As always, thank you for the reviews! They really mean a lot to me, so please – if you are reading this story, leave a review! I hope you all enjoy this chapter; some more information is revealed about Eleanor's family!

xxxxxxxxxx

March 11, 2015

Eleanor could get used to make-out sessions on Rami's couch. Sometimes it would happen before they would go out; sometimes it would happen as Eleanor would cook for Rami or vice versa, and something would burn; sometimes they would barely finish dinner before going at it. His lips felt divine against hers, and when they would travel on to her neck or anywhere else she felt like she was in another world. She felt like a teenager again, always going at it with her boyfriend.

For a while after, Eleanor had been sitting on Rami's lap, hands on either side of his face as she ran her thumbs over his lips delicately. Her own lips were red from so much kissing but she would continue to plant light, fluttering kisses on his lips every so often as she caught her breath. His hands rest on her thighs and every so often he would run them up and down or move them to grab on to her hips.

"You have to tell me about Montreal," he said as his hands wandered up and down her thighs. "How was the city? And how was your dad's birthday?"

Eleanor half-smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "It was good."

Rami waited for more, but by the look of things he wasn't going to get anything out of her unless he asked. "Okay…so tell me about the party," he said. "Did you guys have it at home?"

"No," she shook her head. "We uh…we had it at the Ritz-Carlton downtown."

"Oooooh, fancy," he smiled. "Was it a milestone birthday for him for you guys to spend that much money?"

"No. We always have parties there," she said, wishing Rami would drop it. She bowed her head to stop looking at him, hoping he would take the hint.

He looked at her skeptically, wondering why she wasn't elaborating. Had he done something wrong? Should he have never brought it up? He grabbed her chin and moved her head to look at him again. "Did I do something wrong?" he asked.

"What? Of course not."

"Well…why aren't you saying anything? Why aren't you telling me about your family?" he asked.

Eleanor sighed. She knew it had to come out now. She began biting the fingernail on her thumb. "Rami…remember when I said I grew up in south Montreal?"

"Yeah."

"I kind of lied…" she confessed.

Rami's eyebrows rose, and Eleanor could tell his thoughts were running rampant. "Okay…"

"I grew up in Westmount."

Rami furrowed his eyebrows. "Westmount is in south Montreal," Rami said slowly, enunciating his words clearly, using the same tone someone would use on someone they considered the stupidest person on the planet.

"No…Rami…I grew up in Westmount," she stressed.

"Oh…oh," he said, somewhat realizing what she was trying to tell him. "So you grew up like…rich," he said.

"You could say that," she muttered under her breath.

"That's cool," he said, shrugging it off. "So that's why you haven't tried a lot of smoked meat places on the north side then," he smiled.

Eleanor didn't want to joke. This chat wasn't going to be funny for her, and she was already very uncomfortable that he took the revelation so lightly. She climbed off his lap but faced him on the couch as she brought her knees up to her chest. She bit her lip, unsure if she should ask the next question. "Do you know Charles Desjardins?"

Rami nodded his head. "Of course I know Charles Desjardins. The Desjardins are the longest season ticket holding family in Habs history. Isn't he a billionaire or something? He donates a whole bunch of money all the time everywhere in Montreal. Financed the new wing at the Montreal General Hospital too, right?"

Eleanor looked at him, and he looked back. He still didn't get it. "What does Charles Desjardins have to do with any of this?" he asked. She kept looking at him in silence until it finally hit him. "Don't…don't tell me you're his daughter."

"Well, we do have the same last name…" she said with a heavy tone of sarcasm.

"Your dad is Charles Desjardins?!" he exclaimed.

She nodded her head.

"So you have Habs season tickets?!" he asked, exasperated. The only thing that mattered to him was the revelation about the Montreal Canadiens. Everything else was secondary – everything else didn't matter.

Eleanor felt a tsunami of uneasiness hit her. Rami was way too cool about this. He said 'billionaire' like it was an everyday word to him – like he was the one who grew up around them, had them babysit him, had them invite him to parties, trying to set him up with their eligible offspring. He clearly knew of her dad's happenings throughout Montreal, and she wasn't sure what that meant for them now. "Rami, this is serious! This…this is a big deal," she said, grabbing her phone out of her pocket.

"Really? Is it really that serious?" he countered.

"I have my own Wikipedia page, for heaven's sake. So do other members of my family. It's not some joke," she tried to reason with him, shoving her phone in his face. She had typed in her name and the first link that came up was the page. Whoever managed to write it or contribute to it deserved some sort of medal, because she didn't think she was in need of one.

Rami grabbed the phone from her hands and began reading the entry. It wasn't extremely long, but it hit all the points Rami – or anybody – needed to know about her life, if they were that curious.

Eleanor Louise Desjardins (born December 31, 1985) is a French-Canadian socialite based in Montreal, Canada.

Family

Her father is businessman Charles Etienne Desjardins, a member of the prominent and influential Desjardins family. Her mother is Catherine Desjardins (nee Catherine Francoise Montmorency), a French-Canadian socialite and descendent of the Montmorency banking family of Montreal. Desjardins and Montmorency met while growing up in Montreal. Their marriage was a momentous occasion for Canadian society, as two members from two of the country's oldest families were uniting. They were wed in Montreal's Notre Dame Basilica, where many members of both families had wed in previous generations.

Eleanor is the younger of the two Desjardins children. She has an older brother, Jean-Philippe, five years her senior. Jean-Philippe followed in his father's footsteps and runs the Desjardins family business alongside his father. He married French-Canadian constitutional lawyer Margot Lafleur and together they have a son, Henri-Mathieu, seven, and twin daughters, Elodie and Rosaline, five.

The Desjardins family is also the longest season ticket holding family in Montreal Canadiens and NHL history. The family are staunch supporters of the team and attend all home games. A portrait of Etienne Mathieu Desjardins, who was an investor in the Montreal Canadiens and saved the team from bankruptcy and moving to Cleveland, Ohio during the Great Depression, hangs in the Bell Centre.

Early Years

Eleanor was born in Montreal, and grew up in Westmount, Quebec, in the Desjardins family's ancestral home. She attended the exclusive Miss Edgar's and Miss Cramp's School in Westmount, where the female members of her father's family had been educated for generations. She graduated at the top of her class. Desjardins attended Dawson College for her CEGEP studies. She attended McGill University (alma matter of many members of both the Desjardins and Montmorency families) and double-majored in French and art history. She spent part of her second year abroad at Oxford University.

Life and Charity Work

Eleanor has stated she did not know of her family's prominence for most of her upbringing. Of the situation, she has said, "I knew my dad had a lot of friends in business – that's it. And I thought people loved my mom because she wore nice clothes and helped sick children. Nothing ever really occurred to me." She learned the true extent of her family's prominence when she studied history in one of her school classes and her great-grandfather, Etienne Mathieu Desjardins, had a "Prominent Quebeckers" chapter dedicated to him.

Though in her younger years she was characterized as a "girl about town", Eleanor has become a particularly private person, though she is often seen at Montreal and Toronto society events, which she attends on behalf of her family. She is also a mainstay in international social circles, and she has been called "The Most Well-Bred Woman in Canada". She often uses her position to fight for various international issues, and helps her mother and sister-in-law host fundraisers to raise money for charities, hospitals, and international causes.

Eleanor bit on the nail of her thumb nervously as she watched Rami read the entry. She wanted to desperately to be in his mind at that moment, to see what he was thinking so she could prepare for the inevitable worst.

When Rami finished reading, he looked at her, astonished. "Your great grandfather saved the Habs!" he exclaimed.

Eleanor furrowed her brows, shaking her head at his outburst. "I don't get it. After everything that you've read all you have to say is 'Your great-grandfather saved the Habs?!' Where's the shock, Rami? Where are the questions about how much my family is worth or if my dad can get you a job or if I burn through Maseratis faster than I burn through the money it takes to buy?"

"Because that's all that matters to me! Your family saved the greatest hockey team in existence!"

"Rami, this is serious!" she scolded him again.

"I don't care about any of that, Eleanor. Any of it. Who cares? So you've got a lot of money. Whatever," his voice became louder, trying to prove his point.

"It does matter," she said, her voice shaking. She could feel a tear coming. "At least, it's mattered in the past. Nobody's ever been cool about it."

Rami shook his head at her small revelation. The reason why she was making such a big deal about it being a 'serious issue' was because people had made it a 'serious issue' in the past. "It doesn't matter that I'm a child of immigrants and your family is one of the oldest and richest in Canada. It doesn't matter. And all the stuff I just read about your family, and who they are – the prestige, the family name that's older than Canada itself, the upbringing in Westmount – none of that stuff matters to me."

"Rami…"

"I like you for who you are, not for your last name," he looked her dead in the eyes when he said so. "You can have all the money in the world but if you're a horrible person, you're a horrible person. No amount of money can fix that. And I know for a fact you're not a horrible person."

More tears escaped as Eleanor tried to wipe them away quickly. Rami's thumbs helped. She had never met anyone who was so indifferent to the information that was just revealed. "So that's it?"

"That's it, woman," he said, pulling her back onto his lap and wrapping his arms around her, squeezing her close to him. She nuzzled her head in the crook of his neck, taking in his scent – they hadn't been together for long but it was already intoxicating.

His hand snaked his way under her shirt, his fingertips trailing lightly along the skin on the small of her back. "Rami…please don't tell anyone at work. Not even Paul knows," she whispered.

"You don't have to worry about that," Rami said immediately afterwards. "It's nobody's business to know."