanny.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ​“Are you sure that you want to pay? I thought it was my turn,” Julia said, holding up her wallet, and Genevieve smiled.

  ​“I thought you said we don’t take turns,” Genevieve countered. She hadn’t failed to notice that the slightly younger au pair had a brand new purse, with the familiar lines that proclaimed it to be from Paul Marius. Probably at least €100, Gen thought blandly. She’d met Julia through Claire; she was the only other American au pair who was part of what Gen had taken to calling the “au pair network,” a group of nannies who all worked in the general area around Rouen. They met up to have coffee or wine, talk about the families they worked for, and blow off steam. It wasn’t surprising at all to Gen that Julia had a brand-new purse from the high-end boutique; every time she’d met up with the younger woman, Julia had had one or another new, expensive item.

  ​What had been surprising at first was finding out that Julia wasn’t getting paid nearly as well as she was. But a few hints from the other nanny had put Gen on the right track: she’d watched Julia flirting with an older man who happened upon them outside of a brasserie, and it had brought back memories of college. Gen had known a girl then who hadn’t cared at all about the degree she was working towards because all she’d gone to college to do was meet an appropriately wealthy man with the right connections. Julia, similarly, flirted with older men and, in return, got gifts of all kinds.

  ​“Ça va, mes poules?” Sadie sat down after depositing their cups of coffee on the table, smiling broadly.

  ​“Everything is great,” Gen said, though it was not, strictly speaking, the truth. Ever since her tryst with Olivier, things had been strained; she’d taken him at his word and never even mentioned his business dealings at all.

  ​“I got a new bag, and a wallet to go with it,” Julia said happily, tossing her chestnut brown hair over her shoulders. Gen had to admit that if there were anyone suited to convincing men to part with their money in the form of gifts, it was Julia. The twenty-three-year-old had big, brown eyes and flowing chestnut hair, perfectly clear skin and a slim-hourglass figure that she dressed in the best styles. Gen had been uncertain that she would like the other nanny at first; it seemed as though Julia represented most of what Gen had never really liked about her friends back in Manhattan. But underneath the stylish clothes and the flirtation, Julia was something more. She read Victor Hugo and quoted Robert Desnos.

  ​“Which of your vieux garçons bought it for you?” Gen chuckled at Sadie’s question, and Julia shrugged.

  ​“It was Auguste,” she said. “He promised me a pair of boots next week.” Gen shook her head, stirring the sugar into her café au lait.

  ​“I wish you would tell me why you do things this way,” Gen said. Julia shrugged again.

  ​“Easier than getting a better-paying job,” Julia replied.

  ​“Don’t let her fool you,” Sadie told Gen. “She’s an au pair because she loves children--but she also likes des choses raffinées.”

  ​“It’s definitely one of the more honest ways to go about getting them,” Gen said, her thoughts turning to Olivier. Her boss had plenty of the finer things in life— and, apparently, he was more than willing to share them with people he considered worth it, given how generous he was in payment and how good her quarters were. But how had he gotten there? Her research thus far hadn’t turned up anything she could really work out. All the press she could find on her employer merely seemed to conclude that he was lucky in business ventures— but of course, Gen knew how often luck in business turned out to be the product of a stacked deck.

  ​Gen sipped her coffee and let the conversation continue around her, occasionally chipping in when she understood what was being said and had an interest in it. All the while, however, her mind was occupied: she had to know what was going on with Olivier and his business interests. It wasn’t just her own curiosity that Gen needed to satisfy; there was Mathilde to think of as well. The little girl didn’t deserve to miss her father, to watch him go to prison at such a young age. It had been hard enough for Gen to go through it as an adult. All Gen could picture was the sight of Mathilde, in court with her grandparents, watching her father be sentenced. Or the same little girl, visiting her father in prison as she grew up, feeling the pain of him missing all of the important milestones of her young life.

  ​The issue of the legality and morality of Olivier’s choices was less important to Gen. She had known plenty of people on her way up to her position on the Board of Trustees who had only avoided jail time through a combination of luck and cooperation with the federal government on certain other issues and getting leniency in return. She knew that her view of ethics was skewed, but she couldn’t entirely say that her parents had been entirely in the wrong in how they had taught her: that things were only really illegal if you got caught and couldn’t talk your way out of it.

  ​“Ah, non! I have to go,” Julia said suddenly, cutting through Gen’s preoccupation. “J’ai dit à Jean-Phillipe qu’on allait prendre une verre.” The beautiful, slightly younger woman jumped up and grinned. “You should let me introduce you to some men, Gen,” Julia suggested.

  ​“I think Genevieve would have no trouble finding men of her own,” Sadie countered, grinning. “She just has no interest.” Slowly, Sadie had managed to pry part of her story out of her, and Gen couldn’t say that she regretted confiding in the older woman. There was something soothing about telling Sadie about her life before, even if she avoided the most sensationalized parts of it out of a sense of shame. So far, only Olivier knew about her parents’ disgrace in any real detail, and Gen wanted to keep that the case for as long as possible.

  ​Julia kissed her on either cheek and hurried off for her date with another of the older men, but Sadie stayed seated at their table. “I have been thinking,” Sadie said slowly.

  ​“You seem to do a lot of that,” Gen remarked, smiling kindly to take any possible sting out of the comment.

  ​“I told you that Olivier is… what was that word you used?”

  ​“Shady,” Gen agreed. “Yes, you did.”

  ​“But I did not have good information to give you on what made him someone you should be wary of,” Sadie explained.

  ​“Well you can’t really blame yourself for not having the knowledge,” Gen pointed out. “I’ve been digging ever since you brought it up, and I haven’t been able to find anything solid.”

  ​Sadie flashed a grin. “C’est sûr, je peux m’accuser. I own one of the most popular brasseries in this town— if anyone should have the information you need to know about anyone, it should be me.”

  ​Gen chuckled at that. “But only if someone is willing to talk about it,” Gen countered. Sadie smiled a Cheshire cat smile.

  ​“Fortunately for you, I have found someone who is willing to talk about it,” she said. Sadie shifted in her seat, moving slightly closer to Gen and whispering as she leaned in, clearly enjoying the gossip. “I cannot tell you very much, but I know some names that you should look into.”

  ​“Well, that will help, for sure,” Gen said, taking out her phone to make notes.

  ​“From what this gentleman told me, the man you are working for has a history o
f being very fortunate,” Sadie said. “He goes into business with certain people, and in some instances, the business goes under…but he still comes out ahead, sometimes by millions of euros.” Gen nodded and listened intently as Sadie continued to explain: that Olivier apparently had a reputation among certain types of businessmen of being able to help them move their money around in ways that were technically legal, but very frowned upon. And yet every time the situation ended, Olivier was in a position to gain more money even if businesses went bankrupt, or if someone else went to jail.

  ​“So he does a lot of laundering, is what you’re saying,” Gen said, once she started to absorb just how long Olivier would have had to have been operating. She had to admit to a certain level of respect for her boss, in spite of the sketchiness of his business ventures; he had been skirting the law for years and had built a fortune on it. “Where did you get all this from, all of a sudden?” Sadie shrugged.

  ​“A gentleman was in town to speak with him in person recently,” Sadie explained. “The man has worked with your patron a few times in the past and has had good luck, and so he is definitely happy to participate in this new operation.” Gen nodded; she knew the way of things in finance. Even if she had kept herself mostly in the purely legal bounds of the industry, there had been people between her level of ethics and her parents’ who she had known quite well, who would engage in a little innocent tax evasion using the same kinds of methods that her current boss seemed to employ.

  ​“What’s the name of this person?” Gen looked over the leads she had in front of her, on her phone, and thought that between this new tidbit and her background she might be able to pull some strings and get some decent information.

  ​“This one person who spoke to me is called Oscar Morbier,” Sadie replied. “He also mentioned a Nicholas Caron, and a Richard Petit.” Gen noted the names and considered who she might be able to talk to that would know more.

  ​“Did he mention anything about the current enterprise?” Gen set her phone aside, thinking that she could get whatever Sadie didn’t know from people in the industry or maybe the right kind of internet search, based on what the bar owner could tell her.

  ​“He did say that it was involved with an American company,” Sadie said. “He did not know the name, but he said that Olivier had the contacts with businessmen interested in the opportunity to move their money around.”

  ​“Thank you, for everything,” Gen said, reaching out to give Sadie’s hand a squeeze. It was strange how quickly she had become comfortable with the older woman, but then, Sadie was just someone who seemed to put everyone at ease; indeed, the other au pairs that Gen had met seemed to trust her.

  ​“This will help you, will it not?” Sadie’s face wrinkled slightly with concern that she might not have given Gen everything she would need.

  ​“Oh, I can definitely find some more stones to turn over with this,” Gen told her, smiling slightly. “And Olivier can’t get mad at me since I haven’t said anything to him about it, or asked him anything.” Sadie chuckled.

  ​“I still believe that was nothing more than pique, than pride,” Sadie said, shaking her head. “I think that if you were to ask him sweetly, he would change his mind on his ‘policy.'" She made finger quotes around the word, and Gen snorted.

  ​“I think his pride is a bit stronger than whatever attraction he felt for me,” she said. She had told Sadie about the whole situation, and as far as Gen could tell, the bar owner hadn’t mentioned it to anyone— not even any of the other au pairs. She might be a gossip, but she could be trusted to keep a secret where it counted.

  ​“It is possible that’s true,” Sadie conceded. “But I have heard that he has not had more than casual things with women since his wife had died. It seems strange that he might begin something with someone very…not casual.” Gen shrugged that off. As far as she could tell, a casual thing was all that Olivier had wanted with her, too, despite their working relationship. She didn’t begrudge him that at all— just the way he had handled things afterward.

  ​“We shall see what we shall see,” Gen said, glancing at her phone once more. There was a lot of information to track down, and Genevieve made a private bet with herself that when she did some digging, she would almost certainly recognize the company or companies that Olivier was going to be working within the US. She said a silent prayer to an unknown listener that Olivier would be working with one of the “good” companies, and that she could allay her fears and go back to being just his au pair, without having to worry that he was going to get himself thrown in prison.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ​Olivier stepped into the restaurant where he would be meeting one of his associates and reminded himself not to think about what Mathilde and Genevieve would be doing at the house. It was a Friday night, a good time for meeting with people casually, and normally Olivier would have given his employee the night off to go out and enjoy a social life; but he’d needed to finalize some details before he could invite his American partner to enter the country and finish the deal. When he’d left the house, Genevieve had been making popcorn and a few other snacks for her evening with Mathilde. Much though Olivier wanted to finish up the final details on his end for the scheme he was involved in, there had been part of him that had wanted nothing more than to cancel his dinner and stay in for the night, watching movies and eating snacks with the two women in his life.

  ​Instead, he nodded to the waiter who approached him at the door and gave the name of the man he was meeting there: Richard Petit. “Ah yes, he is already here,” the waiter told him, nodding. “I will bring you to the table.”

  ​Olivier followed the waiter through the dining room towards the table where his associate waited, and he thought about the plan he had in mind. Petit, Caron, and Morbier were all essential to the initial investment that he needed to make the scheme work. They could come out even—or maybe even ahead—at the end of it, unlike some of the other investors they were attracting, who would all end up losing money. It was a complicated situation to orchestrate, but Olivier was confident that he would pull it off.

  ​“Bonsoir, Olivier,” Richard said, rising to shake his hand. Olivier returned the gesture and seated himself in the chair the waiter pulled out for him, accepting a menu from the younger man.

  ​“Bonsoir, Richard. Tout va bien avec ta famille?” Richard had a much-younger wife who had given him two children, a boy and a girl.

  ​“Yes, everything is well with the family. Thank you,” Richard replied. They exchanged small talk as they perused the menus, and Olivier considered what he would have for dinner alongside the way he was going to convince Richard to pull the trigger and commit to the investment.

  ​The waiter arrived, and Olivier put in his order: pastis to begin with the restaurant’s curried mussels, and the duck breast with mashed potatoes for his main course. Richard chose a salad with chèvre chaud for his first course, taken with a negroni cocktail, and the restaurant’s steak-frites with melted shallot sauce for his main course. Both men took the red wine that the waiter suggested and ordered a carafe of water for the table.

  ​“So, where do we stand on the new venture?” Olivier sat back in his seat a little as they waited for their first courses to arrive, meeting Richard’s gaze steadily. The other man half-shrugged.

  ​“I have actually been looking into how much interest I can generate,” Richard replied, “and I have found several people who might be good investors for the project we have in mind.” Olivier nodded, and the waiter arrived with their drinks, along with a little bowl of snack mix to occupy them before their first course.

  ​“I think that we both stand to make a substantial amount of money from this arrangement,” Olivier told his associate. He fully intended to make good on his promise, as there were certain people in France that he liked to work with; people who could get him in trouble if the full extent of his business dealings became public. As far as the official story went, such as
it was, he had merely been fortunate in his investments. But the truth, of course, was more convoluted.

  ​They couldn’t go over the details in public, but Olivier and Richard discussed percentages, which investors should get what, and—through as much deception as possible—how long “operations” would last until their main courses and wine arrived.

  ​“I’m glad you chose this place,” Richard said, cutting into his steak. Olivier chuckled.

  ​“I mostly chose it because it is not too far from home, and they have good duck,” he told the other man.

  ​“I should tell you, while we are still discussing business, that I received an interesting call,” Richard observed, before taking a bite of his steak and dipping a few of his frites into the shallot sauce.

  ​“Oh yes? Tell me,” Olivier suggested, starting on his own meal.

  ​“A young women contacted me about the opportunity to invest,” Richard said, and Olivier raised an eyebrow.

  ​“Was she someone you knew? How had she heard about it?” Richard waved away the concern of someone “outside” knowing about their plans.

  ​“Apparently she is a member of the board of trustees for one of the American companies that will be participating in the investment, and had heard that way,” Richard said. “She wanted to find out if we were also interested in more individualized investment in the company here.” Olivier set his fork and knife down and sipped at his wine. His heart was starting to beat slightly faster at what Richard had said, and he wondered if he had made a mistake getting the man involved. He was precisely the type of man who would let himself be led to say more than he should by an attractive— or even attractive-sounding— woman; even though Richard had never cheated on his young wife (to the best of Olivier’s knowledge), he had a touch of the cavalier silliness that made him vulnerable to that kind of tactic.