SECRET Revealed (33 page)

A week later I received a package at work, special delivery from Pierre Castille. Inside were two envelopes, a thin one with my name on it and a thick one addressed to Matilda.
I headed to the Coach House after work with a heavy heart.

Matilda and I sat across from each other at her desk. I went first, opening my envelope, which contained a note and a loose charm that dropped from its folds, a Step Eight charm,
Bravery
scrolled on one side.

I looked at Matilda, whose eyes were saucers behind her thick stack of papers. “I can scarcely believe it,” she said, her voice cracking.

“Open yours.”

She ripped the envelope open and removed a letter, then passed it my way.

“Read it to me, Solange. I’m vibrating from nerves.”

I scanned the words on the cover letter, written in the same neat penmanship as my note.

“He’s returning something called
Red Rage
,” I said. “It’ll arrive tomorrow by special freight.”

“He’s
what
? That’s … that’s the painting he bought from us in Buenos Aires. What else does he say?” I cleared my throat and read.

“… 
the painting was never mine to begin with, Matilda,”
I read.
“In fact, I can’t look at it without thinking of my ungentlemanly actions towards Cassie, towards Dauphine in Buenos Aires, and I’m sure you’ve heard about Solange in Paris. I’m a man unused to hearing no, to being denied what I want. I’ve decided to make amends by returning the painting. My hope is that we can keep all of this matter a ‘secret,’ as it were, now and in perpetuity. I hope this gift will guarantee many more healthy years for your group. Yours remorsefully, Pierre Castille.”

We were both quiet for some time.

“Well, this has been a very interesting day,” Matilda said, staring into the middle distance. “What exactly did you do to that man, Solange?”

I told her about what might have been his moment of clarity—my well-placed knee to his groin.

“Well, you certainly had an impact. I am so sorry you went through that. All I can say is thank you. This means that S.E.C.R.E.T. is not only alive and well, but we have the means to make your last fantasy a really,
really
good one,” she said.

“Truth be told, Matilda, my time in S.E.C.R.E.T. has been incredible. And I want to thank you for each and every one of my fantasies. But they’ve also given me a whole new appreciation for my reality. And there’s one staring me straight in the face. I can’t ignore it any longer.”

I told her about my renewed feelings for Julius, that they had come almost out of nowhere.

“Does Julius know?” she asked.

“I think he suspects something’s up. But I was the one who ended things with him. So he’s rightfully wary. Any advice on how to win back your ex?”

“I wish I knew myself, Solange,” she said wistfully.

Just then, we heard the grinding sound of the front gates opening. Through her office window, we watched a limo ease through and turn towards the Mansion’s front portico.

Matilda looked at her watch. “Sit back in your chair for a tight second. Your recruit has just arrived for his training session.”

“You can probably give him the night off,” I joked, resisting the urge to sneak a peek.

“True. I could do that,” she said, her eyes still on the limo, a sly smile playing across her lips. “But I think I’ll just let the training session proceed. Why not? It’s just sex, right? That’s the easy part. It’s love that vexes.”

Gus had been looking forward to sleeping at his dad’s that night, and I was looking forward to seeing Julius, so we were both a little disappointed when he texted to say that his deep-fry guy and the cashier on one of his trucks both called in sick.

When I told Gus his night with his dad was canceled, instead of sulking, he said, “Why don’t we go help him?”

“My brilliant child,” I said, kissing his face a bunch of times.

He resisted me, but only a little.

We headed up to the Freret Street location dressed to serve. I was a natural with that fry basket; Gus made a champion coin roller. Some people recognized me from the news, and I joked that I was moonlighting so that I could spend more time with my men.

“Great team effort,” Julius said at closing time, locking up the truck and drawing back the awning.

“The Formidable Faradays,” Gus added.

“That’s us, baby,” I said, my eyes lingering on Julius.

I hadn’t packed an overnight bag for Gus, so Julius had to drop us off. I invited him to stay for a late bite, and he took off his shoes at the door and didn’t leave. We ate together, and laughed together, the three of us at one table. After dinner, after I cleaned up, and after he tucked Gus in, Julius found me standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at him, hopeful, expectant, adoring.

“Are you coming down? Or … am I coming up?” I asked, a quaver in my voice.

“Let’s meet in the middle,” he said.

I slowly took those stairs one by one, carefully stepping into his broad arms.

“Is this for real, Solange?”

I looked up at him and nodded. He kissed me full on the mouth and for a second he felt all new to me—his hands, his lips, his taste. He broke free a minute later only to pull me up the stairs with him. In the bedroom with the door shut, his body became a place I had been to before and knew so well and missed so much.

He stripped me with the concentration of a doctor removing bandages from someone almost fully healed. I let him. The T-shirt that still smelled like the food truck came flying off. My bra he kept on for a second, admiring it. I had picked out my lingerie carefully this time, hoping there was a chance this could happen. His knuckle traced the shape of my breasts beneath the lace, knowing once it came off there was no turning back; the sight of my breasts had always made that man crazy.

He pulled off my jeans, one leg, then the other. He did it reverently, disbelieving his luck, half waiting for me to stop him, to say,
This is nuts; this can’t ever work again
. I couldn’t speak, I could only marvel at his sinewy body, my fingers taking ownership with every inch they touched. This stomach,
mine
. These arms now bracketing me as I lay across the bed,
mine
. This back my nails are lightly dragging across,
mine
.

I was so wet by the time he entered me, and he was so hard, so insistent, saying my name over and over in my ear, his voice catching, making me dizzy with every thrust of his body, all I could think was:
Mine. Mine. Mine again
.

EPILOGUE

W
hen it came time for the wedding, Matilda told me to spare no expense.

“Seriously?” I said, too excited to contain myself. “But it’s during Mardi Gras week. Everything’s going to be more expensive.”

“Spend whatever it takes, Cassie. What’s a wedding but one big fantasy, the fantasy of a lifetime?”

On an unseasonably warm February morning, the skies unbearably blue, the wind sweet, the city getting ready for its big party, Will and I headed down to the French Market at the crack of dawn to pick out the fattest lobsters and the juiciest prawns, which would go into making the biggest backyard jambalaya ever seen in New Orleans. It was Dell’s idea to boil the corn and potatoes over three cauldrons built into the concrete hot tub, drained just for that occasion.

The whole garden behind the Mansion was festooned in ribbons and flowers, Mason jars stuffed with early magnolias, pink-and-white streamers draped off picnic tables, in
between which Gus and Finn ran around with the other children over grass strewn with white and purple petals and beads. We wanted this wedding to be perfect and we threw ourselves into every detail, from the dress that Dauphine Mason helped me source and ship from Paris, to the music Mark Drury volunteered to handle, to the cake that we commissioned from Jesse Turnbull.

Claire had been up half the night helping Jesse put the finishing touches on the cake and learning all there was to know about making marzipan roses. But when it came time to help Jesse lift the five-tiered masterpiece out of the back of the van, the only person I’d entrust with that task was Will. To watch those two men cooperatively, carefully, gingerly, tenderly follow me around the side of the Mansion to the table, carrying a wedding cake the size of a small person, was to really know friendship and joy, forgiveness and love.

I’ll admit I was surprised when Solange Faraday pointed to
this
dress as the one she’d always dreamed of, but when she stepped out of the dressing room at the Funky Monkey wearing it, we all fell in love too.

“You think?” she asked, holding out her long arms covered in creamy Spanish lace. “I saw it in Paris. It’s not too much?”

“It’s
definitely
too much, but that’s the beauty of it,” I said, laughing at how ridiculously stunning she looked in her off-the-shoulder couture confection, which cinched her tiny waist and flared out in a cloud of pale cream tulle.

“Jesus Murphy Jones and his sister Martha,” Dauphine
said, placing her hand over her chest. “Solange. It’s … perfection.”

“It also costs more than my car,” Solange said. “I don’t know if I can accept all this.”

“You should have thought of that before you accepted our Step,” I said, moved to tears by the sight of her.

Weeks later, in the pool house before the ceremony where we all gathered to privately toast the bride, Matilda had attached Solange’s Step Nine charm—
Exuberance
—to her bracelet.

“There. Something new,” she said. “And you can borrow my old blue handkerchief to cover all the other bridal criteria.”

There was never any question about whether Solange would stay in S.E.C.R.E.T. and take the Tenth Step. Once she reunited with Julius, this was always going to be her final Step, the one fantasy we all wanted to help facilitate. Watching her walk down the aisle at dusk to remarry Julius, the love of her life, their young son giving her away, and watching Julius lift her veil before reciting the vows they had written for each other, my heart burst wide open. And I knew it would never close again.

I scanned the crowd for my lovely assistants: Angela, Kit, Bernice and Pauline were all dabbing tears. Behind them, Jesse casually stretched his arm behind Matilda’s chair. She shifted a little uncomfortably, still trying to get used to his public displays of devotion. After the ceremony, I sidled up to her while Jesse went to get us all drinks.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“It’s a beautiful wedding. We might have stumbled on another source of income. Not that we need the money anymore,” she said, referring to the returned painting. She took my hand. “So, do you miss us, Cassie?”

“I miss you and the girls. Though, if we do decide to cater events here, we’ll see a lot of each other.”

Mark Drury’s band, The Careless Ones, wrapped up its first set, Mark handing the mike over to Solange to serenade Julius. The groom beamed from the back of the garden, a beer in one hand, his other arm around Gus’s shoulders, both of them completely love-struck.

“Hey, babe,” I heard behind me.

I turned around to gaze into my own man’s face. Will handed me a glass of champagne and clinked his against mine. He had asked me to bring him a suit to change into once the party was in full swing, but he was so sexy in his jeans, his mis-buttoned tuxedo shirt, the bow tie stuffed into his back pocket, his sunglasses askew on his head. We both drank from our flutes, never taking our smiling eyes off each other.

“Well,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and slinging his arm around my shoulders. “I think our first wedding went really well.”

“Could be a good side gig. We could hire catering staff, a couple of assistants for Dell, maybe put in a real cauldron for cookouts.”