Star Promise

“I can’t be the dauphin,” I replied, laughing. “The eldest son of the king is the dauphin, not the youngest.”

  “No worries,” she said unperturbed. “We’ll just have to do away with Ryan – poison his cologne or something.” She followed up with a wicked smile that I desperately wanted to kiss.

  I only held back because I knew it probably wouldn’t stop there – even at the risk of being sprung by my father. I pointed to the dark oak panelled wall to her left. “Go,” I ordered.

  Charlotte looked at the wall. “Go where?”

  I waved her over. As I pushed on a panel, a concealed door swung open, exposing the bathroom hidden behind it.

  “A secret door?” she quizzed me. “Who are you people?”

  “I don’t know about the rest of them, but I’m yours.” I took her face in my hands. “I’m the father of your babies,” I announced with the reverence it deserved. “I’m also your partner in crime, so if you could please hurry up and do what you need to do, we won’t go to jail.”

  Whether she believed it was a possibility or not, she did as I asked, slipping into the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

  The only fault with the plan was that I was left alone in the king’s chambers. Feeling anxious for two different reasons, I paced my dad’s office, occasionally stopping to gaze out the windows that took up the whole length of the room.

  I didn’t need the view to remind me that New York is an enormous city. Being there can sometimes make you feel small, and on a bad day, insignificant. I never felt that way any more. As far as I was concerned, I was a giant. The life I’d created with my girls was a good one. It was the other things I had going on that were small and insignificant.

  ***

  It seemed an eternity before the panelled door swung open again, and even longer before Charlotte spoke. “Performance anxiety,” she explained. “It took a while.”

  “Now we wait?”

  She nodded. “A couple of minutes.”

  The urgency to get out of Dad’s office had all but disappeared. I took Charli by the hand and led her to the couch near the window.

  “We should go,” she mumbled. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  I directed my smile at the window. “I’m not worried,” I replied. “If we have to wait, I’d rather we do it in style.”

  Charli shuffled closer. “You’re my hero, Adam,” she teased. “Brave and defiant. I’m glad you’re my baby-daddy.”

  I whispered my next words against her hair. “That doesn’t mean I won’t blame you if he catches us, Coccinelle.”

  ***

  We were quiet for a while. Charli seemed engrossed in the view. I had trouble taking my eyes off her. The last seven years played out in my mind in less than a minute, trying to pinpoint the moment we grew up and became adults who were capable of raising a child and planning another.

  We didn’t even look like the same two love-struck kids we used to be. Charli wore heels to work and her hair was always neat. Vintage Charli was far more casual and blithe than the well put together woman sitting next to me. The change in me was almost the opposite. I’d started out wound far too tightly, determined to control every single aspect of my life. I didn’t live that way any more, and the tie I wore to work was rarely straight because of it.

  We’d found a happy medium, and as far as I was concerned, our struggles were over. Ballet lessons and making nonsensical deals with my four-year-old were always going to trump the life I used to think I wanted. And my heart thumped a little harder at the realisation that we might be on the edge of more magic.

  19. DIRECTION

  Charli

  The view from Jean-Luc’s office was as good as any in the city, and from the forty-third floor the streets below almost looked peaceful.

  Adam was doing a good job of appearing calm, but I wasn’t buying it. It was impossible not to compare this moment to the last time I peed on a stick. The circumstances were different, but the look in his eyes was the same.

  I knew better than to question it. Adam had been ready for another baby since Bridget was a year old. He wasn’t concerned about a positive result – that was exactly what he was hoping for. He was worried about a negative one.

  “Boy or girl?” I asked out of the blue.

  Adam frowned. “I’m not sure. Will the answer be written on the stick?”

  “I’m just curious. Would you like a boy or another girl?”

  “I don’t have a preference.”

  I leaned closer, pinning his face beneath my hands while I studied his eyes. I didn’t have a preference either. All I wished for was another healthy baby who shared her father’s lovely cerulean eyes. I kept the thought to myself. “She might be twice as shady as Bridget,” I warned. “Then what?”

  I pressed my thumb into his dimpled cheek as his smile broadened. “Boarding school,” he replied.

  I could’ve taken five tests in the time we spent discussing the pitfalls of raising shady daughters. I put an end to it by reminding him that time was well and truly up.

  As I reached for my bag, Adam grabbed my hand. “Wait,” he said, squeezing my fingers. “I want to tell you something first.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “We’re good either way, alright?”

  “Better than good.” I smiled, trying to reassure him. “We’re perfect.”

  I handed him the test without even looking at it. I was more focused on him and how incredibly nervous he’d suddenly become.

  I knew the result before the words came. His shoulders sagged infinitesimally, telling me all I needed to know. “Negative,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  I wasn’t sure what he was apologising for, or what I should say in reply. The feeling of disappointment shouldn’t have been this strong. We’d been trying to get pregnant for two months. Compared with the waiting game Alex and Gabi played, it was a miniscule amount of time.

  “Next time,” I said quietly. “It’s early days.”

  Adam gave me a smile that I knew was false. “And we get to keep trying,” he said. “Win–win.”

  I smiled back, just as fraudulently. “Always an upside.”

  He dropped the test back in my bag and pulled me into his arms. My body sagged against his.

  “I love you, Charlotte,” he whispered before kissing the top of my head. “And all the crooked babies we’re going to have together when the time is right.”

  ***

  We got out of the king’s office as stealthily as we arrived. Adam reluctantly let me go at the elevator. I headed back to the gallery feeling a strange tinge of sadness that hadn’t been there earlier that morning.

  I was dealing with a tinge, but jumping the gun had crushed Adam. It didn’t feel good and I already knew it wouldn’t happen again. Until I was absolutely sure I was pregnant, there would be no more peeing on sticks in his presence.

  The rest of the morning passed in a blur of boring paperwork, an evil but necessary part of my job. Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any less enjoyable, I received a blunt text from my father-in-law.

  – Lunch?

  If that was his idea of an invitation, it sucked.

  – I’m at work

  – I’ll come to you

  He was cruising for a snarky reply.

  – Great. You can bring me a sandwich.

  As expected, his reply took forever, and my eyes didn’t leave my phone while I waited for it.

  – No sandwiches.

  – Turkey on rye, please. No tomato.

  Jean-Luc didn’t reply, which was the first indication that I’d won. The second came when he turned up an hour later carrying a bag of sandwiches.

  “Oh,” I crooned, taking the bag and peeking inside. “My favourite. How did you know?”

  “No games today, Charli,” he grumbled. “I am not in the mood.”

  His demeanour made me wonder if he knew I’d made use of the facilities in his office that morning. I tried to think of a
quick defence, but he had other things on his mind.

  “Where is Adam?” he demanded, following me to my desk.

  “At work, as far as I know.”

  Jean-Luc momentarily forgot his line of questioning when he realised we were dining in. “Here?” he asked.

  “I can’t leave. I’m the only one here.”

  He looked seriously inconvenienced, but pulled up a chair and sat down. I didn’t care. I already knew lunch was going to be miserable.

  “He’s not at the office,” he told me.

  I handed him a sandwich. I was at a loss. Maybe Adam was more disappointed by the morning’s events than he’d let on. My first instinct was to find out where he was and go to him. My second was to stay and defend him against his father.

  “I don’t know where he is,” I said strongly. “Maybe he just needed some time out.”

  “Adam doesn’t have that luxury,” he snapped. “I don’t tolerate unreliability from any of my employees.”

  There was very little in life that Jean-Luc did tolerate.

  I dropped my sandwich into the wrapper and brushed my hands. “Why don’t you just call him and ask him where he is?”

  “It’s not up to me to chase him.”

  “You think that’s my job?”

  “No, Charli,” he replied quietly. “I just want you to talk to him. He listens to you.”

  I stared at him, and was immediately struck by his worried expression. Adam looked exactly the same whenever he thought Bridget was running off the rails.

  “You think he’s off track,” I said, thinking out loud.

  Jean-Luc gazed at his still-wrapped sandwich. “My son has the potential to be a brilliant attorney,” he told it, “but he’s unfocused at the moment.”

  That’s because his heart wasn’t in it. It annoyed me that he couldn’t see it.

  He unwrapped his lunch and set it in front of him. “I want you to encourage him more,” he demanded.

  “Why would I ever do that, Jean-Luc?” I asked, appalled. “A career in law isn’t for him.”

  “Nonsense,” he barked. “His Ivy League education suggests otherwise.”

  I took a bite of my sandwich so I didn’t have to reply. I had nothing remotely pleasant to say. The king didn’t speak either, which made for an uncomfortable minute of silence.

  “What more do you want from him?” I asked finally. “He gives you eighty-hour weeks all the time, which you never acknowledge. He more than makes up for any time he takes off.”

  “More than his presence is required, Charli,” he replied. “He used to have dedication for his craft.”

  Working with wood was his craft. Law was his profession. How sad that his own father didn’t recognise the difference.

  “What do you want me to do, exactly?”

  Jean-Luc paused before speaking – a sure-fire sign that his reply would be ugly. “Help him find direction again. He could return to study,” he suggested. “Perhaps gain his masters degree.”

  The sound out of my mouth was almost a growl. “Do you know him at all?” I asked roughly. “Adam would never do that, never.”

  “I will not sit back and let him throw his career away, Charli.” He hissed the words with forced restraint. “I am his father. It would be remiss of me to do that.”

  “Carry on, then,” I shot back. “Tighten your hold and continue squeezing the life out of him.”

  I’d been holding my own until that point, but in one of the hardest blows he’d ever dished out, Jean-Luc called me an insolent, selfish witch. “Never before have I dealt with anyone as infuriating as you,” he added exasperatedly. “Why must you continue to make things difficult?”

  I probably looked calm, but in my mind I’d already thrown my sandwich at him. “All I’ve ever done is love your son,” I replied. “Why can’t you do the same?”

  My harsh question hung between us with the weight of a brick. I took a sip of water I didn’t need to stop myself saying anything more. Jean-Luc busied himself by picking apart his sandwich.

  “I loathe cucumber,” he finally volunteered, dropping a slice on his napkin. “When I started courting my wife, she worked at a cinema in London called the Odeon. Every day at one o’clock I’d meet her for lunch in the square. And every day she’d pack vile cucumber sandwiches.” I managed a half smile, too beaten down to offer anything more. “I was trying so hard to woo her that I never let on that I hated them. We’d been married twenty years before I finally confessed.”

  “What were you doing in London?” I asked.

  For the first time all day, he smiled. “Studying. I attended King’s College,” he explained. “I’d only been there a few weeks when I met Fi.”

  I liked hearing him shorten her name. It hinted toward a much kinder man.

  “She was lovely,” he continued. “Truly beautiful.”

  “She still is,” I muttered.

  His smile broadened. “I’m well aware of my good fortune in the romance stakes, Charli.”

  Fiona might’ve always been beautiful, but she hadn’t always been high society. “You could’ve married anyone you wanted. Why did you choose Fiona?”

  My question was so outrageously ballsy that I expected him to order me to mind my business. But he didn’t.

  “Because I adored her,” he replied. “And thirty-two years later, I still adore her.”

  “True love always prevails,” I mumbled.

  “That’s it?” he asked. “You’re not going to give me a tale of magic to accompany my answer?”

  I looked straight at him. “Magic is wasted on the non-believers.”

  His laugh echoed across the gallery floor. “Eat your lunch, Charlotte,” he told me. “I’ve had enough nonsense for one day.”

  20. DISAPPOINTMENT

  Adam

  The morning hadn’t panned out the way I hoped it would, but the rest of the day did. Less than half an hour after Charli left my office, I packed up my desk and bailed. The afternoon was mine, and I spent it working on Bente’s drawers. By the time Charli arrived home, it was painted and dry to the touch. The pink paint was garish, but the finish was perfect.

  “You’re a genius, Boy Wonder,” Charli declared. No one had the art of ego-boosting praise mastered as well as my wife.

  “Thank you.” I kissed her cheek. “Where’s my kid?”

  “Having dinner with her grandparents.”

  “Why?”

  “Funny story,” she quipped, patting my chest. “Your father came to see me at work today.”

  “Looking for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “And?”

  “And, long story short, he suggested that Bridget spend the evening with them,” she replied. “So I could use the time alone with you to find out why you’ve become such a flake at work.”

  I cringed, imagining how the conversation would’ve gone down. “Was he awful to you?”

  “Not too bad – He brought me lunch.”

  I apologised to her, but cowardly made light of the reason why. “I bailed after you left,” I explained. “Spent the afternoon playing at home instead of working.”

  Her focus remained on the chest of pink drawers. “So I see.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “No.” She twisted in my arms to look at me. “I just want to understand what’s going on. If you’re unhappy at work, quit. I don’t understand why you put yourself through it.”

  Neither did I. Rebellion was ingrained in Charli. It flowed through her veins like blood. Acts of mutiny only struck me in short bursts. Most of the time I was content to go through the motions of pretending to enjoy the job I’d spent years studying to do. On days when I couldn’t, I’d flake, which was confusing to everyone.

  “I just needed the day.” My answer wasn’t fair considering she’d probably been through an interrogation over lunch with my father. He would’ve demanded information that she couldn’t give him. “There’s nothing more to it.”

  “No
thing to do with this morning?” she hinted.

  “No, of course not.” I brushed the back of my hand across her cheek. “Is that what you’ve been worried about?”

  “I know you’re disappointed,” she said seriously.

  “Maybe a little,” I conceded, smiling. “But I was disappointed long before that.”

  “Why?” she asked in a small voice.

  “For so many reasons, Charlotte.” I spun her around and pulled her back against me. “Bridget polished off the last of the milk this morning. That cut me to the quick.” I leaned in and murmured against her ear. “And the queue at Starbucks on the way to work was horrendous – really disappointing.”

  When she giggled, she trembled against me. “You’ve been huffing too many paint fumes,” she teased.

  “Possibly,” I agreed, kissing the side of her neck. “Maybe I need to lie down for a while.”

  ***

  Now that the drawers were finished, Charli understandably wanted them gone. I called Colin the delivery guy and arranged to have them sent to Ryan – at seven in the morning just to be a jerk.

  I expected a scathing phone call. What I got instead was a short but heartfelt text message thanking me, which was a letdown considering the trouble I’d gone to to piss him off.

  “He’s found someone else to play with, Boy Wonder.” Charli’s soothing tone didn’t match her grin. “And she’s much prettier than you.” I’d always thought Ryan would end up with a stewardess called Mindy or a fashion model with a secret cocaine habit. Seeing him land a girl as sweet and nice as Bente was almost anticlimactic, but he was smitten.

  We hadn’t spent much time together lately. I’d been putting in extra hours in an attempt at getting Dad off my back. It wasn’t working. The more conscientious I became, the harder he pushed me. Sooner or later we were going to come to blows. I could feel it brewing, especially since he’d started mentioning the idea of me going back to school to gain my masters degree. But the inevitable showdown was not going to happen today.

  In the nicest of surprises, Ryan showed up in my office with Bridget in tow.

  I was on the phone at the time, which made no difference to my little wannabe fly-girl. She launched herself at me full force, giving me no recovery time before she threw her arms around my neck and squeezed me half to death. I managed to end the call on a polite note and prised myself free. “What are you doing here?” I asked, tickling her enough to make her giggle. “It’s such a nice surprise.”