by Jenni Wiltz
“I didn’t lie!”
“You sure as hell didn’t tell me the truth.”
“Neither did you,” she snapped back. “How long have you known that’s why I came here? How long have you known without telling me?”
“I had my private investigator check you out,” he said. “I had to know who you were, Ella. I had to make sure you weren’t the one who robbed me.”
A shock wave rocked her to her core. “I would never steal from you, Sébastien.”
“I know that now,” he admitted. “But how could I have trusted you the first day I met you? I’m a Cherbourg, Ella. People always tell us what we want to hear so we’ll give them money.”
She swallowed heavily, not wanting to face the dread rising from the pit of her stomach into her heart. “So you won’t believe me just because I’m not a part of your family? You were never going to trust me at all, were you?”
Sébastien studiously avoided her eyes. “You don’t understand how hard it is.”
Oh, I’ll tell you what it means to understand, she thought. A flare of anger lit up inside her. “Oh, poor Sébastien, it’s so terrible to be rich! So many problems, it’s all just too much for you, isn’t it? Well, I don’t know anything about that.”
She jerked the top sheet off the bed and wrapped it around her. “I respect you for fighting for your family, Sébastien. They’re lucky to have you, even if they don’t realize it. But I can’t respect a man who is too stubborn to admit when he’s wrong. And I can’t respect a man who would willingly put innocent people in danger. Going ahead with the exhibition is selfish. You’re putting innocent people in danger and you know it.”
Ella clasped the sheet to her and slid off the bed. Walking away from Sébastien made her heart ache. She wanted nothing more than to crawl back in bed and have him kiss her with all the passion he’d revealed when they cast away their inhibitions.
But she couldn’t be a part of putting others in danger. She’d never be able to live with herself if she did. She trudged toward the stairs and then turned for one final word. “I’m going to get my computer and submit my report. Then I’m going to say goodbye to Frau Müller and Dr. O’Malley.”
She picked up the sheet and started going down the stairs, hoping he would say something to stop her. She was even careful to move as slowly as she could, as if the next second would be the one where he realized he was wrong. But he didn’t say anything. He sat there, bare-chested and gorgeous enough to make her body second-guess her mind.
She hung her head in defeat.
If I’m taking the high road, she wondered, why does it feel like I’m the one losing?
When she reached the lower level of his bedroom, she pulled open the door and gasped. Frau Müller was standing on the other side holding a tray of food.
“Miss Wilcox,” the housekeeper said, backing up to keep from spilling the contents of the tray. “Where are you going?”
Ella mustered all the dignity she could—not much when all she was wearing was a sheet. “I’m going home,” she said. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Thank you for being so kind.”
The older woman looked confused. She tilted her head as a pained expression crossed her face. “But why?” she asked. “What has happened?”
“Ask Sébastien,” she said. She was too upset to go over the destruction of the fragile, beautiful relationship she thought she’d been building. “I have work to do.”
Ella padded back down the hall to Honorée’s old room. Gertrude had washed her dirty clothes and folded them, placing them in a neat pile at the foot of her bed. Her red coat lay folded on top of the entire stack.
She picked her beloved coat up and held it up to her face. What am I doing? she asked herself. How did I get here? This isn’t me, is it?
The memory of Sébastien’s kisses on her skin, the weight of his body on hers…it made her shiver with desire, even now. She couldn’t control her body’s response to him. It was as if they had been made for each other. Their bodies had fit together so perfectly it seemed a waste not to entwine them on a regular basis.
But as perfect as it had felt, Ella couldn’t turn her brain off. That was the problem. If her body were all she considered, she’d run back to Sébastien’s room right now and let him cover her skin with his lips, warming her with the force of the fire burning behind his eyes.
Why can’t it be easy? she asked herself. Why is it so hard to do what’s right?
Ella dropped the sheet and flung it over Honorée’s bed. She put her own clothes back on and felt both relief and despair. Relief that she was no longer responsible for French couture and despair that she was herself again.
In the Cherbourg dress, she’d felt worthy of attention. In her own clothes, she was just Ella. A murdered man’s daughter who might never find peace or absolution. She looked at herself in the mirror and realized she didn’t look like someone Sébastien might escort to a fancy restaurant. She didn’t belong in his world any more than he belonged in hers.
As she studied her reflection, she realized she’d forgotten her necklace in Sébastien’s room. Her heart clenched at the thought of leaving the Cherbourg mansion without it, but she couldn’t face going back up there. Not right now. Maybe not ever.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” she whispered. “I just can’t do it.”
Ella made a mental note to ask Gertrude to go back and find it for her later. Or, she realized, she could always sneak back up when Sébastien wasn’t there. She felt naked without the thin metal bands that symbolized her parents’ love, but since her own love life was so tangled up, she knew she had to deal with one problem at a time.
First things first, she thought. Submit that report and get the hell out of here.
She searched the room for her computer and realized she’d left it in the library. She remembered Sébastien’s head of security asking them to leave the first floor so they could secure it. But surely they wouldn’t mind if she just went downstairs for a moment to retrieve her laptop? She hadn’t even taken it out of its case, not once she’d gotten absorbed in the jewelry book.
Well, I can’t submit my report without that computer. I’ll just go get it, she thought.
She slipped out of her room and crept downstairs, keeping an eye out for the black-uniformed security guards who patrolled the lower story of the Cherbourg mansion.
No one stopped her as she slunk down the marble staircase and into the library. She crept inside and retrieved her laptop and its case from the large mahogany reading table.
Ella tried to keep her eyes away from the hole in the window, but it drew her back to it like a magnet. She stared at it and shivered. That could have been me, she thought, looking at the tiny hole in the glass.
But instead of feeling afraid, she remembered how Sébastien had clung to her after the attack. How it had taken fear to bring out any expression of emotion between them. Why did it have to be that way? she wondered. Why did fear push through boundaries pride couldn’t budge?
She wondered if she could push through those boundaries on her own, to see if Sébastien truly cared about her. If there wasn’t a psycho on the loose trying to kill her, could he still find the strength to tell her he cared?
Stop it, she told herself. Stop trying to build something out of nothing. Just get your job done and get out of here.
Ella zipped her computer back into its case and hurried out into the hallway, out of sight of the library’s broken window. While she was wondering where to set up shop and complete her report, she heard a pair of footsteps clicking on the tile floor. As they rounded the corner towards her, she held her breath.
If one of Sébastien’s guards found her, he might forcibly escort her back upstairs—and closer to Sébastien’s bed. She couldn’t let that happen. Being so close to him affected her behavior and her thoughts. Even though part of her wanted to be forced back next to him, she knew it was a wasted effort.
But as the footsteps came closer, she realiz
ed it wasn’t one of Sébastien’s security team members. It was Dr. O’Malley. The white-haired doctor was carrying his black leather bag and suddenly she wondered if someone else had been harmed. “Dr. O’Malley!” she called.
He looked up sharply at the sound of her voice. Before he recognized her, his soft features had been hardened into a mask of intense concentration. Then, once he realized it was her, he forced a smile to his lips. “Miss Wilcox,” he said. “You shouldn’t be down here.”
“Has someone else been hurt?” she asked, pointing at his bag.
“No, no,” he said, reaching forward to pat her arm. “I just thought I’d have a look around myself.”
Ella frowned. The old man’s eyes weren’t focusing on her. They kept darting behind and around her, like he expected someone else to be there. “Dr. O’Malley, are you all right?”
“I’m fine. But you look quite distressed. Did something happen?”
Ella shook her head. “I’m fine, too,” she said. She didn’t trust herself to say another word without breaking down.
“I don’t believe you,” O’Malley said, shaking a finger at her. “Are you sure there isn’t something you want to tell me? I’m a very good listener, you’ll find.”
Suddenly, she thought of all the things she did want to say. She wished she could ask someone why her father’s death never seemed to get any farther away, no matter how much time went by.
She’d never told anyone how hard it was to keep looking for her father’s stolen jewels instead of seeking out a life of her own. For a few deluded minutes, she thought Sébastien might be part of that life. Until she ruined it all by holding back the only secret that could tear them apart.
Everything’s tumbling down around me, she thought. And I don’t know how to pick it all back up again.
Ella blinked back tears and tried to turn away, but she wasn’t fast enough. Dr. O’Malley saw her blink quickly and put a hand on her shoulder. “I know what you need,” he said. “Come on.”
With light pressure on her shoulder, he guided her into one of the front parlors, a room decorated in vibrant teal with white moldings. A taxidermied peacock rested on top of a bookcase, its long tail sweeping down toward the floor. Ella stared at it in awe. The feathers were iridescent and beautiful, almost shimmering in the lamplight.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” O’Malley said. “I’ve always thought so.”
“It is,” she agreed, stepping closer to it. She reached out a hand to stroke the soft, multi-colored feathers. “Sometimes I feel a little like this poor guy.”
“How so?” O’Malley answered, closing the doors behind them. He set his bag on the coffee table and opened it.
“He looks alive, but he’s frozen forever. He can’t move forward, but he can’t go back.”
“Why are you frozen, Miss Wilcox?”
“Please,” she said, coming to sit on the sofa beside him. “Call me Ella.”
“Ella,” he acknowledged with a smile.
“Did Sébastien tell you anything about me or my family?”
“No,” he said. “Sébastien wouldn’t do that unless you’d asked him to.”
“Well, he won’t be asking anytime soon, that’s for sure.”
It felt strange to be discussing Sébastien. Even though he was upstairs, it felt like he was hundreds of miles away. Like he was separated from her by land, sea, air, and anything else that the Cherbourg money could buy. It was like the hours of closeness and passion they shared had never happened.
“Why did you mention your family?” O’Malley asked. “What does that have to do with Sébastien?”
“It’s my father,” she confessed. “He was one of the city’s best jewelry restorers. He dabbled in jewelry design when he was young, but by the time I was born, he’d switched mostly to restoring. He’s the one who taught me to love jewels and jewelry.”
“Let me guess,” the older man said. “Something happened to him?”
Ella nodded. “When I was eight, two men broke into his workshop and took everything he had. Then they shot him and left him to die.”
“I’m so sorry, my dear,” O’Malley said.
Ella looked deep into his eyes, hoping for comfort, but the old man still seemed strangely distant. “It must have been a terrible shock,” he said.
“It was,” she agreed. “I can’t forget that night, no matter how hard I try. All I have to do is think about it. Then, if I fall asleep, I’ll see it in a dream, happening right in front of me. Every detail, right there, whether I want to re-live it or not. It’s like my brain just won’t let it go.” Like it has something left to tell me.
O’Malley frowned, furrowing the loose skin of his brow. “You were a child, weren’t you? How much of it did you see?”
Ella clasped her hands in her lap as the painful memories flooded her brain. She remembered the blood, the smoke from the gun barrel, the black sack the men used to load up the jewels, the song one of the men had been humming as she’d walked through the door. “I saw everything,” she said grimly. “I still see it every time I close my eyes.”
“That’s a terrible burden for a young woman to carry.”
“That’s exactly what it feels like,” she said. “Like something I’m carrying. As heavy as an anvil, sometimes.”
Suddenly, she remembered the Irish lullaby he’d hummed when he checked her out after the Pasternak incident. Even though it was just a song, something about the melody had calmed her. It was wholesome and true, a reminder of simpler times in a simpler place. It was something her father would have liked. Maybe even something he might have sung to her, if they’d been Irish. “Doctor O’Malley,” she said softly.
“Call me Peter, please,” he said, reaching out and squeezing her hand.
“Peter, then. Could you do me a favor?”
“Of course. What can I do to help?”
She looked at the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, at the sagging skin around his jaw. Her father might look like this today if he’d survived. She’d been an unexpected surprise born late in his life, so it was very likely Peter O’Malley was about the same age.
She felt a little silly even asking. It was a ridiculous indulgence, but more than anything, she wanted to feel a father’s embrace. “Would you give me a hug?” she asked. “And sing me that Irish lullaby? It’s silly, I know, but I—”
O’Malley smiled. “You don’t have to explain,” he said. “It’s only natural. You’re missing your father and he and I are the same age.”
Ella tilted her head. How would he know that? she wondered.
He just said Sébastien hadn’t told him anything about her family. Why would he assume the father of a twenty-six-year-old woman would be in his late sixties or early seventies? But maybe she’d let it slip one of the other times he’d checked up on her. It didn’t necessarily mean anything.
Still, the shadow of doubt in her mind made it hard for her to relax as Peter O’Malley pulled her into a fatherly embrace. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the arms of her father, holding her tight. But the feeling of warmth and safety just wouldn’t come, no matter how hard she tried to relax. Her body felt tense and anxious. To top it off, her mind wouldn’t stop ringing its internal alarm bells.
Then the older man began to whistle. She leaned her head against his chest and tried to let the lilting melody carry her into a more peaceful state of mind. But instead of the mellifluous tune he’d dazzled her with the other night, she heard something that struck a bone-cold chill of fear in her heart. It was a folk tune, all right—the one she’d heard one of her father’s killers hum as he cleared off the workbench. The notes, the lilt, everything, was exactly the same as the melody burned into her memory.
Ella knew she’d never heard that tune anywhere else.
She pushed her way out of the older man’s embrace. “It was you,” she breathed, searching his face for the recognition she knew was there, somewhere. “Peter, tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you wer
en’t there that night.”
“No, lassie, I was there,” he said softly.
“Why, Peter? Why did you do it?”
He kept a firm grip on her upper arms, keeping her near him. His eyes still had that hazy, unfocused glow. “You couldn’t understand,” he said.
She started to wonder if he was mentally unstable. The thought made her heart race. She struggled in his grip, but it was surprisingly strong for an older man. “Let go of me or I’ll scream,” she said.
“I don’t think so, my dear.” With one hand, he reached into his jacket pocket and drew out a syringe.
She tried to jerk her arm out of its hold, but before she could move, he’d already plunged the needle into her arm.
“What are you doing?” she cried.
Ella tried to struggle. Tried to shake free of his vise-like grip. But her senses were already becoming foggy. The words she meant to say floated in her brain and she couldn’t quite grab hold of them. I’m sorry, Dad, she wanted to say. I’m screwing it all up, aren’t I?
When she told her legs to move, to carry her away from the sofa, they refused to obey. She was floating in a haze and her own body wouldn’t respond to her commands.
Her vision went hazy and then faded to black.
Chapter Fifteen
Her brain felt too large for her skull.
That was the first sensation she could process into thought. Ella tried to figure out why that might be. Was I in an accident? she wondered. Did I fall and hurt myself?
Images and sensations came back to her dimly, as if she had to search for them through a thick, pea-soup fog. She remembered something about a song, something about her father, and something about the eerie smile of a white-haired man.
If I could just get the ache in my head to stop…
She tried to press her hands to her head to help clear away the fog. But when she moved them, nothing happened. Okay, that’s weird, she thought.