Roulette

by Megan Mulry

  We put Jules on speaker and talk for an hour. He puts my pesky ethical questions to rest almost immediately by explaining there are all sorts of legal reasons the shredded document might not have been valid in any case, given how it was executed in such a hasty manner—perhaps under duress—and how soon before my father’s death it was signed. I get a recurring chill up my spine when I realize I am speaking as the head of the company, that Alexei and I are talking about the Segezha deal as equals. Alexei gets up a couple of times to refill his coffee, impatient with not getting his way more easily. I’ve pretty much assumed my father’s position—taking the long view against Alexei’s clever but often shortsighted plans—and I begin to see why they had such a successful, enduring partnership.

  Eventually, Jules and I decide to let Alexei pursue some of his more questionable alternatives with the Germans, but we also agree that Jules and I will work on drafting a proper agreement with Durchenko in the meantime, in case Alexei fails. We all agree to postpone contacting Clairebeau for the moment. If the deal I negotiated with Rome becomes null and void because of a preexisting agreement, we will deal with that mess next.

  I try not to think about how I’ve been secretly looking forward to casually touching base with the CEO of Clairebeau while I just happen to be in Paris. We’re business colleagues, after all, and it wouldn’t be totally inappropriate for me to give him a call, I’ve been rationalizing. But, once again, the universe is trying to help me squash my foolish lust, and I try to see the self-imposed gag order as a blessing in disguise. Of course, as soon as I think of the word gag, the foolish lust pulls right back into the lead.

  Alexei is watching me have this absurd internal battle while Jules drones on about how he is familiar with Clairebeau and how it shouldn’t be a problem keeping them on the sidelines for two more weeks.

  “Are you okay?” Alexei asks quietly.

  I nod and shake off the stupid thoughts. Rome is engaged, I remind myself. But my mother’s words still poke at the edges of my mind: engaged is not married.

  After we hang up with the attorney, I tell Alexei point blank I am calling Durchenko. He growls and grumbles but ultimately gives in. I’m nervous, but probably not as much as I ought to be. In fact, I feel sort of exhilarated. The private number gets answered after one ring.

  “Durchenko.”

  “Hello, Mr. Durchenko,” I say in my most formal Russian. “Apparently we have a misunderstanding about a Segezha contract.”

  “I have no misunderstanding. I am holding a copy of it in my hand right now.”

  “Yes, well, as you can imagine, we are concerned that we do not have my father’s signed copy. Please give us some time to sort through the rest of his documents, if you would?”

  He breathes heavily into the phone. “This is a totally legitimate contract, Dr. Durand.”

  It ruffles me a bit that he knows my real name, and that he is trying to ruffle me. Not that I kept it a secret or anything; it just sounds mildly threatening in his rumbling Russian drawl. “I very much hope we will all come to an agreement on that,” I add carefully.

  He exhales, not sounding pleased. “Be careful what you wish for, Mikhaila. Two weeks. Then I will take what is rightfully mine.” The call ends without another sound.

  “Wow. That was interesting,” I say to myself as I disconnect the call.

  I look up to see Alexei clasping his hands expectantly.

  “Well?”

  “You got your two weeks.”

  “Yes!” He starts to do his new favorite thing, the fist pump.

  “Don’t you dare fist-pump! We’re on thin ice; we’re not celebrating. I just lied to one of the most intimidating people I’ve ever met.”

  “It wasn’t a lie, exactly,” Alexei tries.

  “You’ve got two weeks, Alexei. Don’t gloat!” But I smile to soften the blow, and he does a mini–fist pump, like a kid who’s been told to quit kicking the back of the seat and gives it one more tiny nudge for good measure.

  I feel a firm zing of excitement that I try to tamp down. Going toe to toe with Russian Mafia men shouldn’t be this exhilarating. But it is.

  Afterward, Simone orders a lovely lunch brought in from Fauchon, and Alexei seems much calmer when he leaves the apartment a few hours later. Everything is complicated and potentially dangerous, but somehow I feel like things are looking up. At least, on some level, everything is coming out into the open. I am well and truly the CEO of Voyanovski Industries, and I can’t help but feel a deep thrill about it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I work from my mother's apartment for a few hours after lunch, until my mother’s nine millionth interruption finally forces me to shut my laptop.

  “Are you finished now?” she asks sweetly. “Ready to go shopping?”

  This afternoon, my mother heard from one of her old modeling friends. Madeleine has reinvented herself as a woman of a certain age who hosts all sorts of soirées and salons and always manages to make them fun and edgy, rather than stuffy and pretentious.

  “Before we meet up with Madeleine,” my mother announces, “you need clothes!”

  It’s probably impossible to overstate my mother’s love of clothes shopping. Now that I know the Russian Mafia isn’t going to attack me with a knife in one hand and an AK-47 in the other—for the next two weeks, at least—I decide to ride the wave of Simone’s enthusiasm. As Rome would say, I am ready to have some fun.

  I stand up from behind the desk in the guest room where I’ve been working, and Simone shakes her head dramatically.

  “What?”

  “That goes in the garbage,” my mother says, pointing at me from head to toe. I know she is talking about my clothes, but still, her expression leaves me with the feeling that my whole being needs an overhaul.

  “Okay, okay. I’m on board.”

  She folds her arms and assesses me further. “I mean, darling, look at yourself.”

  I look down, as ordered. I don’t think I look all that bad. When I am in work mode, I tend to dress in earth tones. I look down at my chocolate-brown pencil skirt and cream blouse. I don’t need to draw a lot of attention to myself when I’m running four hours of statistical analysis. “I think I look professional.”

  “You look like a very tall turnip. Let’s go.” She pulls on a black three-quarter-length raincoat and ties it at her waist. She tops it off with a jaunty black rain hat and looks like she’s ready for a Mary Quant photo shoot. Lickety-split.

  I realize she’s right. There’s no longer any reason—maybe there never was a reason to begin with—to divide my wardrobe into sexy, fun on one side and very-tall-turnip on the other.

  She turns to see why I hesitate. “What’s the matter? Just grab one of my coats from the closet, and let’s go have some fun.”

  Fun. Remember fun? I think of Rome again. That seems to be happening a lot lately. Pretty much consistently. “Count me in.”

  We find a taxi, and Simone tells the driver he’d best take us to the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, as if he must also agree that my appearance is in need of a rapid, extreme transformation that can be accomplished only at the most expensive, most exclusive stores in the world.

  First stop: Lanvin.

  Okay, I admit it: On one level, it’s disgusting, so much money for a few scraps of fabric. The two T-shirt dresses my mom insists on buying come to a total amount greater than my monthly salary at USC. Well, my former monthly salary. But the fabric is like the softest caress against my skin. I think of Rome. Again.

  From there we go to Hermès, where I flatly refuse to carry a $9,000 purse, no matter how much money I’m now making at Voyanovski. Simone is crestfallen, then buys one for herself—in purple—just to spite me. We settle on Galeries Lafayette to get the rest of my new look rounded out. We are there right up until they close at eight p.m., and need two assistants to help carry all t
he bags out to a taxi.

  Clearly, I am a late bloomer. At the age of thirty, I am finally getting around to the squealing delight I should have embraced when I was thirteen. I don’t need to limit myself to borrowed Pucci dresses and a blowout every six months for a black-tie event—I can actually look this good every single day if I choose to.

  When we get back home (yes, I am already thinking of it as home—crazy but true), Simone pours two generous glasses of a jammy Bordeaux, turns on Édith Piaf, and makes me do a full fashion show with all my new acquisitions.

  For the most part, she sits on the silk-upholstered chaise longue in the corner of her bedroom, and occasionally jumps up and pulls out insane accessories from the back of her closet: a mid-’80s, three-inch-wide snakeskin belt that somehow works with the black silk shift from agnès b. Or a pair of purple suede stilettos that are perfect with the pleated silk dress from See by Chloé.

  Around midnight, we go to a hip new place called Beef Club in Le Marais with Simone’s friend Madeleine. I don’t know if it’s because I am speaking French, or because I am wearing thousands of dollars’ worth of designer clothes that feel like Rome’s hands trailing across my body, or because I am so jet-lagged I don’t really know where I am, but the whole night is a dreamlike fantasy. My mother encourages me to wear my hair loose and hanging down my back. Turns out, I feel loose all over after the removal of one simple hairband.

  I’m wearing a pair of her vintage Moroccan earrings that are huge and spangled. I dance in the crowded upstairs room with men and women from all over the world. I don’t drink too much. I laugh. My mother is beautiful and joyful, and we are just happy to be with each other. Why have we never done anything like this in Los Angeles? Why have I never wanted to, I suppose, is the better question.

  I spend the next week shuttling between the Voyanovski offices, where I work with Alexei in the first arrondissement in the mornings, and the office of Jules Mortemart, whom I see every afternoon. The handsome attorney bears a passing resemblance to Rome—dark hair, sparkling eyes—but I try to ignore it, since I feel like I am seeing Rome’s likeness everywhere: in the height and breadth of every passing man, or the loose curl of dark hair across the forehead of a stranger sipping his coffee. Thursday afternoon, as I am sitting across from Jules in his office, his cell phone rings, and he looks up and asks if it is all right to take the call. He is very polite that way, not wanting to interrupt me.

  “It’s my brother, down in the South. Do you mind?” he asks.

  I stand up to leave, to give him privacy, but he motions for me to stay, so I sit slowly back down at the small worktable where I’ve taken up temporary residence.

  I am not eavesdropping, but it is a pretty small space, and my head shoots up when I hear him say the name Margot Montespan. It’s not a common name; in fact, I don’t think there can be more than one in the world. Jules senses my interest and asks his brother to hold on for a moment. He looks at me.

  “Do you know her?” he asks in his formal French.

  I answer likewise. “Yes!” I beam. “She was my roommate at MIT. But maybe it’s a coincidence? Is your brother her fiancé? I’m actually here in France for her wedding. I don’t know why I didn’t put your last names together.”

  He speaks to his brother, and his face lights up with humor. “She is the same!” he says in his funny English. “Do you want to speak to her?”

  “Sure!” I’ve talked to Margot a few times since I got to France, but never about work, and we both laugh at how small the world is after I take the phone from his outstretched hand.

  I tell her a bit about how Jules is on retainer for Voyanovski, and she laughs again and says, “So perfect! We were all worried he would miss his train and forget about the whole wedding weekend. Why don’t you take the train down with him tomorrow and stay for a while?” She lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “He’s kind of dishy in a nerdy, academic way, don’t you think? A rebound romance, maybe?” I look away from Jules just then so he doesn’t suspect Margot is talking about him.

  “That’s a great idea for us to take the same train tomorrow,” I say into the phone, but I catch Jules’s eye. “Sound good?” I ask him.

  “Oh, is it tomorrow already?”

  “Yes, Jules. It’s tomorrow,” I rib him.

  He gives me an embarrassed smile. “Yes, then. That’s sounds good.” And then he goes back to the spreadsheet he’s been working on.

  “It’s gorgeous here,” Margot continues. “Why don’t you and Jules work from here for a couple of weeks? Just stay and stay!” I hear her shoo away her fiancé with a sweet “cut that out,” and I am suddenly desperate to see my friend and see what a normal, loving relationship actually looks like.

  “Perfect! I would adore that.”

  “Really?” Margot’s attention is back on me. “I can’t believe you are really your own boss. But yay! That’s fantastic. You sound so good, Miki.”

  I smile through my words. “I feel good. I think running Voyanovski is going to be amazing.” I start to laugh, sort of hysterically, again. “Amazingly scary, but still amazing.” She laughs with me, and then we both settle down again. “Do you have everything set for the weekend? Is it going to be very formal?”

  “God, no! It’s more like muddy boots and Barbour coats down here. Lulu and Trevor are like a pair of hippies, hanging around in flannel shirts and Timberland boots. She can’t wait to see you, by the way.”

  “I’m excited to see her, too. Is she driving you crazy?”

  During college, we used to joke that I had my wild mother and Margot had her wild younger sister, Lulu. Our crosses to bear.

  “She’s pretty great, actually.” Margot’s voice softens. “How’s your mom? Still driving you crazy?”

  “She’s pretty great these days, too. Maybe we were uptight after all?”

  Margot barks a laugh. “Maybe! Is your mom still there, or has she left for Egypt already?”

  “She leaves for Cairo today, so I’ve got the Paris apartment to myself for a while.”

  Someone in the background asks her something about flower arrangements, and I remember she must be swamped with last-minute details. “I’ll let you go, Margot.”

  Her tone switches quickly from warm interest to all business. “Thanks, sweetie. It’s kind of hectic.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “But it’s going to be really fun, I promise. No wedding stress! I can’t wait to see you tomorrow. And you’re definitely staying here at the farm, right?”

  “Yes, I’m planning to.”

  “You might have to share . . .”

  “Margot, please stop trying to set me up,” I say with a laugh.

  “Oh, nothing like that. I can hear from your voice Jules isn’t your type anyway. There are two beds, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s one of Étienne’s cousins. She’s kind of a pain, but she means well. I’ll see you tomorrow in Avignon. So exciting! Bye, sweetie!”

  The phone goes dead, and I pass it slowly back to Jules.

  “What a fun coincidence. Turns out your brother is about to marry my college roommate.”

  “How nice,” Jules is only half paying attention, his mind already fully consumed by the intricacies of international law. He is an academic, as well as a practicing attorney, and he makes my brain look like pudding by comparison. He is fluent in all things Russian—not just the language, but the law, history, and philosophy of the country. I feel a bit out of my league.

  I get up to stretch. “I think that’s about it for me today, Jules. Do you mind if I head out?”

  He looks up slowly, keeping his finger pointed at the document so he doesn’t lose his place. “Of course. Off you go.” He starts to look down again.

  “Jules?”

  “Yes?”

  “What train are you taking to Avignon tomorrow?”

&
nbsp; “Oh, let me see . . .” He flips through his day planner, leather and paper, like my mother’s. He tries to find the train information. “Maybe three o’clock . . . or perhaps seven o’clock . . .”

  I smile at him. I love that he has a brain that can hold vast amounts of information but cannot recall a train departure time. I pat his forearm. He is only about five years older than I am, but he seems to require the care and feeding of someone thirty years my senior. “Never mind. I’ll check with your secretary, and then I’ll be here tomorrow with plenty of time to spare.”

  “Oh, that would be helpful. I do tend to miss trains with appalling frequency.”

  “Good. I’m glad I can be of service.” He realizes I mean I am glad to be of service since my intelligence is rather pale compared with his in terms of all the other, real work we are trying to accomplish.

  “Oh, you’ve been very helpful, Mikhaila. You are quite decent at maths.”

  Quite decent. Sweet man. “Thanks, Jules. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Jules would undoubtedly have missed the train to Avignon if I hadn’t shown up at his office the next day to physically tear him away from his work. I finally have to yell, “Your only brother is getting married! Let’s go!”

  Once he is away from his desk, Jules opens up considerably. We talk the entire three-hour journey about his childhood and how he developed his interests in genealogy and the law. And mathematics. And languages. He seems shy about his accomplishments.

  Even though I’ve known him for only a little over a week, I’ve come to admire him. He is awkward but also incredibly kind and thoughtful. He is the type of person who might have been dropped on his head—half a bubble off the level when it comes to interacting with other people—but no less endearing or intelligent.

  The high-speed train pulls into Avignon station at 5:18 p.m. exactly.

  Margot is waiting for us at the end of the long, sloping ramp that leads from the upstairs platform. The sun is cutting through the white slats that line the enormous barrel roof of the modern structure. She looks so beautiful, and so relaxed—so unlike her former, ambitious New York City self.