Secret North: Book 4 of The Wishes Series (18 page)

“It won’t break the bank.” Her smile slipped. “I don’t think we’re in any danger of becoming destitute any time soon.”

Charli wasn’t one for practising what she preaches. She’d never learned to love the lifestyle. Talk of finances seemed to embarrass her.

“The Décaries have a lot of money, don’t they?” I spoke quietly as if it was a secret we weren’t supposed to discuss.

Charli nodded but her dire expression remained. “It takes some getting used to.”

“Ryan bought me five Hermès scarves,” I said gravely. “I’m not sure how to deal with that.”

“You just do,” she brooded. “I like vintage cocktail dresses so Fiona buys them for me. I have more than I’ll probably ever wear. No big deal.”

“So you just get used to it?”

“You can if you want to,” she quietly permitted. “But I’ll never get used to it. That’s how I know I’m doing okay.”

29
. KILLJOY

Ryan

If I were a stickler for details, I would’ve been furious with Charli for breaching our babysitting agreement. Bridget was still with me at six o’clock, thanks to her mother’s decision to hit the town with my girlfriend. I wasn’t pissed. Bridget’s good mood was holding and I was confident of keeping her happy until her father arrived to pick her up.

I rustled her up a quick dinner, but Bridget didn’t seem impressed by my efforts. She pulled a face as if I’d set a plate of rat poison in front of her.

“Please try it,” I urged.

“I don’t like it.”

“How do you know? You haven’t tried it.”

She pushed the plate forward.

“Everybody likes chicken,” I insisted, sliding it back in front of her.

“I like chicken nuggets.”

“Bridget Décarie, chicken nuggets do not count as food,” I told her, aghast. “Do you know what they put in nuggets?”

“Nuggets?” she guessed. I instantly admitted defeat. Entering into a chicken debate with a four-year-old wasn’t smart, especially considering the calibre of my opponent.

I managed to strike a deal with her, but at a price. She ate the smallest amount of dinner, and in exchange, I spent the half hour before her father arrived watching
The Little Mermaid
with her.

Adam let himself in.

Bridget clambered over me on to the arm of the couch and launched herself the second she thought he was close enough to catch her. Clearly it was a manoeuvre Adam was familiar with. His arms were outstretched before she made her move. After a quick kiss, he hung her upside down, making her giggle.

“Thanks for watching her.”

“Any time,” I replied. “She didn’t eat much.”

“I don’t like rabbit,” interjected Bridget, still hanging upside down.

Adam righted her and dropped her on the couch. “You fed her rabbit?”

“Yeah.” I glanced at the little liar next to me. “Next time I’ll take the fur off.”

Adam sat down on the last spare space on the couch. “I’m glad I’m not eating here tonight. What are you watching?”

“Ariel,” Bridget announced excitedly.

Not much was said over the next few minutes. The mini Tinker Bell sat quietly, as captivated by the redheaded mermaid as the first fifty times she’d watched her. I couldn’t explain Adam’s reasons for sitting through it – or mine.

Adam spoke first. “Ariel’s kinda hot.”

“She’s whiny,” I objected. “Not my type.”

“She lives under the water,” Bridget explained, shuffling closer to her dad.

“So would your mother, given the chance,” I replied.

***

By the time Bente and Charli arrived, Bridget was asleep on the couch, exhausted by the hours we’d spent in Central Park looking for the elusive Secret North. Inexplicably, Adam and I were still watching the mermaid movie. In move strangely reminiscent of the
Dirty Dancing
debacle, we jumped to our feet when the door swung open.

“Hi,” beamed Bente, loudly. I shushed her and pointed at the sleeping girl.

“Oh, sorry,” she whispered, half leaning into me for an almost-hug.

Adam walked over to Charli, took her in his arms and kissed her as if they were alone in the room. I could’ve put it down to the hour of Disney inspiration he’d received at the hands of Ariel, but a more honest assessment would be that it was just Charli and Adam being Charli and Adam. “Go home,” I ordered. “We don’t need to see that.”

He loosened his hold on her but didn’t let go. Charli twisted in his arms to face me. “Thank you for watching our girl today.”

I glanced at Bridget. “She was no trouble. The story of the day was a good one.”

“Do you think she’ll wake up?” whispered Bente.

The fear in her voice made me smile. “I’ll protect you if she does.”

“That’s not funny, Ryan,” chided Charli. “Don’t encourage my kid to be a bully.”

“What does that mean?” asked Adam, totally clueless.

Charli said nothing, leaving it to me to explain that Bridget’s treatment of Bente had been less than welcoming. “She’s not very good at sharing.”

“See, Charlotte?” he asked quietly. “Only child syndrome.”

She glared at me as if I’d just thrown her under a bus.

Tension filled the room in an instant, and I wanted no part of it. Obviously it was a continuation of a conversation that was nothing to do with us. “Right.” I stupidly clapped my hands. “Who’s up for a drink?” Bridget stirred at the sudden noise but didn’t wake. Bente grabbed the throw off the other couch and covered her.

“I am,” replied Adam. “I’ll get the glasses.”

I headed for the fridge and grabbed a bottle of wine. Charli sat at the counter. “So, what did you do today?”

“Just the usual,” I replied casually. “Rolled a couple of old ladies in the park for their purses, smoked a few joints near the fountain.”

“Uncle of the year, aren’t you?”

“Uncle of the freaking millennium, Charlotte,” I corrected, making her laugh.

“I have the day off tomorrow,” said Bente, taking a seat on the stool next to Charli. “Perhaps I could hang out too, maybe try winning her over.”

“You don’t need to win her over,” said Adam, frowning. “Don’t let her give you a hard time.”

“It’s not a problem,” assured Bente. “Malibu and Fabergé put Ryan through worse and he managed to talk them round.”

“Yeah,” said Charli wryly. “With help from Helios and Clytie.”

I slid a glass of wine across to Bente. “I would’ve won them over without your story, Charlotte,” I boasted. “I know a few of my own.”

“Of course you do,” said Charli.

I held another glass in front of her. “It’s true, and because your husband doesn’t know the difference between a wine glass and a champagne coupe, I’m all set to tell you one.”

“A glass is a glass, Ryan,” Adam insisted. “If you were at our house, you’d probably be offered a sippy cup.”

I ignored him and began my tale.

“Legend has it that the shape of the champagne coupe was modelled on the left breast of Marie Antoinette,” I revealed. “She wanted her court to toast her health by drinking from glasses shaped like her boobs.”

My brother picked up one of the shallow round glasses and held it to the light. “Marie had a decent rack,” he approved. “But I don’t want to know who they modelled the champagne flute on.”

Bente laughed. “No, me neither.”

Charli straightened on the stool. “I’m very impressed, Ryan.”

“Don’t be.” I poured another glass of wine and handed it to her, preparing to kill my own story with a dose of reality. “It’s a crock, just like the stories you tell. Champagne coupes have been around since the seventeenth century, long before Marie Antoinette and her boobs.”

“Killjoy,” muttered Charli.

“No,” I corrected. “Just a realist.”

***

I’d learned more about women in the past few weeks than I had in the thirty years before that.

When men make the decision to go to bed, they undress and they go to bed. Women flit between the bathroom and the bedroom fifteen times, open and close the closet a few times – seemingly without purpose – then decide it’s a good time to tidy up the bedroom.

They also talk.

“Adam said he’s going to need a few weeks to work on the dresser,” said Bente, scooping up the shirt I’d just laid over the back of the chair.

“I’m sure we’ll cope without it,” I mumbled.

“You told him to paint it, right?”

“No, not specifically,” I replied. “I just told him to fix it so it matches the rest of the room.”

Bente dropped the shirt back on the chair and took a long look around. “He’ll paint it black, then,” she concluded. “Call him and tell him not to paint it black. That would be horrible.”

Hoping she’d take the hint, I reached over and turned off the bedside lamp. Five seconds later the room filled with light again. “Please, Ry,” she said sweetly. “I don’t want it black.”

I grabbed her pillow and threw it over my face. “Fine. No black.”

The pillow must’ve muffled my frustration. She kept talking. “It should be pink – hot pink to match the chairs.”

It was going from bad to worse. Not only was she still talking, she was now making ridiculous design decisions.

“Sweetheart, please, can we talk about this tomorrow?”

I felt her climb into bed so I handed her back her pillow. She snuggled into me and for a quick second, I got to enjoy one of the good parts of living with a woman. And then she killed it by speaking again.

“Did you notice anything weird between those two tonight? Charli and Adam, I mean.”

I sighed heavily. “Charli and Adam are weird.”

Bente lifted her head and rested her chin on my shoulder. “I’m serious, Ryan.”

“Why do we have to be serious at midnight?”

“I think he wants another baby.”

It was a totally inappropriate conversation for a few reasons. First, it was none of our business. Second, it was far too late to be discussing anything. I tried answering her anyway, in the hope that she’d finally go to sleep.

“I have no idea. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Because it’s none of my business.”

Exactly
, I didn’t reply.

“Do you want to have a baby, Ryan?” she asked.

My throat seized up at the unexpected question, making a calm reply impossible. “Now?” I choked.

Bente dropped her head, bouncing her warm laugh off my skin. It was so freaking perfect I considered knocking her up there and then.

“Not now, in the future,” she clarified. “Do you want children some day?”

It wasn’t something I thought about very often, but it was on my list of things to do when I eventually became an adult.

“Yes,” I muttered. “I want four sons.”

“Four?” she gasped.

“Yeah. And I’m going to call them all Ryan. I’m going to create my own miniature army of Ryans.”

Perhaps realising that delirium had set in, she patted my chest. “You might need help with that, soldier.”

“You’ll help me,” I said smugly.

“Not with four,” she informed me. “Two, max.”

I slid my arm beneath her and cradled her against me. “Are you offering to bear my children, Miss Denison?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, I appreciate the offer but I’m just not sure that I’d be content in settling down with my very first girlfriend.”

Her whole body moved when she laughed. “You’re right, Ryan. I think you should play the field a little first.”

30. ENIGMA

Bente

My offer to attempt to win Bridget over was ambitious to say the least, but I was determined to give it my best shot. Ryan spent the morning at Billet-doux, doing whatever it is that Ryan does, and then collected his niece. They hit the park from there and, not surprisingly, I wasn’t invited.

I put the time alone to good use, preparing an arsenal of little girl delights. It was a complex operation. My nieces could be easily bought with chocolate and toys but Bridget would not be so easily swayed.

I’d visited Ivy that morning and commandeered a glue gun and a box of sparkles before heading off to buy a Bridget size pair of galoshes. Now I sat on the couch like Suzy-freaking-homemaker diligently attaching sparkles to a pair of boots.

I knew it was going to be a long afternoon, and judging by the look of pure thunder Bridget bestowed on me as she walked through the door, she knew it too. My plan was to ignore her and wait for her to come to me when curiosity got the better of her.

I’d laid out my entire plan to Ryan over breakfast.

“Just ignore me,” I instructed. “Pretend not to notice me.”

“I’ll try,” he promised. “But if you get glue anywhere near my couch, you can bet I’m going to notice you.”

Despite his anti-crafting stance, he was playing his part to perfection. He said nothing to me when they arrived, which threw Bridget for a loop. Instead, he sat her at the counter and made her something to eat. While he was staring into the fridge she stole a glance at me, which I pretended not to notice.