“Me too. I can’t wait to see you tonight.”
“We can always sneak back upstairs this afternoon if you want to. The senator isn’t arriving till tomorrow.” They both laughed at the suggestion and knew that for now they were safer at her place, until they were ready to share their secret with the world. But he wanted to tell Heloise before he did that. It was a respect he felt he owed her, and Natalie agreed. They had talked about it the night before in the bathtub. Hugues said he was going to tell her about them over Christmas, which sounded right to her too, and not over the phone. She was coming home in four weeks, and they could be discreet for that long. And it was kind of fun keeping their relationship a secret. “By the way, I want you to do the other three big suites. We can talk about it when you have time.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling. She was happy about doing the other rooms, but she was much more excited about him and everything that had happened the night before.
“See you later.” After that, his day took off. He was busy until nine o’clock that night, and as soon as he could get away, he took a cab downtown to Natalie’s apartment. She was wearing a pretty sweater and jeans, and before he could even open the champagne, they were in bed, exploring everything they had started to learn about each other the night before. They couldn’t get enough of each other. And it was nice to be away from the hotel where they didn’t have to worry about being discovered.
He lay in bed afterward and looked at her with love and wonder. “How did I get lucky enough to finally find you?” he said, and meant it.
“I feel exactly the same way. I feel like I wasted all those stupid years before you came along.” She kissed him, and he smiled at her.
“They weren’t wasted. They were the price we both had to pay to deserve each other. And I don’t care how long it took, or how solitary it was, you were worth the wait, Natalie. I’d have crawled around the world on my knees to find you.” She smiled at the romantic words and put her lips to his again.
“Welcome home, Hugues,” she said softly, and he held her close and knew he was.
THE DAY OF Heloise’s return from Switzerland for Christmas vacation, the whole hotel was buzzing with excitement. The pastry chef baked her favorite chocolate cake for her, Ernesta made sure the maids thoroughly cleaned her room, Jan sent up flowers just the way she liked them, and all the Christmas decorations were set up in the lobby. Hugues was so pleased that she was coming home. He could hardly wait to see her. It had been almost four months, the longest he had ever been away from her in her lifetime. And he went to the airport in the Rolls to meet her.
He and Natalie had talked about it the night before, and she admitted that she was nervous about meeting his daughter. What if Heloise didn’t like her? Hugues said that was absurd, of course she would, although he didn’t want to tell her the night she arrived, but wanted to give her a few days to settle in. So much had happened. He and Natalie had spent every night together for the past four weeks, and they were going to miss each other for the two weeks that Heloise was home. She had three weeks’ vacation, and Hugues had been upset to hear that she was planning to spend the third week skiing in Gstaad with her French boyfriend. His parents had a house there. Hugues had tried to object, and Heloise had brushed him off and said that all her friends were going. But he was grateful for every moment of the two weeks he was going to spend with her. He expected it to be just like old times when she was home. And somewhere in those two weeks, he was going to tell her about Natalie and his plans for them to meet each other.
Her plane arrived from Switzerland half an hour early, but Hugues was already there, and she hugged him so tight he could hardly breathe. She looked different to him, more grown up, suddenly more subtly European, and she had cut her hair a little shorter, which made her look more sophisticated too. Her first big romance with the French boy had somehow altered her. She had left a girl and returned a woman.
She chattered excitedly about hotel school all the way to the city, and an astonishingly large number of the hotel’s employees were waiting for them in the lobby when they arrived. It looked like a family scene, with the Christmas decorations around them. They hugged her and smiled at her, pounded her back and spun her around. Jan was there with an armload of long-stem pink roses for her. Jennifer came out of the office just to hug her. No VIP had ever gotten as warm or lavish a reception from the hotel. Three bellmen rode the elevator upstairs with them to assist with her single bag. And she looked ecstatic when she walked into their apartment and hugged her father again. And he looked every bit as happy as she did.
