“I must be going,” she heard Herr Schroeder say from just inside Lucien’s office. “The plane you have ordered for me will be waiting.”
“I’ll be going, too,” Maria said, giving Lucien a nod. “Everything is ready, Lucien.”
“Thank you. Thank you both,” Lucien said, pulling his gaze off Elise and glancing into his office. “Maria, would you mind seeing Herr Schroeder out before you go?”
“Of course,” Maria said, smiling at Herr Schroeder as Lucien stepped aside and the other man walked out. Elise caught a glimpse of a silver-haired, elegantly dressed man of about sixty before Maria was leading him down the hallway. Lucien and she stared at each other without speaking. A moment later, Maria called a good-bye and the front door closed.
“Come in,” Lucien said. He nodded toward his office. Elise stepped inside the luxurious, masculine, leather-clad room. “Have a seat,” he murmured, waving at one of two leather wing-back chairs that faced each other, a toasty brown walnut table between them. Lucien sat across from her. Elise searched for what to say. Would he suspect she’d overheard part of his conversation with Herr Schroeder?
“He’s a private investigator.” Lucien spoke before she had decided how to broach what had just happened. “Herr Schroeder is looking into the location of the embezzled funds for me. As you likely already realize, he’s worked for me on several occasions in the past.”
“He’s the man I overheard you talking with in Paris years ago. Lucien, what’s going on? The man you mentioned dying in prison, it wasn’t Adrien, was it?” she asked, anguished.
He blanched. “No, of course not. I was referring to a man you don’t know. A man you have no connection to whatsoever, and never will.”
“Then what has that man—Herr Schroeder—got to do with Ian Noble? You two were discussing Ian in Paris years back, and then you came here to Chicago. Please tell me,” she added softly when she saw how glacial his stare became.
“How will I ever cure you of this proclivity for eavesdropping,” he mumbled after a moment.
“You seem to have a talent for it yourself,” she returned quickly, referring to catching him listening to Ian while he’d been on the phone. He frowned. She heard the brass clock on his desk ticking quietly in the ensuing silence. Lucien remained unmoving, his arms reclining loosely on the arms of the chair. His gaze on her didn’t waver. She sensed his tension despite his relaxed pose, sensed him studying her with that laser-like stare. Suddenly he stood.
“I need a drink,” he said, walking toward a sideboard with several decanters and glasses set on a tray. “Will you have a glass of cognac with me?”
“All right,” she said, even though she didn’t really want a drink. She was anxious to hear what Lucien would say. She watched him as he deftly poured the golden-brown liquid from a crystal decanter into two snifters.
“Do you remember years ago, in Nice, when you asked me if I was curious about my biological mother?” he asked a moment later as he came toward her with the glass in his hand.
She started in surprise before she accepted the snifter. “Yes. Of course. You said that you didn’t think about her often. That you had nothing to miss, never having a devoted mother figure.”
His smile struck her as poignant. “And you informed me you were adopted as well—just as confident and sure of yourself as a princess.”
“You told me that I was the spitting image of my mother. I was so hurt by that,” she said softly. “But then you reminded me that it was what was on the inside that counted . . . that I could choose who I wanted to be. I’ve always remembered that.”
He sat again and took a sip of his cognac. “Now here you are, creating a meaningful life, proving that there’s more to our destinies than our biology.”
Her cheeks heated in pleasure at his compliment. “You’re the one who first taught me that lesson.”
“And do you believe it?” he asked, his intensity mounting her confusion over his puzzling manner.
“Yes. I do. I think our parents influence us, but as human beings, we can choose what we want our life to mean. Lucien, what’s this all about? What does it have to do with that man—Herr Schroeder—and Ian Noble?”
He seemed to hesitate. For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. He finally took another sip of cognac and set down his snifter on the table.
“During that same conversation in Nice, I told you that I didn’t think much about my biological mother. I wasn’t being completely honest with you.”
Something squeezed tight in her chest. “You did think about her, didn’t you? You wondered,” she said in a hushed voice.
“It wasn’t an easy topic for me to discuss. Then or now. Of course I wondered about the woman who bore me. What had made her give me up? What were the circumstances that she needed to? Did I have other family? Brothers? Sisters? Aunts? Uncles? Did I look like them? I wondered. Incessantly. I’ve been trying to find her for eight years now,” he admitted starkly.
“You have?”
He nodded slowly. Something about his rigid expression made compassion flood through her. She sat forward in her chair. “Have you found anything yet?”
He exhaled and shut his eyes briefly. She sensed his frustration. “Most leads have been dead ends, for one reason or another. I know a few things. I know that my mother gave me up for adoption in Cabourg, and that she was of Moroccan descent. Apparently, she worked as a domestic in northern France.”