I smile at her and pull Cassie forward. “Madame Bernard, this is Cassie. She will be staying with me. Can you see to her comfort and make sure she needs for nothing while she is here?”
Madame Bernard nods and says, “Of course. Welcome, Mademoiselle Cassie.”
Cassie gives her an unsure smile and says a weak hello. She’s staring at the house with big eyes. It is impressive and this is the reaction I was hoping for. I want to be a damn king in her eyes.
It’s beautiful. The huge, arched, multi-pane windows make the building glitter with the golden lights inside. French doors to one side lead out to the front lawn.
If she’s impressed now, wait until she gets inside.
Sure enough, when we step over the threshold, she gasps. I bite back a smile, but I look at the house anew, taking it in as if for the first time.
The floor and walls in the hallway are pale marble, and the vaulted ceiling is fifteen feet high. Large, folding wooden doors lead to rooms on either side of the cavernous hallway. To one side is an informal sitting room, with an hexagonal bay window. French doors open to a marble balcony, looking out over the gardens to that side of the house.
The other side of the hall leads to the formal reception room. Polished wooden floors compliment the cream walls, and the huge oriental rug running almost the whole length of the space dominates that room. Two stairs to the back of the room lead up to a recessed area, which houses the dining table. To one side of the dining table, tucked away in a corner, is a cards table, with red velvet chairs around it.
Cassie has wandered into the formal reception room, and I follow her.
In the main sitting area an antique gold desk sits underneath the windows, and to each side of it are more French doors, opening out to the formal garden running around this side of the property to the rear. There’s an oil painting on the wall, and she wanders over to it, inspecting it. Turning to me, she says, “This must have cost a fortune.”
“Nah, it’s cheap compared to the sculpture of the boy in the hallway. This was only fifty-thousand pounds,” I say.
Her face pales as she looks at it, then back at me. “How much was that table?” She points to the French antique desk.
“About two hundred thousand; why?” I’m getting pissy with her now. She’s pointing at my things, demanding to know what they cost like I’m some sort of evil bastard for having success.
“No reason. I’m working out that in this room alone there must be like, four hundred thousand pounds worth of stuff.”
More, I think to myself, but I don’t articulate it.
“I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised, you own a private jet, but wow.”
I don’t tell her that the jet comes with the airliner I control, and I don’t outright own it. There’s a board and co-owners. She doesn’t understand the basics of how the business world works, and it shows.
She turns to me, and there’s a strange light in her eyes. Something I’ve not seen before.
“You choose this,” she says, not elaborating as to what this is. If I had to guess I think she means my work. “You have more than most people could dream of, and yet you choose to keep fighting; for what?”
I look around me, at the hired men standing by. At Bohdan and Reece side by side, all glancing away to look at the walls. Swallowing my temper, I take her arm and march her upstairs.
She attempts to pull away, protesting defiantly, but then she glances my way. Whatever she sees stops her struggling and shuts her up.
I head straight for my room, throw the door open, and throw her on the bed.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Shut up.” Thank God for her, she does.
She reconsiders my command, opens her damn mouth, and speaks. “I’m sorry, really. The thing is, though, we can’t have sex. You’re not in the place right now where I trust you won’t hurt me.”
“You and me both, and we’re not having sex.”
“We’re not?”
“No. You’re getting a history lesson.”
I stride to one of my drawers and rummage around until I find what I’m looking for.
With great care, I take out the old leather-bound photo album and open the pages into my past.
There’s my mother, her hair under a scarf, her beautiful face, swollen a tiny bit on one side. You’d