Chapter 19
Maxime
It takes twenty minutes to drive to the small house on the beach. Fran inherited the place from her parents. I fucked her in that house. Although I’ve never fucked a woman other than Zoe in my bed, I’ve let Fran into my house. I trusted her.
“Fuck.” I slam the wheel.
If I hadn’t been tempted to go after Zoe this morning, I could’ve come home tonight to find her dead. The image is a terrifying visual that tears up my chest.
I shouldn’t come to premature conclusions. The ants could’ve died from something else. Maybe it’s coincidence. My gut says otherwise as I park behind Fran’s car in the driveway.
The lounge curtains are drawn. It’s broad daylight. After three days of rain, she would’ve left them open to let the sun warm the house.
I get out of the car with the bag of sugar and bang on the door. Fran opens a moment later.
Her face is composed. “Max? What a surprise. Is something wrong?”
Pushing past her, I ask, “Why would something be wrong?”
“Well.” She shrugs. “You’re here. I thought you didn’t want to see me.”
I didn’t pay enough attention to Fran. If I had, I would’ve known what a good actress she is.
Glancing at my hands, she asks, “What’s with the gloves?”
I close the door and lock it. “I was cleaning.”
She smiles, the perfect portrait of serenity. “You? Cleaning? You want me to come back to work? Is that it?”
“We’re going to have a drink,” I say, going over to the armoire where she keeps her booze.
The bedroom door is open. A suitcase lies on the bed and clothes are scattered over the floor.
“It’s not even lunchtime,” she says.
I take out the bottle of gin. “That’s never stopped you.” Pouring a shot in a glass, I place it on the table. “Come here.”
She walks to me with confident strides. “What are you celebrating?”
I pour a bit of the sugar from the bag into the glass and give it a stir with my gloved finger. “Drink.”
All color vanishes from her face. “What?”
I pick up the glass and hold it out to her. “Drink it.”
She steps back. “I told you, it’s too early.”
“Humor me.”
She shakes her head with a laugh. “You’re crazy.”
“You haven’t seen crazy yet.” In one step, I’m in front of her, gripping her hair while tilting the glass to her lips. “Drink it, Fran.”
“No!” Pushing on my chest, she turns her face away.
“Why?” I shake her by her hair. “Because you may die?”
“Max, please!”
“Did you really think I wouldn’t figure it out?” I turn her face roughly toward the bedroom. “Where were you running to, huh?”
Tears leak from the corners of her eyes. “You fired me. I needed a break to think and sort out my life.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me!”
She cowers in my hold. “It’s not a lie.”
“Did you go to the apartment this morning when Zoe was out?”
“No.” She licks her lips. “I was packing.”
“Fine.” I relax my tight grip on her hair. “Maybe I’m over-reacting. Maybe it’s nothing. So, prove it.” Pulling her head back again, I push the glass back to her mouth.
“No!” Slamming her lips together, she turns her head the other way.
“So help me God, I’ll make you drink every last drop if you don’t talk.”
Silence.
“Fine.” I dip a gloved finger into the drink. “Let’s start with a little teaser.”
When I drag that finger just under the outline of her bottom lip, she sinks to her knees.
“Please, stop,” she says through her tears.
“What poison did you choose, Fran?”
She stares up at me through her blond lashes. “Botulinum.”
“Where did you get it?”
She blinks. Her lips tremble.
I dip my finger back in the poison. “Where the fuck did you get it?”
More silence.
“You will tell me, Fran, or I will make you suck this finger clean.”
Gripping her face, I apply pressure to the joints of her jaw.
She says something that sounds like, “Wait,” from her wide-open mouth.
I drop my hand. “Speak.”
She drags in a breath as if I’ve strangled her. “Your mother. I got it from your mother.”
My mother? She’s a lying bitch. I grab her jaw, hovering my wet finger over her lips. “Do not lie to me, Fran. Not about this.”
“It was her idea.” She folds her fingers around my wrist, not that she’d be able to hold me back if I decide to plunge my finger down her throat. “I swear to God, Max.”
I’m shaking with rage. “Why? Why the fuck?”
“Your mother and I,” she says in a tremulous voice, “we want the same thing.”
They both want Zoe gone.
I take her scrawny shoulders and shake her so hard her teeth clatter. “Where did you put it?”
“Just in the sugar,” she shouts. “I swear.”
“Like a big fucking metaphor for winning your war?” I spit out in disgust.
She sinks down onto her heels. “It wasn’t supposed to be some symbolic victory.” She meets my gaze. “I chose the sugar because Zoe is the only one who uses it. You use cubes. I’d never risk you, Max.” She grips my leg. “I love you.”
“You don’t love me.” I look at her with contempt. “If you did, you wouldn’t destroy the only thing that matters to me.”
Her face crumples. “You don’t mean that.”
Fury burns through my body. “Have you thought it through? What if Zoe decided to bake a cake? What if I took a sip of her tea?”
“I was going to go back and throw out the rest of the sugar as soon as—” Biting her lip, she looks away.
“As soon as she was dead?”
“Please, Max,” she says, looking back at me. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to give you a choice. You can either drink this,” I push the glass into her hand, “or you can let justice run its course and wait until my mother’s assassin catches up with you. I’m sure she’ll want a painful revenge for your betrayal.”
“No.” The denial falls in a barely audible sound from her mouth even as her expression shuts down, already accepting the inevitable.
“Your choice.” I take a step back. “Make it.”
Leaning her back against the wall, she looks at the glass in her hand, the fate she was going to deal my wife. I already know what she’s going to choose before she tips back her head and downs the content.
Chapter 20
Maxime
Suicide.
That’s what it’ll look like. I don’t wait for the end. I walk out of Fran’s house, pull off the gloves, and drive to my parents’ place.
My father’s Mercedes is parked in front of the house. I don’t give a fuck. I get out at the gates and pull my gun as the guards pull theirs. I don’t bother to ask them to announce my presence. The security cameras will. A moment later, my father exits the house dressed in his robe and slippers. In the middle of the afternoon. Which means the masseuse is here.
He holds up a hand. The guards lower their weapons.
“You’re not welcome here,” he says, walking down the driveway.
“Yeah.” I meet him at the gate. “I know. I don’t exist for you so my presence shouldn’t bother you.”
“Don’t make me shoot you,” he says with a scowl.
“This is about Maman, not you.”
He spits on the ground. “You’re dead to her too, both you and your wife.”
Ah. He knows we got married. He’s keeping tabs on my life like one does with an enemy. Unless Maman told him. “Literally dead, it seems, if Maman had her way.”
His face contorts wit
h anger. “I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”
“I suggest we discuss this in private. It’s not something you want to talk about in the street.”
Nostrils flaring, he flicks a finger. The electronic gates open.
We walk in a strained silence to the house. Inside, he tells the housekeeper to send my mother to his study.
He takes the chair behind his desk while I take a position in front of the window. My mother breezes inside, dressed in Chanel with an apron tied around her waist and smelling of apples.
“Max?” She gives my father an uncertain look. “What is this? What is he doing here?”
“Why don’t you tell us, Maman?”
“What on earth, Max?” she says with a surprised smile.
My God. How have I been so blind? How have I never paid attention to the people who truly matter, the most dangerous ones? My mother is a more formidable enemy than my father, because she comes to you with smiles, smelling of apple pie and wrapped in sweet childhood memories.
Bitter loathing coats my tongue. “Where did you get the poison?”
She blanches.
“What have you done, Cecile?” my father asks.
Stubbornly, she tips her chin up.
“Fran confessed everything,” I say, “right before she died.”
The shock on my mother’s face fills me with perverse satisfaction.
My father pushes to his feet. “You better talk, woman.”
She turns on him with hatred blazing in her eyes. “The poison was meant for Zoe. She ruined everything. I only wanted my son back.”
My father wipes a hand over his face. “Dear God, Cecile. You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Do you know what it feels like to be powerless?” she asks with clenched hands. “Do you think I’m clueless and naïve?” She points a finger at my father. “Do you think I don’t know about your criminal dealings or your women? Who do you think is the backbone of this operation? You think it’s you?” She laughs. “You’re weak. Pathetic. Who do you think arranged the hit on the men who tried to take you out in front of your beloved club? Who do you think has been giving the orders to get rid of the traitors in your circles?” Turning back to me, she pushes a finger against her chest. “Me. I’ve carried this family for more than forty years. Zoe was messing with your head, Max, making you weak like your father. It had to be done.”
I don’t know the woman standing in front of me. I don’t know the person who fixed me dinner and slipped extra pocket money into my school bag. All this time, it’s been nothing but one, big lie. All this time, it was never about me. It was about what my mother wanted me to be. She would’ve sacrificed my wife without blinking an eye for her own, selfish goals.
Yet I can’t hate her. I can’t find it in my soul. She’s still the woman who birthed me. I just don’t respect her any longer.
“You talk as if she’s dead,” I say with a cold smile.
“My God.” My father looks at me with a slack jaw. “Isn’t she?”
It’s my mother’s gaze I hold. “No.” Advancing to her, I peer down at her face. “But you are.”
“Max.” She reaches for me.
I pull away. “Don’t.” With a sneer I add, “You’re dead to me.”
“Did you leave evidence at Francine’s that can be traced back to your mother?” my father asks, coming around the desk.
“I wore gloves.”
My father’s voice is stern. “Where did you get it, Cecile?”
She looks down her nose at him. “I’m not saying.”
My father narrows his good eye. “Don’t think you’ll escape torture because you’re my wife. You’ve crossed a line.”
She knows it. Her hands are shaking. She’s been dishing out orders behind my father’s back to commit murder, no less. That makes her a traitor. My father doesn’t have a choice but to carry the consequences of her actions. She’s his responsibility after all. He won’t stop until he’s flushed out every man she’s ever commanded, no matter what it takes.
“Your contact at the pharmaceutical lab,” she finally says, rambling off a name. The drug factory.
My father sounds tired. “Pack your bags.”
My mother’s lips part as if to argue, but then she stands taller. “Why?”
“I’m sending you to the house in Corsica. You’ll never set foot in France again.”
He’s condemning her to prison. The holiday house stands on a stretch of isolated beach. No one ever goes there except for my family, and none of them will visit there again. It’s nothing short of a cloister. She’ll be living the rest of her days out alone and never see her family again. Me, I’ve already written her off, but the grandchildren she so badly wanted from Alexis and me will never know their grandmother.
Her jaw trembles. “I’m the backbone of this family. Without me, you won’t survive a day.”
“Get out of my sight. You disgust me.” My father turns to me. “You too.”
Gladly.
I leave, turning my back for a second time on my family for the woman I love.
Yes, love.
Fuck my shrink and every textbook that’s ever been written about psychopaths.
Because what is love other than an obsession?
Chapter 21
Zoe
Maxime arrives home just as Hector gets ready to leave. My husband’s strong body is coiled with tension. It looks as if he’s a soldier on the verge of war, ready to strike.
“We’re just wrapping up,” Hector says, pulling off his plastic gloves.
Maxime holds my gaze for another beat before he asks, “What did you find?”
“I’ve collected the dead ants. I’ll have to run tests. At least that’ll tell us if they died from poison and if so, what kind. To be on the safe side, I took samples of your toothpaste and other toiletries like soap and shampoo. We’ve cleaned off the counters and vacuumed. I suggest you throw out all the food and perishables and do a thorough spring-cleaning.”
“Apparently, it’s botulinum,” Maxime says.
“Ah.” Hector rubs his chin. “In that case, you’ll want to use vapor for cleaning and boil the sheets. The toxin is heat sensitive. I’ll run tests anyway to be sure.”
Maxime nods. “When will you know?”
“I’ll push it to the front of the line. I should have something for you in a couple of hours.”
“Great.” Maxime shakes his hand. “I appreciate it.”
“Goodbye, Mrs. Belshaw.” Hector nods in my direction. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”
“Thanks for your help,” I say.
Maxime walks him to the door. “I’ll have your payment delivered.”
“Try not to call again too soon.” With a crooked smile, Hector leaves.
When the door shuts, Maxime and I just stand there for a moment, looking at each other. He moves first. In a few long strides, he eats up the distance between us and folds his arms around me.
“Maxime?” I whisper with my cheek pressed against his chest.
He buries his nose in my hair. “It was Fran and my mother.”
My heart trips in its beating. I suspected Francine. After all, who else had a key? Who else knew I’m the only one in the house who uses granulated sugar? However, Maxime’s mother? She doesn’t like me, but to kill me? That sounds preposterous.
“I’m sorry,” he says, pulling away to look at my face. “You needed to know that.”
“What…?” I lick my dry lips. “Did you confront them?”
His expression is pained. “Fran confessed about my mother. My mother admitted the truth.”
I can’t begin to imagine how difficult this must be for him. Maxime and his mother are close. “What’s going to happen to them?”
“You don’t have to worry about them.”
“Maxime.” I slip from his embrace. “Keeping it from me doesn’t help.”
He clenches his jaw. “My father banished my mother to Corsica. She can never com
e back to France.”
Oh, my God. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” His eyes are harsh. “She deserved her fate.”
“What about Francine?”
He only looks at me.
“Tell me, Maxime. You promised me honesty.”
“She’s dead,” he says in flat voice.
I slam a hand over my mouth. “What? How?”
“She killed herself.”
Did she? My stomach flutters with a tremor. “How?”
“She drank her own poison.”
It sounds too much like punishment—an eye for an eye.
Cupping my cheek, he says, “Pack a bag. Take clothes for two days.”
The shock numbs me. I’m rooted to the spot. “Where are we going?”
“We’re staying in a hotel until I’ve had this place thoroughly cleaned.”
“We can do it.”
“No.” The word is a non-negotiable verdict. “I’m not taking any risks. Go now.” He gives me a little push toward the bedroom.
Acting on autopilot, I do as he says and pack hurriedly. We don’t take any toiletries, but buy new products on the way to the hotel. Maxime books us into the penthouse suite and puts the do not disturb sign on the door. The minute the door is locked, he pounces on me.
Grabbing my face in his hands, he kisses me like the world is about to end. The caress is rough. The pressure of his palms is hard. He bites my bottom lip and sucks it into his mouth before sweeping my tongue with his. Pouring fear and despair into the kiss, he claims my mouth without sparing me his violent emotions.
The kiss is too savage to enjoy, but arousal sparks in my body. God, how I’ve missed this. How I’ve missed being held and consumed. My body jumps right back to the past, to the ecstasy it remembers, seeking solace in the relief only he can give. No matter how many times I came on my own fingers, the release was never complete. There was always something missing.
Him.
I consume him right back, tangling my fingers in his thick hair and pressing our hips together. A low growl escapes his throat. Backing me up to the bed, he rips at my clothes. The front of my blouse falls open with the erotic sounds of silk ripping and buttons popping. The buttons bounce and run over the hardwood floor.
Diamonds are Forever: A Diamond Magnate Novel (Diamonds are Forever Trilogy Book 3) Page 12