Cognac & Couture (The Passport Series Book 2) (22 page)

Hillary cautiously
offered, “We’d go with you.” They had suggested a trip to Aarhus to visit Mikkel’s
grave, in order to give that chapter of my life some sort of closure.

I felt utterly gutted. Blindsided. I’d settled in for a
peaceful chat with the girls and instead found myself in the middle of a
conversation I didn’t want to be having. I wanted to shut out their questions,
their sadness. All eyes were on me, waiting for a response. I searched my mind
for one to give them, but, truth be told, I had enough weighing me down that I
couldn’t find a starting point. The longer I sat there, the angrier I became,
at them, at myself. I wanted to be happy. Fuming, I wondered,
Who are they
to take away my hard-found happiness by bringing up the past?
In this
moment, I understood why I hadn’t told
Sébastien
about Aksel’s job offer. I wasn’t ready to risk losing the happiness I had
found.

I unfurled my clenched fists and
laid the back of my hands against the blistering heat of my flushed cheeks. I
looked at Charlotte. “I now have a pounding stress headache. Do you have something?”

She got up and headed toward the
stairs. I closed my eyes. Her rustling and shuffling sounded thunderous in the
otherwise quiet house. When she returned, she said, “Here you go.”

I opened my eyes and saw a glass
of something fizzy and two aspirins. “I hope this is alcoholic.” I thanked her
acerbically before throwing the aspirin in my mouth and chasing it down with
what turned out to be water.

Back in her chair, she resumed
staring calmly at me. I looked at each of my friends, one at a time, and gave
them my best “Leave me alone!” look.

While I knew they were trying to
help, their timing was atrocious.

I turned my attention to Tiziana,
who’d started this conversation. “Why would you bring this up today?” I looked
at each of them. “Why would you bring this up at all? If I wanted to talk about
it, I would. I distinctly remember telling you, when you were in Paris, that we
would talk about it someday. Today isn’t that day.
I
get to decide the
day
.”
While I started out calmly, my emotions quickly got the better of
me, and I ended shouting.

Marian tried to speak.

“Be quiet! That was a rhetorical
question.”

I took a few deep breaths, trying
to calm myself, but the harshness I heard in my own voice told me I’d failed. “Today,
I am deciding to celebrate Sean’s birth, being alive, and being with people I
love.”

Marian continued, softly but
determinedly, “Kathleen, I heard you. We all heard you. Today. Back in Paris.
You’re in pain. You may not see it, but what happened to you affected all your
decisions,
and
it will keep affecting how you move forward, until you
deal with it.” She took a deep breath and boldly continued, “Ask yourself, why
are you angry?”

I struck the cushion on my lap and
all but threw it at her. Why couldn’t she let it rest? Real anger had been
bubbling below the surface, and god help me, her persistence caused me to lash
out. “Do you want to go so that I can get closure? Or so that you can assuage
the guilt you feel at not noticing I was in pain?”

Her eyes immediately filled with
tears, but she said calmly, “Maybe it is for us, too. Maybe it’s for Sébastien.
Maybe it’s for everyone who loves you.”

I wanted to storm out, I wanted
them to leave, but I felt too exhausted to move. They quietly sniffled in the
company of my anger. We sat in silence for quite a while, long enough for my
temper to subside.

With a sinking heart, I realized I
was
still
angry at Mikkel for leaving me long before I was ready for him
to go.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have
yelled at you. You want to help. And if it helps, you’ve given me plenty to
think about.” I looked at them each individually. “Now, whether or not you like
it, I am done talking about it. So, we either change the subject, or I go.” I’d
laid my cards on the table, and then I waited.

“Charlotte, did you manage to get
that revolting brown stain out of Liam’s christening gown? And where in the
name of Christ is the wine?” I was never more grateful to Marian for injecting
levity into the room.

Charlotte disappeared briefly,
returning with a huge tray loaded with glasses, wine, and snacks. While she
poured massive glasses of cold, crisp white wine, she talked happily about her
baby and regaled us with stories I couldn’t process. I wanted to, but,
unsurprisingly, I kept sliding in and out of the conversation.

More stories to tell, but when? Or
if? I didn’t know. After this afternoon, it was all too much to think about.
Me, oscillating between listening to the present, trying to sort out the past,
and figuring how it affected the future.
Fuck
.

“
Kathleen
?” Marian barked
at me.

Startled, I yelled back, “
What
?”

“Feel better?” She wore an
arrogant expression.

“Fuck you!” I said through more
tears, residual anger flaring up. “No. Yes. You fucking cows.”

“She does. She feels better. I
told you she would,” Marian said confidently.

Late afternoon, when everyone had
reconvened at the Grange, the men were worse for wear, and that was an
understatement. Grass stains burnished their knees, bits of grass clung to
their clothes, smudges of dirt were ground into their skin, and more than a few
of them sported bloody patches. Rory held an ice pack to the side of his face
with one hand while he gripped a bottle of beer in the other. When I spotted
Sébastien and Ted, I was relieved to see them mostly unscathed.

While we stood in shocked silence, Charlotte dared to ask,
“What happened?”

What began as their recount of an afternoon’s soccer game
became an epic exaggeration of the men’s strengths and foibles. Michael,
Sébastien, Aidan, and Marcus had played against Liam, Dallin,
Rory, and Ted. “The Frenchie there is a crafty bastard,” Rory announced. “He
convinced us all to play football instead of cricket. Turns out he’s a demon. I
was blissfully running down the field when, from out of nowhere,
bam!
He
slide-tackled me.” Throughout his recounting, he put his whole self into the
play-by-play, throwing his body this way and that.

Liam added his version, starting
with maligning Rory. “I remember you joyfully running down the field, pummeling
anyone who got near you. It was only when Aidan grabbed ahold of your arm that
Sébastien got his foot on the ball. If you hadn’t given Aidan a kidney punch,
the Frenchie wouldn’t have had to clout you! You can’t blame a man for
defending himself.”

“
What
?”
As she
entered the room,
in one clipped word, Liam’s mother
Niamh
Molloy gave voice to her annoyance. All the Molloy boys dropped their eyes,
unable to make eye contact with her as she cast her glare upon each one. “What
were you thinking?” To me, her question sounded more like, “Wha t’wer ya
tinkin?”

Charlotte whispered, “She’s actually quite lovely underneath
her tyrannical exterior.”

Eamonn, Liam’s father, came to his sons’ rescue. “Boys will
be boys, Niamh. If Rory got what was due him, good.”

Niamh gave a heavy sigh of exasperation, looked at the
ceiling, and whispered to herself, “Right, then,” before dousing them in a
thick layer of Catholic guilt. “But you’ll look a sight in the baptism
photographs, won’t you?”

Rather than answer, the men unanimously decided it was time
to get cleaned up for the evening. Liam, Marcus, and Ted chauffeured them to
the local hotel for a shower and shave. Grandparents, sisters-in-law, and friends
all disappeared in a flash. Marian took the opportunity to observe, “Just
imagine, underneath those starched shirts and fitted suits, your Frenchie has
some foin, foin, foin muscular legs. And his arse in those shorts… Jaysus, you
must love getting ahold of that."

Still not recovered from this afternoon, I sputtered a
mouthful of wine then coughed and wheezed. She was treading on dangerous
ground.

Hillary lurched forward in her seat and gaped. “Holy Hell!” she
finally uttered, when she could speak.

While I mopped up the mess with the back of my hand, I tried
to decide what shocked me more: Marian’s comments or Hillary’s expletive.

Unexpectedly, Hillary railed, “Marian! After this afternoon,
don’t you think we could all use a break? Even for you, that is out of line.”

While I agreed with her, Tiziana and Charlotte were
tittering behind their hands while the other two faced off.

Not one to go down without a fight, Marian defended herself.
“Seems to me, Charlotte took quite a ribbing…” She winked lewdly before
continuing. “…if I recall correctly, when she and Liam first took up. All we
talked about was her chafing bits.”

By now, I was laughing with Tiziana, while a pink flush rose
on Charlotte’s cheeks.

Not content with the havoc she’d wreaked, Marian went for
broke. “Don’t forget those friction burns she tried to pass off as sunburn.”
She tossed her head in Charlotte’s direction and then asked me
conspiratorially, “Have any bruises or abrasions you’d like to show us?”

I feigned a virginal air. “Of course not! We haven’t… you
know—”

I was going to say, “Played that rough,” but Tiziana’s flair
for the dramatic intervened.

“Bella, how can you resist him, darling? He’s so…”

Marian, wearing a lecherous grin, slapped Tiziana on the
knee and waggled her brows. “Don’t you worry. Our girl is just playing cat and
mouse with him. Slowly reeling him in. I’m sure he’s beyond desperate at this
point!”

Hillary noted, “Those visuals, we did not need!”

Taking it in stride, Marian waggled her brows. “Oh, I’m all
about the visual!” Then she looked at me and said, deadpan, “Seriously, she
believes you haven’t slept with him!”

***

The evening’s party was in full
swing when Sean Patrick Molloy finished tolerating cuddles and coos. He let out
a huge bellow (or as big a one as a four-week-old baby can emit), calling for
the familiar and comfortable scent of his mother. Tiziana, who had been
nuzzling him, passed him to Charlotte.

Just as she returned from putting
Sean in his bed, the front door burst open, and there was a blinding light.

“Bloody hell!” the newcomer
shouted as he leapt inside.

Hearing his voice, I raised an
eyebrow and said to Sébastien, “Des is here!”

The ruckus outside died when he
closed the heavy wooden front door. There was dead silence within. Those who
hadn’t encountered Des before stood in awe. The rest of us were surprised to
see him. “
Er
, hello!” Des said to the group at large, waving his hands
like windshield wipers. “Sorry about that,” he continued when no one said
anything. Confused, he finally asked the obvious. “This is Charlotte and Liam’s
house, right?”

I heard Charlotte say, “‘A man who
doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.’”

Des chuckled loudly and answered, “
The
Godfather
.” Craning his neck, he peered around the Molloy men, who had
jumped to their feet when he entered. “Charlotte, where the hell are you? Where’s
my godson?”

Defensively, Michael called out,
“Oiy! He’s
my
godson!”

Des ignored him when Charlotte
hushed everyone. “Over here. Keep your voices down! Sean is upstairs, sound
asleep. At least, he was before you and the paparazzi arrived on the scene.”

Des put his arm around her.
“Bugger. Sorry, Charly. Liam.”

Pulling them in, he asked
conspiratorially, “Seriously, why is he the godfather?”

“Do you remember your little
speech at Tiziana’s wedding, when we asked you to be godfather? You said
you’d
be crap at it—forget all her birthdays and then, when she’s eighteen, take her
out for a few drinks and try to shag her!”
Liam
reminded him.

Looking utterly amused, Des
explained, “I thought we were playing the movie trivia game. When you asked me,
I said the lines from
About a Boy
.”

“Doesn’t matter, you threatened to
shag our daughter,” Liam replied, ignoring Des’s argument.

He quickly responded, “Unless I’m
mistaken, you have a son.”

Charlotte quickly intervened.
“Desmond Allan Bannerman, we’d be delighted if you would be one of our sons’
godfather. Someday.”

Des dramatically wilted, accepting
defeat. Then he applied his swoon-worthy charm and retorted, “
My
godson’s more likely to get laid. And be famous. Plus, he’d be in my will. By
the way, how is the cheese weasel?”

Charlotte looked stunned. “What
did you call him?”

“It’s an endearment. Tell her.”
Des looked around the room for support.

The Molloy clan broke their
silence, raucously supporting the oh-so-impish movie star.

After a lengthy pause, Des
suddenly turned his world-famous blue eyes on the occupants of the room. After
spying Michael, battered and bruised, he admitted defeat. “Well, it’s him. It’s
not like I’m going to arm wrestle the bloke. He’s bloody huge.”

As Liam made the rounds,
introducing Des to the other guests, Sébastien and I watched with amusement as
the women asked for selfies. “He certainly is patient,” Sébastien acknowledged.

"Honestly, I don't know how
Charlotte survived it or how Des manages it daily. I would hate to be in the
spotlight like that."

Once the chaos of Des's presence dissipated, Charlotte and
Liam announced dinner was ready. The grandparents sat first; as the others
filled in the chairs around them, I peeked at Charlotte, who was the epitome of
calm. Earlier in the week,
she had called me,
overwrought with hormones and emotions. In between soothing Sean and making
herself some desperately needed food, she had grumbled about her party being
sabotaged.

"Why couldn't Michael and
Hillary have waited just a bit longer to break up? This effing seating chart!
All I wanted was for the people I love to come together and celebrate our
baby's birth. Now, it's all a mess. New rule! None of my friends can date any
of Liam's friends or brothers. I don't care if they are literally the last two
people on earth.” Charlotte's voice had risen higher and higher as her emotions
had built. Eventually, she’d sounded like an overinflated balloon hissing air.
In an effort to calm her, I had taken the list of names and offered to sort out
who would sit with whom, arriving in London with printed name cards.

Searching the tables, I saw now that
everyone was seating themselves as planned. I went to sit across from
Sébastien, who held my chair for me. The stark white tablescape was offset by
shabby-chic centerpieces made by combining three different blue-and-white china
patterns in different shapes, styles, and sizes. Each had a vase with delicate,
white ranunculus blossoms.

As I studied one flower
arrangement up close, Sébastien asked, “Interesting, no? There is something
whimsical about them that reminds me of your seashell dresser.”

“You have a seashell-covered
dresser? Wherever did you find it?” asked Fiona, who sat beside me.

Until now, Charlotte’s
sisters-in-law had been fairly quiet. I immediately confessed my passion for
flea markets and secondhand stores.

Hillary joined in. “Kathleen’s
always had a penchant for the unique. Not long after we met, she invited us
over for wine one Saturday evening. Little did the four of us know that we were
going to spend the evening decoupaging vintage maps, wallpaper, and music
sheets to dressers, end tables, desks, and bookshelves!” She gave me an
affectionate glance.

I wrinkled my nose as I recalled
that project. “It
was
a bit much!”

Conversation hummed throughout the
room. The food and wine helped everyone relax, and gradually people loosened
up. When it came time for dessert, after dishes had been cleared, we had delicate
tiffany-blue macarons with orange blossom buttercream, brought from Paris,
nestled in vintage milk-glass parfait glasses.

“
Du Pain et Des Idées?”
Sébastien’s said with surprise.

I nodded as Des gently tapped his
knife against his wine glass. “Ladies and gentlemen, if I may, I would like to
propose a toast.”

Liam and Ted shook their heads no;
Des gave them scathing looks and continued without pause. “For those of you who
don’t know, I had the pleasure of meeting Charlotte almost two years ago, in a
casino in Chamonix. If you had told me then that I would be godfather to one of
her children someday, my lawyers would have told you that you were crazy.”

Genuine laughter rang throughout
the room at this point.

When it subsided, Des continued,
looking at Liam. “Seriously, you are a lucky man, Liam Molloy. You have a
wonderful wife who loves you! A son who will grow into a fine man. And me. You
have it all, mate!”

A resounding, “Cheers!” rang
throughout the room.

Before he sat down, Des quipped,
“And to Charly! What can I say but that Sean is one lucky little bugger to have
such a tyrannical wee thing as yourself for his mother. He’ll be loved by all,
feared by many.”

***

With his
arms wrapped around me, I lay on Sébastien like a blanket as my heartbeat slowed.
The bristle of his beard felt sharp against my skin as he pressed a kiss
against my temple.

“Am I heavy?” I asked groggily.

His response was swift and soft. “Never.”
Then his voice changed to one of concern. “Are you feeling better?”

I laughed lightly. “Yes. Thanks. You
were right, sex does cure all woes.” Once we’d returned to the hotel from
Charlotte’s, I’d told him about my upsetting afternoon and how angry I’d
become. I felt anxious when I thought back on it.

I rolled onto my side, facing him,
and drew patterns in his chest hair. We lay, staring at each other. I put aside
all my secrets and sorrows, wanting to focus on this, the fact that it was so
easy, so perfect to lie beside him. My thoughts remained there until my eyelids
fluttered shut, and no matter how hard I tried to keep them open, they seemed
intent on closing.