3
HENRIETTE
I rolled my eyes and tossed the phone on my desk with a sigh. Tristan Lebleu was going to be tedious—the kind of exhausting mollycoddling I had neither the time nor patience to attend to. I closed my eyes, thinking back to all the reports and photos I’d sifted through over the past five years. Not to mention the many years before when he was my father’s responsibility.
As a young girl, I’d sneak into my father’s office just to go through the photographs of Tristan at prep school. For me, he was like a movie star or the lead singer in a boy band. He was beautiful—sexy, yet unsure of himself, but still posing as a cocky young man in a way that only adolescent boys could. I’d witnessed his entire life. I’d grown up right beside him—he was simply unaware of it.
How odd, I thought, staring at his latest photo. I knew Tristan René Lebleu as well as anyone, and yet he had no idea I even existed. We had shared a moment long ago—although I was sure he’d forgotten. It was after one of his lacrosse games. I’d gone to America with my father and René. Tristan was fifteen and I was one day shy of my thirteenth birthday. René always in the background, never allowing his presence to be known, would watch Tristan’s games from afar. I, however, had moved to the front of the crowd after the game ended. Drawn by his magnetism, I was a young girl captured by the spell of Tristan Lebleu’s blonde curls, good looks and athleticism.
He’d just completed shaking hands with the opposing team and was walking away with his teammates when it happened. It was brief, but powerful. We locked eyes. We locked eyes for what seemed to me at thirteen to be an eternity. It was probably a mere second or two. Nonetheless it was magical, and I’d kept the moment tucked away in the back of my mind as I grew into a woman. Of course now, I realized as I stared into the black and white glossy on my desk—his shoulder-length hair tied back, his pedestrian clothing hiding his magnificent frame—it was the stuff of a young girl’s fantasies and dreams. What’d I’d just dealt with on the phone, was the reality of Tristan Lebleu.
He simply needed to get his American ass to Épernay before his father died. It was the only thing I’d promised René after his terminal diagnosis. It wasn’t the usual type of request a personal assistant would receive. My job was to take care of the business of Chateau Lebleu, the three hundred year old estate that housed Champagne Lebleu, and René. For the past five years that’s exactly what I’d done. When René died, I was leaving—gone. It didn’t matter that the chateau and Champagne Lebleu were all I really knew. I wouldn’t, under any circumstance, work for, or with, Pierre.
“Henry?”
I looked up from René’s desk to stare into the eyes of Pierre Lebleu, “Speak of the devil,” I muttered under my breath. Did he have something important to discuss, or was it was going to be yet another day of sexual harassment? “Yes, Pierre.”
He swept into what I now considered my office—a point of contention with him—the smell of his cologne one step ahead of him and his designer three piece suit. Taking a seat in front of me, he leaned back, propping his feet on the desk—his father’s two hundred year old desk. I bit my lip and held my tongue, watching his dark eyes flash with entitlement. He ran his hands across his black hair, slick with product. Just looking at him made me uncomfortable. “Did you speak with him? Is he coming?”
I stood to straighten my work area. It was already after nine. My head was swimming and I hadn’t eaten dinner. Pierre had forced me to give a tour of the estate and cellars to a group of unknowns in expensive suits. The small crowd witnessed the riddling of the bottles. Taking four to six weeks, the champagne at Lebleu was still rotated in the cellars by hand. One eighth of a turn to the right, the eager crowd watched as the chalk mark was made on the side of the racks for reference. The objective was to consolidate the sediments or lees, leaving it crystal clear. One of them asked about gyropalettes. It was an automated process, but not the Champagne Lebleu way. It was up to me to explain the procedure to the crowd as Pierre was more interested in the moneymaking side of the business, and not the art of méthode champenoise.
Now that the tour was over and I’d tended to my own important matters, I still needed to check in with René before retiring to my own quarters. Since his cancer entered stage four, I’d become the man’s trusted eyes and ears. That too would be a lengthy conversation—my daily rundown of activities at Champagne Lebleu, but one I was willing to have. On the other hand, I had no desire to chat with Pierre.
“Did you hear me? Did you speak with Tristan?”
I cleared my throat to keep from showing my anger. “Yes and yes.”
“And?”
“He’s coming.”
“Did you know he told me to fuck off?”
I stopped to relish the words. How I longed to say the same. I caught myself smiling and quickly turned my face to conceal my delight. I didn’t care much for the way Tristan was behaving, but in that moment he’d definitely chalked up at least a point with me. “Yes, well, he seems like the type who would say something like that.”
“But you convinced him to come? He’s on the plane?”
I cocked my head and narrowed my gaze. Did Pierre think I wasn’t following orders? He knew I didn’t always do what he wanted, but when his father gave a directive, I listened and followed without exception. I cast my eyes to the floor to keep from glaring at him. “He’s to be on the plane by four-thirty.”
Pierre clapped his hands together and rubbed them in triumph. “Excellent! The wheels are in motion.”
“For what?” I paused in the doorway, looking over my shoulder. Pierre’s scheming manner raised my suspicions along with the hair on my neck.
He ignored my question and stood, straightening his purple silk tie. Walking toward me, he took my shoulders in his hands, forcing me to square and face him. “You know why you and I make a good team, Henry? I mean apart from our physical beauty?”
I didn’t answer. It was hard enough to look him in the face.
“Because even when Dad is gone, you’ll still know more about the inner workings of this place than all of us. You with all your dark haired, dark eyed beauty, me with my dashing good looks and business sense? Between the two of us, we are unstoppable in the world of champagne.”
“Is that so?”
Pierre pulled me into his chest for a tight hug. File folders still clutched to my breast, I could only bristle and wait for the embrace to end. When he pulled away, he brushed a hair from my face. I squirmed enough to let him know I was uncomfortable, but not enough to make him angry. While his father was still alive, I needed him amenable. When René passed on, my relationship with Pierre would change—radically.
“When I look into those dark eyes of yours Henriette, I can see my future. You and me. Children. All of it,” he whispered, grazing my face with his fingers. “It’s exactly what my father wants. It’s our fate, my beautiful Henry.”
“Pierre.” I couldn’t contain the sigh in my heart or breath. “It’s been a long day. A tough day. I need to meet with your father, and if you’re going to counter your half-brother’s fuck you—”
“Fuck off,” Pierre corrected.
“Whatever. If you’re going to be up to the challenge of meeting with this…this man tomorrow, you’d better get some sleep.”
Pierre looked to the ceiling and back to me. “As usual, my darling, you’re correct. Thank you for looking out for me when I can’t seem to do it myself.”
Leaning in for a kiss, I turned my face allowing the slop of his wet mouth to land on my cheek.
“Till morning, my beautiful Henriette.”
With a squeeze of my shoulders, he exited the office and I lingered in the doorway watching him walk away, the confident swagger of his hips making me nauseous. There were nights when I’d fantasized of choking him to death with my bare hands, but I knew the way to destroy Pierre Lebleu wasn’t murder. I’d bide my time and wait for my day to come.
Hurrying down the massive hallway of Chateau Lebleu, my heels echoed on the ageless marble floors. The chateau itself was seven thousand square meters or seventy-five thousand square feet. With fourteen bedrooms, it was more of a castle than a home, with English designed lawns and two lakes with water cascades—not to mention what I grew up calling the fairytale woods. Filled with centuries-old box trees, I’d spent a good portion of my childhood lying on the grass, staring into the sky. I wanted my own knight in shining armor to recue me from this fortress—sweeping me into his arms and away on a white horse. Instead all I’d found at Chateau Lebleu was the wretched arms of a man I despised. And even though the estate housed a stable with a white horse; René’s horse, Bucephalus was older than I was and like me, past his fairytale days. Despite the spectacular and romantic estate that seemed to be built for more mythical creatures than humans, there wasn’t a dragon-slaying knight to be found at Chateau Lebleu. Anywhere.
Through the main entrance hall, I walked past the monumental gothic staircase made of iron and marble, pausing at a table of photographs. As usual, Pierre had put away the photos of Tristan, keeping only the pictures of himself with René.
I cursed under my breath, opening the drawers to find stacks of frames crammed together. Spacing the photos out on the table, I gave each son equal face time. I picked up my files and stepped back for a final look, knowing I’d have to take them out of the drawer again tomorrow. The cleaning staff wouldn’t dare defy Pierre, but I would.
Picking up the pace as I made my way through the gallery, massive paintings of centuries of Lebleus hung all around me. I hurried through the smoking room, the drawing room and past two of the dining halls to a small library that fed into René’s master suite. Chateau Lebleu was a behemoth, and it was easy to get lost if you didn’t know where you were going, but I’d played in the hallways my entire life. It was a standing Goliath in the middle of a twenty-first century that harkened not just of centuries past, but of one family’s love of champagne.
Today the chateau stood mostly void. Not physically, but soulless nonetheless. The rooms rarely opened up for anything but a jaw-dropping tour for those from other parts of the world who came to drink Champagne Lebleu and seek business partnerships. Chateau Lebleu, in the wake of René never marrying again, had sadly become a parlor trick. A beautiful shell of memories past for the enjoyment of everyone but its owner and patriarch.
My father once explained that when René’s heart was broken, it fractured not only his soul, but the spirit and vitality of the Lebleu dynasty itself. A cloud of darkness descended over Chateau Lebleu—a fog that only grew darker as René himself began to wither away. The news of Tristan flying to Épernay would no doubt perk him up. But if the infamous son proceeded to behave as he had via text, I feared I was setting René up for not a reconciliation, but more heartache.
“Knock knock,” I said, rapping on the red open doors of the master suite.
“Bonsoir Henry. Come in.”
In the weeks following Dr. Millet’s confirmed diagnosis, there was nothing to be done for René other than keeping him comfortable. He’d grown weaker each day. The amenable front he’d worked tirelessly to keep up was fading, as was his once commanding voice. As I entered his darkened room I spied his dinner, still untouched on a tray at his bedside. “You know, René, if you want to get better, you need to eat.”
“I’m not getting better, Henry. And no amount of kale or other superfood is going to bring me back from the dead. Honestly, I’d rather eat steak tartar followed by lobster with poached leeks or even pommes frites cooked in duck fat—all while drinking my own champagne to the very end.”
I placed my file folders on a table in the center of the room and took the seat always left out for me by Jacques Duval, René’s trusted valet de chambre. Jacques attended to all the needs I didn’t or couldn’t. Of all the servants at Chateau Lebleu, Jacques and I wielded the most power. Even most of the staff ignored Pierre—at least behind his back. Not because he wasn’t of importance, but because he was an ass.
“How are we feeling tonight?” I asked, ignoring his request for rich, French cuisine.
The once powerful six-foot presence had withered away and into a small grey-haired Frenchman. The regal ascot and silk robe he wore under the bedclothes couldn’t disguise his vanishing body. It was true as my father always said, rich or poor, we all leave the world the same way.
His bony hand covered in paper skin beckoned me. Taking it in mine, I squeezed the cool flesh of his fingers. No matter how many clothes or blankets, René was always cold.
“Mmmmm.” He sighed at my touch, a smile overtaking his pale features. With a wink he brought his other hand from under the blanket, covering our threaded fingers with a solid pat. “Did you sign the papers?”
They were inside my jacket pocket. Still, I had a difficult time with what René wanted after his passing.
“I can tell by the look on your face you have. Why don’t we just get it over with?”
“René.” I squeezed his hands, my lips thinning into a line of uncertainty.
“This is my wish, and as a Lebleu I get my wish. Now, did you bring my five euros, as well?”
I nodded and with reluctance, dropped his hand to pull the folded contract from inside my suit jacket—the bill paper-clipped to the top—my signature at the bottom.
“Magnifique!”
He took the five-euro bill and kissed it, proud he’d won. As soon as I smiled, he closed his eyes and dramatically died, clutching the papers to his chest with an over-the-top gasp and melodramatic performance of a first year student at Cours Florent. “Very funny René.”
Opening the papers to check my signature, he shrugged. “If I can’t laugh at the end, when can I?”
I shook my head and looked away. “I don’t want to laugh at your life. And I certainly don’t want to talk about the end.”
“Fine,” he said, pushing himself up in bed to drop the papers in the drawer of his nightstand. “Tell me something good. What’s going on in the office? Do you have a report from Lucette?”
Lucette André was the general manager of Champagne Lebleu. At times scatterbrained, Lucette was forgetful and had a tendency to come off as unintelligent. But the truth was underneath it all, she knew the inner workings of Champagne Lebleu almost as well as anyone. Armed with the ability to speak and comprehend many languages, she kept the international sales of the champagne house growing in the right direction. In the light of day, she answered to Pierre—and in more than one way. But when the doors of Lebleu closed for the night, we all answered to one man. René. I stood, making my way back to the stack of file folders I’d placed on the table by the door.
“Are you feeling up to business tonight?”
“Honestly?” René asked.
I nodded.
“No. But I need to do what I can, while I can.”
I mustered a half-hearted smile and handed him the folder with the most recent numbers and accounts of the business. What he said was truer than I wanted to admit. The doctor had been in to see him two days ago. Stopping me in the hallway after his examination, he explained that René no longer had months. He had weeks. And if he caught pneumonia or a virus, it would be days. Pierre had already given Dr. Millet a blood sample in the hope that he might be a bone marrow donor. It was a long shot, and Pierre wasn’t a candidate. I could only pray Tristan would consent to testing when he arrived.
René began reading Lucette’s report. “Anything else you want to tell me?” he asked, peering at me over his reading glasses.
“Such as?”
He dropped the papers to his lap. “You know, Henry, nothing goes on at Chateau Lebleu I’m not privy to. Would you care to fill me in on the details of your day?”
I bit my lip and sat down. If I stood, I’d fidget, and René understood my nervous tics all too well. It would be a dead giveaway I’d indeed spoken to Tristan, but I didn’t want to raise René’s hopes for fear that something would alter his son’s plans. I’d heard from our pilots he’d confirmed their presence at the airport, but I didn’t want to say anything until Tristan was ready to walk into his father’s master suite. Getting René’s hopes up, only to dash them would not only be cruel, but I feared detrimental to what remained of his health.
“My day was fine. The usual,” I replied, not looking him in the face.
“Henry, I’ve known you since the day you were born, and as long as that, you’ve never lied to me. Never. Don’t start now.”
Facing him, I closed my eyes and exhaled, willing myself to tell him the truth. “According to our pilot, he’s called to confirm their presence at the airport. I suppose he didn’t trust me when I told him the jet was waiting. I can only assume he plans to board before four-thirty as requested.”
René nodded, but didn’t smile. There were few who could read his unspoken cues for what they were, and that list was short: me and Jacques Duval.
“I’ve waited all these years to speak with him. You’d think by now I would know exactly what I wanted to say—how to explain so much about his life. But I don’t.”
I stood, giving his hand a pat. “You’ll find your way, René. You always do.”
“Perhaps not. I have an idea of the stories Simone has told him, but I don’t know how well he’ll receive my side of the tale.”
“You mean, the truth?”
“Henry.” René sighed. “If Tristan believes with all his heart I abandoned him, how will I convince him to the contrary? Without…you know.”
“René, you never missed an important moment of his life. He might not have been aware of your presence, but you were there all the same.”
“Yes. Watching from a distance. Always keeping up with him. It got harder and harder after he joined the FBI. Once he started going dark, it would be weeks, sometimes months before you would give me a report on where he was—what he was doing.”
“And then you’d promptly hop a jet and fly to wherever that might be, just to catch a glimpse of him.”
René clenched his jaw. “It was the deal I made with Simone’s…” he paused, “parents.”
He didn’t need to explain. I’d known what Tristan’s childhood was like. As an adult, I now understood he grew up with a mentally unstable mother, believing his father had abandoned him.
Once Tristan was old enough to go to boarding school, René was able to relax—at least a bit. Boarding school also gave him the opportunity to watch over his son more closely. It also gave me the opportunity to see my crush and make-believe boyfriend in person for the very first time. Despite never speaking with Tristan face to face, René had never missed an important occasion of his son’s. Each birthday party, kindergarten graduation, high school lacrosse game, even prom—René was always watching in the distance.
He stared off into the space beyond me. “You sure you’re going to be okay with this?” I asked.
“He arrives in the morning?”
“Oui.”
“Let him get settled. When he’s ready to speak with me, send word. I don’t want to greet him for the first time looking like a bedridden old man a breath away from a casket.”
“I promise to give you the time necessary to make yourself presentable.”
“Excellent. And Henry?”
I paused at the table to collect my things. “Oui?”
“However he comes across, remember he’s operating under the assumption that no one here gives a damn about him. That has to sting. Be kind.”
I couldn’t hide my look of surprise. “What do you mean?”
René wagged his finger at me. “You know exactly what I mean, Henry. Play nice.”