by Ava Miles
“Jeez, I’m getting killed here.” Caitlyn covered her ears. “A master perfumer and a famous country singer known for his stories. I have nothing to add to this discussion.”
She was joking, but there was a thread of seriousness to it.
“Stop that,” Beau said, touching her arm. “You’re way too hard on yourself. Neither of us would even be here if it weren’t for your vision.”
“I agree,” Ibrahim said. Shifting his gaze back to Beau, he said, “You should use that line in a song about the grandmothers. It evokes all sorts of emotions in the heart. And yes, rosemary is a heart note.”
Incredible. There was so much more to perfume making than he’d considered. It truly was an art. “How long does it take you to make a perfume?”
The man’s quiet laughter seemed to ruffle the air like a gentle breeze. “How long does it take you to write a song?”
“Lately?” He laughed. “As long as it takes.”
“Precisely.” Ibrahim drew the three bottles together. “Here we have a fragrance, right? Three simple notes. Head. Heart. Bottom.”
Caitlyn popped up. “Great! I’ll call marketing.” When she sank back in her chair, she was smiling again. “Why do I get the sense we’re about to get to the math part?”
“Yes, it’s maddening, isn’t it?” Ibrahim said, pushing the bottles aside. “We must create a certain equation of scent, one that blends well together and tells the story we’d like to share with the wearer, the public at large. Some scents are volatile on their own, for example, lavender, but that’s also what makes their scent last longer.”
“Oh, great! Leave it to me to find the most volatile scent and say, heck, yeah, let’s make a new perfume out of it.” She made a shooting gun motion with her hand to her head.
“Ah, but that’s part of the magic of making and wearing perfume,” Ibrahim said. “Paired with another note like, say, jasmine, it’s rounded out or balanced.”
“Huh,” Beau thought out loud. “This is fascinating. It sounds a little like making music. It’s all about creating a perfect blend.”
Blend. That word again. Who’d imagined music and perfume had so much in common? He wished he had a notebook. Just from talking with Caitlyn and Ibrahim, he was feeling juiced up on ideas for song lyrics.
“I think you’re what Caitlyn calls a kindred spirit, Ibrahim,” he added. “She thought you might be.”
Ibrahim gave a slow smile. “Kindred spirit. I like that. Now, Caitlyn, tell me more about your vision. When creating a perfume, we want a theme or a character, if you like. I know you want something that connects a woman to her roots. Something that helps her remember her sensuality.”
Sensuality. Suddenly the musky scents in the room seemed to vibrate inside Beau’s nostrils, that one word punching those olfactory neurons Ibrahim had mentioned. Belly-deep awareness of Caitlyn gushed over him—the slight pink tint of her skin from the late morning sun, the lines of her bare calves in her flat gold sandals, the warmth of her. He wondered what she smelled like. He hadn’t paid attention before.
He would not make that mistake again.
“Yes, I want all those things,” she said, a far-off look in her eyes, “but I don’t want women to feel they need to change anything about themselves to wear our perfume. I want them to feel they matter. They’re important. They’re enough, just as they are. The perfume should be a celebration of that. I’m still searching for the right name for the perfume, but that’s where I’m headed, Ibrahim.”
Beau tucked all of this away, her words adding further confirmation to the realization he’d come to last night. This woman, his woman, not only wanted courting. She needed it.
“A wonderful start,” he said. “My late wife used to say perfume transcended time and place. A million lifetimes exist in one small bottle. Lives you hope to live and perhaps ones you already have: a young girl on the brink of womanhood, a woman at a crossroads, and one who has chosen her path.”
“Oh. My. God. Yes!” Caitlyn leaned forward. “I wish I could have met your wife. She sounds awesome.”
Emotion glinted in his brown eyes. “She believed in helping women too. Your vision is one of the reasons I took this job. I thought she’d like knowing I was continuing her work with women.”
He’d loved her. That much was plain as day. Beau hoped he’d earn the man’s confidence before he returned to Nashville. He would be honored to hear his story and learn about his loss. “What was her name?” Beau asked.
“Rania,” he answered, his voice as soft and husky, like the sandalwood they’d sampled.
The room seemed to vibrate from the sound of her name. Only two beats, but the power of his feelings for her was evident. Beau could have ended a song that way.
“A beautiful name.” Caitlyn sighed. “I’m sorry I never asked whether you had children.”
Ibrahim smiled sadly. “No, we often had to remind ourselves we were blessed enough with our love for each other.”
Beau had an appreciation for words, and Ibrahim had a lovely way of using them. He might have said so, but the other man shook his head slightly, as if dispelling a haze, and said, “Now, let’s talk about which scents best fit this vision.”
He was clearly eager to change the subject, and the look in Caitlyn’s eyes indicated she knew it. Honored it.
“Before we jump to scents,” she said, “I’d like to hear what Beau thinks about all of this. Any characteristics you’d like to see in this perfume?”
As the drums in the music picked up, blending with a chorus in a tongue as foreign as his current circumstances, Beau said, “A fragrance that doesn’t sour over time or fade on your skin. Or overwhelm others with its strength or bitterness. Of course, you’re the master, Ibrahim, and I’m sure your perfumes wouldn’t do that.”
He couldn’t help but think of his mother. Once he’d considered her to be the most admirable person in his acquaintance. Strong. Supportive. Honest.
But she’d lied to him. He’d always thought his mama had hated his daddy for his infidelity, but she’d cheated too. She’d broken her vows, things she’d always taught Beau to value and honor.
“You remember to be a good boy, Beau,” she used to tell him. “Not like your father. Always look and act like a good Southern gentleman. Don’t sass your teachers. Only speak when spoken to. Make sure you use your pleases and thank yous.”
Damn her, he thought. Damn her and her always and don’ts.
Ibrahim’s all-knowing gaze pinned him to his chair. “A fragrance of truth, so to speak, to oneself and to others.”
He cleared his throat. “Yes.”
The older man nodded after a long moment, like a beat of silence in the middle of a song. “Truth is the most prized of fragrances. It will be so.”
Caitlyn looked from Ibrahim to Beau and then threw up her hands. “I thought you two would get along, but whew! It’s like you already have a secret language. Watching you two is like watching my twin brothers, Trevor and J.T.”
Ibrahim smiled again. “Like Beau said, ‘kindred spirits.’”
His life was crazy, Beau realized, as the song ended on a crescendo of drumbeat and fiery hand-clapping. Like the silent space inside his heart, he felt bereft of all sound. To him, sound was life. Even silence had a sound to him.
“I have more than enough to work with now,” Ibrahim said, his smile wry. “Thank you both.”
“No, thank you, Ibrahim.” Caitlyn was standing up, but Beau seemed glued to the chair. Ibrahim’s words and the music, which was finally fading, had filled him to bursting, and yet he still felt a strange hollowness inside.
He thought about the truth he was seeking. The quest for self-knowledge—for a sense of who he was now that he could no longer define himself by who he did not want to be. Walt Masters: alcoholic, cheat, liar, and deadbeat. The words should have been engraved on the man’s tombstone, but instead Beau’s mother had carved them into his heart.
Perhaps this was the best news he’
d ever received. Unless his real father was just as bad as Walt, he didn’t have a genetic predisposition to become a bad guy.
Maybe it was time for him to explore the things Old Beau had been told to eschew to find the truth of himself.
Chapter 9
Caitlyn watched Beau walk off as if his head were in the clouds.
She understood. Her mind felt like a melon that had fallen from the counter and split wide open.
She returned her gaze to Ibrahim. “Are your smelling sessions always this…intense?” she asked.
He gave his small, mysterious smile. “With every smelling session, we’re going to uncover more of your secrets. It’ll help us flesh out your vision for this fragrance and the notes to match it.”
Secrets? Her short laugh turned into a snort.
He waved his index finger like a metronome. “I know what you’re thinking, but we all have secrets, Caitlyn. I’m talking about the ones deep inside us, the ones we don’t want to admit to ourselves, which nonetheless govern our actions and shape our worldview.”
“You’re like the Perfume Jedi,” she breathed out. “Except I’m not that deep and mysterious. What you see is what you get.” Her jazz hands were supposed to make him laugh, but he just continued to gaze at her. Could she tell him how unsettling that was? “I’m serious, Ibrahim.”
“I know you are,” he said, “but you undervalue yourself. I will ask you now: why lavender fields?”
“Beau already asked me this. It’s my favorite scent. One of the most popular essential oils.”
His narrowed eyes pinned her to the chair. “And…”
She floundered for more of an answer as he walked over to his phone and punched some buttons. The first strands of a violin filtered into the room, followed by a flute. Then a soprano burst of Italian piped through the speakers with all the ebullience of Mother Earth in spring, unstoppable and captivating. “Your florals playlist.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” He came back to the table, but they remained standing.
Well, she’d heard he was eccentric but brilliant, hadn’t she? She wanted to make a special perfume, something that made a difference. If it required her to do a little soul-searching, well, who was she to say no?
“Lavender is calming to the spirit. Puts us in our Zen place.” She wanted to high-five herself. “And heck, it came with this farmhouse, right?”
“Your zest for life is as refreshing and unmistakable, Caitlyn, as a note of orange blossom. But you often answer serious questions with humor. I wonder why.”
Thunk. The sound seemed to come from inside her, vibrating through her entire being. Was that her heart? “Have you always seen through people like a Jedi or are all master perfumers like you?”
“See what I mean?” He came around the table and put his hand companionably on her shoulder. “Beau is also asking questions. Seeking answers. As am I. Perhaps we will all find them together.”
He was leading her to the door. “What answers are you seeking, Ibrahim? You have a greater handle on life than most people I’ve met.”
His chest seemed to rise with his inhalation, different than when he was testing perfume notes. “Who I am without my beloved Rania. How I want my life to be now. How I can forget her scent and the pain of losing her.”
Well, shit. Her mouth fell open. Talk about baring your soul. Is that what he wanted her to do? That was…scary. “You must have loved her very much.”
“I did. We were lucky to find each other young. Eighteen if you can imagine it. Fresh at university, me at Givaudan Perfumery School in Grasse and her at the Sorbonne in Paris. Train rides every weekend became our letter writing, every kilometer a love sonnet to each other.”
How romantic. Goodness, but he talked like no one she’d ever met.
“She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved. I never imagined that I might continue to gray and age without her. Sometimes I find her absence completely intolerable, like life has no meaning without her skin next to mine day and night. The fields of lavender were supposed to drown out amber, her favorite scent. And yet, I still smell it and her all the time here.”
“Because scent is a memory,” she said, her heart flooding with compassion for him.
His smile turned wry. “We perfumers are an odd lot. Half artist. Half scientist. Fueled by a seemingly insane passion: to blend together the perfect notes to evoke deep, pure emotion, mood, memory even. Sometimes I think we must be mad to undertake such a quest, and yet it is all I long to do. Now for your perfume homework, as you like to call it.”
“All right,” she said, rolling her eyes dramatically until he smiled. “Give it to me.”
He handed her a small, rolled piece of paper the uninitiated might have mistaken for a hand-rolled cigarette.
“Read it when you return to your room. When you feel you have the answers, you’ll share them with me.”
The paper seemed to burn in her palm when she took it from him. “Are you going to do the same with Beau?” His growing investment in this venture and their growing connection ensured he’d follow through with the contract, right? She trusted his word, but Flynn was right. Quinn was going to have her for lunch when he found out she’d taken certain…ahem…liberties with his conditions.
“If he’s open to it, I suppose. Do you have any reservations about me starting to brainstorm and daydream a little for our men’s perfume?”
She didn’t have the funding for that yet, something he knew. But that wasn’t what he was asking. “So long as you feel it’s not burdensome to your current tasks.”
“Ah, cherie, daydreaming is never burdensome. I’ll see you at dinner. Katrine told me she was making lamb.”
She walked to the door but stopped in the threshold and turned back to him. “Ibrahim, deep down I don’t know why lavender. I only knew it had to be lavender.”
He smiled that signature smile of his. “See, the true answer is coming already.”
* * *
Up in her room, Caitlyn unrolled the small piece of paper. The finest of linen, she realized, with a textured edge. Of course Ibrahim would use such paper. But the words stole her breath:
The source of a great woman is…
Her first thought was “family.” “Teachers” followed in short order. She took the paper over to her scent journal, one she’d found at her favorite stationery store in Paris, and wrote the prompt and her answers on the first empty page. Once she’d done so, she reached for more answers, but her mind stayed stubbornly blank.
Her phone caught her eye, and she saw Michaela had sent her a text. She abandoned the journal and picked it up.
How’s perfume making? More importantly, how’s Beau? Flynn said he passed the pervert and entitled celebrity test. Being a fan, I’m relieved.
Chuckling, she responded: Flynn was sweet to put on his protective brother hat. Beau is wonderful, but perfume making is hard.
How was that for honesty? She’d understood how linked emotion and perfume were, but this process was more personal than she’d expected. Intimate even. She had an aha moment and wrote it down.
Perfume blends and lays on your skin in a way makeup doesn’t.
She sat back. Had she gotten in over her head? No, if this was the process, she’d give it her all. It was the Merriam way.
Enthused again, she opened her work email and saw Quinn’s message asking for an update along with an easy salvo questioning the expediency of having Beau Masters visit the farm so quickly. Apparently Flynn or Michaela had let it slip, not that it was a secret. She wasn’t even a little surprised by his final question before signing off: Do you have a contract for legal to look over?
Said contract was sitting on the scuffed-up desk she’d appropriated as her personal workspace near the window. Well, how was she going to answer? If Quinn knew Beau hadn’t signed yet, he could balk. Maybe stop production even. That wouldn’t do.
Beau would sign. His word meant something. Plus, he believed in this perfume, a
nd he also believed in her. That was everything.
But Quinn wouldn’t see it that way until the bird was in hand, so she needed to delay. She wrote him a flowery message about the beauty of the fields, Ibrahim’s incredible artistry, and then said: I have the contract right in front of me.
Technically, it was true, but she felt a little guilty. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to equivocate with Quinn. He had a rock for brains sometimes. Clear steps. Clear rules. He was a great vice president, but horrible at improvising.
Sometimes you had to trust your gut and take a risk, especially when you knew it was worth it.
Beau was definitely worth it.
Still, she hated fudging the truth, so she called Flynn to soothe her conscience. “I just stretched the truth about Beau’s contract,” she said when he answered. “Am I going to go to some business hell or something?”
“Hello to you too,” he said, laughing. “Nah, I think you’re okay. Business hell is for people like the Enron and Madoff jerks. You know, the ones who steal from old ladies and long-time pensioners. What did you say exactly?”
She laid it all out, and he didn’t interrupt her once. That was Flynn, and she loved his ability to listen. Quinn and Connor didn’t have the patience for it, hence their Big Bad Wolf status.
“Well, we figured he’d ask. Although I didn’t talk to Beau for long, he doesn’t seem like the sort who’d go back on his word. Plus, he cares about you. But Quinn isn’t trusting. You’d think living in London would have taught him the power of a gentleman’s handshake.”
“Right!” And Beau certainly was a gentleman. “Why didn’t I think of that? Should I write Quinn back? Wait. No, stupid idea.”
“What you said. So, how is the man you currently have eyes for?”
“We’re getting to know each other better.” Flynn might laugh if she said courting. “It’s not all lust and stuff.”
Flynn laughed, the jerk. “Lust and stuff? Yes, I know you need that body-mind connection.”
“You make me sound like a square.”