The Butler

by Danielle Steel

  Chapter 14

  Joachim went back to work on Wednesday, after a two-day absence, and so did his mother. She was eager to get back to work. She had put so much effort into her project, she wanted to see it through to completion. They both looked somber when they left the apartment, and Joachim was relieved to see that there was a plainclothes policeman stationed outside, dressed as a street cleaner. He met Joachim’s eyes as they walked by, and Joachim nodded slightly. He knew what he was, but others wouldn’t have.

  He dropped his mother off at the place where she worked. She insisted she could have taken the metro, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “One of them could follow you, Mama. If even one of his enemies doesn’t believe he’s dead, they could follow you to see if he shows up. A lot of people lost money from that failed delivery in Toulon. They won’t swallow that easily. Someone will have to pay for it, in blood if not in money. Javier was a fox and I’m sure he has pretended to be dead many times before.” But not this time. This time it was for real. He could see how low his mother’s spirits were when she got out of the car and walked into the building. She didn’t look back at him and wave, as she would have normally.

  He drove to Olivia’s apartment then and was only a few minutes late. She looked relieved to see him the moment he walked in. She could see in his eyes all that he’d been through since their night at the movies five days before. Years and years of loss and worry had finally come to their inevitable conclusion. He accepted it. He had no choice, but he was sad anyway. She made him a cup of coffee and handed it to him. They both sat down at the kitchen table.

  “How’s your mother?” she asked kindly.

  “Brave. She always is. She’s had to be too often. I’m not sure it’s real to her yet. I never expected to see him again. I gave up years ago. I’m not sure she ever did. It’s an ugly thing having a son like that. She must wonder where she went wrong, what she should have done differently. It wouldn’t have changed anything. I think some people are born like that. There’s something missing, or one enzyme too many, or a subtle poison that releases into their veins slowly, and one day takes over their body and their mind. He had no soul.” Olivia nodded, and he set his coffee cup down, and looked at her. She had the feeling that something bad was coming. But how much worse could it get than what had just happened? “I’m going back to England,” he said in a low voice. They were words she didn’t want to hear and he didn’t want to say. “It’s better if I go now. I should have done it after what happened in New York. You were good to let me stay, but I should have known better.”

  “You don’t have to leave because of this, Joachim,” she said in a gentle tone. She thought he was embarrassed and wanted to do the honorable thing for his employer, but it was so much more than that.

  “Yes, I do.” There was no doubt in his voice this time. He had made his mind up as soon as Javier left their mother’s apartment. He was even more sure of it now. All of his instincts told him he was doing the right thing, and she wouldn’t change his mind. “I’m a death sentence for both of you, you and my mother. If even one of his enemies doesn’t believe he’s dead, they’ll come after us, and when they see me, they’ll think they found him, and they’ll go crazy.

  “The police are probably not the only ones who didn’t know he had an identical twin. It’s the weak link in the chain of all of this. Without wanting to, I will draw those people to you. They’ll stop at nothing. I’m the red flag that will put you in danger. I have no right to do that to you. I want to get as far away from you as I can get.”

  He was doing it out of respect and loyalty to her and because he cared about her. He didn’t want to be a danger to her, or his mother, or to anyone. “For the rest of my life, for those who know what just happened, I will have to explain that I’m not him. But the kind of people he did business with don’t wait for explanations. They believe what they see, act, and think about it later, if they ever do. I don’t think any of us can conceive of how low he sank or imagine the things he did to others. I understand that better now. I saw him. Who knows, if I hadn’t been there, he might have killed our mother so she couldn’t tell anyone she’d seen him. I don’t think even she realizes that. He went there for his own safety, not because he cared about her and wanted to see her. If that was true, he’d have showed up long ago. It was a desperate move to get a few hours out of the line of fire and was probably the only safe place he could go.” The degree of brutality and inhumanity was hard for Olivia to imagine, and she knew that Joachim was trying to do something noble, leaving them, but she didn’t want him to go.

  “They’ll forget about it eventually. When he doesn’t show up. They’ll figure out that he really is dead.”

  “Possibly not for years. People go underground for a long time in that world. And in the meantime, I’ll be walking around, like a living poster of the man they’re looking for. You never know who’s watching or what they see.” He knew little of his brother’s world, but he could guess, and even in his innocence, he had walked into the middle of it. “My face alone puts you at risk, Olivia. I can’t let that happen.”

  “I need you,” she said unhappily. “I can’t finish the chateau without you. It’s a ten-man job, not even a two-man job. I don’t know how we’ve gotten it this far.” With their careful coordination and relentless hard work, they were way ahead of schedule. Even Petrov was impressed, when they emailed him the weekly progress in pictures. He had promised them a big bonus if they finished early, but she wasn’t thinking of that now, only that she didn’t want Joachim to leave. She saw it as a defeat for all of them if he did. She wanted to finish the job with him. Leaving now was giving in to the forces of evil, as she saw it. Javier and the people around him would win if Joachim left. They would rob him of a life and a job. He saw it differently, as the only choice he had to do the right thing. Because he looked so exactly like his brother, he thought there was a good chance that sooner or later he’d be killed, and he didn’t want the people he cared about anywhere near him when that happened.

  “The police can protect you,” Olivia insisted. Her face was troubled, she sounded angry, but her eyes were sad.

  “I don’t think they can. I’m hoping they’ll protect my mother. But they won’t protect you. And if it goes wrong, it will happen in an instant, with no warning. They’ll see me in a supermarket, in a car, at the movies with you like the other night, and it will be over. I can’t bring that kind of danger close to you. I don’t think I understood that fully in New York, which is why I didn’t quit then. Now I do understand it. I can still lead my life in England the way I did before. Maybe not in London, but on some remote English country estate, they’re not likely to see me. On the streets of Paris, I’m a walking target. They’ll be looking for me here, and in London.” He knew he was going to be having the same conversation with his mother that night. Olivia was trying to convince him otherwise, but he was sure she was wrong this time. The people he was worried about weren’t human, they were animals, and Javier had been too.

  “How soon do you want to go?” Olivia asked him, wondering how much notice he was giving her. Logistically, it was going to be a nightmare for her, and throw off progress on the chateau dramatically. She couldn’t manage all the crews the way he did and install the interior too. Aside from the fact that she liked him and had grown fond of him, she needed him to do his job or it would take much longer to finish hers.

  “Tonight, tomorrow,” he answered her. She looked shocked and angry for a minute.

  “Are you serious? It’ll shut down the whole project.”

  “If I get killed, it will too. Or if you do,” he said coldly. This wasn’t an argument he was prepared to lose. He was giving her no choice. He was telling her what he was going to do. “I shouldn’t even have come here, but I wanted to tell you in person. That’s only fair. This is about saving your life, Olivia. Not about the chateau.” But there wa
s nothing fair about any of it and they both knew it. It wasn’t fair that he had to give up a life, a job, a golden opportunity for the next steps of his career, and it wasn’t fair that his mother’s heart was breaking again and she had lost a son, and could lose another, or that she had to spend her final years alone and wouldn’t have the comfort of a loving son near her. It wasn’t fair that it had come to this, and that Javier had managed to damage all their lives with the poisonous way he lived his own. “I don’t want you killed,” Joachim said heatedly. “I won’t put you at risk.”

  “I don’t know how you can call this fair,” she said angrily to Joachim. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “It’s not fair to any of us. I have no choice. Call the agency. They’ll send you someone else,” he said. It only made her madder.

  “People like you don’t stand on every street corner waiting for a job.” She’d never had another employee like him. It wasn’t just about his training, which was really not adapted to his job with her anyway. It was about his common sense, his dedication, his fine mind, his ability to solve problems and make everything work, to fit the puzzle together in just the right way, and work endless hours in the process, making everything easier for her. It was about how much he cared. She knew she’d never find that again. He loved his job with her. He didn’t want to give it up either, but he knew he had to, and all thanks to Javier. He had won in the end, and Joachim was the loser, and so was Olivia, and his mother. It infuriated Olivia as she sat looking at Joachim. “And what are you going to do for a job?”

  “What I was doing until I met you. There aren’t many butler jobs these days, as you know, but I’ll try to find one. Maybe for another Russian who wants to look important to his friends. I can make anything work if I have to.” He had with her. He was flexible and could adjust to any situation, and he was willing to.

  He had no personal life he cared about, so he could do whatever he wanted. There was no one dependent on him to complain about the compromises he made. But he didn’t live entirely in a vacuum. He knew that his mother would be deeply affected by his leaving. And now Olivia would be too. But in the end, it was just a job for him and Olivia, and he reminded himself of it now. They’d been working together for a few months, and it had always been temporary. He hadn’t intended to stay. That had only changed recently, when she asked him to stay on. But she wasn’t even sure if she was going back to New York to get a job there, after she finished the chateau. Nothing had been sure, and both their lives were up in the air. They were equally unattached and independent, and very similar in that way. The similarities between them were coincidental, but they understood each other because of them.

  “You’re running away, Joachim,” she said in a low voice. She was angry at him and it showed. “You’re scared.”

  “Yes, I am,” he admitted freely. He was an honest man, and never tried to hide his flaws. “I have to run away. And I have a right to be scared, for you, and for myself. You’re going to be better off without me. You’ll see that one day.”

  “Don’t make it sound so noble. You’re leaving me in the lurch and you know it. Can’t you at least wait till I find someone else? That would be the decent thing to do, even if this is just a job to you. And I thought we had become friends.” She looked hurt as well as angry, which went straight to his heart, but he had to put a shield up to protect himself from her too, and he already had. He had spent the past few days bracing himself for what he had to do, even if it meant hurting her. He was willing to hurt her, if it meant saving her life.

  “And what if they find me before that?” he said, angry too. “And yes, we’re friends, as much as the job will allow. We both have the same fears. We’ve both spent our lifetimes avoiding deep attachments, you know that as well as I do. Being attached to anyone is dangerous. You’ve seen it in your life, and I’ve seen it in mine, and now here it is again, only this time the danger is real. You need to remember that now. You don’t know me. We don’t own each other. In the end, Olivia, even if we were friends for a while, I’m an employee, and this is just a job, for both of us.” That hit her like a slap in the face. He wanted to tell her to toughen up, but he didn’t dare. “Don’t forget how strong you are,” he reminded her, for her own sake.

  “I guess I forgot that for a minute,” she said and stood up. “You’re right. We’re both strong and we’ll find our way, and it’s just a job.” She smiled coldly at him and he knew she didn’t mean it. He had hurt her, and he knew it, but he had to in order to let her go, and make her let go of him. He couldn’t allow her to have a hold on him. It would be too dangerous for them both. “I hope you find a job you like in England. They’ll be lucky to have you.”

  “Thank you,” he said politely. “And I hope you find the right person for the job.”

  “I’ll send you a reference, if you want one,” she offered, decent to the end, and gracious. But he didn’t need one from her. His reference from the Cheshires, and the length of time he’d worked for the family, would get him any job he wanted. His few months with her was just a sidebar and wouldn’t carry much weight.

  “Good luck, Joachim. Stay safe,” she said, and held out a hand for him to shake, which he did, looking her in the eye with everything he couldn’t say.

  They had both respected the boundaries between them right to the end, and she was glad they had. He was right about them, because of all the things that had happened to them, neither of them was able to attach, in their personal lives or their professional ones. She hadn’t spoken to her past employees at the magazine in months, except for Claire. They had gone on with their lives, and so had she, and drifted apart, no matter how close they appeared to be while working together. And now it was true of him too.

  He was a solitary person and had chosen jobs until then that had reinforced that. It was a spell put on them that neither of them would ever break, and she knew that now. It was both a blessing and a curse, and the protective covering they wore, like a suit of armor, but the blows of life still found a way in from time to time. She couldn’t allow him to hurt her, or herself to care.

  As she watched him go through the door of her apartment, it was hard to believe that only five days before they had gone to a movie and had sat with his arm around her and they both had the illusion that they were friends. It was only an illusion, she realized that now. She couldn’t allow herself to be sad or miss him when he was gone. She put his coffee cup in the sink for Fatima to put in the dishwasher, and she went to her work area to call the agency. She didn’t want a butler this time, she needed a real assistant, and she wouldn’t make the same mistake, of allowing herself to believe that they were friends. It was just a job, as Joachim said.

  * * *

  —

  The woman at the domestic agency was surprised to hear from her.

  “I thought it was working out so well, for both of you. I spoke to Mr. von Hartmann when we found Fatima for you, after that nasty little business with the girl before her,” she reminded Olivia of Alphonsine. “He seemed very pleased with the job working for you, even if it was somewhat out of the ordinary for him. And the last time I called him to check on how Fatima was doing, he said he was helping you refurbish a chateau. That was quite beyond the scope of what we originally discussed. And he said he was enjoying it very much. I’m so sorry he’s leaving.”

  “So am I. I’m still working on the chateau and need help. I think he missed being a butler and is going back to England to find another job using that skill set. This was probably too much for him,” she said, not knowing what else to say.

  “It didn’t sound like it,” the woman said, disappointed, and she was shocked that Joachim hadn’t given her any notice. Olivia didn’t volunteer that his brother had been killed in a drug deal gone awry, and he was saving her from danger by association. The woman at the agency didn’t need to know that. “That’s how these people are, though,�
� she said with a sigh, “even the good ones. People who do domestic work, particularly at a high level, can be temperamental, and don’t always leave the way they should. I hear this more often than I like, or about someone who’s been in a job for twenty years, doesn’t have the courage to say they want a change, and just up and leaves one day with no notice, or they leave a note for their employers who’ve been good to them for years. It’s the nature of the beast, I suppose. Would you rather go to a business agency to find an assistant? I’ll see who I have on my books, but no one comes to mind. Do you care if it’s a man or a woman?”

  “Not at all. It’s probably easier working with a woman, but a little muscle wouldn’t hurt at the chateau. Joachim was quite good at that, and he never thought he was too important to do menial work.” Nor did Olivia.

  “That’s useful. I was worried that he might be a little grand, because of his experience in England.”

  “I was afraid of that too, when I hired him, but he wasn’t.” She gave the devil his due in spite of being upset about Joachim leaving her with no help at hand, and no one to replace him. She was determined to get over it, just as he said. But she was sad anyway. It was a loss, whether they admitted it or not. She had grown attached to him, just as he was to her.