“Because she’s not used to being followed by tabloid photographers, and she works for us.”
“Tristan, you slept with an employee?” his mother asked.
“Enough. I’m not discussing my personal life with any of you.”
“This isn’t personal. It’s business.”
“How do you figure, Rene?”
“If it involves someone who works for the Sabina Group, that does involve us. She’s not some heiress used to the paparazzi and she would never have been exposed to them if not for Tristan,” Rene said.
“I agree. We’re going to have to do something. Maybe transfer her to the London office,” Louis said.
“We’re not transferring her anywhere. She’s always lived in Brooklyn and I don’t want her life disrupted,” Tristan said.
“It’s a little late for that,” Blanche said.
Everyone joined in the discussion on what should be done with Sheri and how Tristan should have shown more sense, and he shook his head. He was tempted to grab Sheri and leave. Just walk away from his family and his position at Sabina Group, but he liked the magazine he’d started. And he wasn’t a quitter. Never had been, even when the odds were stacked against him.
So he pushed away from the fireplace and waited until everyone stopped talking at once.
“Sheri isn’t your concern, Rene.”
“How do you figure?”
“She’s my fiancée, so I’ll be the one to look after her.” The words came out of nowhere and stunned everyone into silence. He heard his mother gasp, and Blanche’s expression—a cross between disbelief and shock—was comical.
“Fiancée? You’re going to marry this girl?”
He felt trapped by circumstances and his own desires. He wanted Sheri and wasn’t ready to let her go just yet. But he knew he had to do something to protect her from the tabloid press. As his fiancée, she’d be in the society pages for the right reasons.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he thought of the last time he’d told his family he was getting married. Cecile had been standing at his side, but otherwise the stunned disbelief of his family was exactly the same.
He tried to find the humor in it, but it was difficult. “Now that everything is settled about Mademoiselle Donnelly, I’m going to my townhome in Paris.”
“Everything isn’t settled, Tristan. Bring your fiancée in here so we can all toast the new couple,” Rene said.
“And I want to talk to her about planning a party,” Blanche said. “We can do it in conjunction with the launch of our summer fashion guide. I think that will be the best way to introduce her properly to the world at large and as one of us, don’t you think?”
Tristan shook his head. “She doesn’t have time to plan a party. She’s my assistant.”
“Nonsense, Tris, she’s your fiancée now, that takes precedence.”
“No, Blanche, it doesn’t. You and Maman can plan a party for us if you want to, but Sheri will continue working for me.”
“Why?”
“Because that is her desire. That’s the reason we’ve kept our engagement secret all this time.”
Sheri had changed into a red-and-white maillot and a wraparound sarong. She sat in the dappled sunlight that filtered into the glass-enclosed pool. There was a sense of peace that reminded her of the quietness of her own small backyard garden in Brooklyn, although the indoor pool was heavily landscaped and looked like paradise, while her own garden was little more than a few fruit trees, bare now that it was the middle of February.
Aunt Millie had been a big believer that being outside could soothe the soul as nothing else could. When Sheri had been upset by her father once again missing a birthday or scheduled visit, Aunt Millie would lead her to the backyard and tell her stories of fairy princesses who lived in the garden under Sheri’s bedroom window.
She closed her eyes, reaching out with her mind to her aunt. She wished she could feel Millie’s arms around her once again. She was so tired of being alone. Of facing every situation on her own.
She heard the sound of footsteps and glanced over her shoulder as Tristan approached. He looked grim, and she wondered if the paparazzi had followed them and were now camped out on his parents’ doorstep.
She stood up. “Is something wrong?”
He shook his head. “Sit down.”
She sank back down onto the lounge chair. It was thickly cushioned, probably more comfortable than the old mattress she slept on at home.
“What’s up?”
“I’ve decided the best way to handle the paparazzi is to take charge of the situation.”
She liked the sound of that. “Good. Running away seems cowardly to me.”
He gave her a faint smile. “You never fail to amaze me,” he said, and for once that arrogant tone she associated with him wasn’t there.
“How am I doing that?” She usually glided through life being dependable or invisible. Which, she realized, was why the photographers had shaken her. She’d never stood out from the people she worked with or dealt with on a daily basis. How could she handle the attention of the world?
“By being calm about the photographers and my family. A quick flight out of Greece to Paris hasn’t seemed to upset you at all.”
It was sweet of Tristan to say that, but she was anything but calm. “I guess we’re going to pretend that moment at the airport where I almost bolted didn’t happen. And the time when I started screaming in front of the photographers,” she said in a teasing tone.
That startled a laugh out of him, and she felt better for it.
“Exactly. The solution I propose may sound a bit odd to you at first. But let me explain everything before you comment on it.”
“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. What was he going to say? Well, what could he say? The board and I think you need to find a new job. And I want you to deny ever being with me.
His touch on her shoulder startled her out of her thoughts and she looked up into those deep gray eyes of his. She loved his eyes, and had often imagined him looking at her just as he was right now.
“Breathe,” he said.
“I am,” she said, with a long exhale.
He took her hand in his and held it loosely in his grip. “You have such pretty hands.”
Of course he’d notice her hands. Considering she wasn’t beautiful like the women he normally surrounded himself with, her hands were probably the only thing he’d found good-looking about her.
He lifted one of them to his mouth and kissed the back of it, then tucked his fingers around it. She smiled at the way he did it…linking them together.
She felt a bit of calm steal over her. This didn’t feel like the big brush-off. And she’d had enough experience with being shown the door that she’d know if a man was doing that to her.
In fact, her stomach wasn’t a tight knot like it had been the day that her father had sat her down to talk. She realized suddenly that her dreams were still alive. All this time, she’d thought she was a cynic and a realist but, sitting in this beautiful solarium filled with the sound from the waterfall at the end of the pool and the scents of Eden around her, she was holding her breath not because she felt like something