by Harper Bliss
“And you’re going to tell me that?” Dievart said. Claire wanted to flee the living room and hide behind the locked door of her bedroom. She’d need to contact her building’s management office and ask them to change the door code. “I want to speak to Claire.”
“Claire is done with you.” Margot didn’t have to raise her voice to put a whole lot of menace into it. How ironic, Claire thought, that my ex is kicking out my rebound shag. “I hope you can have the courtesy to respect that, Dr. Dievart.” Margot definitely had the upper hand. It made Claire feel slightly better to have someone like Margot come to her defense. She had no idea what she would have done if she’d been alone when Dievart knocked on her door. The state she was in, with a good amount of alcohol in her blood, she’d probably have let her in.
“Fine. I’ll speak to her some other time.” Dievart wasn’t one to drag this out long.
Without saying another word, Margot slammed the door shut and double-locked it. By the time she made it back into the living room, Claire’s nerves were so frayed, she burst out into tears again.
“I’m sure she won’t bother you again.” Margot came to sit right next to Claire. “But just to be sure, I’ll stay over tonight. I’ll sleep in your guest room. And before you say anything, it’s no bother. I’m not working tomorrow.”
“What am I going to do?” Until she had the door codes changed, Claire wouldn’t even be able to relax in her own home.
“I have a spare room, Claire. You can always stay with me for a bit, until she has moved on. I’ll keep an eye on her at the hospital.”
“I’m sorry to put you through this,” Claire said. “And I’m sorry I didn’t visit you more and—”
“Hey.” Margot shuffled a little closer. “It’s okay.” She put her arm, which felt just as strong as it had always done, around Claire’s shoulder. Claire let her head drop onto Margot’s shoulder in return. If only, she mused. If only we had stayed together. Then I wouldn’t be in this mess.
“For your information.” Margot’s voice was low and soothing. “Dievart and I are not on the best of terms. She had the nerve to hit on me yesterday and I set her straight in no uncertain terms.”
“Oh, Christ.” Claire was so miserable she felt more like laughing than crying. “I’ve lost my best friend over that kind of woman.”
“I’m not going to let her get away with all the pain she has caused. You mark my words. I’m going to take that bitch down.” Margot’s tone had gone all icy. Claire hadn’t expected that. She’d never heard Margot speak like that about anyone.
“What’s gotten into you?” Claire had to ask.
“She’s not going to keep on hurting everyone I care about. It’s time someone put a stop to that. It’s not because she’s gorgeous and brilliant she can do whatever she damn well pleases.” Claire wanted to drag her head away from Margot’s shoulder and look her in the eyes while she said all these things that, right now, sounded like music to her ears—even though she knew full well that it wasn’t all down to Dievart being such a heartless bitch. But, damn it, she’d had the nerve to hit on Margot while she was seeing Claire? And Margot had stood up for her.
“Someone seems to have it in for the neurosurgeon,” Claire joked.
“She has gone too far, Claire. Surely, you agree.”
“I do.” Claire let her body sink a bit closer into Margot’s muscly side, and thought she could sit like this forever—and in the process forget the mess she had put herself in.
NADIA
“You knew?” was the first thing Juliette said when she walked back into the flat, her eyes red-rimmed and her cheeks puffed up from crying.
“I did. But I swear to you, as soon as I found out I urged Claire to tell you.” Nadia stood with her arms spread wide in the hallway. “You needed to hear it from her, babe.”
Juliette rushed into her embrace and folded her arms around Nadia’s neck. “Why would she do this?”
“I don’t know, honey. I wish I could give you an explanation that would make it all better, but this is life, and sometimes it just plainly sucks and the people you love the most, hurt you the most.” How many times must this happen to Juliette? Nadia wondered. Everyone she had ever given her unconditional love to had put a dagger into her heart. First her parents. Now Claire. And Nadia wasn’t innocent either, although Nadia, at the very least, had a semblance of explanation—she wouldn’t go as far as to call it an excuse—for what she’d done.
“What the hell am I going to do now? Go to a client meeting with her on Monday?” Juliette intensified the grip of her arms around Nadia’s neck. Nadia felt her skin become wet with tears.
“You have to do no such thing.” Nadia tried to loosen herself from Juliette’s embrace slowly. “Why don’t we sit down?”
Juliette took the hint and stepped back. How many times had Nadia stood face-to-face with her wife and wished she could take away a fraction of her pain? Too many to be good for anyone. They headed into the living room and sagged down into the sofa. How much can one woman take? Nadia thought as she took in Juliette’s tears. But Juliette was not alone, and she had a ring on her finger to remind her of that at all times.
“You let Claire deal with work on Monday,” Nadia offered.
“As much as I would like to do that, I’m too much of a micro-manager to let that happen. Especially now.” Juliette seemed to pull herself together. Talk of work always did that to her. Did she even realize how much her work meant to her? And was she really willing to give that up for a child? But that was a discussion for yet another time. Although Claire’s words from when Nadia had confronted her still rang loudly in her ears.
“I know,” Nadia said. And that was the understatement of the year.
“Would she even have told me if you hadn’t found out?”
Nadia knew she had to tread carefully here. It was probably not a good idea to inform Juliette about how Claire had begged Nadia to keep it a secret. If she ever wanted them to be friends again, Nadia had better keep her own tiny secrets. “We can guess all we want, but we’ll never know.”
“I just… feel so extremely unimportant. Like my very existence is just a nuisance to Claire’s bloody sex life.” Juliette huffed out some air through her nostrils. “What did she think? That she could just go and screw Dievart without consequences?”
“I know this is all very upsetting, and you have every right to be angry, Jules…”
“But?” Juliette interjected. “I know there’s one coming.” She clutched her head between her hands.
“What Claire did is so uncharacteristic for her. The Claire I know would never have done that to her best friend. We can sit here and debate how many orgasms a friendship is worth all we want, but that’s not what it’s really about, is it?” Nadia was skirting dangerous territory, but she had everything to gain by trying to salvage Juliette’s friendship with Claire. She had never known Juliette without Claire. Their friendship stood at the very center of their lives. “We all have the ability to do unspeakable things when we’re hurt.” Truer words have never been spoken, Nadia added in her head. She was guilty of it, and so was Juliette. Even Margot had sunk to a low—and was in need of forgiveness to move on. Nobody was exempt from this. And had Claire not been Juliette’s rock through it all?
“I certainly hope Claire has been beside herself for the past few months. And she may claim that by doing what she did she never set out to hurt me, but the fact of the matter is that she did. And she knew she did. For crying out loud, she could have had any other woman. But no, it had to be that one. Why?” Juliette’s voice was getting higher and higher.
“Self-destruction?” It wasn’t as though Nadia suddenly had all the answers. “Dievart is not someone you choose to be with for cuddles and laughs, Jules. The sex might have been great, but all the rest would have killed Claire.” Too late, Nadia realized what she had just said. She hoped with everything she had that Juliette would let it go, or would be too worked up to pick up on the r
eference to sex with Dievart, an act she had, regretfully, engaged in herself.
“I don’t want to lose my friend,” Juliette said—apparently ignoring Nadia’s remark. “But I don’t know how I can ever forgive her for what she has done. She did it again and again. I can’t get past that.”
“How about you and I go away for the weekend?” Nadia said. “It doesn’t have to be far, but just away from the city—away from it all?”
“We can’t, Nadz. We have Iris’s birthday party on Sunday.”
Ah, Nadia had forgotten about that. It was odd to suddenly have to take Juliette’s family members’ birthdays into account. “Right.”
“What?” Juliette asked. “You don’t want to go?”
Nadia didn’t particularly enjoy visiting Juliette’s family, because it was always awkward and someone always said the wrong thing at one point and, most of all, it was such a shocking reminder of all the memories Juliette was not a part of. But Nadia had promised Juliette she would be there every step of the way to reconciliation with her family, so that’s where she was. Although Nadia was no fool, and she knew very well that Juliette wanted so badly for Nadia to be charmed by Chloé and Iris, it was almost painful to have to experience it. Did Juliette really think that spending time with two teenagers Nadia didn’t even know six months ago would make her want to have children? “I do, babe. You know I do.” Nadia guessed it would be a good enough activity to take Juliette’s mind off this whole Claire saga.
“And you haven’t forgotten that on Thursday we have an appointment with Dr. Dupuis?”
How could Nadia possibly forget when Juliette reminded her of it every single day? “I have not.” She put her hand on Juliette’s knee. “I’ll be there.”
“That means a lot to me, babe,” Juliette said in a small voice.
Nadia wanted to say a few things about that, but now was not the time. Juliette was like a ticking bomb and, at the very least, a few days would have to pass before she was sufficiently disarmed to have another much-needed conversation about offspring. They’d had conversations. Nadia had explicitly agreed to explore the insemination avenue. But, however ashamed she was of admitting this to herself, that was more because she knew that the chances of Juliette getting pregnant via artificial insemination at the age of forty-five were as good as non-existent. No fertility expert in their right mind would advise someone like Juliette to start that long, slow and often painful process so late in life. Juliette would surely try to persuade them, but she would see reason in the end—because she would have no other choice.
Nadia knew she was being a coward about this, but she hoped that Thursday’s appointment would shed much-needed light on the matter. And, if anything, it would spark a whole new discussion between them, because there was no way that Dr. Dupuis would tell Juliette to go ahead with her plans.
“How about…” Nadia racked her brain for a suitable Saturday activity. “How about we go to the Chateau de Versailles tomorrow?”
“How about we just go about our day as normal instead?” Juliette counter-offered. “Admittedly, I’m in shock right now. But I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
Yeah right, Nadia thought. “I’m sure you will be,” she said.
STEPH
Steph rang the bell of Marion Lavalle’s house. If Steph had spent any time at her Père Lachaise flat of late, she would have been able to walk, because Dominique’s friend—the highly recommended MLR-approved therapist—lived a few streets down from her. Dominique had offered to call Madame Lavalle and set up the appointment for Steph, but Steph could take care of that herself, thank you very much. When she’d said her name, the woman on the other end of the line had suggested they meet at her private residence instead of at her practice in the center of town. Where this would have raised an eyebrow with Steph before, she was now used to special treatment, and doing things on the down-low, and doors opening just at the mention of her name.
Steph had googled Lavalle on her phone on the way over, just to have an idea, and now the woman whose picture she’d just studied on the internet stood in front of her in the doorway.
“You must be Stéphanie,” she said, and stretched out her hand.
“In the flesh,” Steph replied and, instantly, felt a little flirty. That was what Stéphanie Mathis did. She flirted with attractive women she met. It was a harmless enough sensation, but Steph was glad to discover it still existed within her—that the old her hadn’t been totally erased.
“Please, come in.” Madame Lavalle led the way into one of the most spectacular hallways Steph had ever seen. Old money, she thought. The further she progressed into the house, the more it smelled of MLR crocodiles. Dominique hadn’t been very forthcoming with information about Madame Lavalle, whom she called Marion. She’d said Steph could ask all her questions directly and Marion would surely answer them—but, yes, of course she was a member of the MLR. As though this always went without saying.
Steph followed Madame Lavalle into a well appointed garden room overlooking a small but very lush and green back yard. Hot damn, she thought. Everyone in the MLR is just so scandalously rich. Real estate in Paris was not cheap, and this house must be worth a fortune. It struck Steph as even more opulent than Dominique’s parents’ house in Neuilly. In fact, she was surprised Madame Lavalle’s home wasn’t located in Neuilly. Everyone needs small acts of rebellion, she concluded, and instantly liked her potential therapist-to-be a little already, simply for living in her neighborhood.
“Make yourself comfortable, s’il vous plaît,” she said. “Can I get you some coffee or tea or water?”
Steph felt like a large glass of Bordeaux, but guessed that was out of the question. “Just water, please.”
After Madame Lavalle had planted two glasses of water on the coffee table between them and they’d both sat down, a bout of nerves hit Steph straight in the stomach. Because she wasn’t at Les Pêches or L’Univers chatting someone up. She was sitting here with another woman to talk about her innermost goings-on. Not an activity Steph engaged in regularly. But she had come because she knew she desperately needed to. Because she needed to do something.
Steph pictured Philippe sitting in this same chair years ago. She had more sympathy for him now. She could almost understand why he’d left Dominique.
“So, Stéphanie,” Madame Lavalle started.
“Please, everyone calls me Steph.” Steph was a little intimidated, and she didn’t know very well what to expect, but it was in her nature to look the other woman straight in the eyes when she addressed her. She was glad she did so she could notice the tiny smile Madame Lavalle’s lips curled into.
“Okay, Steph. Do call me Marion. I insist.”
“Will do.” Steph smiled back. However stressed this new situation made her, she still felt more relaxed than she had on any other Saturday the past six months, because she’d gotten a break from campaigning for this. As far as private time went, between work and being Dominique Laroche’s significant other, this was it for her. God, she should have done this sooner.
“Will you tell me a little about yourself?” Marion asked, while crossing her legs. Steph wondered how old she was. She looked about the same age as her mother, who’d had Steph when she was only twenty-three, and had raised her single-handedly—and free-spiritedly.
“I will, but, er, I was wondering if you could tell me a little about yourself first,” Steph countered. She wasn’t going to bare her soul to someone she knew nothing about.
Marion gave a small chuckle. “Bien sûr, Steph.” She adjusted her skirt. “What has Dominique told you?”
Steph shook her head. “Nothing much. She’s a bit busy these days. Just that you helped her ex-husband back in the day.” And they got divorced anyway, Steph added in her head.
“Okay. Well. Xavier and my father were very close friends for most of their adult life. My father took Xavier under his wing when he joined the MLR, and Xavier ended up working for him when he was in office. That’s how Dominique an
d I became friends when she was only a little girl. I’ve known her since she was this tall.” She held her hand level with the armrest of the chair she sat in. “I’m quite a bit older than her, so I guess I took it upon myself to take her under my wing as well. We had a lot in common, what with both of us being daughters of MLR heavyweights.”
The name Lavalle didn’t ring any bells for Steph, but most women took their husband’s name after marriage. “May I ask who your father is?”
“Was,” Marion said quickly. “He passed away a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” Steph shuffled around in her seat a bit. All these fathers, she thought. Dominique’s life had been shaped by her father, Juliette’s life had been destroyed by hers. Steph had never had a father. She’d asked her mother about him, of course, but true to her nature, her mother had said that he was of no importance. It had never bothered Steph that she didn’t know who he was, though she guessed she might have inherited her slightly philandering ways from him. Her mother had remained fervently single all through Steph’s childhood, claiming that she didn’t need a man to do a good job of being a parent.
“You might have heard of a man named Tanguy-Pascal.”
Steph’s eyes grew wide. “Your father was president?” Steph thought Dominique could have at least shared that tidbit of information. How had she missed this when she had googled Marion earlier? Granted, she’d mostly looked at the pictures she’d found, but damn, this was information required prior to walking into someone’s house.
“He was.” Marion nodded. “So I hope you can see why I might be a good person to help you.”
“I had absolutely no idea.” Steph felt a little ill at ease. “I mean, er, is this ethical? Can I speak freely here?”
“Totally. You know why I preferred seeing you in my home rather than at my practice, but that doesn’t mean our conversations aren’t covered by confidentiality. Nothing you say here will leave this house. That’s my promise to you.”