by J. D. Fox
“Genevieve, are you awake?” She opened her eyes reluctantly and met Olivier’s gaze.
“You already knew I was awake,” she told him.
Olivier nodded. “We need to discuss what happened last night,” he said, his voice firm.
“If you’re about to pull some bullshit move on me about how now that I’ve had sex with you, you’re going to have to fire me—” Olivier didn’t let her finish.
“The sex is immaterial,” he told her. Props to you for knowing the word ‘immaterial,' Genevieve thought bitterly.
“Then what is this about?” She took a deep breath, steeling herself for something worse.
“I will not be asking you to help me with my business anymore,” Olivier said. “You want to know too much. I keep my business private, and if you require to know so much to help me, I will do it without your help.” Genevieve stared at him for a moment, stunned. That was not what she thought would be on his mind after the night they’d shared. She sat up, holding the duvet around her breasts.
“That’s what you want to talk about?” Olivier nodded, sitting up. Genevieve had seen him fully naked the night before, but as the blanket fell away, she couldn’t help but stare for a moment at the sight of his broad chest, with its scattered, fine hair, and the darker dart of his treasure trail leading down to what she knew from their tryst was a very nice endowment indeed. She shook off her desire, focusing on what Olivier had said.
“I will not ask you for any more help, and I also will require that you never ask me about my business— in any way— again,” Olivier said.
“If you don’t want my help, then I’ll leave it alone,” Gen said, trying not to feel hurt that Olivier apparently had no concerns about their sex. It could be that he doesn’t want to talk about the sex because it’s too intimate, Gen thought— but then discarded the idea. Olivier clearly wasn’t phased at all by their intimacy. He was concerned with her interest in his business.
“That is not enough,” Olivier said. “I want to be clear with you: if you try and pry into my business from this point forward, I will dismiss you.” Gen stared at him again, shocked at the hard line he had taken. How long had he been awake, and why was he suddenly so obsessed with his business once more? You have a naked woman in bed with you, one who you had pretty spectacular sex with last night, and all you can think about is protecting your shady-ass business? Gen took a slow breath to try and calm her irritation.
“If that is your condition, then I understand,” she said. “I will not have any involvement with your business, and I won’t so much as ask how it’s going.” Gen slid out of bed and looked around for her pajamas, feeling embarrassed and annoyed. She got dressed as quickly as she could, not even looking at her boss.
“I will see you downstairs for breakfast,” Olivier said, and Gen nodded without even a glance in his direction; she didn’t want him to see how affected she was, even though she knew— objectively— that her behavior was giving her away.
Mathilde was, fortunately, not awake yet. Gen sneaked into her room as quietly as possible and sat down on the edge of her bed, fuming. She stared at the floor and considered getting up, going back out of the room, and telling Olivier that she would save him the trouble and just quit. But that would leave you in jeopardy with your visa, she reminded herself. She had made the mistake of sleeping with her boss, and now she was going to have to deal with all the awkwardness that came with it.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” Gen stood and began pacing, her irritation increasing. Of all the things he could have chosen to talk about when they both woke up, he’d decided to threaten her with being fired if she ever even asked about his business again. She knew she’d made a mistake, but she had hoped that if anything, they might address that actual issue.
Then too, there was the fact that she hadn’t lost any of the curiosity she had about what it was, exactly, that Olivier was up to. He’d managed to find out about her parents, while she was still in the dark about him, with nothing more than Sadie’s vague assertions about his shadiness to go on. She shook her head, gritting her teeth and forcing herself to calm down. She had to go have breakfast with Mathilde and Olivier soon, and Gen told herself she would do anything to keep the little girl from realizing there was anything amiss. “Besides which, you cannot possibly give him the satisfaction of acting awkward,” Gen murmured to herself.
She took a quick shower and heard Mathilde down the hall, getting up, just as she finished putting on a fresh pair of pajamas. Gen pulled her hair back into a messy, basic bun and emerged, smiling at the little girl as Mathilde hopped around, ready to start her day.
“Breakfast time! Breakfast time!” Gen chuckled to herself as she followed the five-year-old down the hall, towards the rest of the house. As she answered the girl’s questions about the different words for various breakfast items in English, Gen carefully schooled her mind to show no difference in how she interacted with Olivier. Whatever it is he’s doing, there’s no reason to bring Mathilde into this, Gen reminded herself. She loves him— he’s her Papa, and she is too young to have any kind of idea of how shady her dad might be. You’re going to keep it to yourself.
Olivier greeted them from the kitchen table when they came in, and Gen’s resolve faltered when she saw how seemingly easy it was for him to act as if nothing at all had changed; from his demeanor, one would think nothing at all had happened between the two of them the night before. He had made coffee, and there was hot chocolate for Mathilde. He’d even made some toast to go along with the madeleines and financiers on the table.
“Do you want some juice, Mattie?” Gen moved to the fridge, not looking at Olivier, or addressing him. It was going to be more difficult than she’d thought to pretend like nothing had happened, and for the moment, Gen decided, it was safest to focus on the child.
“J’en veux de jus de pomme,” Mathilde said, pulling her chair at the table out and climbing into it.
“In English, ma fille,” Olivier said.
“It’s fine if she speaks French,” Gen countered, struggling to keep her voice mild. “We talked about the terms for different breakfast things on the way here from the bedrooms.”
“I want some apple juice,” Mathilde said, following her father’s instruction.
“And then you would say, ‘please,’” Olivier told the girl.
“Please,” Mathilde said, grinning. Gen rolled her eyes, not able to resist a smile. She opened the fridge and got the apple juice out, along with milk for her coffee. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad; perhaps she’d be able to just go back to the way things had been before she and Olivier had slept together. Gen poured Mathilde a glass of juice and fixed herself a cup of coffee, and breakfast went about the way that it usually did on weekends, with Olivier suggesting different activities that Mathilde might want to do.
“Do you need us out of the house for a while at any point today?” Out of something like spite, Gen carefully didn’t mention why it was that Olivier might need them out of the house. That was one way, she thought, that she could get some of her own back on the man: by following the letter of his newly-imposed law, and not even mentioning that he had business to attend to. It was petty, and she knew it, but Gen needed something to hold onto. She needed to feel like she was getting something of her own back at Olivier after his performance that morning.
“No, I am free all day,” Olivier said. “On va aller au cinéma?” Gen saw him look at Mathilde.
“Oui! Genny, tu vas aller avec nous?” Gen considered that question.
“I think I’ll stay home,” she said. She realized that while she was going to stick to the letter of the law regarding talking to Olivier about his business affairs, there was one excellent reason for her to pry and find out why he wanted so badly to hide them. That reason the five-year-old girl in front of her who could lose her father if he really was engaging in illegal activities.
Chapter Sixteen
Olivier consulted the notes in front of him, checking them against the translator he had spent money on as opposed to using free translation services. He wanted to be sure of what he was reading. It had been a week since he had given Genevieve the ultimatum that she was not to ask about— or even mention his business affairs— anymore, and he had already come to see what a mistake that had been.
It wasn’t that he needed Genevieve’s help— not really. Olivier read through the paperwork that had come through for the investors taking part in the fictional business that he and Clinton would be creating and reminded himself that he had done a dozen scams almost exactly like the one he had committed to. It was that the situation had created tension between them. Et droit au but, tu sais que c’était une connerie. It had been— as his American au pair might have said— complete bullshit.
He’d awakened the morning after their tryst and immediately felt comfortable with the sensation of Genevieve’s body curled up next to his, her warmth radiating into his skin. He’d watched her sleep for what, somehow, felt like an hour and a minute all at once; taking in the softness of her features, the sweetness of her when she was so unguarded. It had been like the early days of his relationship with his wife or the feeling he’d gotten when he’d known she was pregnant with Mathilde. The feeling had stunned him, and by the time he realized that Genevieve was awake, but pretending to be asleep still, he had known what he had to do.
It had still surprised him when he made the specific ultimatum that he had; while it made sense— after a fashion— he hadn’t actually entirely cared about Genevieve asking him about his work. All that bothered him was the possibility of her knowing about his affairs. Olivier knew that the more people in on the secret, the higher the risk of him being caught at it— and while Genevieve would probably be safer than many, he couldn’t deny that there was also the possibility that she would be the first to rat him out to the authorities. After all, she would possibly expect a reward for turning him in.
Olivier sat back from his desk and looked away from the paperwork. There was so much delicacy to putting together a fake business, so much to take care of, especially when it was international. He glanced at the clock and realized that Genevieve would be home with Mathilde in a little over an hour; he needed to finish up his work. Even if he could, in theory, continue working without much risk of interruption, Olivier preferred to be as present as possible when his daughter was around. One of his associates had asked why he kept an au pair at all, if not for the “landscape,” and Olivier had explained to the man that in addition to keeping his daughter out of the house and occupied when he needed privacy, he thought it was good for Mathilde to have a stable, constant female presence in her life. “So why not just have her grandparents move in?” Olivier had had to remind himself to be grateful that the man was oblivious; it made him easier to con.
As Olivier thought about Genevieve, images of her from the night of their tryst flashed through his mind. That was another problem; he couldn’t get the memories of how good it had felt to be inside her, to hear her moaning in pleasure, to see her naked out of his mind, no matter how he had tried to pretend that it had made no impact on him. Olivier shook his head and turned back to his documents, forcing himself to focus until his daughter came home.
All too soon, he heard the telltale noises of Mathilde entering the house, chattering away at Genevieve who was answering her with amusement. Olivier locked down his computer and cleared away his documents, making sure that there was no way that Genevieve or any of the cleaning staff he hired would be able to get to them. Now that he knew that Genevieve was suspicious of his business interests, he had started to be extra careful. Even if she was very determinedly not asking anything other than whether he needed Mathilde out of the house for a while, Olivier was certain that his au pair’s curiosity was as sharp as ever. He double-checked to make sure that there was nothing that anyone could readily find and then left his office.
“Bonjour les filles,” he called out as he approached the entryway.
“Salut, Papa!” Mathilde barely managed the self-discipline to put her shoes away in the little cubby by the door designated for that purpose before running to him. Olivier reached down and swung the little girl into his arms, settling her against his chest.
“Comment s’est passé ton aprèm?” He kissed his daughter on each cheek twice, smiling into her face. Every day she seemed to resemble his late wife more and more, which was both comforting and saddening at the same time.
“We had a good time,” Genevieve replied, finishing the task of putting away her own shoes and stepping into her slippers. Olivier had observed very, very privately that her style had evolved in the nearly two months since she had arrived in the country, if subtly. She still had an elegance to her look, but there was a more casual, Frenchwoman sensibility to her outfits: clean, well-kept sneakers with tights and a skirt, or boots paired with fitted pants and a light blouse. Autumn hadn’t quite arrived yet, but it was definitely on its way, and Olivier could picture— all too easily— Genevieve in a light coat; leather, or denim maybe, cut to the curves of her body, a scarf tucked around the neck.
“And what did you do?” Olivier carried Mathilde into the living room with him, and Genevieve followed. From all appearances, she seemed to have no qualms or resentments towards her employer, and Olivier couldn’t fault her acting. He thought from time to time that she did little things to spite him since they’d slept together, but it was nothing that he could definitively name. It was more that he felt as though she went out of her way not to notice him, directing all of her attention onto Mathilde when the little girl was around, and being wholly occupied with her phone, or a book, or some other task on the rare occasion that they were alone together. She also seemed to go to bed earlier than she had before, occasionally even turning in when Mathilde did. Ben arrête ces conneries et parle avec elle, he thought irritably, setting Mathilde down amongst her toys. But talking to her was, Olivier’s mind countered, the last thing that would help in the current circumstances.
The other possibility was to fire her. Olivier considered the possibility— not for the first time— as he sat down on the couch, accepting one of Mathilde’s toys from her. “Genny dit qu’on peut avoir un ‘tea party,'" Mathilde told him. “Comme Alice au pays de merveilles!”
“English, please,” Olivier reminded his daughter.
“It won’t be like Alice’s tea party,” Genevieve explained to Mathilde, who half-pouted. “Real rabbits do not like tea very much.” Olivier couldn’t help but chuckle at that.
“But we can have tea and cakes?” That, of course, was the most important thing to Mathilde.
“Oui bien sûr,” Genevieve replied. “It wouldn’t be much of a tea party without cakes.”
“And the little sandwiches?” Mathilde pronounced the word ‘sandwiches’ in the French way, but Olivier didn’t correct her. She was, after all, still young; and she’d learned a great deal more English than Olivier would have thought possible in such a short time.
“Yes, I’ll make you the little sandwiches,” Genevieve said with a grin, and Olivier knew he couldn’t just summarily fire her: his daughter loved the au pair already.
“And can Papa come too?” Mathilde looked from Genevieve to Olivier, and Olivier could see that his daughter had sensed that something had changed between the two of them, no matter how they’d tried to hide the awkwardness between them.
“Of course he can,” Genevieve said without any hesitation, and Olivier couldn’t help admiring the woman. She was doing her best; it would be wrong to dismiss her, even if he considered the feelings he’d felt stirring inside of himself a valid reason to begin with. Genevieve was doing her job; his daughter was well cared for. His daughter loved her. There was no way he’d be able to explain to Mathilde why he’d had to make Genevieve leave.
“Alors, ma f
ille,” Olivier said, joining his daughter on the floor to play with the doll she’d given him. “What should we have for dinner?”
“I was thinking I might try my hand at hachis parmentier,” Genevieve said, and Olivier glanced at her, only to see that she wasn’t even looking at him. He felt oddly hurt by that fact, but he forced himself not to think about it.
“What do you think, Mathilde? Does that sound good?” Olivier kissed the top of his daughter’s head.
“Oui! Ça me va,” Mathilde said. “I like how Genny cooks.” Olivier smiled in spite of his conflicted feelings.
“I like how she cooks too,” he agreed. He looked up again, and this time, Genevieve was paying attention to him.
“I hope I’ll do it justice,” Genevieve said. She rose to her feet.
“Can I help you to cook?” Mathilde had never shown any interest in cooking before Genevieve had arrived; even when Olivier had cooked for her, she had merely watched him and chattered away about the topics that interested a flighty, five-year-old mind.
“You certainly can, if you want,” Genevieve said, smiling at the little girl with more warmth than she had shown him in all the time since their tryst combined. “You can help me mash the potatoes.”
“Oui! Oui! On y va,” Mathilde insisted, and Olivier watched as his au pair led his daughter into the kitchen to begin on cooking dinner. For a few moments, he was torn; he wanted to be in the room with his daughter, but at the same time, any time he spent around Genevieve was likely to be full of awkwardness and tension. He decided to give them some time to get settled into the task of making dinner, and then join them to have aperitifs the way that he had done before. As long as he kept things as normal as possible, Olivier thought, he should be able to keep things from going too badly. And he didn’t have too much longer to have to worry about it.