Love Through The Ages

Two

"Love me or hate me are both in my favor. If you love me, I'll always be in your heart. If you hate me, I'll always be in your mind."     -William Shakespeare

I walk out of the conference room with my stack of files in my hands having bought myself and the historical sites I've been trying to save a few more weeks of freedom. The board in the end agreed to let me have at least the month dig up the proof of ownership through my husband's family only after I told them a stretched out version of the MacArtair Castle. I sigh dropping the files on my desk after I get to my office and stop seeing a note written on my legal pad beside my computer keyboard. I smile slightly at the very familiar script of my husband's and walk around the desk to grab my cellphone from my purse adding the number he left me to my contacts trying not to think about it too much. After so long without any contact with the man I fell in love with all those years ago, it actually feels sort of good to not only see him today but to have him back even if it is just for a brief time.
"Bella?" I hear someone ask knocking on my open office door and I look up to see Michael halfway in the door.
"Entrez, mon ami." I tell him to come in with a wave of my hand starting to arrange the files leaving the one on MacArtair Castle on my desk and put the rest away in my filing cabinet. I stop upon seeing the one on Everleigh Estate and my hand immediately draws it out to lay it on my desk with a sigh.
"P- Pouvons-nous parler?" Michaels asks still struggling with his French even after being here for nearly eight years and I smile at him.
"Bien sûr mais en anglais..." I say with a nod and smile at him sitting on the edge of my desk to look at him. "so you can keep up."
"Very funny." He says closing my door to make the room quiet and I look at the man I met at the Paris College of Art a few years ago and we made fast friends but he's wanted to be more various times through the years. "I forget you grew up in England too. You speak French so fluently it's hard to notice you aren't from here."
"Languages have always come easy to me." I say and shrug a shoulder crossing my legs as I think of the many languages I've learned through the years but mostly fluently are French, Gaelic and Latin.
"Art too, eh?" He asks with a smirk and rubs his ear almost in a nervous way.
"Yes, art too." I answer and glance at the clock knowing I should leave soon to meet Lachlan for the lunch I agreed to. "What is you needed, Michael?"
"Well, I just wanted to know...um, was what you said true?" He stammers to ask and I sigh knowing he among the few others I'm close to at work would question my surprise announcement of my marriage and my husband's ties to the MacArtair line. "Are you really married?"
"Yes." I say with a nod and pick up my phone again to send a message to said husband that I might be a bit late but still coming. "We've been separated for years and just recently started talking again."
"And you never told me?" Michael asks a slight frown on his face and looks at me hurt by my lying to him making me remind myself why it is so hard to have friends that don't know the truth in what I am. "Or anyone else that you work with?"
"What can I say? We were school sweethearts, married right after graduation and things didn't work out the way we thought..." I say shrugging my shoulders and rub a hand over my thigh as I try to think through the web of lies I'm telling now. "I left him to do what I love and get a fresh start here."
"And is he really Scottish or even a MacArtair or are you just trying to save this castle for some other selfish reasons?" He asks and leans his hands on one of the chairs in front of my desk looking at me seriously.
"I may have some selfish reasons for saving a lot of these places the Louvre wants to excavate but I have not lied about my husband or his family heritage." I snap at him getting angry at the fact that he would accuse me of such things and I sigh deeply. "My husband is Lachlan Alistair MacArthur, a true Scot on every account. He considers himself a true Highlander and I consider him the most stubborn man I've ever met. Like I said before, he is a historian and followed his family line down to the MacArtair's in the late 1740's after the Battle of Culloden."
"So, the original Lachlan MacArtair is your husband's ancestor?" Michael says with a brow raised and rubs his hands over his face shaking his head. "Why haven't you used this angle to appeal to the board before?"
"Yes and because I didn't want to drag him into my work drama unnecessarily but now it's come down to the wire and I need his help or at least his family line's help." I answer as run a hand through my hair and reach behind me to let my hair down sighing. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you and if I hurt by doing so but it was my business."
"I get that and even understand why but you could've trusted me enough not to tell others." He says and crosses his arms looking at me. "I guess I just feel guilty for asking you out as many times as I did."
"Well, now you know why I said no every time." I say and pick up my phone when it dings reading the message from Lachlan.
Do you want me to come there?
No. Leaving now. I reply and slip the phone in my back pocket as I walk around the desk picking up the files on our two family homes glancing up at my friend. "I'm sorry, Michael...I'm actually meeting my said husband for lunch to talk about things and figure out what he can dig up on the castle."
"Oh right..." He says and I grab my purse placing the files inside smiling as Michael helps me into my coat. "I'm taking Lizzie out too so, I'll let you go."
"You and my assistant? I guess I turned you down too many times." I say with a smirk and throw my scarf over my neck turning to look at my friend. "She's a good girl. Don't hurt her."
"I know she is and I won't." Michael says and I turn to open the office door stepping out to look at Elizabeth standing up to pull on her own coat. "I'm heading out and not sure how long I'll be so forward or hold my calls."
"I will." She says with a nod tossing another coat at Michael as he walks over to her and looks at me. "So, is it true? That man that was here this morning is your husband?"
"Wait, he was here?" Michael asks and shrugs on his coat looking at me with a confused expression. "He was the one you were arguing with in the hall before the meeting?"
"Yes and yes." I answer and hook my purse on my arm pushing my hair back as I turn to leave but slow down when Lizzie comes up beside me to link her arm with mine.
"Is it weird if I congratulate you on hitting the marriage jackpot?" She asks lowly and I laugh walking with her through the hall with Michael on her other side.
"A little." I answer and swipe my museum ID card to let us out into the lobby of the Louvre Pyramid the sun shining through the glass roof to make it look beautifully despite the cold outside. "And I don't know about hitting the jackpot but he is a good man."
"Still, congrats...he is certainly gorgeous." Lizzie says and we walk up the stairs to the doors that lead out into the front courtyard passing hundreds of tourists coming in to enjoy another tour or to leisurely look at the art.
"He always has been." I say and unlink my arm from hers wrapping my coat tighter around me as we walk.
"Hello? Your boyfriend, right here." Michael says suddenly and I smirk as Lizzie turns to kiss his cheek snuggling into his side before she turns to look at me.
"Want to join us for lunch?"
"I'll just be a third wheel and I'm meeting my gorgeous husband in the Jardin des Tuileries." I answer and look at the two of them smiling softly as I can picture them amongst the hundreds of other couples I've known through my long life to see them happy, marry, have children, grandchildren and grow old only to eventually die. "Have a nice lunch."
I tuck a piece of my hair behind my ear as the both raise their hands to wave at me and turn to walk off down the way to where a line of taxis are. I sigh watching how they talk to one another quietly with smiles on their faces as the stay close together and I'm glad to know they are happy. I hold my hand up in thanks to a stopped car as I cross Place du Carrousel quickly to hear the squeals of children chasing each other underneath the Arc de Triumph and my heart squeezes as I see a young girl with flaming red hair just like my husband's. I walk along the path that leads to the gardens and to the café where I'm meeting Lachlan listening to the crunch of the gravel under my boots as I think back to the first time to when my husband and I met.