A Reluctant Enterprise Read online

  “All right. I’ll leave them here for now, Paulina. I’ll call Sotheby’s and have them appraised and so on, later.” Aeron put the boxes back in the safe and pulled out a thick envelope from the bottom shelf. “And what’s this?” she murmured. She opened the envelope and peered inside. Frowning, she examined the first document, kept in a transparent plastic folder.

  “Oh, fuck.” Aeron grew pale and squeezed the edges of the document through the plastic. “I hadn’t even thought about this.”

  “What is it, Aeron?” Paulina walked over to the now-slumped figure in the leather desk chair. She didn’t try to read the document but looked worriedly at Aeron.

  “My birth certificate. Look. She told me the truth all along. She said I’d never find out who he was.”

  Paulina took the document and read quickly. “Oh, honey.” She handed the document back.

  “What’s wrong? Can I help?” Sylvie felt useless in the face of such resignation.

  “Not unless you’re psychic. She listed my father as unknown on my birth certificate. On several occasions, she told me he was the love of her life. Then she’d be either drunk or high, or both, and she’d say I was half an orphan, that I’d never know this wonderful man’s name because she’d omitted it on my birth certificate. I suppose I thought she was just being vengeful and that when I became an adult, I’d be able to find out. When I grew older, I’d moved on and didn’t care anymore one way or the other. Kind of.” Aeron regarded Sylvie with empty eyes. “I’ll never know how you could put any sort of faith in that woman.”

  “I’m not psychic, not even by a long shot, but she did talk about a man she referred to as the love of her life to me as well. She let slip his first name and her nickname for him on more than one occasion. That should be at least something to go on.”

  Aeron sat up straight so fast, she nearly clocked Paulina on the chin. “Shit. Sorry, Paulina.” Placing both hands on the desk, Aeron made Sylvie feel positively nailed to the wall. “For real? Are you certain she wasn’t fooling you?”

  “Yes. I’m quite real, thank you. No, I can’t be certain, but what motive could she have for lying to me?”

  “Oh, I can think of a few.” But now the fire was back in Aeron’s green eyes. “And?”

  “She called him either by a nickname, Captain Aero, or simply Joshua.” Sylvie wished she could have told Aeron more. She hadn’t paid much attention to anything but the business up to a point. Only when she’d realized that Maeve was trying to learn and was asking both her and Helena Forsythe about business did Sylvie became aware of the person behind the socialite and party princess. When she’d let Maeve in, she also felt she was about to gain a really loyal friend. Perhaps if Maeve had lived, she’d have told Sylvie about Aeron and what caused her to live such a dangerous, destructive life in between bouts of true regret and remorse.

  “Sylvie? Captain Aero. Aeron. That can’t be a total coincidence, can it?” Aeron’s voice was small as she sat there with her knees pulled up to meet her chin. The skirt flowed around her, and she’d removed her leather jacket. Her hair, slightly wavy and curling around her temples, made her look even more vulnerable.

  “No,” Sylvie said softly and sat on the edge of the large desk. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all.

  Chapter Eight

  “You’re kidding!” Noelle sounded so stunned, Sylvie had to smile as she set her cell phone on speaker mode. She could envision the young woman tossing her blond-and-black hair back over her shoulder and frenetically waving Helena over. “I’m stunned. Absolutely stunned.”

  Sylvie was cooking for once, a skill she’d learned later in life, which made it a true pleasure. “She’s moving in with you?” Noelle’s voice nearly squeaked the last word.

  Nearly choking on a piece of raw broccoli, Sylvie coughed to clear her throat. “No. No! Listen to what I’m saying. Aeron DeForest is storing her mother’s paperwork here in my back room. She’ll come over and have a place to read in peace and quiet. She can’t keep such documents in her hotel room. Maeve’s unexpected death is still a hot topic in the tabloid press. Sooner or later they’ll figure out about Aeron—I’m honestly not sure why they haven’t already—and then all hell will break loose for her. I wonder if she realizes this.”

  “As a person who’s been through my fair share of misleading headlines, I don’t think she does. Maeve kept her well-hidden. Helena knew of a child but had honestly forgotten about it, as Maeve never said a word. And according to Helena, there were rumors about an illegitimate younger sister, or even a poor cousin, or whatever story Maeve used to spin.” Noelle sighed.

  “That’s yet another thing I don’t get. Having a child out of wedlock, even if you come from ancient money and your parents are close to Manhattan royalty, wasn’t that big a deal in 1989, was it? Not in Sweden anyway.” Sylvie placed the pieces of broccoli in the boiling water. The thought of a Swedish potato-broccoli gratin made her mouth water.

  “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.” Helena’s well-modulated voice came over the speaker. “Anna-Belle and Graham DeForest ran a tight ship. Maeve was a bit of a wild child, as you can imagine, and her parents came down hard on any sign she might disobey their strict set of rules. As I recall, and as rumor has it, Maeve fell in love at a very young age, and Aeron was the result. I can’t even imagine her parents’ reaction.”

  Sylvie began chopping vegetables for a salad. Her mind spun around the vision of Aeron sitting among the extravagant jewelry in Maeve’s study, looking as if she’d returned to her childhood for a moment. “What happened to her parents? I mean, really?”

  “They were killed in a plane crash when their private jet ran into an electrical storm on its way back from Rio.” Her voice somber, Helena spoke gently. “I believe it was in 1992. Maeve was twenty-one years old and the sole heir to the DeForest empire.”

  Sylvie stopped chopping. That would make Maeve a twenty-one-year-old single mother of a three-year-old at the time. Orphaned, an heiress, she’d surely had to pay some sort of price for having a child with a secret lover at her age. That could screw with anyone’s mind, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out it’d ultimately ended up hurting Aeron.

  “What are you doing? Tap dancing?” Noelle probably felt it was time to change the subject and lighten the mood.

  “Sorry. I’m making a salad.”

  “You’re cooking?” Noelle gave a contagious chuckle.

  “I am. I like to keep up with my Swedish heritage, you know.”

  “Aha,” Noelle said. “Don’t tell me. Meatballs.”

  “Not at all.” She told them what she was making.

  “Hold on. We’re coming over.” Helena joined them again. “Sounds really good.”

  “And here I thought you were all about sushi and Asian food and so on.” Sylvie tossed the salad and placed the bowl in the fridge. “This is pretty big on carbs, you know.”

  “I’m told every inch of me is adorable and lovable—ouch. Why are you nudging me?” Now Noelle was laughing out loud. “Helena just went the loveliest shade of pink.”

  “I bet.” Sylvie tried to picture her stylish, in-control friend blush. Only Noelle could cause the stern business tycoon to react like that. “You should be ashamed of yourself.” She grinned to herself.

  “Oh, I am. My lack of decorum devastates me.” Noelle sighed dramatically, and then Sylvie heard the sound of a kiss. “See? Very contrite.”

  “God, woman. And why am I marrying you again?” Helena asked, sounding a bit strained.

  “Again? Oh, you mean, why at all? You adore me. You love me. We’ve already been through this.”

  “Hey, you two. I’m hanging up if you’re going to get all lovey-dovey on me.” Sylvie was only half joking. She loved these two women, who indeed were her closest friends in the US, but their love was radiant whether on the phone or if you were in the same room. Noelle was a stunning, biracial young woman, and Helena was of the same stock Maeve and Aeron came from—ol
d, white money. For Helena and Noelle to find love and come out as they did amazed Sylvie. She wasn’t envious, not in a begrudging kind of way, but she couldn’t help feel a sting in her abdomen every time she saw the two of them together. They only had to be in the same room for everyone to realize they were soulmates to the core.

  “Aw, don’t do that,” Noelle said, sounding both apologetic and amused. “We’ll behave.”

  “What do you mean ‘we’?” Helena snorted.

  “Yeah, yeah. Now back to Sylvie and her tenant,” Noelle said.

  “She’s not moving in.” Sylvie groaned. “But,” she said, “she will be here quite a bit while she goes through Maeve’s papers. Combined with us being forced together by the will, I’m…concerned.” Not sure how she could, or if she even should, explain what she meant, Sylvie left the rest unsaid. If she let on how Aeron had managed to seep in through a forgotten crack in her armor, Helena and Noelle would ask follow-up questions and try to strategize. Especially Noelle, who undeniably wanted the entire world to be as happy as she was with Helena. Such plans and intrigues could only lead to heartache and unimaginable trouble.

  “You’re worried she’d crowd you or go back on her word?” Noelle sounded sympathetic.

  “She can’t do the latter once she signs the mutual agreement,” Helena said. “But crowd you, yes. I can see where that might screw with your Swedish desire to have your space.”

  “You make me sound like some old recluse.” It was Sylvie’s time to snort, but Helena wasn’t wrong. She did have a deep desire for solitude that her former lovers had never understood. They’d figured once they were seeing each other, they ought to try for the super-glue approach. One woman in particular had, uninvited, brought a suitcase with clothes, toiletries, medication, and, to Sylvie’s horror, framed photographs of her immediate family. She only made it past the door because of Sylvie’s complete shock, but soon found herself out in the corridor—suitcase, framed photos, and all. After her, Sylvie vowed to not date for a long time.

  Considering she hadn’t actively sought any woman out, not even a one-night stand, in more than two years, Sylvie wondered if she was becoming a hermit. In the early days of her friendship with Helena and, later, Noelle, they’d dropped subtle hints about many lovely women they both knew who might be a good fit for her. Sylvie had gone on a few blind dates, but as one of them had turned out to be the I’m-moving-in lady, she’d asked them to put a brake on their efforts. In retrospect it was interesting to notice that her friends must have considered her rather gloomy, as their proffered friends were mostly upbeat, and Moving-In had been downright chirpy.

  “We can always pop over and defuse any potential situation if we’re in town.” Noelle’s jewelry, which she always wore in abundance, rattled as she took the phone. “Once I’ve cut the last two tracks on my next album, we plan to visit Carolyn and Annelie. We haven’t seen them for five months. It’ll be great.”

  “In California?” Sylvie’s mood sank below zero. She knew of Caroline Black, as the woman was one of America’s most famous screen actors. When she had married Annelie Peterson, it had given the beautiful blonde instant fame as well. If Helena and Noelle weren’t planning to be in New York while she was at the mercy of the agreement with Aeron, things would be much harder.

  “No, are you kidding? California in the summer?” Noelle said. “It’s even worse than New York that time of year. They’ve invited us to their cabin in the Adirondacks. We were there last winter during a storm, remember? It’ll be great to see it all green and lush.”

  “Adirondacks? You’ve got to be kidding.” Sylvie had begun to select a red wine but now stopped in front of her wine cooler.

  “What do you mean?” Helena asked.

  “Aeron DeForest lives in the Adirondacks.”

  “Oh, shit.” Noelle gasped. “That’s such a coincidence. Or…a sign!”

  “Not again,” Sylvie said with something between a moan and a whimper. “A sign.”

  “Yes!” Sounding enthusiastic rather than deterred, Noelle continued. “What an amazing opportunity. You can come with us, and the two of you can stay at Aeron’s place and we with Carolyn and Annelie, and—”

  “Hold it, hold it.” Sylvie had pulled a bottle of Coppo Barbera from the cooler but now shoved it back in. She needed a real drink. “I’m not going to crash your friend’s cabin, nor am I going to invite myself to Aeron’s home. Please, Noelle. No more scheming. I know you mean well—”

  “But—”

  “Darling. Remember last time you tried to convince Sylvie to go out with your studio manager’s sister?” Helena asked gently. “You were so certain then, and that’s when Sylvie came close to issuing a friendly restraining order.”

  “Shit. I know. I know. I’m sorry. Again.”

  Sylvie couldn’t bear for Noelle to sound so contrite, even if she was relieved her friend was backing off. “Don’t apologize. You couldn’t know she was as needy as she was crazy.”

  Noelle guffawed. “But surely Aeron’s not needy and crazy?” she asked, her voice almost pleading.

  “Noelle.” Sylvie had reached the living room and poured herself a finger of brandy.

  “Right. Right.” Clearly giving up, Noelle chatted amicably about her latest record and about their honeymoon details. As the gratin was ready, they hung up after arranging to have lunch together in a few days.

  Carrying her food out on the balcony that faced the back of the building, she felt a certain chill in the air. She switched on the gas patio heater and hurried in for a cardigan and her cell phone. As the CEO of Thorn Industries, she had to be available in case of an emergency. Her subordinates knew exactly what qualified as such, as she’d taught herself, and then them, the art of delegating.

  She’d decided to air the wine after all and now poured herself half a glass to go with her vegetarian meal. She once in a while had fish, but never red meat or poultry. As a young girl she’d come to hate meat of any type. Her mother and her two brothers, Sylvie’s uncles who lived in northern Sweden, loved hunting just about anything all over the country. Their freezers were always stocked with moose, deer, duck, and hare, which didn’t sit right with the fourteen-year-old Sylvie.

  Taking a stand against killing for sport, rather than out of necessity, Sylvie had refused to listen to her mother’s arguments. In retrospect, it had been her first true rebellious experience. It was also the first time she’d experienced what happened when she openly went against her father.

  *

  “I don’t understand why you’re so upset, Sylvie. It’s not like we leave the game to rot in the woods. We do eat the meat. You know that,” Camilla Thorn said with exasperation as she put on her bright-orange vest and hat. The rest of her hunting outfit was camouflage patterned, which didn’t make much sense to Sylvie. Unless the deer were color-blind, why bother with camouflage when you wore safety-colored garments so your own hunting party wouldn’t shoot you?

  “Some of it you eat, yes.” Sylvie wanted to stomp her foot from sheer frustration. “You don’t get it, Mother. It’s not like we have to. We’re not some impoverished, starving family whose only means of survival is to shoot a hare or a duck every now and then.”

  “This type of meat is no different than what we buy at the store. Steaks and pork chops have all been living beings as well, you know.” Camilla resorted to that tone of pompous disdain when she wanted the argument to be over and done with.

  This time, Sylvie was even angrier. She watched as her mother dressed in the gear she wore when she was going hunting with her brothers. Normally Sylvie loved staying at their family retreat in the countryside northeast of Östersund, on the shore of a vast lake. Not this year though, when Camilla and Sylvie’s uncles, Leif and Jan, kept bringing home more and more game. At first, Sylvie didn’t intend to say anything, as she knew this was her mother’s favorite thing to do up north. Only when they wanted her to help prepare one of the deer did she let them know she’d had enough. “I’ll n
ever help with that,” Sylvie growled, shoving her hands into the pockets of her denim jacket.

  “How’s she going to get her hunting license if she refuses to clean the game afterward?” Leif asked, sounding more incredulous than angry.

  “I don’t want a hunting license.” Rocking back and forth on her soles, Sylvie didn’t back down.

  “Why not? We’re doing a community service by keeping the numbers down.” Camilla looked genuinely surprised. “I know you’ve never shown much interest, but I was sure you’d grow into this.” She made it sound like a hunting license was something inevitable and that Sylvie needed it, just as she should develop the proper shape to fit one of the ridiculous-looking ball gowns her mother insisted on buying her.

  “And having great fun killing animals in the process.” Sylvie’s eyes filled with tears. The thought of the deer hanging from one of the beams in the barn haunted her.

  “But the country has too many deer and moose. Someone has to hunt, or the animals will starve when there isn’t enough food to go around.” Camilla tried her arguments with an increasingly louder voice. “And this isn’t much different than buying a pork chop from the supermarket.” She tended to repeat herself when she was trying to make a point.

  “Yes, it is. You enjoy the hunt. It’s the whole idea. You find your prey, you outsmart it, set your dogs on it, and then you get the thrill you’re after and then you—you—”

  “What the hell is all the yelling about?” Daniel Thorn entered the living room. “What’s going on? You’re screaming so loud the neighbors will hear.”

  “Just a difference of opinion, darling,” Camilla said quickly, sending Sylvie a warning glance. “You know, mother-daughter issues.” Her laughter sounded forced, and Sylvie could tell her father wasn’t buying it. She straightened her back, as she had around her father for many years, and refused to let him intimidate her.

  Camilla sighed with mock impatience. “Well, what do you know, Daniel? We have a little vegetarian on our hands. Guess we better tell cook to stock up on carrots and broccoli.”