Chapter 7

"Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family."

-Anthony Brandt-

***

Celine Desroches had been enjoying her alone time in the patio of her house with a glass of cold lemonade with soda and a pair of huge dark purple sunglasses beside the pool. If there was one thing she loved in life, it had to be the sun and the subtle smell of chlorine mixed with salt. Only the air was not exactly salty because there were barely any beaches in Paris.

She had been working all weekdays long, and being a luxury interior designer, she had traveled back and forth between places just to find the right item for the customers, it had been a long week and dealing with people who had no idea about the difference between vanilla and marshmallow white was tough. She would definitely say she deserved that moment.

She just wanted to flip herself on her back to even out her tan when she heard loud crying sounds heading her way, it was a familiar voice which she had been trying to avoid all day long but at the end of the day, the disaster was merely inevitable. With a small sigh, she whispered to herself. Oh God.

"Mommy, mommy, Oliver broke my teddy bear, look, now it's missing an arm!" The little girl showed her one armed teddy bear to her mother, her hair was bouncing in the air as she whined about the brutal condition of her stuffed toy. Behind her, the bigger who had been chasing her stopped as well. A frown was visible on his face as he was ready to defend himself.

"She played in my room, mama, I was just trying to pull it back to her room, but she would not let it go, It's Juliette's fault, mom!" he defended.  Celine had no idea what to do, her eldest son was a stubborn head like her husband while her youngest daughter was a crybaby, thanks to her father who refused to enforce more discipline on her, but he loved his daughter so much, at that point, it was ridiculous. She knew it was their fault, they should have taught them better. Then perhaps the would end to be better behaved.

Oh well, there's no use in regretting it.

She spun her head trying to find a middle ground. Fortunately, despite her rather relaxed and laid back nature, Celine was still a brilliant woman in almost everything, including in parenting, it did not take her to long to figure something out.

"Juliette, I will get you another one okay, now stop crying, now Oliver, you should apologize to her for breaking her toy, I know you had good  intention but you still broke it, now the two of you, reconcile with each other" The two kids stared at each other with a huge pout on their face, but they could not disobey their mother, Oliver put his arms behind his back and mouthed a small sorry, Juliette who was still crying looked away for a brief second but then nodded her head with a sad pouted lips on.

"Now, go find your nanny and get some ice cream, okay? Your father will be home soon. He would not appreciate seeing you two fighting like this." The two kids nodded and rushed back inside the house. Celine let out a sigh of relief and laid herself back, but soon found it too uncomfortable, causing her to stand up and walked over to the round cushion sofa they had near the pool to relax. She was so busy doing nothing she had no clue that her husband was already home. The man saw his beautiful wife on the patio and thought of a cunning idea.

Eduardo Chevalier sneaked right behind her and managed to steal a kiss from above, resting his arms on the cushion, his hands were on her cheek. Celine did not expect the kiss and she nearly screamed because she thought a stranger had entered her house, but when he broke the kiss she realized it was just Eduard and removed her hand from her chest.

"Gosh, Ed, you surprised me!" she hit his arms with light force and he groaned, pretending to be hurt. She stood and gave her husband a proper hug and kiss, dragging him to the couch while asking about his day.

"Everything went smoothly, I managed to close the deal on the cruise sale. And to celebrate, I'm thinking of taking my beautiful wife out for dinner tonight, just the two of us, without the kids, how does that sound?" Celine could not be happier. She nodded eagerly as she kissed him softly on the lips. It had been a while since the two of them had a dinner date without the kids. She loved her kids, that was for sure, but being alone with Eduard would not hurt either. In the meantime, her husband had diverted the conversation topic to his brother in law.

"Ah, Celine, I heard your brother went to visit a wine house in Bordeaux yesterday. That's odd, Raphael never liked drinking wine, you are the wine maniac, not him, and I also heard that he is not there for any specific business purpose."

"It's a place he once visited with my parents when he was younger, perhaps he had a memory there, but why are you curious about it?" Eduard shrugged.  

"No reason, just curious." Eduard Chevalier had been married to Celine for eight years, he made his connections to the Desroches through his work as a property and real estate agent. He had made himself familiar with the Desroches family and much to his delight he was able to blend in properly with them. He knew what their mother's favorite celebrity or their father's favorite steak house and as for his brother in law, he had never heard Raphael visiting a place he was not interested in other than for business purpose.

Raphael and Eduard had been on good terms since day one and they treated each other like real brothers. He would say he knew Raphael pretty well. There must have been something important in there that he willingly visited the place despite his busy schedule, not to mention he would spend weeks there where one would see nothing but vineyards and wine everywhere he looked, but perhaps there was something more interesting that captured his eyes.

He did remember one time when they were spending some time together drinking in a bar, he asked Raphael a question about his love life, because his brother in law had never been seen dating anyone although his circumstances had allowed him to meet many beautiful women from different fields and status. Raphael answered that he had been waiting for someone, a woman from the past. He had not had any time to meet her again but he was planning on doing it soon.

In his heart, Eduard laughed, maybe his brother finally became a real man (In his love life) He was speculating what he would bring back after his trip.  

In his mind Eduard has been wondering if Raphael would come back with some wine souvenir for them. It would be nice if he could taste the wine fresh from where they were produced.

Or perhaps he would bring back something much more delightful. Yes, either something or...

Someone.