Double Dealing: A Menage Romance(60)

"I know," he answered, reading the emotions in my eyes. "I miss him too. We’ll have a memorial ceremony as soon as the vote is completed. That should be in a day or two. I’ll shed my tears there. For now, I’ve got a lot to do, regardless of the final verdict. I also have a very serious question for you, Jordan."

"Yes, Francois?" I asked, suddenly nervous. His face was so serious and composed, there was none of the good humor or twinkle that I had come to expect from him. Felix's death had changed him, and I wondered if that good-natured Francois, the daring one who had somehow convinced me to have sex in the middle of a forest would ever return. "What is it?"

"Do you still want to be my wife?" he asked, setting me down and taking my hands. "I know it’d be different from if Felix was still here, but my feelings for you are the same. I can’t imagine a future without you."

I blinked, relief washing over me unexpectedly. Had I actually thought that Francois wouldn't want me still? “Of course, my love. I need you more than ever.”

He bent his head, looking down and blinking before looking up at me, his eyes glistening. "When you are recovered, and our tears are shed, we’ll talk about that more. For now though, let’s have dinner. You look like you need it.”





Chapter 27





Francois




With a real meal sitting in her belly for the first time in days, Jordan fell asleep on the couch soon after the last of the food was eaten. Syeira was just about to go help with dishes before I stopped her. "Please, wait and talk with me."

She nodded, and I led her outside where we could talk quietly. "How are you doing?"

"Today was better than yesterday," she said quietly. She wasn’t a broken woman, her spirit was too strong for that, but she was severely beaten down. Even though it wasn't her fault, I thought it wasn’t too great a punishment for Syeira to bear for what she did to my mother. “Some day are worse than others. Your mother has been helpful."

"I know, and I’m grateful for her help," I said. "Syeira, I can’t imagine your pain. I know that I can’t replace my brother, but I just want you to know, I consider you my mother too. Will you help me as you helped Felix?”

It was true, I'd need her advice. She'd been the crown princess for all her life and knew more about how to keep up with the political side of Romani life than anyone. She thought, and nodded. "For a while, until you get settled. I just hope you and Jordan make me a grandmother. Maybe that’ll bring some joy back into my life."

I smiled. If I decided to let her live that long, she wouldn’t be spending much time with her grandchildren, that was for sure. As mean as the thought was, I had a deep resentment not only for Felix, but for his mother as well. “One thing at a time, Syeira. One thing at a time." It was weird having these hateful thoughts at the forefront of my mind. The resentment had always been there, but I’d suppressed it for all my life.

Later that night, as the moon was high and everyone else was sleeping, I got out of my bed. While I wished that Jordan could have slept with me, my mother was insistent that she spend the next few nights in a private bed. "The girl needs to recover her strength," Mom told me. "Not expend it in amorous pursuits with you. Give her a little time.”

So I walked through the house well after midnight, listening to my mother and her sister snore in Charani's bedroom, sharing a bed like they did forty years earlier as little girls. Jordan was in Syeira's bed, the moonlight streaming through the window to light up her face. In the pale illumination, she looked both ethereally beautiful and fragile. She didn't really have a grasp of how much weight she'd lost during the five days she'd been inconsolable, and her cheekbones still stood out ghastly underneath her sunken eyes.

I watched her, inside knowing that I had to just keep up the charade for a few more days. Not the charade about the stress of the ascension, that was no lie at all. But still, I had to make sure that Jordan, Syeira and Charani all thought that I was broken up about Felix's supposed death. And if I was honest with myself, I was a little bit, but I had to do what I had to do.

I wondered, as the light shifted and Jordan rolled over, her face tense as another dream passed through her mind, if they would ever want to know what really happened to him. Then again, I wondered if I wanted to know what really happened to my brother myself. Despite having a deep jealous resentment for him, I still couldn’t help but have some feelings for him.

In her sleep, Jordan moaned, not in passion but in sadness. "Felix . . .” she said in a low, lost little girl's voice. "Don't go . . .”

I could have been angered, but I wasn't. Ghosts can’t hurt me, regardless of what superstitions people have. I turned and left her to her dream. Time would heal her wound, and she would be mine. Mine alone.



* * *



The rented room wasn't exactly spacious, but our town didn't have a lot of rentable conference rooms. Valence isn’t like New York, where nearly every hotel and motel has large conference rooms available for rent. Valence was more old-fashioned European, with inns and hotels that were just that, nothing more. And by Romani tradition, the men in the room wouldn’t go onto my family's property until the decision was made.