Chapter 10
Le Monstre
“Somebody’s in a good mood.”
Monica looked up from her grapefruit and newspaper. Sylvia pulled out an adjacent chair and plucked some fruit out of the nearby basket. She passed on the bread. Trying to watch her figure, I’m sure.
“I have no complaints at the moment. How could you tell?” Monica needed to work on her poker face, apparently.
“You’ve been smiling these past few days. You don’t show it much, but when you do smile, we can tell.”
“We?”
Sylvia stole a piece of the newspaper. “Of course. We’ve all noticed. You’re acting like a teenage girl.” She had yet to touch her banana. “Wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with that man you’ve been inviting over, eh?”
Monica leaned back in her chair and held her newspaper up. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” There was a headline about a plane crash in South America. For some reason, Monica didn’t feel compelled to compare her situation to that of a hundred people dead. “I haven’t been seeing any man.”
“You can’t hide it from us. Chelsea was the one who noticed, because apparently the guy is one of her patron’s friends. And she was right... since that guy was last here, you’ve been like a different person. Subtly, of course.” Yes, because God forbid Monica show grand expressions outside of the bedroom. Or so some would say.
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She drank coffee, ate her grapefruit, and perused the business news, trying to guess what the clients would be talking about tonight. Stock prices, as always. Some company buying out another. The best brand of brandy. All Monica wanted to think about was her Henry.
He was away on business, supposedly only a phone call away but too busy to talk to her most of the time. Something about Austria or Switzerland. The time difference was too inconvenient for them both. Text messages and emails littered their phones, some of them sweet, and others scorching. “Strip, lie down, and imagine me fucking you,” was one message Monica received the night before. She did as told. I’d rather he be here with me. They had a date in another week, assuming work didn’t come up, but another week was much too far away.
Monica wanted to talk to him. She wanted to hear his voice, that tone that said he was thinking of her fondly and lasciviously. She wanted more than anything else to have him there with her, holding her, kissing her until it was time to take out the collar.
I’m falling in love. It was scary to think. At the same time, it was liberating to free herself from the shackles of her past.
Sylvia didn’t press the issue. After breakfast, they went to their usual routines, Sylvia to going over her appointments for the evening and Monica to checking in on the kitchen and other staff who might need help that night. It was going to be a busy one.
“Mail!” someone in the front hall called as Monica approached the grand staircase. “What do you say, Madam?”
Since she was there, Monica approached the doorman and the maid signing for the mail. There were the usual packages, bills, and letters from patrons to girls, but also an unidentified letter for Monica.
The envelope was thin and light. Monica flipped it over, looking for a return address, but all she saw was her name and the Château’s address.
After making sure the rest of the mail was taken care of, Monica stood in the middle of her vast estate and opened the letter she assumed was from Henry.
However, her smile faded within the first few words she read… written in a familiar, elegant handwriting she hadn’t had to see for a good many months.
“I know where you are. I know what you’re doing. I know that man you’re whoring yourself out to.”
That’s all it said. It was enough to shake Monica’s mind where she stood.
“Ma’am?” called the doorman only a few yards away. “Is something the matter?”
Monica rushed to the door, pushing it open before her staff could do it for her. Out on the concrete stairs she found the mailman, still finishing up his paperwork before hopping back on his truck and going to the next estate.
“You!” She approached him, each step more forceful than the last. “Who gave you this letter to deliver?” It shook beneath the man’s nose.
He looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “I have no idea where it originated from, ma’am. You get a lot of letters like that. I know where to deliver it. Now, excuse me.” He closed his tablet and stalked off toward his truck. So much for that help.
Monica wasn’t convinced. She looked around the front lot of the Château, into the trees of the surrounding woods, even into the neighboring valley in between mountains. Still not convinced, she ran back inside, up the stairs, and burst through the balcony doors to see who was in the garden.
Grace, reading a book. Judith, sunbathing in the middle of the labyrinth. The gardener trimming the hedges and trying not to get distracted by half-naked Judith.
It didn’t matter that Monica didn’t see that man anywhere. It didn’t matter that the staff knew to turn him away should he even come within a mile of the Château.
It doesn’t matter, so why am I so…?
The letter shook in her hand. Jackson Lyle’s words had never cut her so deep.
She needed Henry. Now, and for as long as that other man breathed down her neck.
I don’t want to be alone. Monica clasped her hand over her mouth and turned away before anyone in the garden could see her shaken. And yet I never am alone.
Jackson made sure of that.
To be continued in Part 2, CAUGHT.
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