The Scent of Rain (24 page)

“Take your time. She doesn't like help in her kitchen anyhow.” Roger dropped the basket near the door and shut it behind him.

She sat down on the bed and read,
“Dear Daphne:”

“Colon? He used a colon in my Dear John letter? That's just wrong. I was going to marry a tool. A comma would have been totally sufficient, and much friendlier.”

Dear Daphne:

Before we were about to get married, I contacted the chemical and flavor companies in Paris because I knew how desperately you wanted to stay there. I think you know what they told me. They weren't willing to overlook my past and the short time I did in big pharma. I think we both know how that came to be common knowledge, and I want you to know that I forgive you. Arnaud, being a good man and a friend of yours, agreed to meet with me and hear me out. I admit I lied on my résumé to get the job in Dayton, but here I was able to tell the truth. It's unfortunate that by then you already had the job in Dayton in formulation. That left a place for me here in Paris, and I jumped at the chance. I saw it as fate.

I'll be attending the perfumery school in my off-time and learning the tools of the trade, but I needed to get to Paris for the job. My reputation is not what it once was, and my license makes it difficult for me to formulate in America. With you in Dayton, and me in Paris, the writing was on the wall. If only you hadn't told Arnaud about me, none of this would have happened. I obviously need more money to live in Paris than I would have in Dayton, so I took more money from the down payment your father gave us for a house. Now we can both live on that money. It's funny how life works out, isn't it? You wanted to settle down, and I wanted to explore the world. This way, we both got our way.

You'll forgive me one day, as I've forgiven you. I know you will, because you have such a godly heart, sweet Daphne.

Mark

She needed to vomit. She ran to the hallway to find the bathroom and expunge the feelings and everything else inside.

After a few moments there was a knock on the bathroom door. “Daphne, are you all right?”

“I'm fine, Anne. I'll be out in a minute.” She ran the cold water and splashed it on her face, using soap to wipe away any memory of Mark from her life. The letter hadn't explained why or how Arnaud had given Mark a job now. And Mark said nothing of Arnaud's having a job there for her too . . . Something about that missing information made her very suspicious.

The knocks came again, more insistent. “Daphne, open the door.”

Daphne flushed the toilet, splashed more water onto her face, and patted it dry. “I'm sorry, Anne. I can't remember the last time I threw up.”

“I think we should take you back to the hospital.”

“No!” Daphne said. “It's not that. I—”

The doorbell rang.

“That must be Sophie.” Daphne brushed past Anne and scurried to the living room where Sophie's wide smile and familiar squeal met hers.

Roger covered his ears. “Well, my goodness. You'd think you two hadn't seen each other for a decade. What's it been, four days?”

“Six, but who's counting?” Sophie hugged both Anne and Roger as if she'd known them forever. “Thank you for taking my precious Daphne in. You're not going to want to get rid of her, she's so much fun! Wait until you watch football and she has to ask you the rules over and over again. It's as though she grew up on another planet.”

“Sophie. You're supposed to say something nice about me.”

Sophie laughed. “Your house will always smell lovely with her here, and she can cook the best soups for winter you'll ever taste. There, good enough?”

“I don't plan to be here in the winter, but I do promise to make some gumbo in return for room and board.”

“Sophie, why don't you get Daphne to her room? She's not feeling well.”

“No?” Sophie asked.

“I'll explain it all. Let's give Roger and Anne their house back for a bit while we catch up.”

“Are you hungry, Sophie?” Anne asked.

“No, I ate on the plane. Cost me a fortune, but a girl's gotta eat. Thank you, though.”

“After I feed Roger, I'm going back to the office. I'll run by the post office and mail out the wedding gifts.”

“You did all that, Anne?” Sophie said. “That would have taken me months. I want to hire you for after my wedding.”

“Except you will actually
have
a wedding, and nothing will go back except the thank-you notes,” Daphne reminded her.

They walked to the back room, and she took Mark's letter from atop the dresser and handed it to Sophie. “He knew I'd understand,” she said breathily, with the back of her hand to her forehead, “because I am such a godly woman.”

Sophie unfolded the letter. “He used a colon in a Dear John letter?” She skimmed it quickly, then tossed it aside. “I love how he tries to make this all your fault. And then announces you're godly, so you have no choice but to forgive him.”

“Well, I don't have to. I think I'm entitled to hate on him for a good week at least.”

“A month. A good month, then it's time to get on with life.” Sophie sat down in the rocker and leaned back. “I don't understand what he's accusing you of.”

“I told Arnaud why Mark was in sales and not chemistry any longer. Because, you know, his license got taken away after he did all that stuff in college. I was trying to be forthright, so he'd know the issues up front, but that came back to bite me in the bum.”

“Yeah?”

“The information made it to the Web over there, and Mark got banned from European chemistry as well. So I don't really understand how he can be working there. Arnaud can't know the whole story. The sales job at Gibraltar was all he had, but they found out that he lied about being at Chlorox, so that backfired on him here.”

“All of this is going to backfire on him. Listen, even if you did make the mistake of leaking the information—” Sophie's nose wrinkled. “How did you make that mistake again?”

“Well, you know I don't drink because it messes with my palate? Well, Arnaud's wife had served this fabulous fruit punch, and I'd never tasted anything like it, and—”

“You did not get drunk.”

“Apparently I got a little tipsy and talked a bit. The punch was called sangria. They never told me it had alcohol in it. When something tastes like grape juice and no one explains to you that's to cover up the huge doses of red wine—at least I think it's red wine—well—”

“I find it hard to believe with your taste buds you couldn't recognize it had alcohol in it.”

“I know. Mark said the same thing. But I swear to you, I didn't taste it. I don't know if it was a really light wine or what, but I just kept talking like there was empty air I had to fill, and I have no idea what else I said.” She smiled. “I do know we had a team archery meet that afternoon, and I was banned from my bow.”

Sophie kicked her shoes off. “It's still not your fault. He did what he did. You only told that he did it. The fact that he makes it all your fault only helps me diagnose him more readily with narcissistic personality disorder.”

Daphne threw a pillow at her.

“He may have been a brilliant chemist, but there are laws for a reason. He always thought himself above the rules. Did Gibraltar know about the sanctions against him?”

“Not as far as I can tell, but Arnaud did, so I can't imagine how he got that job.”

“That has nothing to do with you. He's got all the signs.”

“Personality disorder or no, he's working for Arnaud now.”

“Then that's Arnaud's problem, not yours. You have enough of your own here.”

“Arnaud says there's a job for me, but you know I'll never be safe with Mark there.”

“You have your sense of smell back?”

“Shh! Not yet. But my boss, Jesse, found out, and he fired me already. So I don't have a job here either. What I mean is Mark has probably already destroyed my reputation somehow to save his own.”

“You're not going to Paris, Daphne. Mark is dangerous. He's probably a sociopath, and he's certainly NPD. And that's a professional opinion, so I wouldn't discount it.”

“You can make all those diagnoses from one short colon-ized letter? Sometimes I don't know whether you've had too much schooling or you're just watching too many Lifetime movies.”

“Lifetime movies are based on true stories. They've got a lot of movies, so that should tell you something. There are a lot of psychopaths out there, and some of them are really handsome and really charming.”

“If he's dangerous, I can't let Arnaud be in danger. What if he wants Arnaud's job? Now that I know what he's capable of, I feel like no one is safe. It's my job to warn them.”

“Arnaud is a smart man and can take care of himself. When are you going to understand, you have to take care of
you
. Not the entire world. You're a genuinely nice person, Daphne, but Mark needs to take some responsibility for himself. You need to let the whole thing go. He's not your problem anymore.”

“Well, he's still sort of my problem if I don't have a job here.”

There was a knock on the door, and Sophie opened it by reaching from the rocking chair.

“Jesse's here to see you,” Roger said.

“Jesse the boss?” Sophie asked with her brows raised. “Oh, I'm anxious to see if he's as hot as you described.”

“That was before I got to know him. This is the boss who saved my life and then fired me.”

“Bring him on!” Sophie said, rising from the chair. “Then we'll take care of Mark.”

Chapter 16

J
esse waited on his pastor's porch like a bad date on probation. He paced as he waited for Daphne to come to the door. Anne and Roger obviously knew about the firing—that would be the reason he wasn't invited in—but both were too polite to say so.

In the midst of the emotional turmoil at the hospital, he had failed to see the repercussions of firing Daphne. He'd thought he was doing her a
favor
, actually. She didn't want to be there, and this would only hasten her route back to Paris, where she clearly belonged. Unfortunately, Dave hadn't seen things in the same light, and so here he was. Groveling. On bended knee, if necessary.

The door opened. Daphne moved like liquid in a form-fitting pair of yoga pants and a bright pink sweatshirt. Her dark hair lay over her shoulders. All his original reservations came back in force. It would be better if she left and got on with her life.

“Hi,” she said, and the moment seemed intimate until he saw her redheaded shadow behind her. “Jesse, this is my best friend, Sophie.”

“We talked on the phone yesterday.” He held out his hand.

“Was that before you fired Daphne? Or after?” Sophie put a hand to her rounded hip, and Jesse knew his apology would prove useless.

“Daphne, can we talk?” He met Sophie's steely gaze. “Alone?”

“I'll be back in a minute, Sophie.”

Daphne stepped out onto the porch, and Jesse drank in the full view of her and questioned himself all over again. What was he doing here? How long would he answer to Dave's every whim? But then Ben's hopeful face swam before his eyes. He couldn't afford to take his eye off the target, no matter how difficult it became.

“I made a mistake,” he said. “I didn't have the right to fire you. And there's no reason we can't use the ideas we came up with and more until your sense of smell comes back. It's the first time I've been excited about a product since my first quarter at Gibraltar.”

“Okay.” She stared up at a tree while she answered him.

“You're not going to make me beg? Get on my knees maybe?”

Daphne frowned. “I wouldn't do anything that made you feel like a loser, Jesse.”

Her words socked him in the gut. He'd fired her. What could make her feel like more of a loser than that? Other than being abandoned on her wedding day, of course. “I deserved that.”

She blinked a few times, and he watched as her lashes fluttered up slowly to reveal the deep blue of her eyes. He shook the vision from his head and stared at Roger's perfect green lawn.

“Did you tell Dave why you fired me? You had a good reason.”

He sliced his hand through the air. “Just don't. Don't make me feel any worse than I already do. I didn't tell Dave anything, because the truth is, you can do this job without your sense of smell. It's the way you create. I have to admit, I was wrong. What you do works for me.”

“I was afraid that the cologne I made for Mark was my swan song. I'd never do another thing. But then we made our deal, and I felt like I could create again.” As she looked toward her feet in her summer sandals, he noted that the pink toes matched her wedding manicure. It made him feel like a heel all over again.