The French Thief: An International Legacies Romance

by Camilla Stevens

  “Then just listen to this,” I say, pulling out my smartphone.

  “Your cake,” the bartender behind her announces as he sets it down on the bar.

  Brielle gives me one final glare before turning around to eat it without saying another word.

  This is exactly the sort of resistance I expected and I don’t bother trying to plead my case. Instead, I let someone else do it for me. I pull up the video and hit play.

  “If you’re watching this, that means I’m probably dead.” There’s a soft but sad laugh after that.

  Brielle freezes after stabbing the cake with her fork. Slowly she turns around to stare at the phone I hold up for her.

  Georgette Howard.

  From my vantage point, looking down at the screen, I can see the lines to the side of her cheerful blue eyes crinkling. “That’s how it goes in all the movies, no?”

  “How…what is this?” Brielle asks, staring at the screen as though Georgette has literally come back to life in front of her. In some way, she has. I made sure of that.

  Instead of answering her, I let Georgette do the talking.

  “There’s a lot to say and I do hate that I have to say it to you through this camera here, but let me start off by getting the important bit out of the way. Brielle, you think that I saved you, that I was the one who made your life better, but as they say, love is a two-way street. The joy and richness that you brought into our lives, both Frank’s and mine, it couldn’t possibly be explained with words. Trust that you mattered, more than you’ll ever know.”

  Brielle sucks in her lips in as a stream of tears start to fall down her face. The man in the seat next to her turns an irritated frown my way at the sound of the video playing. One hard glare from me and he’s back to minding his own business.

  “Now here’s the part that I want you to pay attention to. I’m dead now, so you can’t pooh-pooh me like you always do. Remember that bit about live, laugh, love that I always used to kid about—there’s something to it, sweetpea. I’ve lived a long life filled with all of it and it’s been a great ride. My only dying request is that you do the same, Brielle.

  “That said…what I’m going to say next will probably not make sense but just trust me on this, okay kiddo? I want you to trust Andrew Mercier. Whatever he tells you to do, do it. Whatever he says to you, believe it. What happened in the past…I know it’s upsetting and yes, you have every right to be upset, but now is the time to look forward. I say this…because I love you, sweetpea. And I don’t want to see you anytime soon wherever it is I’m headed.”

  I close out the video and observe Brielle carefully.

  She sniffs back the tears and straightens up. Her eyes flash to me, filled with suspicion and resentment. I’m sure every kind of reason not to trust those words from Georgette is running through her head right now.

  “There’s more. A lot more. Have them package your cake and we’ll go somewhere private to—”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she spits. “I don’t care what Georgie had to say about you.”

  Merde! I force myself to bite back the angry retort, remembering what Brielle has been through, realizing that she still has no idea what I saved her from.

  “Okay, I understand,” I say, putting the phone back into my pocket. “I spent a lot of time with her, right up until the end. It’s all recorded. If you change your mind, I’ll be at the gate for our flight.”

  I can’t tell if the sudden widening of her eyes is because I’ve given in so easily or because of what I said, which could focus on anything from the fact that I recorded so much time with Georgette or that I said “our” flight.

  “Wait!” she shouts just as I reach the entrance to the restaurant. She runs to catch up with me, perhaps even angrier than before. “What do you mean our flight?”

  “Naturally, I’m going back to my home city.”

  “How did you even know—?” She stops at the slightly patronizing smile I give her. Of course I know which flight she’s taken. I’ve been watching her since she was released from prison. In a way, I’ve even been watching her while she was in prison, just to make sure she was safe. Frankly, I’d be surprised if she was surprised by that fact.

  Her anger only deepens. “You stay right there.”

  I watch her go back to the bar to pay and, yes, have them box up her cake. I force the smile away by the time she’s turned around to stomp toward me. She doesn’t stop, just continues on toward the gate for the Paris flight.

  I take two long steps to catch up to her but she doesn’t bother even acknowledging me. If anything, the hatred radiating from her is intensified, enough to be positively radioactive.

  My eyes catch sight of something and inspiration strikes. “Come,” I say, grabbing her elbow and pulling her toward the single-person bathroom.

  She naturally resists, vocally announcing her reluctance at my daring to put my hands on her. I ignore it until we’re inside, door closed and locked behind me.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re—?”

  “Hit me,” I snap.

  “What?”

  “Hit me. Slap me. Kick me. Do something. You obviously have a lot of anger and resentment to get out so—”

  The punch is not even close to the worst I’ve experienced. But Brielle has used knuckle and landed it right at the sensitive area below my left eye.

  “Putain de merde!” I roar.

  “Ouch—wait, did you just call me a…shit whore?” she asks, still shaking her sore hand.

  “What? No. It’s an expression, like…motherfucker,” I reply as the sharp pain under my eye begins to swell into a deep throb. “I see you learned some French while you were away.”

  “I had some motivation, enough to learn at least a few apt terms.”

  She still looks angry, eyes narrowed in contempt. The pain in her hand—obviously from holding her thumb in her fist instead of curled around the outside—seems to be fighting a valiant battle for supremacy in terms of emotion. She sets the cake down on the edge of the sink to cradle it with her good hand.

  “When I said hit me, I didn’t—”

  The slap comes next, thankfully with her good hand which avoids doubling down on the pain in the left side of my face which I’m sure is already starting to bruise.

  “Bien,” I say, trying to sound calm. It’s interrupted by a barrage of slaps, forcing me back more from surprise than pain.

  “Brielle—”

  “No! You don’t get to complain. You deserve all this and more!” she punctuates it with a hard kick to the shin, which is painful enough to cause my leg to buckle slightly.

  “Arrête!” I shout, finally grabbing her wrists and pushing her back against the wall. I wait, staring down at her until she stops struggling, all the strength in her body shifting to her gaze, which glares at me with palpable hatred.

  Something about that fierceness lights a fire in me. My body has hers pinned against the wall. It’s a little leaner than I remember from the night that it became my canvas to do with as I please.

  These past two years have only intensified the obsession I once had with Brielle, long before I even met her—long before I felt what it was like to fuck her. My time with Georgette helped me dig deeper, creating yet another level of understanding and fascination.

  I lean in closer, daring the rage to exert itself in another, more pleasurable way. I can almost feel it rising to the surface in her, the way her eyelids lower, the way her breath deepens, the strain of the tendons in her neck.

  Closer.

  She allows it until I’m only inches away from her lips.

  “Do it and I’ll bite your tongue off.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Elle

  I almost want him to kiss me so I can bite his tongue off.

  Something about that only deepens the arousal I’ve tried to force out of my system from the moment he approached me in the bar. I want to kill this man as much as I want to fuck him.

>   Two sides of the same coin.

  It would have been easier if he’d just left me for good, walked out of my life without ever contacting me again. That pain would have eventually faded until he was nothing more than a distant memory. I’d have moved on sooner.

  I’d still be Brielle.

  But then I never would have heard from Georgette.

  That thought has me bucking my hips, pushing him away—ignoring the hardness pressed into my groin.

  “Get off me, you asshole!” I hiss.

  He tightens his grip and presses harder into me. “Are you going to attack me again?”

  “If I did, it would be all that you deserve.”

  “True, but at some point you have to stop and listen, Brielle.”

  “I don’t have to do anything. And it’s Elle now, unless you want to send me to prison again?”

  He exhales a breath. “Elle then. Aren’t you curious as to what else I have to show you from Georgette?”

  That both calms me and pisses me off even more. How dare this man even utter her name. How dare he come back into my life, turning it upside down the way he did two years ago.

  “Get off me,” I say with less rigor this time.

  He continues to hold me hostage for a few seconds longer before letting go and—wisely—backing away to the far wall.

  We’re both startled by someone banging on the door. “Are you about done in there? I really need to use this bathroom.”

  Andrew’s eyes come back to me and I meet them, making damn sure he can read my continued animosity toward him.

  “Shall we?” he asks, ignoring it as he lets me go.

  I grab my cake and stomp over to the door to unlock it, swinging it open with such force that the woman on the other side flinches in surprise.

  “Sorry about that,” I say as I brush past her.

  I hear Andrew follow on my heels.

  “That’s not what this bathroom is for, you know!” she shouts after us.

  We both ignore her as I lead the charge to the gate where my plane—our plane, and fuck him for that too—takes off. I shouldn’t be surprised he knew I was going to Paris. He’s probably been watching me this whole time. Hell, he probably even knows what I had planned for him.

  “We can go to the Air France lounge where you’ll have more privacy,” he says, catching up to me.

  “We aren’t going anywhere,” I snap. “You can do what you like. I’m going to my gate.”

  “Bien,” he says with a shrug. “I’ll be in the lounge. You can join me when you’re ready. Just so you know, I upgraded your ticket. We’ll be stuck together in First Class on the plane and I’d rather you didn’t hate me the whole way to Paris.”

  I stop at that, exhaling a sharp, sarcastic laugh as I spin to face him. “Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?”

  His face is solemn as he answers. “Because I couldn’t put you out of my mind these past two years. And I know you couldn’t put me out of yours either. And because Georgette wouldn’t let me.”

  I’m not sure which of those confessions causes it, but the slap to his face comes so swiftly even I’m surprised. The few people around stop to stare or gasp. Andrew’s only reaction is to blink his eyes closed for one full second before opening them again, calm as ever.

  “Come with me,” he says softly. “You deserve to be with her during her final moments, to hear what she had to say to you.”

  I slap him again, mostly out of frustration. Why won’t he react?!

  He knows how much I want this, how desperately I want to see whatever is contained on that phone. He also knows how much I despise him, that he’s one obstacle I’d rather die than go through to get to her.

  “Let’s go,” he says calmly.

  I stare at him, forcing myself to resist, but he holds the one key to unlock my defenses. “Fine.”

  I’ve never been in a first class lounge. Hell, I’ve never even flown internationally before. Under literally any other circumstances I would be wowed by both. Right here with the man I despise most in the world, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass.

  André leads me to one of the tables farthest away from anyone else.

  “Don’t you dare sit next to me.”

  He stares at me, his expression completely unreadable before he nods in understanding. He hands me the phone and the Bose headphones he purchased in a shop on the way here and then wanders away toward the bar.

  Once he’s firmly seated at the bar, I turn my attention back to the phone. After unboxing the headphones and connecting them to the phone, I open the box with my cake. I have a feeling I’m going to need it.

  The phone is unlocked and seems to be wholly dedicated to videos, based on the lack of apps. I press the player and find that there are almost a hundred videos, hours of play time.

  More than enough to fill a seven-hour plane ride.

  I start with the first one and instantly feel the tears spring to my eyes at Georgette’s face. It must have been before the cancer relapse since she looks about as spry as ever. I hit play and settle into my seat.

  “My favorite memory of her?” she asks the camera, then laughs. “Oh, too many to count. But I suppose if I had to pick one it would be that first time she spent the night. Frank and I never had children and I suppose if anything gives you an indication that we shouldn’t have, it would have been that night.”

  I dig into my cake to take a large bite.

  She laughs merrily. “I was reading some book,” her hand comes to her cheek, pinky finger settled on her bottom lip as she tries to recall it. “Oh, I forget the name, but I do remember rethinking the idea I had that it would be perfectly appropriate for Brielle. Quite a few risqué scenes,” she says, leaning in with a conspiratorial whisper. She pulls back and laughs again. “She kept insisting I go back and read the parts I’d obviously skipped over. Eventually, Fred and I got into it, but our fights were never really that terrible. He always tore down my defenses with some silly zinger or awful joke—Dad jokes I think they call them these days. It’s fitting, he was probably the better de facto parent than I was.”

  I take another large bite of cake as Georgette’s eyes fall to the side with nostalgic reflection. After a moment, they spring back up as cheerful as ever.

  “Anyway, the whole thing was resolved with cookies and his infamous hot chocolate. We stayed up half the night like that, which I’m sure didn’t bode well for Brielle going to school the next day…”

  By the time I’ve finished the first video—mostly more anecdotes that have my mouth tightening in between bites to keep it from trembling—the cake is gone.

  I sit up in my seat and stare out of the window next to me. I don’t get it. Georgette was talking to Andrew—André. I heard his voice in between her stories about me. Why would she be so friendly toward the man who she knows for a fact landed me in prison?

  I click the next video in hopes of gleaning some clue about that. At some point during this one, a hot chocolate appears on the table in front of me. I ignore the man who brought it, mostly because I’m so absorbed with this video.

  “My mother was…an impressive woman,” Georgette says in response to André’s question. “As I told you, she didn’t like to talk about things that happened before and during the war. It was only when I was sixteen myself, the same age she was when she left Paris, that she showed me her diaries. It was interesting to see the transition from the carefree girl she apparently was to the dynamic woman I knew growing up…”

  When I’m finished with this one, I’m surprised to see André sitting across from me. I’ve been so engrossed I didn’t even notice him.

  “Our flight is boarding soon. We should get going. You can watch the rest on the plane. Then, I’ll answer all your questions,” his mouth tightens with a slight grimace. “I’m sure you will have a lot of them.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Elle

  The flight passes by in a blur. A mix of really comfortable seating, half-way dec
ent food, and too much champagne and dessert, which does nothing to help the sentimental abyss I’m in by the time we land.

  It was easy to ignore André as I watched video after video, curled up in my little pod area in first class. What wasn’t easy to ignore was how much time he obviously spent with Georgette.

  It didn’t take long for me to get to the videos where her cancer had obviously come back. In the beginning it wasn’t sad at all. He seemed to have accompanied her to every chemotherapy appointment, helping her pass the time by playing cards, reading to her, telling more stories. There was even one where she was teaching him how to knit, which made me laugh out loud, mostly at how terrible André was at it.

  Then came the end, where she was too weak to do anything but lie there. The last video was dedicated only to me.

  “Well, I guess this is the end, sweat pea. I’d rather you didn’t see me any further along than this, so I’ll make my final goodbyes here. It’s been a good life, thanks in large part to your presence in it. You and Frank have been the two most important people to me. Now, I’m leaving one to join the other…and I’m looking forward to seeing him again. As for you, one day you’ll find your own Frank and with any luck, have your own Brielle who can bring as much joy and happiness to you as you did to me. Goodbye, sweetpea.”

  The plane has emptied and the cleaning crew have already started by the time I pull my attention away from the phone. André is sitting in the seating area next to me, patiently waiting for me to drop back into the real world.

  His left eye is noticeably purple by now, and despite everything I just watched, it gives me a tiny bit of satisfaction.

  “Why did she agree to all of this? How did you get her to…even say two words to you?” I ask, feeling the resentment creep back in, if a little less intensely this time.

  “First, I want to show you something.”

  “André,” I say, now just feeling exasperated. “I’m done with all the secrets and waiting. Just tell me!”