Page 33 of Nineteen Seventy-Six

Mama

“But she is his mother.”

“Giving birth doesn’t make you a mother.”

Lisette didn’t immediately respond. “I know your anger. But she came back for him. Yes? She must be remorse.”

“Remorseful.”

Lisette flushed. Charles had never corrected her before. He’d known doing so would be a swift, sharp reminder of who was superior in the room, and he loathed himself for the deliberate power move with someone he was supposed to love.

“Why are you taking her side, anyway?”

Lisette balked. “I am not on her side.”

Charles rolled around in the bed, turning his back to her. “Coulda fooled me.”

He felt Lisette shake her head against the pillow. “No, I think not of Mistress Deschanel and her feelings, but only of Nicolas. I worry for a child who grow up thinking their mother does not love.”

This tempered Charles’ swelling rage—a bit. He could see her point, even if she was wrong. “Lis. Worse things will happen if he grows up with that hellbeast for a mother. Don’t you understand that? He has you, he has my mother, he has four aunts who adore him, and he will, when he gets older, have Ana, Amelia, and Olivia. He’ll have an overload of female attention and love. More than he knows what to do with. If anything, there aren’t enough male influences in his life to balance out all that goddamn estrogen.”

Lisette made no further rebuttal, though Charles wished she would. Although he didn’t agree with her, he liked to know what she thought, because having feelings about something meant she was connected to him beyond the job he’d hired her to do. Lately, he’d felt like she was pulling away from him, and closer to the work.

The next part was predictable. She excused herself to clean up and return to her work. No pillow talk for this one.

At least someone was on his side. Charles had met Dan Weatherly for drinks the night before at the Playboy Club, where Weatherly was still an active member. Marriage hadn’t slowed him even a bit, a fact he wasn’t the least ashamed of.

“I’ve always known she was a psychotic cunt,” Dan said, finishing his first beer before Charles could even take a sip of his.

“Thanks for telling me before I fucking married her.”

Dan popped some nuts into his mouth, crunching with his mouth open as he shrugged. “Would it have made a difference?” he asked, mouth full. “You knew she was a psychotic cunt and was still convinced marrying her was a rock-solid idea.”

“I had my reasons.” Charles’ eyes scanned the crowd, looking for an easy lay. He didn’t mean to do it. It came from a place of old instinct.

Dan lit a cigarette. “I remember. Some bullshit about your dad.”

It wasn’t bullshit. “Doesn’t matter now.”

“No?” Dan took a drag, leaned his head back, and blew his smoke into the hazy air. He made eye contact with someone across the room and nodded. “Then why haven’t you kicked the bitch out?”

“I—”

“I mean, really, Charles, what the fuck is stopping you?”

What, indeed? Franz’s blackmail died with him. Cordelia had nothing to hold over the Deschanels with her father gone, and Nicolas was born in wedlock, not out. She’d never bear him another child, and her only role now was to pretend to mother the ones Lisette would. Was he really so much like her that he cared what others thought?

I’m becoming my father.

He thought about asking Colin’s advice, but conscience kept him from asking Colin a damn thing about anything until Catherine returned home safely.

Appearances only mattered when you couldn’t buy your way out of problems. He didn’t care what anyone thought of him rutting with the nanny when there’d never be any consequences.

Except…

Colin’s wisdom appeared to him in absentia.

What if something happened to Nicolas?

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