“Yes, I do. If I didn’t, all this wouldn’t be a problem. I love you very much, and I want to lead a normal, open life with you, so I can show off and be your woman. I’m very proud to be with you.” She had told her family about him over Christmas, and her older brother was pleased for her. He had never liked the man she’d lived with and thought he was a jerk. Hugues sounded like a good guy to him. Her brother, James, was a banker in Philadelphia, and his wife, Jean, was a lawyer, and they had four really great kids. They were a close-knit family, and they were happy to know that she was no longer alone.
Hugues sent the car and driver back to the hotel then and spent the rest of the evening trying to make it up to her for how inattentive he had been for the past two weeks, and not telling Heloise about them, and an hour later they were in her bed, making love. He spent the night with her and was planning to spend New Year’s Eve with her. He wanted to see the new year in with her and start it off right. They had already agreed to spend it at her place after he got their New Year’s festivities organized at the hotel. They always had revelers in the bar that night, a formal dinner in the restaurant, and later guests who’d had too much to drink weaving as they crossed the lobby. Some of them had to be helped to their rooms. And as long as Heloise didn’t know about them, Hugues and Natalie were trying to be discreet, which she didn’t like. Hiding their romance seemed like a lot of trouble to both of them and dishonest, but they agreed that it was the wisest course if they didn’t want hotel employees to let the cat out of the bag.
He left her and went back to his office the next morning. Hers was closed for the week between Christmas and New Year’s, but his office was never closed. And they always doubled their security on New Year’s Eve in case too many of their guests got drunk, or someone got out of control. He would have preferred to be at the hotel that night, but he wanted to be with her, so he had agreed to spend the night at her place. He came back at nine o’clock that night and brought caviar, lobsters, and champagne with him in an ice chest. They lay on the couch, eating a feast, and made love at the stroke of midnight. It was the perfect way to see in the new year.
Chapter 12
AFTER THE HOLIDAYS Natalie got to work on the suites Hugues had hired her to redo. She put as much energy and creativity into it as she had the first one, and by the end of March the results were just as spectacular, and they had four new suites that everybody loved. Guests who had been there before were clamoring for reservations in those rooms, and Hugues was thrilled. They even raised the rates for those rooms and several others where Natalie had worked her magic. Working for him at the Vendome was becoming a lucrative business venture for her as well. He had become her best client. He had put off redoing the presidential and penthouse suites for a few months, out of budget concerns, not because of her decorating. He promised to give her the project in the next year.
Natalie became a familiar sight at the hotel, talking to painters, installing drapes, trying out paintings that she dragged down the halls herself. Ernesta told her how much she liked the new art in the rooms, and Jan was so excited when she saw the new suites that she put special orchids in them. And Bruce, the head of security, complimented her too. She found several beautiful new pieces of art for Hugues, and with her gentle touch and great taste, she added new spice to the hotel, and everybody loved her. Hugues mentioned her to Heloise every chance he got, but never in such a way that she guessed they were involved. It felt wrong to him to tell her on the phone, so he was waiting for her Easter vacation, when he was picking her up in Lausanne, spending a night in Geneva with her, and taking her to Rome.
Natalie was still uncomfortable about being a secret to his daughter. They had been romantically involved for six months, and it just didn’t feel right to be clandestine. Most of the hotel employees had figured out by then that there was more happening than just decorating, but no one asked, and no one ever dared comment on it to Hugues. It was kind of an open secret in the hotel as time went on. And he finally admitted it to Jennifer, but she knew anyway. Natalie had told her months before. Jennifer was her biggest fan and happy for both of them. He deserved more of a life than he’d had for years, and Jennifer was thrilled that he had found a woman to love, other than his daughter, and the flash-in-the-pan women who drifted through his life for two dinner reservations or a night somewhere else. Jennifer had always taken care of the dinner reservations for him. He took care of the nights himself.
Natalie had confided to Jennifer several times how upset she was that Hugues hadn’t told Heloise about them yet, and Jennifer understood better than she did how potentially delicate that situation was, given how close they were, and she urged Natalie to be patient. She was, but she was more anxious than ever for him to tell Heloise about them over Easter. It was almost as though their relationship didn’t exist in reality, until Heloise knew. Natalie told him that she was beginning to feel like the Other Woman, and a dark secret. He insisted that wasn’t true. She was the woman he loved. But so was his daughter. It was beginning to seem extremely neurotic to Natalie, and she hoped that the veil of secrecy still surrounding them would drop soon. She was ready to be out in the open with him and had been for a long time.
In spite of the tension of Heloise not knowing, romantically things were going well. They were more in love than ever. And she would have loved to go to Europe with him over Easter, but there was no question of it with Heloise still unaware of her existence, other than as the designer who was redoing four suites at the hotel. She had even suggested meeting him in Paris, after he dropped Heloise back at school, but he said he had to get back, as they had several important guests arriving in late April, and even more in May and June. It was a busy spring for him too.
He flew to Geneva on the Wednesday before Easter, landed on Thursday morning, picked Heloise up at school in Lausanne, and spent the night with her at the Hotel d’Angleterre in Geneva, which was a gem. It was an exquisite small hotel with beautiful rooms, and was a great beginning for their trip. And on the morning of Good Friday they flew to Rome and strolled down the Via Veneto, tossing coins into the Trevi Fountain, eating gelato, and standing in the Sistine Chapel gazing at the ceiling in rapture that afternoon. It was exciting just being there, and they were going to stand in the square with millions of others on Easter Sunday, to receive the Pope’s blessing. It was the perfect place to be.
They were staying at the Excelsior, which had been a favorite of his since his boyhood, when he had gone there with his parents, and he loved sharing his memories there with his daughter. They loved traveling together and always had fun. And this time he was determined to tell her about Natalie. He had promised, and he had every intention of following through. They were going to be spending a whole week together, and there would be plenty of time for her to absorb the news that he was in love with a good woman who wanted to get to know Heloise too.
They were sitting in a cafe that afternoon, enjoying the spring sunshine, when he asked her how things were going with Francois. She was always a little vague about him, and he was never sure if that meant he wasn’t a big deal or was a Very Big Deal. She was surprisingly evasive about him, which wasn’t like her.
“He’s fine,” she said, staring into space, as her father watched her for telltale signs that might alarm him. He was always on the lookout for warning signs of her not coming home. So far, much to his relief, there had been none.
“What kind of fine? Fine as in you’re so nuts about him you can’t see straight, or fine, he’s an okay boyfriend but no big deal?” She laughed at her father’s description. She was wearing jeans and running shoes and a sweater and had put her hair in pigtails for the first time in years. She looked even younger than she was.
“Somewhere between the two. Fine, as in I love him, but I’m still coming home, if that’s what you’re asking me. We got our internships in Paris for our hospitality year,” she announced, and Hugues’s eye-brows shot up. This was the first time she had confirmed it, and that made him a little nervous too, although it would be good experience for her.
“Where?” His heart was racing as he asked her.
“The George V. It’s one of the best hotels in Paris now and would give us a leg up with the Four Seasons, who own it, if we ever want to work at one of their other hotels.”
“What does that mean? You don’t need a leg up with the Four Seasons if you’re coming back to work with me. Has any of that plan changed?”
“No. I told you, I’m still coming home, at Christmastime this year. I start at the George V on June first. Francois and I are going to try and find a studio together, he’s staying for the whole year. I’ll only be there for six months.” He knew the plan, but it was all too real now, and living with Francois in Paris was new.
“You’re going to live with him?” She nodded. “Isn’t that a big commitment?”
“Not for six months,” she said practically, “and I don’t want to live alone. I’m twenty years old, Papa, or I will be by then, or almost. people do that these days. It makes a lot of sense.”
“To whom?” he asked, looking annoyed. “I would pay for an apartment for you. You don’t have to live with him.”
“I want to,” she said, smiling at him.
“What if I did something like that?” he asked her bluntly, trying to open the door he’d been attempting to open for six months.
“Don’t be silly. You wouldn’t live with someone. And if you did, I wouldn’t like it. That’s not respectable at your age. I’m just a student. It’s not the same thing.”
“Why not? What if I fell in love?” he said, trying to introduce the hypothetical before the real to test the waters and see what she’d say.
“I’d probably have a fit and have to kill her,” she said with a smile as his heart sank. “You belong to me,” she said without hesitating for a beat, with the confidence that came from a father who had never loved anyone but her and she liked it that way and wasn’t afraid to say so.
“I could belong to you
and
a woman I love, other than you, like a partner of some kind.” He was skirting all around it but didn’t have the guts to spit it out, particularly given her responses to him. She looked totally unembarrassed to be so blunt.
“No, you couldn’t,” she said, drinking lemon soda through a straw. “I wouldn’t let you. Besides, she’d probably be after your money, or mess everything up at the hotel. You don’t need a woman, Papa, you have me.” She beamed at him and sat back in her chair, and he didn’t have the heart to ruin the rest of the week, telling her he was in love with Natalie. A week, or even two, never seemed like enough time to deliver that kind of news, especially given her resistance, which was openly declared. He knew from the way she was looking at him that he was going to be no braver at Easter than he had been at Christmas. How could he ruin the week with her, when he only saw her once every three or four months? He couldn’t risk it. She meant too much to him. And if he lost her, Natalie would never be enough. He wanted them both in his life, not either or.
“Tell me about your internship and what it entails,” he said, looking somber, and she seemed oblivious to the sad look in his eyes. He knew that he had already failed Natalie and broken his promise to her, and the trip had just begun. He’d have to explain it to her when he went home, if he even could. He hoped she’d be reasonable about it. He was beginning to wonder if it would be smarter not to tell Heloise anything about Natalie at all until she came home for good in December. If he told her before that, she might decide to stay in France. There was no telling how betrayed she would feel, or how angry, no way to measure the vehemence of her reaction until the words had been said and the news delivered. She was the only child he had, the love of his life, and he wasn’t willing to take the chance. It was cowardly perhaps, but he didn’t want to lose his child. He loved Natalie very much, but even she wasn’t worth that to him.
For the rest of the trip, they went to museums and churches and had delicious dinners, mostly small, informal restaurants in Trastevere, on the other side of the Tiber River. They received the papal blessing on Easter morning, went to the Colosseum, and had a wonderful time together as father and daughter. She spent an enormous amount of time talking on her cell phone to Francois and texted him everywhere they went, but in spite of that, Hugues couldn’t bring himself to tell her that there was a woman in New York that he was in love with and spending time with, and that there was room for both of them in his life. By the time they got back to Lausanne a week after they’d arrived in Rome, she still knew nothing about Natalie’s importance in his life. Francois was waiting for her at the school when they returned, and she beamed the moment she saw him, and Francois kissed her. It angered Hugues that she was allowed to have that intimacy and he wasn’t, but the one he was angry at was himself for being too cowardly to tell her, and unwilling to take the chance that she’d be furious with him. Natalie said she’d get over it. But what if she didn’t?
He took Heloise and Francois to dinner on the last night, at La Grappe d’Or on rue Cheneau-de-Bourg. It was the best restaurant in Lausanne. And Francois was a nice boy, although a little full of himself because his parents owned a well-known hotel and he thought he knew everything there was to know about the business. But he wasn’t a bad kid, and Heloise looked besotted with him. With any luck at all, she’d be ready to leave him by the end of the year. And in the meantime Hugues realized that he and Natalie would have to continue to be discreet for as long as it took. Maybe in a few months Heloise would be ready to hear it and would have matured. He hoped so, but now he had to go back to New York and tell Natalie he had broken his promise, and Heloise still didn’t know.
He hugged her tight when he left her that night, and the next morning he took the early flight back to New York, which arrived at Kennedy at nine A.M. local time, so he could get to work. He had spoken to Natalie several times while he was gone. She didn’t want to push him, so she hadn’t asked if he had told Heloise yet, and now he had to tell her that he hadn’t. He felt as though his heart were dragging on the runway when they landed, and now he had to face her.