Hotel Vendome

Chapter 20

WHILE HUGUES AND Natalie relaxed in the lap of luxury at the fabulous Palmilla Hotel in Baja, Heloise worked seven days a week at the hotel and kept an eye on everything for her father. Two assistant managers were in charge in his absence, but Heloise was an excellent additional pair of eyes to see that all was going smoothly and people were behaving. She was working double shifts at the front desk in his absence, but she managed to take time off to have dinner with Brad Peterson the week after the wedding. He was taking summer classes so he could finish law school sooner. At the moment he was torn between becoming a tax attorney or an entertainment lawyer. Both fields interested him. But Heloise intrigued him even more when he had dinner with her. They went to a Chinese restaurant near Columbia that was full of students, and they talked about her experiences at hotel school and the George V again. And he was fascinated hearing her stories about their hotel. It sounded like an exciting place to grow up.

“Do you think you’ll take over for your father one day?” he asked with interest. He got the feeling that she was capable of it, or would be in time.

“I don’t know. I want him to run it forever. I’d rather be number two under him. I can’t imagine the Vendôme without him. He put it all together himself, and it’s just a perfect little hotel. We offer all the same services the big hotels do, just to better clients and with fewer rooms.” He could see how proud she was of her father’s hotel, and how loyal she was to him. She talked about her mother a little bit, but only superficially. She said her parents had divorced when she was four, and her mother was married to Greg Bones, the rock star, which sounded interesting to Brad. Everything about her interested him, and he was powerfully attracted to her. She was American, but she looked very European, and he liked the way she dressed. She managed to look young, sexy, and chic all at the same time. She was much more exciting than any of the girls he’d met.

He invited her out again the following weekend. He took her downtown to the Café Cluny, and she invited him to watch movies and have room service in her new apartment on Sunday night. They saw each other again twice the following week, and by then he kissed her, and they were falling all over each other like two puppies.

By the time Hugues and Natalie came home from their two-week honeymoon at Palmilla, Brad and Heloise were definitely an item, and he was becoming a familiar sight at the hotel. Everyone thought they looked cute together, and they liked Brad a lot. And so did Heloise.

She was thrilled to see her father and Natalie when they got home, suntanned, happy, and rested, and she mentioned Brad casually when she had dinner with them on their first night back. Her father noticed that she had moved most of her things downstairs.

“It would have been too lonely up here without you,” she said simply. “Besides, you guys need some privacy, and so do I.” He thought it was a powerful statement and wondered what she’d been up to while they were gone, other than working. And then she mentioned Brad in an offhanded way, and her stepmother smiled.

“So is this a big deal?” Natalie asked her, and Heloise shrugged with a mysterious smile. Her father was startled to see it. They had been gone for two weeks, and suddenly she had a new romance. But she was twenty-one after all, and Natalie had told him before that her nephew was a great guy and she wanted him to meet her. Heloise hadn’t dated anyone seriously since François, in nearly a year.

“I don’t know. It’s too soon to tell. It might be,” she said cryptically. She hadn’t slept with him yet and wasn’t ready to. But Natalie had the feeling it wasn’t far off.

“Well, that sounds interesting.” Natalie smiled at her and was happy for her. She needed more than just work in her life, and she was so dedicated to the hotel. Everyone had told Hugues that she’d done a great job while he was away, and did much more than just her internship duties at the front desk. She had been all over the hotel checking on things a dozen times a day. And he was pleased by how responsible and diligent she was.

And the honeymooners looked happy and rested and more in love than ever. They were planning to spend August settling into married life. Natalie was giving up her apartment, and moving in the rest of her things, and putting some of it in the hotel storerooms. And in September she was planning to tackle new projects, and a few more rooms to renovate in the hotel. And he still wanted to give her the presidential suite to do when there was room for it in their budget.

She was coming back from her apartment one afternoon a week later, with more of her decorating accessories and belongings, when Natalie got into the elevator and found herself looking at Heloise and Brad. They were on their way up to her apartment. Brad kissed his aunt and looked surprisingly comfortable, as though both the hotel and Heloise were familiar to him now. It was Heloise’s day off. Now that her father was back, she had a little more time to herself.

“What have you two been up to?” Natalie asked, intrigued to see them so happy together. They’d been holding hands when she got in.

“We just went to a street fair downtown,” Heloise said, looking radiant. Brad put an arm around her shoulders, and a minute later they got out on the fifth floor. Natalie asked if they wanted to come up later for dinner, but Heloise was quick to say that they were going out again. And she didn’t know why, but after they got out, Natalie didn’t think she believed her. Obviously they wanted to be alone. She smiled to herself as she got off on her floor and let herself into their apartment. Hugues was working out at the gym as she put her things away, and she mentioned to him later that she had seen Heloise and Brad.

“Do you suppose that’s serious?” he asked, glancing up at her, and she smiled as she shrugged.

“As much as it can be at that age. But it’s sweet anyway. They’re both good kids with good values and their eyes on serious careers. She could do a lot worse.”

“Okay,” he nodded, reassured. He trusted her judgment, even about his daughter. He missed having Heloise in the apartment, but he knew it had been the right time for her to move downstairs. And he liked being alone with his wife. It gave them a lot of privacy and freedom they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

September was extremely hectic at the hotel. It was always a busy month as people got back after the summer or came to New York on business or for social events. And most of their regular guests showed up in September. And to complicate matters, they had a terrorist threat that forced them to empty the hotel. Hotel management had been told that a bomb would go off within the hour. Hugues assessed the threat with the police, and they had called for the bomb squad and evacuated the hotel immediately. The police suspected that it was a false threat, but they couldn’t take the chance.

Employees knocked on doors on every floor, security manned the stairways, and Heloise was racing from floor to floor with her father, to check that all was orderly and to reassure people as they left their rooms with some concern. Jennifer, Bruce, and the doorman were directing people outside, and in twenty minutes they had everyone out and corralled safely two blocks away behind police lines, while hotel employees handed out coffee and tea from rolling carts. It happened in the early evening, when many people had come back from their day and hadn’t yet gone out to dinner. Natalie arrived from her office just as the guests were pouring out of the hotel. And once they got them all out and at a safe distance, Heloise called Brad on her cell phone and told him all about it. They talked to each other constantly now, and sent texts all day.

“Do you want me to come and help?” he offered, and she liked that idea.

“Sure, if you want to.” He arrived half an hour later, having come down from Columbia by subway. He was amazed at the huge crowd of hotel guests standing in the street. It looked very orderly, although some of them were visibly upset. And they all wanted to know how soon they could go back to their rooms. Bruce and his security men were walking among them, reassuring people, while room service waiters served tea, coffee, and bottled water. Many of the guests had evening plans and were standing there in bathrobes. And SWAT teams were sweeping the hotel for bombs, floor by floor.

Vans brought food out for all the guests, and Brad helped Heloise and the room service waiters hand out sandwiches and cookies. He was extremely pleasant to everyone, and very helpful, calming people down when he could. No one appeared to be angry, but many were justifiably concerned. And Hugues was extremely grateful that it had happened in good weather and not in the dead of winter, which had happened once before. All hotels were vulnerable to that kind of threat these days.

And three hours later, the police declared the hotel safe and let everyone back in. Much to everyone’s relief and annoyance, it had been a false alarm. And once they were all back inside and had gone up to their rooms, Brad went up to Heloise’s apartment with her. They were among the last to leave the street. Brad had been impressed by how well she handled herself, how poised she was, and how cool in a crisis. She was definitely in the right business. And she had thought the same thing about him. He had been calm and helpful throughout and handled the guests well.

“That was fun,” he admitted sheepishly. He liked the excitement and helping her. He had chatted quite a bit with the police.

“Don’t say that to my father,” she said with a grin. “He hates that stuff. It upsets people. It takes a lot of effort to make it up to them later. He probably won’t charge for any of the rooms tonight. You pretty much have to do that, even though it’s not our fault.” She had finally collapsed on the couch next to him and looked tired as she took her shoes off. She’d been out there in her navy suit and high heels all night, looking very competent and official and older than her years. It was hard for Brad to believe sometimes that she was only twenty-one, but she looked it now with her jacket off, as she loosened her long hair from the bun, and it cascaded past her shoulders. And suddenly the dusting of freckles on her face looked more apparent too. She had gone from woman to kid in two minutes. And as he smiled at her, he leaned over and kissed her, and she melted into his arms.

“You look so sexy when you let your hair down,” he whispered, and suddenly after all they’d done that night, they were both over-come with desire for each other. It had been a busy evening, and instead of tired, both of them were wound up, and it found expression in a suddenly insatiable hunger and passion, more than ever before. Their excitement had been building for two months. And before either of them could stop or wanted to, they were making love on the floor. They had waited a long time for this, by mutual agreement, and now nothing could stop it. They were breathless and spent afterward and laughed as they held each other.

“Ohmygod, what happened?” he said as he looked at her. He had been hit with a tidal wave of longing for her so powerful that nothing could have stopped it. And he felt it mounting in him again.

“I’ve been wanting you so much,” she admitted to him, as they both got up, and then laughing again, he raced her to the bedroom, where they both dove into the bed, still giggling. Being with him was fun. It had none of the intensity and eventual boredom and dishonesty she had experienced with François in Paris. This felt so right, and they seemed so well matched. She liked hearing about his experiences at law school. And he was fascinated by the hotel and most of all by her.

They made love twice more that night, and he spent the night with her for the first time. He had to get up early the next morning for a class, and she ordered breakfast for him, and then put on running clothes, and walked him to the subway when he left. She was on her way back when she ran into her father and Natalie coming out of the elevator, dressed to leave the hotel in comfortable clothes. It was seven A.M.

“What are you two doing going out at this hour?” Heloise asked them without thinking, as her father avoided her eyes, and Natalie looked vague.

“I have an early morning meeting,” she said after a strange pause, but she wasn’t dressed for it. She always dressed impeccably for her meetings, and she was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and sandals, which was totally unlike her. And they were obviously in a hurry to leave. Natalie said she’d call her later, Hugues was already outside, and Heloise went upstairs to take a shower. She’d had an incredible night with Brad. He texted her from his class a little while later and told her that he loved her and she was the sexiest woman in the world. It wasn’t the first time he had told her he loved her, but it was the first time they had made love. And it had been unbelievable. All she wanted now was more.

When Natalie got into the taxi, she looked nervously at Hugues. “Do you think she knew something?”

“No,” he said, putting an arm around her to calm her. “I don’t think she’d ever imagine it. And we’re not doing anything wrong.” She had waited a lifetime for this, without even knowing that she had. Hugues had been giving her hormone shots for three months, which were making her seriously jumpy, and they were on their way to the fertility clinic they’d been going to, for the implantation of four fertilized embryos. They had retrieved her eggs and were putting them back, fertilized by Hugues’s sperm, today. The egg retrieval had been a painful process, today was going to be much easier for her. And then they’d have to wait to see what happened, and if the fertilized embryos would stay. They had wanted to try and get pregnant naturally, but at her age, with weak hormone levels, they’d discovered, her doctor had recommended IVF.

She was so anxious, all she wanted to do was cry, which she did the moment she got to the clinic. As soon as they led her into the room, she burst into tears, not because she was frightened but because she wanted so much for this to work. At her age, statistically they had a six to ten percent chance of success, which wasn’t high. But it was worth a try. They had discussed it for several months after Hugues proposed, and he had agreed since it meant so much to her. She had never wanted babies before, but now that she was in love with him, and married, it was all she could think about. He would have been perfectly happy not to have children with her, but he felt an obligation to her, since she had never had any of her own. He had Heloise, and that was enough for him. And it was a little odd now thinking about starting over again, with a baby or even several of them if she had a multiple birth. He was fifty-four, she was almost forty-two, and they were implanting four embryos that morning. They had decided that four embryos were the right number. More than that would have been dangerous for her and the eventual babies. She didn’t want a litter, and she would have been satisfied with one baby, as long as it was Hugues’s. They had agreed to say nothing to Heloise, not to upset her again. It had taken her six months to adjust to their marriage, and they didn’t want to rock the boat again so soon, and particularly if their efforts never worked. They were going to tell her only if it did.

Natalie had been praying for this and had even lit candles at church.

They implanted the embryos using an embryo transfer catheter, and Hugues was at her side. An hour later they were on their way back to the hotel. They told her to stay in bed that day and take it easy for a few days, no exercise, heavy lifting, or hot tubs. She had to continue taking progesterone to aid with implantation. And she could take a pregnancy test in two weeks. After that they would do a sonogram to see how many embryos had stayed. It was going to seem like an endless wait, and they had already told them that it might take several attempts. Many people didn’t succeed until the third or fourth, if they could afford it, which at least wasn’t a problem for them. It was a costly procedure, but their greatest fear was that it wouldn’t work. Natalie was obsessed with having Hugues’s child.

He brought her home from the clinic and tucked her into bed, just as he had Heloise every night for all those years. And he bent down and kissed her.

“Now you and our babies stay here,” he said gently. “Don’t get out of bed.”

“I won’t,” she promised, holding his hand. He had been so sweet to her about it, which made her feel even closer to him now, and she knew he was only doing it for her. She was terrified to move and lose them, so she stayed in bed all day. She was watching old sitcom re-runs on TV and having room service when Heloise called her on her cell phone.

“Where were you and Dad rushing off to this morning?” she asked, sounding curious.

“I had a meeting with a client at dawn in a weird neighborhood, and your dad offered to take me. I didn’t want to take the car or get stuck there without a cab.” At least it was a good story, and Heloise believed it.

“Where are you now? In your office?”

“No. I came back after the meeting. I’m in bed upstairs. I think I have the flu.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. Did you order stuff from room service?”

“Yeah, chicken soup. I feel a little better. It’s probably nothing. I probably got up too early.” She sounded all right, but she was determined to do what she was told and take it easy for the day. She was directing projects in her office by phone.

“Do you want me to send something else up?” Heloise offered, but Natalie said she was fine with what she had upstairs.

“What were you doing out so early, by the way?” Natalie asked her. “I hope you’re not running in the park at that hour, it’s extremely dangerous,” she warned her, and she’d noticed the running clothes. But Heloise giggled.

“No, I walked Brad to the subway.” She felt comfortable with Natalie now and liked having a woman to share her secrets. She was even more open with her than she had been with Jennifer over the years, but she was older now, and Natalie was closer to her age. “He spent the night,” Heloise confessed. She sounded almost proud as she said it and very much in love.

“Was that the first time?” Natalie was touched that she had told her, and thought it was great news. She loved the idea of the two of them together and thought it would be a nice relationship for them both.

“Yes, we held out till last night. The bomb threat did us in. We came upstairs, and that was it.” Natalie smiled as she listened. It had been quite an evening.

“Well, if it makes any difference, I approve.”

“Thank you. Just don’t tell my father. I don’t tell him stuff like that. He might be upset.” He hadn’t been thrilled with François, although he had accepted it. She was still his little girl.

“It’s just between us,” Natalie assured her, wishing she could tell her about the in vitro fertilization that morning, but it was too soon. “Have you seen him around today?” Natalie was missing him, alone in their apartment.

“Yes, he was in his office writing letters to the guests, apologizing for last night. And he’s been in the lobby a lot today, reassuring people and telling them how sorry he is. People have been pretty nice about it. But they still don’t like it. You don’t want them to think there will be bomb threats whenever they stay here. But I think most people were pleased that we evacuated and didn’t take the chance. Better inconvenience them than risk blowing them up,” she said bluntly, and Natalie smiled.

“Yeah, I’ll say.” She was glad it wasn’t today. She didn’t want to move.

“I’ll call you later and see how you feel,” Heloise promised, and then she went back to work.

Hugues came up later than usual that night; he’d been busy all day smoothing ruffled feathers about the bomb threat. And he was concerned about her when he came in.

“How do you feel?” He looked worried, and he knew that if she got pregnant, particularly with several babies, he’d be even more so. This was a big deal, particularly at their age.

“Fine. Nothing weird. Just a little cramping.” But they had warned her that might happen, so she wasn’t worried. She smiled at him, and he bent down to kiss her. In his spare moments he had thought about it all day, imagining what it would be like to have a baby with her, and a little one running around, or more than one. He was beginning to like the idea, and it made him feel young.

Two days later Natalie went back to work, and life went back to normal. The hotel settled down. She went to her office every day. It seemed like an endless two weeks waiting to take the test. They told her she could do it at home, and then she’d have to come in for a blood test and a sonogram. And once a pregnancy was confirmed, she would have to switch to an obstetrician. Their job was to get her pregnant, not to follow her once she was.

She had bought a pregnancy test and had it in a drawer in her bathroom, waiting for the big day. She was so nervous about it that after she peed on the test stick, she just sat in her bathroom and cried in anticipation of the news. She was going to be so disappointed if it hadn’t worked, and so stunned if it had. She had hardly dared to hope for the past two weeks, but it was all that she could think of. And she tried not to talk about it too much with Hugues, but it was on his mind too. After she did a pregnancy test at home, she was going to have a blood test to confirm her HCG levels.

She was holding the stick in her trembling hand and looking at her watch. It was time. In fact, it was a minute longer, and she hadn’t looked yet. And then finally, holding her breath, she did. She stared at it in utter amazement and burst into sobs. There were two pink lines just where they were supposed to be. Two strong bright pink lines, just the way the instructions said. She was pregnant!