Exposed (Madame X, #2)(81)

“It’s just new for me. I never . . . it never occurred to me to be jealous until I saw Caleb with someone else. He did it on purpose. He was mad at me about . . . well, that’s a long story. But he was mad at me, so he arranged for me to see him kissing another girl on the street below my apartment. My old apartment, I mean.” I try not to remember. I don’t want those memories crowding out my new sense of self. “As far as tactics go, it was effective. But that was the first time that I can remember feeling jealous. I thought he was . . . I don’t know. Not mine, because it didn’t work that way between Caleb and me. But it just . . . it never occurred to me that he’d have other women in his life. It wasn’t a good feeling.”

“I don’t suppose so.” It’s all Logan says on that subject. Smart of him, I think. Nothing good could come from his opinion of Caleb. I know how he feels and why, and there’s no sense discussing it.

Miles pass under the tires, past the windows. The radio is off, silence is thick. I don’t know where we’re going.

“What do you want to do, Isabel?” Logan asks, abruptly breaking the silence.

“I was wondering where you were going.”

He shakes his head. “No, that’s not what I mean. Right now I’m taking us to lunch, this great Mediterranean place I know in Brooklyn. I meant with your life. With yourself. What do you want? How will you live?”

Optimism leaves me in a rush. “I don’t know, Logan.”

“I only ask because I know you well enough by now to know you’ll only be content if you’re making your own way.” He reaches out and takes my hand, glances at me briefly. “You can stay with me. I’ll support you. Everything I have is yours. If that’s what you want, you’ll never have to work another day in your life. I’m not as wildly rich as Caleb, but I’m doing pretty f*cking well for myself. You’ll never want for anything. My point wasn’t that you’re not welcome, or that there’s some kind of expiration date on you staying with me. But I feel like you need your own space. Your own thing. So that’s what I’m asking. What do you want for yourself?”

He’s right. I would feel owned all over again if I relied on him. Even if that was not his intention, even if he went out of his way to make sure I didn’t feel that way, it would seep in.

So what do I want?

I have absolutely no idea. What am I capable of? What am I good at?

I spend a long, long time thinking. And I can only come to one sad conclusion. “I’ve only ever done one thing. I only know how to be Madame X, and I cannot be her anymore. But what else can I do?” I am near tears, but I keep them down. Force them away.

“What if you don’t have to be Madame X anymore, but still perform that same basic service, just . . . on your own? For yourself. Not as Madame X, but as Isabel de la Vega.”

I breathe deeply and slowly, carefully. “I . . . I don’t know. Could I? I don’t know. Why would I do that? What was it I really did?” I trace the stitching in the leather at the edge of my seat. “Looking back, I find only dubious value in the service I performed.”

“See, I disagree. I think you performed a very valuable service. When you’re dealing with people as rich as your former clientele, parenting often gets left at the wayside. Pursuit of wealth is the only thing that matters to many of them. So . . . you end up with spoiled rich kids who have no conception of reality, who don’t value hard work or money, who have no sense of self or decency or morals or anything. And I think your real value was in taking them down a few notches. Making them realize that the world wasn’t always going to revolve around them. That it didn’t, doesn’t, and never will.” He pulls to a stop on a street, I have no idea which one or where we are, and parallel parks in front of a restaurant. Doesn’t get out, pivots in his seat and looks into my eyes. “I think you could open your own business doing the same basic thing, but maybe take it a few steps further. You’d probably make a f*cking fortune, and you’d be doing the world a favor by taking the douche out of some of the spoiled *s out there.”

I consider it. “You really think so?”

He nods. “I really do. But the thing here is that you’d be doing it on your own terms. No persona. Just you being you. You’d do what you did before, meet and assess each client, and come up with a treatment plan or whatever you want to call it. Teach them manners. Like, basic manners. Make them wait tables. Make them do charity work, like at a soup kitchen or something. Whatever you think necessary to enact the change in them.”

“Where would I find clients? I—I don’t even know where to start.”

He smiles at me and squeezes my hand. “I can help. It’s sort of what I do, you know. I can even float you a startup loan.”

“I need to consider.”

He nods. “Of course. It’s a big step.”

I put it out of my mind as we exit the SUV and sit down to eat. The food is delicious, of course. I let him order for me, and thus do not know the names of any of the dishes. I just know that everything is heavy in garlic, features rice and olives and lamb and chicken and thick crispy pita bread. It is flavorful and filling, but not heavy. As we eat, Logan brings the conversation back around to the idea of me starting my own business.

“One thing I’d say for sure is that you wouldn’t work out of your home. You need a separation of work and home. Unless you’re, like, a computer programmer or something, you need your own space that’s just for you. Especially in the line of business you’re considering. You can’t have clients coming and going from your living room. That just invites familiarity, and you need to remain aloof. Untouchable. Imposing. The atmosphere would still have to seem informal, comfortable, but separate from your personal space.” He shovels a few forkfuls of rice into his mouth and then stabs a green olive, gesturing with the fork and the olive. “I think—I think . . .” He eats the olive, and I’m noticing that the more he discusses this, the more effusive he becomes. It’s endearing and adorable and inspiring, seeing his excitement over this idea. It’s contagious. “I think if you bought a town house kind of like mine, we could renovate it to suit your needs. Make a front room, a deep comfortable leather couch, a little kitchenette and bar, a bay window overlooking the street. And then make a separate entrance leading to your space, which would take up the rest of the house, use both upper and lower levels. Maybe make the bedroom a loft over the rest. Keep it open, you know? The door to your space would need to be really secure, though, maybe use biometrics. Thumbprints and whatever, right?”