Groundwork

[Noémi Jourdain]

Contentment was rare in Noémi, yet even when she had woken alone to warm and mussed sheets it had been an unblemished glow in her chest. The scent of him remained, mingled with the perfume on her skin, like a spectre of his presence and his claiming. The intensity of Nikolai’s passion still left her tingling with its memory, a dark and delicious dream in morning’s light, but it was the intimacy afterwards that left the greatest impression. The timeless cradle of arms and softer, more vulnerable breaths of sleep.

As before, though all his gifts to her would be cherished – a Baccarat rosebud this time, like the tantalising promise of something new to bloom – it was the words penned in his own hand she took most to heart. The reminder of her maman’s advice stirred feeling in her chest, a secret only the two of them might share now she was gone, for Noémi had never shared the sentiment with another soul. But it was the elegant curve of his French that made her smile; to know he had taken the time to remember and translate her words. She wondered if he had recognised the quote as Shakespeare.

Contentment didn’t last, of course, as such things never did, or even could.

Soon on the heels of Nikolai’s gift, reality reasserted itself in the form of an NDA dropped on her doormat. A surprised sort of hurt had rippled through her core before she composed herself anew. She understood the necessity, of course, and she signed it without complaint. Noémi naturally conducted her own life with a mind to preserving her privacy, and her time with Nikolai was precious to her in a way she intended to keep entirely for herself. A contract was no hardship; it was only formalisation. Yet it dulled the edges of her bliss nonetheless; reminded her to be cautious of the heart she already knew she had given away.

The invitation received with the crystal rosebud presented some problems of its own, and had left a knot permanently in her stomach since. Vasiliev was a name with which she had history, and a tarnished one at that. Truly Noémi belonged to none of the worlds in which she’d ever lived, but that particular one she had no desire to reawaken, let alone blur into the life she lived today. It had been more than five years; a long time. Yet she was not sure it had been long enough.

When she had asked Rafael for coffee, it was to broach the delicate subject of a favour – for she certainly could not attend alone and risk that Dima might believe it a divine act of fate. But nor did she desire to bring a date, or anyone that might interpret it as such. In the time she had known Raffe they had never been close, but neither had it ever crossed the boundaries of simple friendship. She trusted him; something she could ultimately say of few of the men who had ever been in her life.

He was unusually quiet today, and not in his usual gentle manner. Raffe did not look ill anymore, not as he had when she last saw him at the church, but he seemed worse somehow, like the vitality had been drained from him despite the way he went through the motions of his usual self. He explained a bad break-up, and did not seem keen to dwell on the details, yet it seemed more than a broken hurt he nursed in his hands when he cradled his head. Noémi did not pry deeper than he allowed, though the concern was writ all over her expression. Loss was something she understood intimately.