Ménage Material [La Belle sans la Bete Ménages] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (28 page)

The attack hadn’t been entirely unexpected, yet it still came as a shock. Devvy replaced her cup of coffee onto the table.

“I can assure you,
madame
, I am quite successful in my own right. I’ve no need to use Alex to advance my own position in the scientific community.”

“No one is as successful as my Alexei,” Antoinette boasted, a zealous gleam in her eyes.

Alex snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous,
Maman
. This isn’t a competition.” He reached for Devvy’s hand and squeezed. His fingers clung to hers, and she didn’t let go. “Devvy is a very successful woman in her own field.”

“How long have you known her? How do you know you can trust her?” came more questions. A lock of hair fell from Antoinette’s messily bundled hair and stuck to her brow. It was only then that Devvy noticed the other woman was perspiring.

Having her here, the ramifications of Devvy’s presence and what she obviously meant to Alex was scaring Antoinette.

Literally. Physically.

Devvy shook her head at the notion and was about to reply but Alex stopped her by declaring, “Stop insulting Devvy. I brought her here out of respect to you, but I can see I was wrong to do so.” He made to stand and Antoinette shook her head, quickly holding out her hands to pacify him.

“I apologize. I did not mean to imply anything.”

“
Ça, c’est de merde
, you weren’t implying, you were stating!”

Devvy reached forward and placed what she hoped was a calming hand on Alex’s shoulder. Seated around a small, circular mosaic-patterned table, he was close enough to touch. “Calm down, Alex. I’m not offended.” She wasn’t. Her mother was quite capable of making similarly cutting statements. At least Antoinette seemed to have her son’s wishes, and not her own, at heart. To Antoinette, she said, “I mean him no harm.”

“Again, I apologize. I should not have made such a statement, but he is my son, and I want only the best for him.”

Alex lifted their clasped hands to his mouth and brushed Devvy’s knuckles with a kiss. “Devvy is what’s best for me. I wouldn’t have brought her to this inquisition, if our relationship wasn’t serious.”

Antoinette bowed her head. “I care for your welfare,
mon fils.
That is all.”

She stood and retreated to the salon, which was separated from the terrace by a wall of French doors. Devvy watched as she disappeared and immediately prodded Alex with a finger.

“Why are we here if you don’t want to be?” she asked, more curious than pissed at what Antoinette had said. She’d taken a lot more abuse over the years. College at fourteen had been a real joy.

“It is my duty.”

“Bullshit. This isn’t 1814. We’re in the new millennium, don’t you know? If you don’t want to see her, you don’t have to.” Even though she made the statement, it said a lot about Alex that he was here, even if it was against his wishes.

“I don’t have to do anything, but I choose to visit a few times a year. If I didn’t see her, she would bombard me with her presence. This is a small sacrifice.”

“What do you mean, bombard you?”

He grunted and tugged his hand free from their clasp. Standing, he strode over to the balcony rail and muttered, “Haven’t you noticed? She has to hover. Over everything.”

Yeah, he wasn’t exaggerating.

She did smother. Hovering was too polite a word for Antoinette’s behavior.

If she wasn’t trying to fill his already full to the brim coffee cup, she was asking if he was hungry. If he wasn’t hungry, she’d ask why he wasn’t. Her overreaction to Devvy’s presence was another example of her extreme ways.

It could have been seen as doting, but it was a little too avid to just be an act of love.

Feverish
summed it up.

At one point, when he hadn’t sipped at his coffee cup—because it was boiling hot and fresh from the pot—she’d asked him why he wasn’t drinking it and before he could reply, had shouted for her maid. The ensuing barrage of words had almost had the poor woman in tears!

Alex had said something that shut his mother up and quickly drunk his coffee as though demonstrating it was perfectly all right. Only that had satisfied Antoinette.

To be quite frank, if Alex had psychological issues, Devvy was starting to see his mother was a direct cause!

“Has she always been like that?” Devvy asked.

“Always,” he stated grimly, and then sighed. “That’s not true. Before my father left us, she used to smother him instead of me.”

“How old were you when he went?”

“Seven.”

His tone had been grim ever since his mother had departed to, Devvy could only assume, compose herself. But now, there was a heaviness to it. A darkness.

It concerned her enough that she stood, walked over to him, and then wrapped her arm about his waist. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re all “
growed
” up now.”

He jerked a shoulder. “The only reason she stays away is because she knows I won’t let her into the penthouse. At first, when I moved in, she used to try. It sounds awful but I used to tell her to go away.

“I try. I always come here with good intentions, meaning to start afresh. It just never works out. She’s…suffocating. It’s like she sucks all of the oxygen out of the room.”

It might have sounded a little dramatic, but after a lifetime of this, Devvy could easily understand.

While Antoinette’s behavior could be deemed as slightly peculiar, it was the hectic energy with which she acted that made it worse. She was the most restless person Devvy had ever known. Jumping up and down in her seat, rearranging something or other, turning the tray just so, as though trying to make the scene perfect for Alex.

She’d lean over and touch his cheek, but it wouldn’t just be a fleeting touch. She’d hold the pose for an uncomfortable amount of time.

She was the sort of woman people studied surreptitiously and silently asked themselves if their eyes were deceiving them.

“Before the agoraphobia became so bad, when I used to go out at least once or twice a week, she used to follow me.”

Devvy choked out, “You can’t be serious.”

He grimaced. “I wish I was. She tried to keep a discreet distance, but after the first time I caught her spying on me, I saw her a lot. The café opposite my building was her hiding place. She used to wait for me there. “

“Is that why you don’t go out anymore?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But I’ve always appreciated my home comforts so the fault isn’t hers entirely. You can see why I feel like I’m choking whenever she’s around though, right?”

Devvy shook her head. “You’re a better person than me, Alex. I’d have cut her out of my life a long time ago. Either that or made her see a doctor.”

He snorted. “She won’t. You don’t think I’ve tried? She’s just obsessed with me. Always has been.”

Devvy frowned. “She isn’t
just
anything. She’s nuts! Christ, it’s not exactly normal to stalk your own child!”

The sudden sound of high heels had the pair of them stiffening with the knowledge she was coming back.

“Here we go again,” Alex muttered.

It felt like that. Like watching a car crash.

Devvy turned and smiled politely at the other woman. Even though it was the last thing she wanted to do after that disturbing conversation. Apparently, Antoinette had composed herself, but with Alex’s back turned, she saw no reason to be at all friendly. On the receiving end of a glare for her trouble, Devvy sighed inwardly and hoped for this coffee afternoon to be over. Soon.

Antoinette strode over to Alex’s other side and pressed a hand to his back. He immediately stiffened but she ignored that and stroked it along the length of his spine. It wasn’t motherly, it was creepy, and even though Alex grew so tense Devvy was certain he’d break out in a cramp, she kept on doing it. She finally stopped, only her hand continued upward and she played with the ends of his hair as she crooned to him in French.

Devvy started to move away but Alex’s hand shot out of nowhere and clamped her to his side. She relaxed into him, and his tension once again made itself known.

It was hard to pinpoint why Antoinette’s actions were so odd, but she finally figured it out. Her gestures were inappropriate, so much so, they were almost a caress.

Her mind immediately flinched at the thought. Putting two and two together, she came up with what she hoped was five instead of four. Reasoning it out that if she’d molested Alex as a child, or behaved in anyway inappropriately with him, the adult Alexei would not provide for her.

At least, she didn’t think he would.

The very idea made her feel sick and uncertain. She longed to blurt out the question simply to erase it from her mind. Until she asked, it would continue to roil and churn.

“
Suffit
,” Alex burst out after a few moments of having his hair played with and having French nothings murmured into his ear. “Enough. We have to be going now.”

“So soon!” Antoinette immediately protested. “You only just arrived.”

“Nonsense. We’ve been here a good hour.”

“You normally stay longer!” she accused and then leaned around Alex to glare at Devvy. “Why did you bring her here if it would make you leave earlier? I see you so little!” And so the diatribe continued, once again reverting to the mother tongue.

Alex’s face grew whiter and whiter, that grimness turning his face to hard stone.

“I don’t want to hear anymore. I am well, you are well. That is all we wish to know. I shall call you when I am due to visit next time.”

“Don’t bring her!” Antoinette spat.

“Don’t worry, I won’t! You’ve embarrassed me today,
Mére
. I can only hope Devvy can come to forgive me for this huge mistake. I thought you would want to see the woman who is playing a large role in my life.”

Antoinette snorted, the sound unladylike. Her hand shot out and she grabbed Devvy’s. “She’s married, you fool.” She raised Devvy’s left hand. “The ring might be gone, but that mark says it all. As well as the fact she never has a manicure,” Antoinette scorned.

Neither Devvy nor Alex replied. Alex merely shook his head and murmured, “Forgive me, but my next visit will not be for quite a while.”

She looked on the brink of stomping her foot but all of a sudden, the cast to her face changed. Turning from sulky to pouting. More weirdness ensued.

“Please, don’t go,
mon fils
. I did not mean to criticize. We are French. The world is not black and white as we all know.” She dropped Devvy’s hand and made to cup Alex’s cheek. He jerked back before she could touch him.

“You belittle Devvy and you belittle me,” he stated.

“I apologize,” she murmured, tilting her head in a way that was almost flirtatious. The thought dominating Devvy’s brain once against popped up to the fore.

“Apologies aren’t always the solution.” He looked down at his watch. “It is, in fact, time to go. The car will be waiting for us.”

“I understand, c
her.
But please, do not punish me. You know how excited I am when you’re due to visit.”

He stiffened and then released the tension from his body with a sigh. He looked almost defeated as he murmured, “I shall see you in two or so months.”

Antoinette’s delight was evident. She clapped her hands with jubilation and reached up to press a kiss to Alex’s cheek.

Devvy felt him flinch and when his mother stepped back, she nodded politely at her and murmured, “It has been an interesting morning, Madame Ivanov. I wish you well.”

She wouldn’t lie and say it had been a pleasure, when it had been anything but.

This place and the woman living in it were toxic.

Devvy couldn’t wait to get out of there and that feeling was shared by her lover.

The pair of them left with indecent haste and Devvy noticed Alex’s agoraphobia did not extend to leaving his mother’s building! The sooner he could leave, the better.

She could hardly criticize when she felt the same way, and she could easily understand why it had been so hard for him to leave his apartment in the first place. With the prospect of a morning like that, no wonder it had taken close to two hours to get out of the elevator! The morning would have been more successful if they were still in the damned thing.

As they sank down in the supple leather seats of Bastien’s limousine, they both sighed with relief to be out of there. The mutual release had both of them bursting out with laughter.

“Was it as bad for you as it was for me?” Alex asked, chuckling. “I don’t even know why I’m laughing! That could not have gone much worse!”

“Let’s just say if I don’t have to meet her again, I won’t be upset. Thank you for introducing us, darling. I appreciate the gesture.” Her smile was genuine as she reached over for a kiss. “I know what you were trying to tell me.”

“That I intend for you to be a permanent fixture in my life even if I bitch about moving out of my penthouse?”

She nodded. “For you to even dare to introduce me to her…well, it says a lot, considering how volatile she is.”