by Calia Read
“Would you like to search through the books yourself?”
I face Étienne. “Yes, I would.”
He sighs. “Be my guest; you won’t find a single error. There’s a reason I hired Asa and Edward. They’re not in the business of makin’ mistakes.”
“Why are you so sure of them? You truly believe they’d never betray you?”
“Yes!” Étienne snaps.
His outburst makes me arch a brow.
He takes a deep breath and rolls his shoulders. “I’ve known them my whole life. Don’t you think if they had malicious intent I would’ve recognized it by now?”
He has a valid point, but it does nothing to reassure me. There’s something about Asa that tells me I need to dig harder.
“What about Johnathan?” I ask.
“I don’t think he would do anythin’ in retaliation. He is a bastard, but he’s too dense to be cunnin’.”
“Okay. You think Johnathan is a nitwit. But my gut is telling me there’s something off with Asa.”
Étienne drags his hands through his wet hair. “What will it take for you to believe he’s harmless?”
“Nothing; I don’t trust him!”
“I know. You’ve made that abundantly clear. But perhaps you’re focusin’ all your energy on him because we’re getting’ nowhere figuring out a way for you to go back home?”
He has a point. Other than Asa being a complete dick during one encounter, I have nothing to be genuinely suspicious of. Just gut instinct.
“You never answered my question earlier. What were you and Nat talking about before I arrived?” Étienne prods.
“You can’t ask that question and not expect for me to ask the same one in return. What were you and Nat talking about in French?”
“You,” he replies.
Étienne’s forthright answer throws me off; I hadn’t expected him to tell me. “What about me?”
“She asked if there was anything between you and me.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Not a thing. It isn’t her business.”
I’m glad he’s keeping our new friendship private. I know it sounds strange, but I’m protective of what I have with him. No matter how insignificant it may seem to someone else, it took a lot for Étienne and me to get where we are today. However, a part of me wishes he would confirm that there is something between us. It would set me apart from the Old Serene.
“Are you gonna tell me what the two of you were discussing?”
I blink him back into focus. “No,” I answer honestly. “Are you nervous that I’m going to confide in her about my… situation?”
“Yes,” Étienne confesses.
“Well, since you’re being honest, so will I. I want to. I want to tell her I’m not the Serene she thinks I am, but I’m lucky to have you believe me. It’d be greedy to expect two people to put their trust in me.”
“You can’t do that.”
“I’m not going to. But I’d be the biggest liar if I said it doesn’t cross my mind every damn day.”
“You can’t,” he repeats urgently. “Not only would it confuse her, but it would also hurt her.”
“How so?” I lean in. “Your sister is a kind and caring person. If anyone is going to believe me, it would be her.”
“Those are the precise reasons you shouldn’t tell her a single thing. She’s too kind.”
“I get it. But it feels wrong.”
“Lyin’ to her?”
I nod. “Pretending to be the Old Serene only camouflages her bad behavior.”
“I know you’re not the Old Serene.”
“And I’m grateful for that. But I like Nathalie. She deserves to know the truth.”
Étienne is quiet for a second. “Say you do tell her, and you two become close. What happens when you leave? Because we both know you’re tryin’ to find a way home. You’re on borrowed time, and I don’t want my sister to be hurt in the end.”
I don’t say a word because he’s right. The thought of leaving them all behind stings. “I would never purposely hurt her.”
“I know that.” Étienne moves closer. His legs brush against mine, and his hands brush against my stomach and hips more than once. He watches me, gauging my reaction.
I don’t pull away from him, but I don’t touch him either. “What happens if I leave and the Old Serene doesn’t come back?”
“I don’t know.” Étienne’s gaze never leaves my face. “If it was up to me, I’d never find out.”
I can’t figure out if that’s Étienne’s roundabout way of saying he wants me to stay here or if he means that he never wants to see his wife again. For reasons I’ll never be able to explain, my heart wants to believe the former.
“You don’t want to. Right?”
“Stay?” I ask faintly.
He nods, staring at me carefully. It’s obvious when I’m lying. Étienne is beginning to know me so well that he’ll instantly be able to see if I’m fibbing.
I open my mouth, ready to tell him the truth, when I feel his hands on my waist. Suddenly, I forget how to speak English. “I-I don’t know.”
It’s an unexpected, bold move. Light flirting and a few lingering looks here and there is one thing. This is a whole other. It’s an intimate gesture that I should shut down immediately. But the only thing that shuts down is my brain.
My hands hover in the water, inches away from his chest. I want to touch him more than anything, but I know it’s wrong. Étienne’s grip on my hips tightens almost reflexively. A small frown appears on his face.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I whisper.
He swallows, and I watch his Adam’s apple bob. “Because suddenly I’m not so sure I want you to leave my world.”
I’m more than playing with fire, and I know it.
It’s okay though, my mind whispers. Only the water will feel your heartbeat and choppy breathing. Only the wind whistling through the trees will see you reach for him.
They’ll keep this a secret.
Gently, his fingers drift down my spine. At the same time, my hands settle against his stomach. His abs tighten beneath my touch as I trail my fingers up his body. My hands drift over his pecs, making him jump slightly before my hands move to his arms. My thumbs brush over his biceps.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. But do I stop? Hell no. My hands have a mind of their own, taking their sweet time touching Étienne’s body.
His chest is a solid wall against my own. I feel the hard ridge of his dick against my lower stomach. Without a second thought, my legs part to let him closer and wrap around his waist. The two of us lean in until our foreheads are touching. Our lips are a hair’s breadth apart.
Then I hear a voice in the far distance.
The moment breaks, and Étienne and I pull away from each other like two kids with their hands caught in the cookie jar. He stares at me, lips parted, but doesn’t say a word. His eyes dip toward my lips for a millisecond, then he moves toward me. I’m almost confident he’s going to kiss me. And if he does, I know I won’t stop him.
But then, he freezes. “We should go back.”
Étienne doesn’t give me time to reply. Swiftly, he turns toward the deck and swims away. His hands grab the ladder, and he hefts himself out of the water. I openly gawk as water drips from his deltoids and the back of his neck. The droplets drift down his spine. His muscles jump beneath his skin as he dries off and gets dressed.
“You’re starin,’” he calls idly.
I blink rapidly. My hands slice through the water as I move toward the ladder. “How can you tell?”
He slides his arms through his shirt sleeves and pulls up his pants before he faces me. “I could feel your eyes on me.”
Étienne holds out a hand for me. His body blocks the sun, and pieces of his hair become golden. He hasn’t been out in the sun as long as Nat and me, but I already see small freckles darkening on his nose.
He smiles at me. And it’s that grin that seizes my h
eart and steals my breath.
How in the world did I ever think he was ugly? It seems so long ago when I thought that, but the sad fact is, it wasn’t. I’ve never considered myself a vain person, but now I realize judging him before I got to know the real Étienne was such a bitch move.
I feel unsteady as I reach for his hand; I’m in too deep with Étienne. Somewhere along the way, I fell for him. I’ve just been so busy trying to find a way back to my era to notice the truth, even though it’s been standing directly in my face all this time.
“TOMORROW YOU HAVE a meeting with a potential investor from Triplex Safety Glass and then…”
As Asa drones on, I lean back in my chair and nod every few seconds. In reality, I’m wondering what Serene is doing at this very moment.
Did Nat coax her into going to town? Or maybe she’s searching Belgrave, once again, for a way back home? She has searched the house so many times, I wouldn’t be surprised if she knows my childhood home better than I do.
I never tell her that her hunt is pointless. Numerous times she’s expressed that her gut is telling her she’s missing something important. However, my gut is telling me that that something won’t be found in Belgrave.
Deep down, I think she knows that. It’s her determination that drives her to continue her explorations. I admire her boldness. It’s a trait I relate to. If I were in her position, I would also refuse to give up until I found a way back to my time.
Over the past few weeks, Serene’s made her presence known. Take this morning after breakfast. I found her trying to coax our driver, Warren, to let her drive the car because, and I quote, “I can drive myself.”
Or the day before, where immediately after dinner, she piled her utensils on her plate and grabbed her drink and, to everyone’s horror, went to the kitchen to wash her dishes because, “She had two perfectly capable hands.”
A few days ago, I heard her none too quietly discussing with Nat why she hated corsets and how there could be more to Nat’s life than shopping, needlework, and marrying at a young age. I heard her ask Nat, “What do you want to do with your life?”
Last night she got into a heated debate with Livingston about the Kentucky Derby. He left Belgrave muttering, “When did she suddenly become interested in horses?”
Nat and Livingston look at her with confusion. The staff watches her with fascination before their eyes slide to me. They’re waiting and wondering when I’m going to step in and bring order back into our lives.
Maybe I don’t want order.
Maybe I see what everyone else can’t—she has breathed new life into our family. For so long I’ve asked for a revival, yet I’ve received a revolution in the form of Serene. The irony is not lost on me.
Nat appears happier than usual, and Livingston has been showing up at Belgrave more often because he’s never one to shy away from a good debate.
The begrudging respect I’ve gained for Serene has extended into an attraction I never anticipated. She’s gorgeous, there’s no getting around that. But I’m drawn to her intelligence and smart mouth. She’s unpredictable in every way. I can never gauge where our nightly conversations will take us. Some of the things she talks about are borderline preposterous, such as the device called an iPad that is supposedly a touch screen. My favorite claim of hers is the television. Watching movies in the privacy of my own home? Fascinating and a little too good to be true. But she speaks of her time with such conviction that I can’t help but believe her.
The way I see it, Serene’s arrival highlights how dark and empty our lives were after our parents and brother died. I can’t help but think that if she had never arrived, we all would have continued with our lives without knowing how bleak they indeed were.
Thinking about the Old Serene has my hands curling around the armrests. If Serene does manage to make it back to her own time, what happens to the other Serene? Will she come back? Will everything revert to how it once was?
I imagine the Old Serene saw the world through a kaleidoscope of images of her. No one loved Old Serene the way she loved herself. She surrounded herself with people who fed her ego and narcissism, and when she tired of them, she replaced them as though they were a piece of clothing.
The Serene waiting for me at Belgrave cares about the well-being of others. When someone speaks, she listens. The signs were there from the beginning that she was different from the Old Serene, but the idea of time traveling was so preposterous that I thought Old Serene was simply bored and playing a cruel joke on me. It took the tragedy of the Titanic sinking for me to believe her.
“Étienne? Étienne!”
Rapidly, I blink the room into focus, only to find Asa and Edward watching me. Clearing my throat, I abruptly sit up in my chair and rest my elbows on my desk. “Yes?”
“Did you hear what I said?” Asa asks.
“Of course.
“All right,” he says skeptically. “Then I suppose I’ll continue. Also, I received word that Johnathan Whalen has decided to part ways with E.A.L.” He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Because of an altercation between him and… Serene?”
I smile darkly. “Is that what he told you? An altercation?”
“Yes.”
That he’s not telling the complete truth shouldn’t come as a surprise. His pride knows no bounds and to tell the truth—that he assaulted Serene and she fought back and turned him into an incapacitated fool in a matter of seconds—would be a massive hit to his ego.
Asa stares at me expectantly. He wants me to come up with a solution that will smooth this all over. Even if I had one, I don’t think I would use it on Whalen.
“I don’t care,” I finally say.
“What?” Edward and Asa say in unison.
“I don’t care. He’s an ass.”
“No one is debating whether the man is an ass, but doing business with him and his father is extremely lucrative.”
“What do you suppose I do?”
Asa hesitates. “Perhaps you can talk to Serene.”
“There’s no need to talk to her. I saw the ‘altercation’ with my own two eyes. I know Johnathan is in the wrong.”
“Are you sure?”
“What?”
“Are you sure?” Asa repeats. “Perhaps you think you saw one thing when you… I mean…”
“Out with it,” I say quietly.
“How can you trust your wife and truly believe what she has to say? If you consider her track record—”
“Enough.” I abruptly stand.
I’ve grown up with Asa. In a lot of ways, he’s been a brother to me. We’ve had numerous disagreements, however, I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry with him. I want to reach across my desk and wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze, and squeeze, and squeeze.
My anger is spontaneous and takes me by surprise. It’s a beast in my belly, growing stronger and more powerful by the second. My hands curl into tight fists as I glare at Asa. Seconds later, I push away from the desk and grab my jacket. “I’m leavin.’”
Asa stands. “Where are you goin’?”
“Home.”
“We’re not finished here.”
“I’ll work from my home office.”
Edward stares at us nervously, so I clap him on the shoulder. “If you need anythin’, let Livingston know.”
“This is ridiculous. You can’t possibly be—”
I slam the door, abruptly cutting off the rest of Asa’s words. With a sigh, I walk out the front door. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve left work early. Most of those times have been for an emergency, and I always took work home with me. For the first time, I’m placing my wants before anything else, and what I want is to see Serene.
It feels damn good.
WHEN I ARRIVE home, Ben isn’t at the front door, waiting to take my jacket. Nat isn’t in the sunroom, and Serene isn’t driving the staff insane by trying to do everything herself.
It’s quiet and oddly unsettling.
&n
bsp; “Hello?” My voice echoes around the foyer. No one replies. “Hello!” I shout. Still nothing.
My mind races as I picture something happening to Nat or Serene. My heart drops to my stomach at the very thought. I hurry over to the stairs, intent on taking them two at a time, when I hear someone shout and a chorus of cheering and yelling coming from the first floor.
I stop dead in my tracks. The noise comes again, and this time I can tell the sounds are coming from the back of the house. I walk down the hall, past the dining room, and move toward the kitchen. The sounds become louder.
I stop when I reach the kitchen doorway.
“Don’t do it, Ben!” a voice similar to my valet’s shouts. “It isn’t worth it.”
Puffs of smoke lazily trail out of the room, making my nose itch.
“She’s lyin,’” says another voice, most certainly Ben.
My brows lift; I’ve never heard him speak without being dignified and respectful. The voice I’m hearing now is aloof and distant, as though he has no care in the world.
What in the hell is going on in there?
The room becomes silent. I peek my head into the room, and what I see has my mouth parting in surprise.
The kitchen table has been cleared off and placed in the middle of the room. Ben sits on one side, taking idle puffs from a cigar as he plays what looks like a hand of poker. And who do I see facing him?
Serene.
I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.
And behind her? My brother and sister, of course. Both of them hover over her, staring at her cards intently.
Serene’s face is solemn and unreadable. I can’t see Ben’s face, but judging by his tense shoulders, he’s taking this as seriously as Serene is.
How long have they been playing? And who set up this game? I don’t have to think long about the answer to my last question. It has to be Serene.
After a few seconds, Serene glances between her remaining cards and her poker chips before she tosses a blue chip into the middle of the table.
Ben pauses before he calls her bet and puts a blue chip of his own into the growing pile. The rainbow of chips is on the table, but they’re using mostly blue. They may be taking this game seriously, but the stakes aren’t high.