The House on Prytania (Royal Street #2)(37)
Author: Karen White
I admired the powdered sugar stencil of a fleur-de-lis on top of each dessert as the plates were placed in front of us. I wanted to snap a photo on my phone to show Jolene, imagining her making a stencil of Mardi’s face to use on pancakes and muffins, but I didn’t want to be that person taking pictures of her food.
“Want me to do it?” Michael said with a grin.
“How did you know what I was thinking?”
His hazel eyes were measuring as he looked back at me. “You’re easy to read, I guess.”
I glanced away, uncomfortable. Michael reached across the table and touched my hand, misreading my sudden nervousness. “I’m sorry, Nola. I just meant that you’re one of those honest and good people who are easy to read only because they’re not the type to scheme.”
I slowly slid my hand away. My focus turned to the two cups of coffee that had just been placed in front of us. Thinking it would be rude to ignore my coffee or spit it out after a quick taste, I filled half of my cup with cream and sugar just in case it was chicory coffee.
I swished my spoon back and forth, watching as the color in the cup lightened. Despite my assurance that he could drink whatever he wanted, he’d joined me for a virgin sidecar cocktail when we’d first sat down, and seltzer with lime to sip with dinner. “I have to ask. Did you know I was a recovering alcoholic when we first met? Before . . .” I waved my hand, not wanting to relive the horrendous events of the past few months by putting them into words.
He looked genuinely wounded, his eyes lowering to the white tablecloth where our server had already scraped away any crumbs. “No. I swear I didn’t. I would never have put you in a situation where you felt like you needed to have a drink. Regardless of what you might think, that’s not the type of person I am.”
I forced myself to smile despite the unpleasant memories being stirred up along with my coffee. “So,” I said, bringing up the proverbial elephant that had been sitting at the table since we arrived, “you wanted the chance to explain why you did what you did. I’m all ears. Just don’t expect me to forgive you, whether I understand your reasons or not.”
He put his fork down and took a sip of coffee. “That’s fair. I just want you to know everything.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Everything?”
“Everything I know,” he amended. “Which, admittedly, isn’t a lot. Because as lame as it sounds, I didn’t know at the time why my uncle asked me to break into your house. Or the real reason why he wanted that Maison Blanche door. I swear it.”
I chewed slowly, wishing I could enjoy the crème brûlée, but I might as well have been eating toasted cardboard. “I find that interesting. If not just a little suspect. You’re a grown man, Michael. Don’t you ask questions?”
He leaned forward. “You don’t know my family.”
“If we’re going to be friends, maybe I should.”
Michael reached for my hand again and I let him wrap it with his warm fingers. “I do want to be friends, even though I know we can’t ever be anything else. I can accept that if you just try not to hate me.”
“Why is it so important that I don’t hate you?”
He took in a long and slow breath. “You inspire me, Nola. The way you don’t let your past dictate your future. Even the way you handle your illness. You stumble, but you get back up. You have done a much better job of recovering from a difficult childhood than I have. So has my sister, Felicity. But she’s too busy leading her exciting life in New York to take the time to explain how she faces her world. She’s younger, too. She probably doesn’t remember our parents, at least enough to miss them. That’s why I need you in my life. I want to learn from you.”
I kept my hand in his, noticing how different his touch was from Beau’s. Not that I was thinking about Beau. He just had an inconvenient way of popping into my head at awkward moments. “Okay,” I said slowly, knowing that this was part of the plan, that Michael was exactly where we wanted him. Yet my stomach felt unsettled, deception not a compatible condiment with crème brûlée. I placed my fork on my plate.
Keeping my hand in his, I smiled.
Our server appeared to refill our coffee cups, and Michael relinquished my hand and slid back in his chair. I shook my head, blocking the top of my cup with my fingers. The coffee had been the dreaded chicory, the bitter aftertaste of it like an insult to the wonderful meal I’d just eaten.
Michael straightened his tie repeatedly, something I’d discovered he did when he was nervous. “Thank you, Nola. Thank you. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”
He was so genuinely happy that it made me feel guilty. I managed to smile, then quickly grabbed my purse and excused myself to find the ladies’ bathroom. I wound my way through the maze of dining rooms until I found myself in the mercifully empty bathroom. The walls were covered with a soft green tufted fabric, almost begging me to stand in front of it to rest my forehead. I wondered if that had been the intention of the designers, knowing intimate dinner conversations could be headache forming.
I breathed in and out, each breath increasing in me the resolve needed for the purpose of being with Michael in the first place. I stayed in that position until another woman entered the bathroom. I stepped back from the wall and approached the mirror to stare at my reflection and wonder why I looked the same as I had in Jolene’s mirror. A toilet flushed and I fished out the tube of lipstick Jolene had thoughtfully placed in my bag. I dutifully touched up my lips, then blotted them on a tissue just as I’d been instructed. All my motions seemed so normal. Even when the other woman left, holding the door for me and smiling, I still felt like Nola, and not at all like the kind of person who would seek revenge, no matter how justified.
Michael stood as I approached our table, and he held out my chair as I sat. The plates had been cleared away and replaced with two fresh glasses of seltzer and lemon. I took a long sip from mine, needing to moisten my parched mouth, glad for the lipstick to hide the cracks.
“So,” I said, “where do we go from here?” My toes curled inside my shoes as I waited for him to answer.
“I’d like you to meet my aunt and uncle. They’d like to apologize to you in person. And let you hear their side of the story.”
“Wow. I didn’t expect that at all. Why would they want to do that?”
“Because I told them how special you are.” He took a deep breath, considering his words. “They know you’re close with the Ryans, and they’d like you to be a kind of ambassador between the two families. My aunt and uncle have been staying out of New Orleans society in deference to the Ryans’ loss, but they’d like to reemerge with a clean slate.”