The Paris Secret

by Karen Swan

  ‘But—’ Flora protested, every instinct in her body telling her to run to him.

  ‘Bruno’s right. You can’t do anything. It’s not like Natascha is going to thank you, let’s be honest.’

  Flora felt herself deflate. They were right. Knowing Natascha, she’d scream at Flora for kicking up a fuss and making everybody stare.

  ‘Let’s just go,’ Ines murmured, watching as the crowd splintered – the older people and families with young children hurrying back to the tables, away from the violence, the rest surging onto the grass. ‘I think it’s going to be a while before they get this party back on track.’

  Flora didn’t reply as they guided her away from the commotion – she was searching for Xavier in the crowds but he was gone from sight; gone from her; that moment that had nearly been something, gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Flora gripped her hand tighter round her Evian, the glass chilled against her palm as her legs kicked lightly in the water. She was sitting at the end of the pool in just her bra and knickers – even at this time of night it was too hot for clothes – but she wasn’t worried about being seen. The pool lights weren’t on; they had gone off at midnight, along with the automatic lights spotlighting the gardens an hour ago. But even if they had been on, she didn’t much care any more.

  Everyone was in bed, the house in darkness. She’d heard the sound of wheels crunching over the gravel in the drive telling her when Xavier and Natascha had come back and she had stood in her doorway, desperate to hear something, to know what had happened after her discreet exit. Their voices had sounded so altered from usual – Natascha, not raucous, but weeping quietly, whimpering almost; Xavier’s voice beseeching, low, tender. They had stood out there, talking like that for several minutes, Xavier trying to calm his sister before they entered the house. Flora hadn’t been able to see the front door of the house from the cottage – she was side on to it – but she had seen the cone of light pool on the drive as they’d opened the door; seen it snap off a few seconds later as it closed behind them for the night.

  She had tried going to bed, lain there wide awake with the moonlight playing on her sheets, her head running through scenarios that would never be, should never be, but the air conditioning was about as effective as a toddler blowing on her and beads of sweat prickled her skin as she lay awake, the sheets getting hotter beneath her, her heart skittish and racing . . . So she had got up and made herself a cold drink, stepping out into the night.

  It had been strange at first seeing the house and grounds without their ‘make-up’, so to speak; the spotlights were precisely positioned to highlight everything to its best possible advantage but as she adapted to the darkness, she found there was something charming about seeing the garden minimized and stripped back, bare in the moonlight, the trees more navy than green, the grass bleached a ghostly grey in the lunar beams. She thought she was seeing it now as it was supposed to be seen, stripped of artifice, of pretence and posturing; back to nature. Behind her, somewhere in the shadows, she heard crickets scratch in the shrubs, an owl calling from a faraway tree . . . The crush of dewy grass underfoot.

  She didn’t need to turn to know it was him, she didn’t turn even when he came and sat beside her, his thigh unapologetically pressing against hers, his feet dangling in the cool water, the hems of his trousers becoming instantly soaked and clinging to his calves. She didn’t feel exposed or embarrassed to be found sitting here in her underwear. (How different was it from a bikini anyway, and he’d already seen that?)

  Wordlessly, she offered him her water bottle. He took it and as he did, she saw the bandage wrapped around the knuckles of his left hand. She gasped, looking up at him finally, but he simply shook his head imperceptibly. It was nothing.

  He handed her back the bottle and she set it down on the grass, keeping hold of his left hand in hers. Slowly, she raised it to her lips, kissing the bandage lightly, her eyes closed in tenderness.

  When she opened them again, he was staring at her with a look of wonderment. His hand grazed her cheek, his eyes exploring her face, his fingers brushing her lips. She had anticipated the savage passion Ines had predicted – clothes-ripping, back-slamming lust, the practised ladykiller working his moves on her. Instead, she lifted her legs out of the water and swung one over him, straddling him on her knees, cupping his head between her hands.

  She gazed down at him, knowing this was a mistake. They hadn’t ever had a proper conversation, only arguments; she didn’t know him, didn’t know his middle names or his birthday or what he liked to eat, and yet instinct was overruling consciousness, convention, caution . . .

  She bent her head, her lips softly, finally, crushing his, and the world was swept out from beneath her. She felt awake, alive, for the first time in her life. She was in free fall in his arms. She was Flora Sykes, twenty-seven years old, and she was falling in love.

  She sat on the side of the bath, watching as he got up from the bed, majestically, unabashedly naked, the moon greedily kissing his skin just as she had done. He moved like a cat, silent and sinuous, and already she craved the touch of him again as he threw her a glance, his eyes rapacious before he passed out of sight into the kitchen.

  She tested the water temperature and swirled the bath cream, feeling uprooted by so much emotion. She had never wanted a man the way she’d wanted him. Was it because he gave her so little? Had the tables been turned – her famous emotional reserve now played back on her?

  A moment later he reappeared, two glasses of water in his – still-bandaged – hands. It wasn’t just his knuckles that had been bloodied. His shoulder was badly bruised from where he’d hit the windscreen, his arms and back and chest scratched and pitted from the gravel. She had kissed every wound, revelling in the way he flinched and then relaxed under her touch, trusting her, succumbing to her.

  And yet still, they’d barely spoken, their moans saying all that had to be said, binding them to one another more closely than a shared secret or past.

  She turned off the taps and climbed into the bath, pushing herself against the back, creating room for him between her legs. He groaned with discomfort as he leaned back, his battered body protesting at the movement, but he took her legs by the ankles and wrapped them around his hips; she sighed as she felt his skin against hers again, his back pressed against her breasts, his hair against her neck as they sank back together into the water. She kissed his ear, her hands lightly squeezing the flannel over his chest.

  ‘Is Natascha OK?’ she asked quietly, almost reluctant to pierce the silence, the protective seal that enabled them to exist in this vacuum.

  ‘She will be.’ He paused. ‘What you did for her . . . she’s so grateful.’

  Flora doubted that but instead said, ‘She doesn’t need to be grateful to me. You’re the one who saved her. I just looked up at the right time.’ She soaked the flannel again, wishing they didn’t have to talk. Ever. It felt like walking barefoot and blindfolded through a minefield. She didn’t know where the danger was, where the safety.

  He shifted his head so that his cheek rested against her shoulder, his face in profile to her, as though he was trying to see her. ‘Yes, but most people would have let her get in that car. They think that’s all she’s worth.’

  Flora was shocked, her hand falling still above his chest. ‘No—’

  ‘Yes. She’s the tabloid’s favourite party girl. She’s cheap, nothing, just a headline. She deserved to be thrown into that car.’

  Flora didn’t know what to say. The bitterness in his words was reinforced by the sudden tension in his body, his muscles hard again, that ball pulsing in his jaw as she knew now it did, when he was stressed. Soaking the flannel again, she laid it flat against his chest. He relaxed.

  ‘No one ever asks why does she party so hard?’ he said more quietly. ‘No one. Not the papers. Not our friends . . . Not our parents.’

  Flora held her breath. His parents?

  He shifted his head, turned
to face the far wall again. ‘I am not the only one to know. But I am the only one who will remember.’ She felt the tension build up in him again, like he was instantly ready to fight, and she knew his body was still coming down from the adrenalin surge earlier. When he did finally sleep tonight, she knew, he would crash into oblivion. She placed her hand on his forehead and kissed his ear, his temple.

  ‘Don’t think about it now,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve had a rough night. You need to rest.’

  He shifted in her arms. ‘But don’t you want to know why she is the way she is?’ The words were a challenge. ‘Surely you cannot accept why she behaves the way she does to you?’

  Flora hesitated. ‘Maybe I don’t think it’s any of my business,’ she said carefully.

  ‘She is my sister,’ he said abruptly. ‘If you are with me, then it is your business.’

  Am I with you? she wanted to ask. In all reality, would they have anything beyond this night? Surely whatever passion had brought them to this point would now be sated, extinguished. Done. They’d be free of it.

  ‘Do you think she would want me to know?’ she asked, choosing her words.

  ‘She wants the whole world to know!’ he laughed bitterly, hoisting himself forwards and standing up suddenly, the water sloshing over the sides of the bath. ‘But no one will listen, that is the problem.’

  Flora knew then. Or at least, she could guess. She watched as he grabbed a towel and tied it round his hips – the bruise on his shoulder already blooming – his hands planted on them defiantly, and she saw that same combat in his eyes that was always there, staring at her as though she was the enemy.

  Her mouth parted in dismay. He was at war with the world, a fighter. There would always be passion, yes, but there would never be any peace with him.

  ‘Flora,’ he said, slumping suddenly as he saw how she retracted under his stare. He rushed over and pulled her up out of the water, throwing his arms around her, his face nestled in her neck.

  She let him hold her; his arms were so tight she was sure her ribs would crack under the pressure, sensing he’d be the one to crack without it. Even aside from Natascha’s history, the stresses on his family were intense; they were vilified, their fall from social grace catastrophic. The media hadn’t let up in days and weathering the storm from behind the villa walls could only do so much – people still stared, whispered, pointed at them whenever they set foot outside. They couldn’t stay sequestered in here for ever.

  She waited until his grip loosened, his need lessening. ‘Xavier, I want to help. I want to help you,’ she said, leaning back and taking his face in her hands. ‘. . . Tell me what happened to Natascha.’

  He stared at her and sighed, anguish a mask that he wore – she saw now – all the time. Only in the throes of his desire had he cast it off, swapping conscious pain for enveloping pleasure, his mouth upturned in a smile as he’d kissed her, mischief and playfulness in his eyes.

  He sank onto the side of the bath, his head dropped. ‘When she was fourteen, she was attacked,’ he said to the floor.

  ‘. . . Attacked?’ She swallowed, feeling her anxiety rise.

  He looked up and his dark eyes blinked at her, growing hard again. ‘Raped.’

  Oh God. Her hands flew to her mouth. It was as she’d feared, the worst-case scenario that had jumped into her head as Xavier had started on the subject, but still, she’d hoped to be wrong, exaggerating, a needless worrier like her mother after all. She stepped out of the bath and sat beside him, oblivious to the coldness of the porcelain on her bare skin, her hand squeezing his upper arm lightly.

  ‘Do . . . do you know who?’

  ‘Yes.’ He turned to look at her, his eyes as diamond-hard as if she’d been the perpetrator. ‘Jean-Luc Desanyoux.’

  Flora blinked in surprise, her eyes wide. She knew that name. He was a former racing driver, now a big name on the corporate-speech circuit, talking about what it takes to drive at 300 mph and not touch the brakes, how to take risks, work at your limits.

  ‘Do you know him?’ He was as still as a stone, watching her, assessing her reaction.

  ‘Yes.’ Her mind was whirring. He had a significant collection of classic cars and she had seen him at a photography sale in Los Angeles a few years ago.

  ‘Then you know he is surrounded by powerful people. As he told her – and she, me – she cannot prove it so who would believe her word over his?’ He shrugged as if the logic was indisputable.

  ‘But surely, there would have been evidence? DNA? I mean, she reported it . . . didn’t she?’

  He slid his jaw to the side, his eyes on a distant spot on the bathroom floor. ‘What do you think? She was fourteen and he was on the cover of Time magazine.’

  Flora felt sickened. ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘She was friends with his daughter. They’d been at a party and gone back to her house afterwards. They were both drunk. It wasn’t Natascha’s first time but it was one of the first times she’d been drinking. You know that age – beginning to experiment.’ He played with his fingers, his voice slurring into a murmur.

  ‘Were you there?’

  ‘No, I was at uni.’ He dropped his head down, his hands on his shoulders, his elbows up by his ears like a child trying to hide, and she felt a lurch of devastation as she realized he felt guilty for not having been there, as though he could have – should have – stopped it. She watched, helpless. What words could assuage the horror of this?

  He let his hands fall, leaning heavily on his legs. ‘She was thirsty in the middle of the night and went down to the kitchen to get some water. He was in there, saw the state she was in and insisted on making her some coffee. He was nice, she said, told her to sit down with him, chat, tell him about herself.’

  His hands on his thighs balled into fists, the bandages spreading tighter over the knuckles, and he stood up as suddenly as if he’d been launched. Flora jumped at both the suddenness and the vehemence of the action. ‘But then when she tried to leave, he . . . he told her to show him what was under her T-shirt. She refused but he got nasty, said she’d been teasing him, leading him on, that she’d come down – half-naked as he put it – with the intention of seducing him.’ He looked back at her. ‘She was in a Hello Kitty nightdress and bedsocks, for fuck’s sake!’

  Flora stared up at him, feeling helpless, distressed by his pain.

  ‘Our parents move in similar circles to him. He threatened to tell them that she had seduced him, that no one would believe her – she was a troublemaker and a liar. A fantasist.’ He bit his lip. ‘She’d been getting into trouble a bit anyway – skipping school, smoking – and she had been arrested for shoplifting shortly before. It was a dare, apparently, but you can imagine – my parents were furious. They thought she was going off the rails.’

  ‘But they would have believed her if she’d told them what happened, surely?’

  ‘By the time they found out, her behaviour had . . . escalated. She had become what he’d said she was. She believed him, she truly thinks she’s nothing.’

  That word again. The ultimate insult, the one Natascha had been so desperate to see deflected away from her for once, defining someone else.

  ‘She didn’t tell me for seven months and we’re . . . well, we’re close. We have always had a bond, you know?’ He looked at her and she nodded, knowing what he was also telling her here – that he was part of a package; to be with him was to be with Natascha also. ‘She had told no one for all that time? Of course her behaviour deteriorated! She believed him when he called her a whore and a liar and a fucked-up little bitch.’

  Flora’s face fell. ‘He said those things?’

  ‘While he was raping her.’ His voice was so distant it sounded boxed.

  Flora felt pummelled, barely able to take it in. A fourteen-year-old child, violently assaulted, her self-esteem shattered, her trust in the world obsolete.

  They were quiet for a long time, Flora feeling increasingly sick and sickened at how thi
s universal act – cruel and vicious and devastating and total – had cleaved both their families; she felt buckled by the irony of how difficult it must have been for Natascha to tell the truth, how easy it had been for Milly, Freddie’s alleged victim, to lie. Flora had remembered her vaguely from some group jaunts to The Phene in Chelsea, a satellite contact of Aggie’s from university who had never quite made her way into the crowd . . .

  ‘But your parents must have understood,’ she said quietly. ‘When she told them, they must have understood why she was acting up? I mean, surely?’

  ‘Yes. They did.’

  A ‘but’ hovered between them.

  Xavier’s expression changed again – the raw anger receding behind that mask he wore so well, a closing-down of the light in his eyes. ‘They explained that it was a delicate situation. Time had passed. There was no physical proof by then and with her reputation being what it was . . . it would be his word against hers.’ He shrugged. ‘They said that if she tried to pursue a conviction, yes, his career and reputation would be in ruins – but in all reality it would be harder for her to go through the trial by media. She would be victimized all over again and there’d be no guarantee of justice at the end of it.’

  Flora covered her mouth with her hand. ‘And it almost happened again tonight . . .’ she whispered.

  He looked away, sadness and exasperation intermingling in his features. ‘Sometimes I think it’s like a death wish. She’s deliberately reckless, provocative, pushing too hard all the time, almost like she’s trying to make it happen again – only this time she’ll do it right and they’ll catch the bastard. I try to keep my eye on her, I stay with her when we go out but I can’t be by her side twenty-four hours a day.’

  ‘Of course you can’t.’ She remembered the sight of him, alone in the crowd in Saint-Paul this morning, and she looked at his bandaged hands again. Was it really those hands that had sculpted such beauty? She knew the lightness, the deftness of touch in them, she’d felt it for herself now, his hands expert on her body as though she were a map he knew by heart. But what about the soul that had crafted such an ethereal vision of love? Was that the man he would have been if he hadn’t been forced to become his sister’s minder? Was it the man he might still be? ‘Can I ask you something?’