Sylvie didn’t like the sound of that. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It goes back to that thing I said about men and women speaking different languages,” Hallie explained. “You have to figure out what you’re willing to put up with and what’s a deal breaker. My dad isn’t a talker. In the almost thirty years my parents have been married, he’s told her he loves her a handful of times, and only when he was prompted to. But he wakes up every morning and fixes a big pot of coffee despite the fact that he doesn’t drink coffee. He forgets her birthday if no one reminds him, but he goes to every doctor’s appointment with her since she had a heart attack because he wants to know how to take care of her. Sometimes men don’t say how they feel. They show you. How does Rene make you feel?”
Like she couldn’t breathe if his hands weren’t on her. Like if they held hands, the world would be a better place. Or if they held on to each other, they could get through any storm. Wasn’t that more important than words? “He treats me like I’m special, but how can I be sure he’s doing that because he cares about me and not because he wants me to stay married to him?”
“Ask him,” Sera encouraged. “Talk to him about something other than work. Romance the man and see how he responds. Also, sometimes when a man isn’t good at saying how he feels, he’s real good at showing it physically.”
“Or he could simply want sex,” Sylvie countered. But she wanted to explore the physical side of their relationship, too. No one had ever made her feel the way Rene did. No man had caused her heart to race and her whole soul to go soft at the thought of being in his arms.
No man could crush her the way he could.
“Isn’t that the risk we all take?” Sera mused as she settled back again.
“Pretty much.” Hallie lay back, too, all three of them looking up at the perfect sky. “We all have to decide if we’re worth the risk. I think Sylvie is.”
“Shouldn’t that be the other way around?” In her head she had to figure out if Rene was worth the risk.
“Nah, you can’t control what the guy does. It’s your heart on the line. Is your heart worth the risk? If you don’t ever take a risk, you can’t get the reward,” Hallie mused.
“I think you’re worth it, too.” Sera’s hand came out and took her own.
Hallie took Sylvie’s other hand. “Though I still think there’s merit to the idea of getting rid of his whole family.”
She couldn’t do that, but maybe she could try harder. She’d used her job as a wedge between them, only spending time with Rene at night.
She didn’t have anything particularly important this afternoon. Maybe it was time to give him a chance. To give them a chance.
Maybe it was time to jump in the bayou and see if she could swim.
* * *
* * *
Rene looked up at his assistant and frowned. “What do you mean, we lost the Gateway deal? We’ve had that contract for twenty years.”
The brunette who was straight out of college frowned and clutched her tablet in a way that let Rene know he was probably letting the fine edge of his temper fray a bit, but there was no helping that.
He was completely distracted by pure lust for his wife. One week in and he couldn’t think about much else but how good it felt to hold her, to kiss her, to touch her.
But he still hadn’t gotten her in bed. He was still at the make-out level, and it was slowly driving him insane.
“I don’t know exactly what happened, Mr. Darois,” the young woman said, her voice tremulous. She was a relative of his, but she used all the formalities. “I guess someone outbid us.”
“Underbid us,” he corrected. It was the third time this year that the company had lost a contract they should have been able to keep. “I want to know how much they bid, Jane. Do I make myself clear?”
“How am I supposed to find . . .” She backed away, moving toward the door though never taking her eyes off him. “I’ll find out and get back to you.”
The door to his office was left open and a familiar figure moved through the doorway, narrowly missing his unnerved assistant. Louis Sylvain was a man who knew how to wear a suit. His father’s closest friend had been the one to take Rene out to buy his first adult suit, a tailored three-piece that had been something akin to armor for him. It had been right before he’d gone to Chicago, and Louis had ensured he’d walked into that office feeling good about himself.
Sometimes it had been easier to talk to Louis than to his own parents. His mom and dad had seemed perfect, but there was always something mischievous about Louis.
“New assistant?” Louis turned and watched Jane scamper off.
“I promoted the last one. She wanted to move into HR and a position opened up.” Rene strode back to his desk and sank into his chair.
“Is that one of Cheryl’s girls?” Louis closed the door behind him.
Louis knew the family situation well. “Her youngest. She graduated a few months ago. If I could have put her in the mail room, I would have. In the last couple of months I’ve been forced to find positions for three of my cousins. Thank god Ashley didn’t qualify or she would be here, too. Jane has a business degree, though I have no idea how. She doesn’t know how to read a bid.”
“You know there’s a difference between school and the real world,” Louis chided. “Give her some time and I’ll find a better fit for her. I’ll start looking for a proper assistant for you. You know if you would stop promoting them, you might have better luck. Sometimes an assistant is just an assistant.”
Not in his experience. He’d worked with a VP in Chicago, a woman who’d taught him to always ask certain questions of his employees, the most important being—what is your goal? A good boss helped an employee achieve his or her goals, and that was how a boss retained top-tier talent. Still, it would be good to have an assistant like his wife’s. Gertie ran Sylvie’s work life like a well-run ship, and no one got past her. Not even Sylvie’s husband. “I don’t suppose you could find me a bossy older woman who takes no prisoners and protects her boss to the point that she can’t be intimidated by her boss’s charming husband.”
Louis grinned, an expression that made him look far younger than his sixty-eight years. “Having trouble with Gertie, are you? I could have told you not to try to get around her. She’s a dragon, that one. Always was.”
He often wondered if other CEOs realized how helpful being located in a small town could be. Every employee tended to have connections.
He wanted a connection with his wife. “That’s an apt description. She guards Sylvie’s schedule zealously. I never realized how busy a small-town mayor’s life is. She’s up at six and doesn’t get home until dinner, where I have to share her with my mother, and then she’s off to bed because she has to do it all over again. And the weekends are even worse. I thought we could spend a leisurely weekend together but no. We attended a Little League tournament. The entire thing.”