Page 53 of Hush Money

“I’ve seen no sign of a barn around here.” Honestly, I don’t know why I’m still incredulous about this vast estate. I’m underdressed while eating lobster in his wine cellar. Naturally, he’s got horses hidden somewhere.

“You haven’t seen it yet.”

“If you say so,” I say, shaking my head. All this dizzying wealth is too much for me to absorb. I’m in dire need of fortification at this point, so I help myself to a selection of meat and cheeses. He does the same. After a delicious bite or two, I work up the courage to ask him something I’ve always wanted to know. “Do you ever talk about your parents? You know everything about my parents, but you never talk about yours.”

He lowers his head and suddenly seems very focused on slathering his beef with horseradish. “You never asked,” he says lightly.

“That’s because you’re a closed book,” I pointedly. “I can barely get you to talk about anything in your past. Don’t deny it. That night we sat together on the plane, you deflected the conversation back to me every time I tried to ask you something about your personal life. Oh, and remember that time that it was like pulling teeth for me to even get you to tell me that you’d been to Monte Carlo before? There are probably CIA operatives who aren’t as close-mouthed as you are.”

Wry smile. “True.”

“So…?” Maybe it’s not a fair request. I’ve already read about his family online, so I know the major details. It’s just that our relationship has developed at breakneck speed, and there’s been no opportunity for us to catch our breath, much less discuss our formative years with each other. The upshot is that I don’t know a thing about the people who raised him into this fantastic man because he’s never let me into this part of his life. And I really hope he will. “Tell me.”

He takes a thoughtful pause while he finishes chewing. “My father died shortly after I got married. Which he warned me not to do, by the way. He and Ravenna never hit it off. Probably because he saw through her. Anyway, he had a stroke.”

There she is, folks, showing up at our romantic dinner. Freaking Ravenna. I should’ve known. Serves me right for asking about his past. Still, I’m just curious enough about his life to tolerate her presence for a minute or two.

“I’m sorry. And your mom?”

A longer pause. He clears his throat and sets his knife down. “I never talk about her.”

I can see why. The topic seems to be taking a big and important chunk out of him. “You will with me,” I say quietly. “When you’re ready.”

There’s no smile, but he hits me with a steady beam of his warmth. “There’s that titanium again.”

I grin and accept the compliment. For once. “Just a little. As needed.”

He nods, his attention drifting somewhere far away where I can’t buffer him from his painful memories. “She died when I was thirteen.” He clears his throat. “She left in the morning when I was headed off to school. She wanted to do some Christmas shopping on Fifth Avenue. She liked to drive herself into the city even though we had a driver.”

“You know what? Why don’t we talk about it some other time?” I finally say when he shows no sign of continuing.

“It’s okay. She, ah…she never came back.” He suddenly looks young and lost, as though he’s regressed to the teen he was when it happened. “We were, ah…we were frantic overnight. Someone found her the next day. In her car in some parking garage. She’d had a medical event. Probably a heart attack. My dad had made us go to school. They called me and Roman to the office to tell us. I got pulled out of an English quiz on The Great Gatsby.”

Oh, God. The internet didn’t say all that, of course. It just mentioned that she died suddenly of natural causes and had a massive funeral. No wonder he never talks about it. I’ve also lost my parents, true, but I was a little kid, too young to remember much when Mom died and an adult with some wisdom and maturity when Dad died. I can’t imagine the trauma to a thirteen-year-old.

I study his downturned face, my heart aching for him. I’m so sorry I asked right now and ruined this lovely dinner. But I’m glad to know. There’s no way I can understand this complicated man without knowing what he’s been through. What’s shaped him.

“I’m sorry, Lucien.”

He shrugs and tries to rearrange his expression into something less grim. “What can you do?”

“What was she like?” I say, determined to salvage the mood. “Tell me something fun about her.”

This generates an immediate grin. “She was great with presents. That morning before she left, she said she was going to grab a few final things for me and Roman. But we later discovered that she’d already bought all our gifts and had them wrapped and ready to go. The only shopping she got done that day was a trip to Harry Winston for herself.”

I laugh, liking her already. “I admire her priorities.”

“Indeed,” he says, a new gleam in his eyes as he reaches for the side table and comes back with a large black velvet box—flat, but about the size of an album—that I hadn’t noticed before. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

TAMSYN

“A surprise for me? Well, thank God,” I say with a startled laugh as I gesture at the entire romantic scene. “I haven’t had nearly enough surprises since I’ve been at Ackerley. And I’ve been treated so poorly since you and I got together.”

“You’re joking, but I plan to spoil you. Like I said.”

“You can spoil me by giving me a daily orgasm. How’s that?”

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