“I admire you too. Thank you for being a friend to him, as well as his employer. We all need our friends.” Olivia nodded, touched, and a look passed between the two women that only they understood. “Thank you,” Liese said again, they kissed on both cheeks, and Olivia left. She thanked Joachim again at the door, and they didn’t kiss, but a warm look passed between them. And Liese was eating one of the éclairs when he came back into the room. She looked up at him with a grin. “I don’t know if you’re in love with her,” she said, licking the chocolate off her fingers delicately, “but I am. What a lovely woman she is. And she is your friend, whether you know it or not.” He nodded, not sure what to say.
He sent Olivia a text an hour later. “Thank you for making my mother so happy.” And she responded immediately.
“I’m in love with her. You’re a lucky man.”
“I know,” was his response, and he wondered when he would see Olivia again. Probably not for a while, but the air had been cleared, and he was happy the two women had met.
Olivia thought about Joachim and his mother that night. He was a complicated man, with an unusual background. A war criminal grandfather, a drug lord identical twin brother, a father he never knew, an extraordinary mother, and all of it had made him who he was. Her history was much simpler. A father pretending not to be, a mother who had given up her life for a married man. Her mother had taught her everything she didn’t want to be, including being dependent on a selfish, dishonest man. They had both been weak, selfish people. Joachim had terrible people in his history, and also a mother who was a shining example of everything one should be. She had been the greatest influence on him of all.
Chapter 17
Just as Olivia had hoped, the chateau was finished right on time, in less than the eight months she’d allowed for. She had done it by sheer grit, determination, and hard work. She had the whole place cleaned, the gardens were as beautiful as Nikolai Petrov had hoped. She completed the interior installation in three days of nonstop work, curtains, paintings, furniture. It was a showplace beyond the owner’s wildest dreams, and hers. She took photographs of it for Nikolai and herself and emailed a set to Joachim too. He texted her that he was stunned at how beautiful it was and what she had done since he’d left.
She waited for a response from Nikolai Petrov and got none. She emailed him again, and still no response. He had transferred all the money she needed for final payments, and paid her fee, but there was no letter, no email, no text, no call. It didn’t make sense to her and she called Audrey Wellington in New York to ask her to check with her original contact if everything was all right. Audrey sounded shocked to hear from her.
“You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what? Did someone kill him?” It was the only thing she could think of to explain his silence, now that he was the owner of such an exquisite property and home. It almost did look like Versailles and every inch of it gleamed. Olivia had been waiting for him to arrive so she could show it to him, and how all the technology worked. Even that had been installed on time. Even the pool was complete. It really was a miracle. She’d never worked so hard on anything in her life. She’d been too busy to read the papers and see it.
“He was convicted of money laundering in France. All of his property has been seized. I think he had three or four houses in the South of France, and some apartment buildings in Paris. The government is taking them all. Including the one you just finished, I’m sure.”
“That’s it? And then what?” Olivia was stunned. She had worked like a slave to finish it for him, and now the government was taking it and she hadn’t heard a word from him.
“They’ll sell it at auction, probably for much less than it’s worth, a fraction of it. It will be a fabulous deal for someone. Government seizures always are.”
“How does that happen? Will someone notify me? Who do I give the keys to? I’ve been writing to him for ten days and he hasn’t answered.”