by Lulu Astor
“Okay, so here’s his explanation…” I say, and launch into the whole saga and how he came to have the thugs in his employ.
“The kidnapping story sounds like utter bullshit to me.”
“Does it? To me it seems too farfetched to make up…” I choose my words carefully. “It could be true.”
“The royalty connection is a fact, however. I checked.”
“You checked? How did you even know about it?”
“Daniel. There’s something up with Daniel…” he hesitates, as if searching for the right words, “he seems to know things he shouldn’t. If he weren’t helping me so much, he’d be suspect. I think… oh, never mind.”
“No, tell me.”
“No, it will sound too crazy.”
“I love crazy! I’m dating you.”
He smiles and mirth makes his eyes extra shiny. “I think he may have… extra sensory abilities.”
“Like… mindreading?”
“Exactly like it. Yes. He seems to know everything, even before it happens. Anyway, he told me to take another look at the report I had run on Phillips. It wasn’t complete so I fired the security firm I was using and hired a new one. The new report was much more detailed and comprehensive. Remember that woman you interviewed in Venice?”
“Maya St. Sauveur. She’s his half-sister.”
“How did you know?”
“Lucien told me. It explains why she was so antagonistic toward him. According to Lucien, their father left his whole estate to Lucien and not her or her mother or his mother, for that matter. Sounds like a charmer.”
“Yes, well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, now does it?”
“Hmm. I’m getting the results of the blood test tomorrow—I’m already certain I was drugged. I have a history of severe reactions to drugs—I think I told you how I once suffered hallucinations from cold medicine. If someone slipped me something strong like Rohypnol, I don’t doubt that I’d have a bad reaction. Maybe all those things I remembered happening were in fact hallucinations.” I look up at him but he makes no comment and his face is devoid of expression. “Do you think?”
Shrugging, he pulls me closer to his chest and kisses my head. “Perhaps, but I’m not inclined to give Phillips any benefit of the doubt. I hold him responsible for everything that happened to you that night, even hallucinations. He should face legal redress, and would, if I had my way.”
“It is weird how he told me his whole life story by way of explaining his hoodlum bodyguards.”
“He’s trying to gain your sympathy, Ella, pure and simple. He admitted to me that he always had an ulterior motive.”
My head swings up so fast I nearly get whiplash. “What was his ulterior motive?”
Arching his brows, he says, “Can’t you guess?”
“Just tell me, for God’s sake.”
“He was interested in you, Ella. Romantically. He said every time he tried to get you alone, I’d foil his plans.” He grins wickedly. “Told you so.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I certainly believe it might be true, since you are rather irresistible. But as for whether or not it was his true motivation… I’m not certain yet. But I will be, once I have all the information to put the puzzle together.”
“I’m surprised Lucien even talked to you considering how you artfully rearranged his face.”
“Yes, our Mr. Phillips was in a loquacious mood today, wasn’t he? Too bad he’s such a filthy liar.”
“Well, I’m done with him so there’s no further need to worry.” I stroke his face, hoping he can feel my love through touch—and I think he can. His eyes drift shut and he hums in appreciation. Reaching closer, I kiss his lips softly.
“I believe you mentioned that you want to go out for dinner?”
“Yes,” he says, shaking his head to recover his equilibrium, I suppose. “So get your lazy ass up and dressed so I can wine and dine you, Ms. Strong. I’ll be awaiting your divine presence in the living room.” He gets up and strides out of the room.
I take my time getting ready—I hadn’t forgotten that Ian asked me to marry him in our post-coital ecstasy. Was he serious? I wondered if he was going to do it properly tonight and what I would say.
Do I want to marry him? I look in the mirror and roll my eyes. Oh, for God’s sake, who am I kidding? Of course I do. I love the man and I’m only truly happy when we’re together. The positives far outweigh the negatives when it comes to Ian and I think I can make him happy, too. He just needs to ease up a bit on the dominance—but not in bed. That I like. If he’s willing to compromise, so am I.
Okay, make-up: I reach for the mineral foundation powder and puff on the barest amount. A little eyeliner and mascara, lip pencil and tinted gloss. That’s it.
Then I add a double diamond stud to each ear and pull my hair back in a loose knot. Perfect. See, Mariah? I can clean up pretty nicely. The specter of Mariah as fashion police reminds me I have to call her and let her know I’m back in Portland. We need some face time together.
I pull on a tight navy cashmere vee-neck sweater over a very short navy skirt. The sweater covers almost all of the skirt so it kind of looks like I have nothing on underneath. Going for the monochromatic look, I pull on navy tights and black leather ankle boot that have straps with big pewter buckles. I stand back and examine myself in the mirror.
No. I look like a coed on the first day of the fall semester, not a woman going out for dinner with her rich, gorgeous boyfriend who may or may not propose marriage to her. I quickly strip off the clothes I just put on and begin again.
First I don a black satin shelf bra that pushes me up so my cleavage is way more impressive—with the added advantage of ventilation for my nips. Going to Ian’s closet, I scan the side where I’ve left some of my clothes. This time I select a slinky vee-neck Merlot-red dress; it hugs my body as if it were tailor-made for it. I choose the diamond pendant Ian gave to me—it looks perfect showcased in the plunging vee of the neckline, dangling right at the start of said cleavage, and I slip on sheer stockings and four-inch black heels. The shoes are Ian’s favorites as they are not only stilettos, but they show just the barest hint of toe cleavage, which he finds sexy. I wrap a black pashmina scarf around my throat three times and tie it, and don a black coat the exact length of the dress, which I leave hanging open so the dress plays peekaboo. Now when I check the mirror, I nod in satisfaction. Perfect.
When I walk into the living room, Ian is on his laptop looking grim but he glances up at me as I enter and his eyes begin to shine.
“Beautiful, Ella.” Closing the computer, he stands and takes my hand, kisses it, and leads me to the hall where he grabs his coat from the closet. We go into the entrance hall to wait for the elevator.
The restaurant is housed in what used to be a crumbling old mansion, Ian informs me. Rather than knock down walls to make a large dining room on each floor, the owners of Oscar’s took that approach with the main floor only. On the upper floors, they left all the bedrooms intact and instead created private dining rooms, each decorated with a different Academy Award-winning film in mind. There is a room dedicated to The Sting, a Gone with the Wind room, my favorite and the one I want is the Casablanca room. They have West Side Story, Mutiny on the Bounty, Amadeus, Lord of the Rings, Titanic, and more. There are fifteen theme dining rooms, all told.
Somehow Ian managed to anticipate the room I’d want and he reserved it earlier in the day so we get the one designed to look like Rick’s Café Américain.
The maître d’ shows us to our room and then quietly exits, while our waiter enters to take our drink orders. Ian orders a bottle of white—a Pinot Grigio—to be served with dinner and a bottle of champagne to be chilled for afterward. Surely that means what I think it means.
Scanning the menu, I’m completely undecided as to what to order. I’m vacillating between three dishes and when I look up, Ian is watching me, amused.
“Shall I order for both of us, Ell
a?”
“Yes, thank you, Ian.”
The meal he orders is superb: a cold cucumber and dill soup, halibut with potato pave, and sautéed spinach. For dessert we have fresh berries with crème fraîche and… Perrier Jouet, chilled to perfection.
“Oh my God, if I ate like this every day I’d never fit into any of my clothes.”
Smiling, Ian feeds me a strawberry. “I like to see you eat well, Ella.”
“Mmm. Thank you for the delicious dinner and the sparkling company, most of all. I’m sorry if I upset you earlier. I just want to resolve this whole thing in my mind so I can put it behind me. Since Lucien was magically there in front of me, I figured it was a safe way to do it.”
Ian scoffs “Magically? He was stalking you, Ella.” He sighs, pushing his unruly hair out of his eyes.
He needs a haircut, I notice, and then try to give him my full attention. There’s something on his mind.
Clearing his throat, he finally says, “I have something to share with you, too, Ella. I’m just not quite ready to do so. Will you be patient with me? I promise that soon I’ll explain everything to you, what’s been going on at Excalibur… and why I’ve been in frequent bad tempers of late.” His hand reaches across the table to cover mine and he squeezes. “Will you bear with me for a little while?”
“You mean you’re not always this grouchy? Well, that’s a relief,” I say, wiping my brow with the back of my hand. He smiles but just for a nanosecond so I know he wants me to be serious.
“Of course I will bear with you, Ian, but I definitely would like you to share with me. If I learned anything from my awful experience at Lucien’s, it’s that it’s far better to be honest with the people you care about… because you never know when you’re going to run out of time.”
He kisses my hand. “Hopefully we both have lots of time ahead of us… but you’re absolutely correct. I’m… working on it, Ella, on sharing, but it doesn’t come so easily to me.”
“Okay.” I pat his hand. “I’ll wait… if you promise to keep me occupied in the interim.” I flash him a leer.
He doesn’t take the bait, though. Instead, he rises off his chair and walks to mine, and without further preamble, drops to one knee and kisses my hand. Inwardly, I gasp loudly, nerves jangling like silver bangles on a hyperactive wrist. Outwardly I’m as serene as a mountain lake. He’s really going to do it and so traditionally too.
“I asked you to marry me earlier today but you resented my timing and told me to do it again when I was fully dressed and on bended knee. So here I am, Ariel. Will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife and partner forever? I’ll settle for nothing less.”
I brush that recalcitrant lock of hair off his adored face and then run my fingers down, lightly tracing his perfectly symmetrical features. “Yes, Ian. I will. Forever. I love you.”
From behind his back he produces a small cardboard box in the distinctive turquoise color of Tiffany’s, adorned with a white ribbon. We open it together, and inside is a small, black velvet case. He removes it, tosses the blue box onto the table, and flips open the hinge on the velvet case. Nestled inside in a bed of satin and velvet is the most magnificent diamond ring I’ve ever seen. The stone is large but tasteful and the setting so unique: it’s fringed by sapphires that form an inverted vee, showcasing the large diamond in the center. The ring itself is platinum. When he slips it on my finger, it somehow fits perfectly. I lean over and kiss him softly. “It is the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen and I’m thrilled to wear it, Ian. Thrilled.”
In response, he offers me a smile that can light the night sky, and we kiss, a beautiful chaste kiss full of the promises to come. After we toast our engagement with hastily sipped champagne, Ian signals for the bill so we can go home and seal the deal in the way we like best. We take the bottle of bubbly and the rest of the strawberries with us at my insistence. I have plans of my own.
So, as of tonight, we are engaged to be married and life is just fine. It’s time I start moving my things back from Los Angeles.
The next morning I make three phone calls upon waking: the first to the lab to get my results. The results are unsurprising: yes, there was residual trace evidence of a drug, similar to Rohypnol, called ketamine present in my blood sample.
“Does that drug cause hallucinations, do you know?” I ask the lab tech.
“It can. Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic and it’s called that because it tends to distort sights and sounds, and causes one to feel a detachment from reality. Hallucinations are one side effect of this drug.”
“I appreciate the information. I understand the full lab report was already mailed to me?”
“Yes, that’s correct. You should receive it in the next day or so. If you have any questions, please feel free to call again.”
“Thank you very much. Good day.”
I disconnect the call and spend the next five minutes staring into space. Lucien’s tale is starting to gain more traction with me. What I really want to know now is whether he’s really as innocent about BDSM as he made himself out to be—that would also bolster his story. I need to add Mo Jackson to my call list to find out how she knows LP but I’ll leave that enticing task to another day and time. Baby steps.
The second call is to Mariah and we make plans to have lunch the following day. I refrain from sharing my massively life-changing news because I want to tell her in person: from Archipelago salesgirl to Mrs. Ian Blackmon in five easy steps. Not too shabby.
The third and final call I place is to Maya St. Sauveur. I know I should just let it go but I cannot. I want to know if Lucien’s kidnapping saga is true. Why it matters anyway, I just don’t know.
She answers on the first ring. “Yes?”
“Ms. St. Sauveur?”
“Yes, speaking. Who’s calling please?”
“It’s Ariel Strong, Ms. Sauveur. Do you remember me?”
“Yes, Ella. Please call me Maya. How are you?”
“I’m doing well, Maya. I’m calling you on something of a personal matter… I hope you don’t find it too intrusive but circumstances have necessitated me verifying information Lucien provided to me by way of an explanation.” Okay, I sound like a blithering idiot. Just ask the woman, Ella, in plain English.
“Lucien told me a story and I wondered if you could… would… offer any clarification regarding it?”
“What story?”
“About his being kidnapped at age five?”
A long pause ensues and I wait patiently. “Yes, it’s true. Did you doubt him? Because if you did, I completely understand. He is a pathological liar, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know, as a matter of fact. Lucien told me that two men, Lithuanian brothers, saved him and his father rewarded them with lifetime jobs.”
“Yes, well. My father wasn’t always the sharpest knife in the drawer despite his brilliance at making money. My mother always suspected those men were themselves behind the kidnapping. They were never exactly upstanding citizens of the world. My father, however, believed their story lock, stock, and barrel, as they say. He made them out to be heroes.”
“Lucien takes after his father in that way, living in his own little house of cards, Ella. He believes what suits him to believe and dismisses whatever doesn’t fit into his narrative.” There’s a pause on her end. “What exactly did he tell you and why?”
“Just what I’ve told you.”
“Yes, it’s all true… except that he wasn’t held for days but hours. He likes to believe he was emotionally scarred for life but he only remembers what family members have told him. His memories are totally false.” She pauses.
“What I’m not clear on is why he shared the story with you? I thought you were merely colleagues. Has that changed since last I saw you?”
“No,” I hurry to reassure her. “I had a… um… difficult night… with Lucien and he told me why he has those men in his employ. That’s the only reason.”
“Difficult? What hap
pened?”
“I’m not exactly sure… mainly because I was drugged apparently. The drug had an extremely… deleterious effect on me. In short, I don’t know what actually happened and what I imagined to have happened.
“I see. Inasmuch as his story is true, I still would caution you about believing anything Lucien says. He prevaricates just because he can, for no other reason. He can be extremely self-centered and he doesn’t seem to care how his actions affect other people.”
Again, she pauses. For a moment or two, I think the call dropped but then she speaks up again.
“Have you spoken to his former girlfriend, Ella?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“They were together for quite some time. She might shed some light on the situation for you.”
“Was their break-up acrimonious?”
She laughs coldly. “Only if you think your lover cheating on you is acrimonious. Lucien had met another woman and began two-timing the girl… Eliza, I believe her name is. I don’t know what happened with the new one but he was apparently head over heels for her.”
“Do you know what her name was?”
“I can’t remember offhand. It was something exotic, as I recall. Ah, it’s at the fringes of my memory but I can’t pin it down. It will come to me as soon as we disconnect, no doubt.”
I laugh in commiseration. “Yes, that’s usually how it works. Well, thank you so much for the information, Maya. I do so appreciate it.”
“Not at all, Ella. I liked you immediately and I knew my darling half-brother would be bad news for you one way or another. He usually is.”
“Yes, well, live and learn. Take care, Maya.”
“You, too, Ella. Goodbye.”
I hang up the phone, chewing my lip. After speaking with Maya St. Sauveur, I’m left with more questions than I started with and wondering if I should indeed call Eliza. Would Lara have any information about her? I’ll start with her. Scrolling through my address book in my phone, I find Lara’s number and am about to punch in the call when I get a chime alerting me to a text. I switch to the message screen.