While Ulysses escorts the women and Noah to the vehicles, I take Kent aside and instruct him to pack up the house. “Get two of the guys to help you. I’ll let you know where to deliver everything.”
He nods his understanding.
Reino stays to oversee the arrangements.
We take my car. Ulysses drives. Noah is sandwiched between Tatiana and me in the back while Jasper sits in the front. I take out my phone and look up a restaurant with good reviews before giving Ulysses the address.
He’s programming the GPS when a text message from Penelope with a link to a guesthouse drops on my phone. The hotel where she booked our rooms is full.
A few seconds of browsing are enough to establish the guesthouse isn’t going to work. The place is a security nightmare. Sliding doors open onto a pool deck from every room, and the property isn’t fenced. Can Noah even swim? I make a mental note to find out. If not, I want him to take swimming lessons asap.
My reply is short and sweet. We’re sticking to the hotel. I don’t care what Penelope has to do to secure a suite. Besides, my security team has already scouted the hotel and its surroundings.
I tell my assistant to make it happen. I sure as hell pay her enough to use her imagination. Then I text Reino, instructing him to get the suite number from her so that he can check in and follow the routine security protocol. He replies with a thumbs up emoji just as we arrive at the restaurant.
“No tricks,” I tell Tatiana and Jasper. “Or Noah and I eat alone.”
Noah takes that as a joke, giggling as I instruct the women to behave.
When I take Tatiana’s elbow to guide her up the red-carpeted stairs that lead to the entrance, she pulls away and walks a couple of steps in front of me with her hand on Noah’s shoulder.
It’s a weeknight, so the place isn’t full. It’s a fancy joint with starched tablecloths and polished silverware. The patrons are dressed in evening wear, which is probably why the host who greets us drags a gaze over Tatiana and Jasper’s unsuitable attire with a downturned mouth.
He takes one glance at Noah and informs us they don’t have a kids’ menu. The look I give him when I tell him to instruct the chef to get creative shuts him up quickly.
He leads us to a table at the back that’s slightly removed from the others where we’ll be out of the way. Tatiana makes her way through that room as if she owns the place, turning heads as she goes. Like the mafia princess she was born to be, she walks as if everyone else is overdressed.
The hem of her T-shirt reaches her thighs, but I know beneath that fabric, her tight ass sways with every step. I’ve seen her enough times in figure-hugging skirts and skinny jeans. That self-assured walk is only one of the things that made me crazy for her. Tatiana has never lacked self-confidence, not outside of bed.
Is she still shy and innocent between the sheets, or has she gained confidence in that area too? As always, the idea of her with another man sends brutal thoughts to my mind and cruel intentions coursing through my blood. My fingertips burn with the urge to inflict slow, painful damage, to torture any man who touched her to his last, laborious breath.
Placing my hand on the small of her back, I press my lips against her ear. “Even defeated, you still walk like a goddamn queen.”
Goosebumps run down her arm. At the same time, her back turns rigid, but she holds her head high and carries on to the table where the host pulls out a chair for her.
There’s no arguing she was made for this life, the kind we lead in the family. Even in a T-shirt and leggings, she’s more elegant than the prick judging her as he hands me the wine list can ever dream of being in his penguin suit.
He returns a moment later to ask if mac and cheese will do for Noah. Tatiana and Jasper order salads. Ulysses and I opt for the flame-grilled, medium-rare sirloin steak with Roquefort sauce. I add the sea bass to Tatiana’s order. She prefers fish, and she needs to put some meat on her bones. A salad isn’t going to cut it. As I don’t know Jasper’s culinary tastes, I get a couple of starter platters and side dishes to share.
Once the ordering is out of the way, Tatiana opens her tote bag and pulls out a box of crayons and a few sheets of salvaged wastepaper. She puts the paper and crayons in front of Noah.
Of course Tatiana is prepared. I didn’t even think about occupying a kid in a too-quiet, too-pretentious restaurant during dinner.
She’s a good mother. That much is clear. Not that I ever doubted she’d be.
Noah draws away happily, as quiet as a mouse. He’s well-behaved, a lot more than I was at his age.
I watch him, unable to get enough. He outlines a plane in black before adding blue clouds to the sky. With his tongue peeking out from the corner of his mouth, he carefully draws windows on the side of the plane.
The scratching of Noah’s yellow crayon as he colors in the plane is the only sound at our table. No one speaks. The silence is stifling.
Rather than being bothered by the absence of conversation, I’m glad for it. Little in life unsettles me. Certainly not an uncomfortable atmosphere. In any case, I prefer using the time to study Tatiana. I already took in every detail when I cornered her in that shabby kitchen and pinned her against the wall. But now I can take my time to look at her.
Her hair is still the color of a pale sun on a clear blue morning. She hasn’t tamed the waves into glossy curls as she used to do when she’d snuck out of her parent’s condo to meet me. The long strands hang wild down her back. She left it to dry naturally, not having bothered with a brush before I bundled her into my car.
Her face is as strikingly beautiful as I remember, albeit a little thinner. It’s the kind of face that demands to be noticed, not only because of the perfectly symmetrical features but also because of those haunting eyes.
They possess a strange kind of magic. You can’t look into them and not be affected. They move you for reasons you don’t understand. There’s something poetic yet also tragic in those pale green depths. Their magnetism is a little disturbing, like the compulsion to stare at the gory scene of an accident on the road. You know you shouldn’t look, but you can’t help yourself. And when you do, you can never unsee what you’ve seen, and you know the picture will haunt you forever.
