by Carolyn Zane
As much as it tortured him, Sebastian knew it was up to him to be strong. “Marie-Claire, right now, I don’t even know who I am.”
“I do.”
“Tell me.”
“The other half of me.”
His own words came back to haunt him as she quoted what he’d told her just yesterday. On impulse, Marie-Claire pressed her mouth to his, and for a moment, Sebastian lost all rational thought, his heart tumbling with an avalanche of forbidden desire. Marie-Claire was persistent, pressing his lips open with her own, warming his cheeks with her breath, nipping, tasting, urging.
It was too intense.
“No.”
Fearing that he might be losing himself in his sister’s kiss, he thrust her roughly away and—heart hammering, breath coming in labored puffs—took several steps down the stairs.
Clutching the balustrade, Marie-Claire sank to her knees.
“We can’t do this, Marie-Claire. We can’t.” Without daring a backward glance, Sebastian left her sobbing at the top of the stairs.
Chapter Seven
It had been twenty-four hours.
Just enough crying time to bruise Marie-Claire’s usually peachy complexion and swell her almond-shaped eyes to veritable walnuts. A demonic dance troop had taken up residence in her brain, fox-trotting on her temples and doing the rumba on her eardrums. She knew she needed an aspirin or two, or perhaps—heavy sigh—a dozen, and would have slogged into her bathroom to find some, if she could only be sure she’d live long enough for them to take effect.
Outside her window, a tiny songbird landed on her sill and proceeded to serenade her with its lyrical warble.
“Oh…shut up!” she moaned and flopped about in her bed until she located a decorative pillow and flung it at the pane.
Life was over.
She had no reason to go on. She’d lost her one true love and the color had eked from her existence, leaving her emotionally monochromatic.
Black.
White.
And shades of eternal, dismal…
Gray.
A long, unrepressed hiss leaked from between her lips. Her eyes slid shut and she clutched her head as the nightmare of yesterday morning’s hideous proclamation revisited. Claudette’s shrill voice reverberated in the back of her brain, crying “He’s Philippe’s son,” over and over, and driving Marie-Claire half mad with panic.
After Sebastian had left, she’d sped to her suite, locking herself inside and refusing to eat or drink or speak to anyone, sending family and servant alike away to wonder and worry. She had no desire to eat. To drink. To speak.
Why bother?
Everyone, with the lone exception of herself, had bought into a ridiculous lie. For the love of St. Michel, they need only look at Claudette to see the blessed truth. They were blood-related. The town idiot could have figured out that much.
All right, so King Philippe had also had mesmerizing blue eyes and a tiny cleft in the chin.
So what?
And, yes, a little dimple too, and perhaps the same silver-tinged dark hair. And…that resonating vocal timbre that Marie-Claire loved so well in both of them, but that did not make him Sebastian’s father.
Did it?
No!
“No, no, no!” Marie-Claire scraped a knuckle beneath her eyes and pressed her mouth to the satin hem of her blanket. Sebastian was not her brother!
They were meant to be lovers. Mates. Parents together. Fate would not be so cruel.
With the speed and dexterity of a three-legged tortoise, Marie-Claire threw back her covers, dragged herself to a sitting position and surveyed her shocking reflection in the vanity mirror across the room. A poster child for “America’s Most Wanted” stared back at her. Her hair stood away from her head like the great, tangled dreads of a shedding golden retriever. Black circles, one part mascara, two parts anguish, circled her red-rimmed eyes and her face appeared to have—she leaned closer and squinted—tire tracks imbedded in her cheeks, no doubt from having been run over by a pack of lies.
Cold and stiff as rigor mortis, Marie-Claire slowly scooted to the edge of her massive canopied bed, and sat for a moment to catch her breath from the exertion.
A knock at the door set the cranial demons to dancing again.
“Go away.”
“Marie-Claire, honey, we are concerned. Please. Let us in.”
She could hear Lise and Ariane whispering in the hallway.
“Go away.” No way was she up for the double dose of sisterly pity that waited.
“We have cinnamon rolls and coffee.”
Marie-Claire sat up a little straighter. Then again, some sympathy might be just what the doctor ordered. She stumbled to the door, fiddled with locks and yanked it open.
Her sisters gasped at the grim reaper incarnate standing before them and, with a roll of her bloodshot eyes, Marie-Claire waved them inside and staggered back to bed.
“She looks like Jonah after the whale spewed him out,” Ariane observed.
“Should we call the doctor?” Lise wondered.
“Stop talking about me as if I’m not here.”
Lise bustled to the window, pushed back the blackout drapes and threw open the windows to freshen the stale air. Ariane set down a tray, poured Marie-Claire a steaming mug of coffee, then grabbed a brush and sitting down on the bed, began working out her sister’s tangles.
“Ouch!”
“Too hot?”
“No, you’re tearing my hair out of my head.”
“Sorry.”
“So.” In the shaft of light that now flooded the room, Lise turned and smoothed her hands over her crisp slacks. At only three months pregnant, she still had no need of maternity wear. “It’s a broken heart, I see.”
Marie-Claire cast a droll look at her sister. “What was your first clue?”
Smiling sadly, Lise joined Ariane and perched at the edge of the bed. “Sometimes it takes an older sister some time to realize that her baby sister is all grown up and capable of such deep emotion.”
“I’ll say,” Ariane groused.
“I’m still waiting for you to grow up,” Lise retorted.
“I beg your pardon? Just because you’re married you seem to think that you can impart advice on all subj—”
“Don’t blame my marriage for the fact that you won’t mature—”
“Uh…Excuse me?” Marie-Claire stared back and forth between her sisters. “Could we please focus on my problems for once?”
Suddenly contrite, they nodded. From Lise, “Of course, Marie-Claire. What can we do to help?”
Jaw set with determination, Marie-Claire puckered her lips and blew at the steam rising from her mug. “I need your best advice on how to win a man’s attention.”
“Would this man be…” Lise placed a flat palm against her chest and swallowed, “…Sebastian?”
“Duh.”
“Our new big brother, Sebastian?” Ariane stared at her agog.
“Yes.”
“You want to win the affections of a man that could be…our…our…” As if she were trying to expel an olive pit, Lise pursed her mouth against this assault on her delicate sensibilities. “…brother? Marie-Claire, honey, that’s just plain—”
“Gross!” Ariane supplied.
“He’s not our brother!”
“You can’t know that for sure,” Lise told her.
“Yes! I do!”
“How?”
“Gut instinct, sixth sense, I don’t know! Women’s intuition! Call it what you will.” With her free hand, Marie-Claire gripped the rails at the end of her bed and hauled herself to her knees, tilting her mug at a dangerous angle. Animation chased the fatigue from her features. “Watch his mother’s eyes when she talks about adopting him from Katie. A mother’s eyes cannot lie. Sebastian is her birth son.”
“But what reason could Claudette possibly have for saying he’s her adopted son?”
Marie-Claire snorted. “Hello? Crown prince?” Wild g
esticulations sent her coffee sloshing over her hands. “Oww.” She set the mug back on the tray and sucked the suddenly rising welt on her thumb. “I think Claudette sees herself as some kind of step-dowager-mum-person. I bet she’s got her tiara all picked out and everything.”
“But Marie-Claire, surely Sebastian can see that she is lying?” Ariane said.
“I think he does.”
“Then why is he going along with her?”
“Think, Ariane! She has planted a seed of doubt in everyone. If there is even the remotest possibility that he is my half brother, he knows that our relationship could ruin us both. He would step away from me, even if he knew Claudette was lying, just to protect me.”
Lise and Ariane gave this angle some serious consideration and Lise admitted, “I’ve seen Claudette from time to time down at the country club with her cronies. She is a bit of a name dropper.”
Ariane said, “And Sebastian shares her startlingly blue eyes. A different hue, really, than Papa’s were.”
“Now that you mention it, I do see a certain familial resemblance between Sebastian and Claudette.”
“It’s about time,” Marie-Claire groused.
“And it is quite odd that she would wait until now to unveil Sebastian as Papa’s son. Why wouldn’t she have told him all this before, if it were really true?” Lise stared out the window, pondering.
“Opportunity. Before now, there was none.” Marie-Claire’s head swiveled back and forth between her sisters. They were beginning to see the light. Even so, Lise was ever practical.
“But what if you are wrong?”
“I’m not! Will you trust me on this? Sebastian is no more a member of this family than…than…” she pointed to Lise, “Wilhelm!”
“True.” Lise’s tone was dry.
“Sorry, honey, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know.”
“Anyway, Claudette is up to no good. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. She’s the type who will say anything to get what she wants. And she wants power.”
“Prestige.” Ariane agreed.
“Position.” Lise agreed, too.
“We can’t let her get away with this. I have to do something. Now! And I need your help. She is ruining my life. And Sebastian’s.”
“You are really very much in love.” Lise reached out and lightly stroked Marie-Claire’s hand. A poignant look of longing flashed behind her eyes and was gone.
“Yes.”
“Then you cannot chance losing it.”
“No,” Marie-Claire whispered, aching for her older sister. It would seem that Lise’s love life would be next on their “to-fix” list.
Marie-Claire studied her sisters and could tell that they were finally on board and believed, as she did, that Claudette was double-dealing her son’s history for personal gain. Gratitude for them both welled, prodding a bubble of joy to rise in her chest. Besides, they both knew that once she set her sights on something, it was far easier to join in on her wacky schemes than to try and beat them.
“I’ll help,” Lise said on a sigh.
“Me, too.”
“Okay.” For the first time in twenty-four hours, Marie-Claire grinned. She crawled to the nightstand and found a pad of paper and a pen in the drawer. “You guys talk, I’ll take notes. Lise, you have a man. You go first.”
A slight grimace graced Lise’s face. Marie-Claire darted a concerned peek at Ariane who returned it with one of her own. Even the news of her pregnancy hadn’t seemed to draw Wilhelm any closer to his wife.
They watched as Lise tapped her chin with a forefinger and blinked away her melancholy. “Uh…well, I should try to make myself as desirable as possible, I guess.”
Marie-Claire began writing. “Desirable. Check.” She rubbed the end of the pen against her lower lip. “How?”
Lise wrinkled her nose. “I’d begin by taking a bath.”
“Funny. What else?”
“A makeover might be fun. Distracting if nothing else. Why don’t we make a day of it, sometime? In Paris? New hair, the latest clothes, the works. For all of us.” She looked eager and not just for Marie-Claire’s sake.
“Hmm. Yes. That’s good. Okay. Makeover. Check. If I can get appointments for tomorrow, you’re saying that you’ll both go with me?”
Lise lifted a dainty shoulder. “I’d love to. Wilhelm is out of town again and I have nothing better to do.”
Again, Marie-Claire and Ariane exchanged worried glances.
Ariane said, “I can go. I need to go shopping anyway. I’m planning a little vacation and I’ve already made a list. Count me in.”
“Okay. Where are you off to?” Marie-Claire asked as she made herself a note to call the hairdresser. When Ariane didn’t immediately answer, she looked up. “Ariane?”
Ariane gave an artless shrug. “Rhineland.”
“Rhineland?” Ever maternal, Lise clutched her bosom. “Whatever for?”
“I’ve been invited.”
Marie-Claire stared. “By whom?”
“Etienne.”
“Etienne?” Lise gasped.
“Prince Etienne Kroninberg of Rhineland, that Etienne?”
Marie-Claire blinked. “Etienne the enemy?”
Ariane nodded.
“Are you insane?”
“No more so than you.”
“Touché.” Smile wry, Marie-Claire asked, “When are you going?”
“I’m leaving Sunday morning.”
“Sunday? But this is already Friday. Why so soon?”
Marie-Claire and Lise watched their sister color.
“I prefer not to discuss it yet.”
Marie-Claire glanced at Lise and whispered, “She prefers not to discuss it.”
“We are chopped liver.”
“I spill my guts to her about my innermost thoughts and feelings, yet she prefers not to discuss hers.”
“We can’t be trusted.”
“Will you both put a lid on it?” Ariane’s mouth quirked in annoyance.
“Sure.” Marie-Claire feigned a deep emotional wound. “We don’t care what you are doing with Etienne.”
“Not in the least.” Lise also pouted.
“Good.”
“Great. Now then. Ariane, since you will be eloping this week with Etienne, what about some advice from you?”
“I’m not eloping!”
“Whatever.”
Ariane rested the brush in her lap and tugged at some of the golden strands caught in the bristles. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Sebastian?”
Mouth twisted in disbelief, Marie-Claire cocked her head. As she spoke, sarcasm oozed. “Oh, that’s brilliant.”
“I’m serious.” There was a gleam of mischief in Ariane’s eye. “Treat him like a brother. That’s what he says he wants, isn’t it? If it were me, I’d confide all my juicy secrets in my ‘big brother.’ Ask his advice on things like dating and what men look for in a woman and what kind of perfume they prefer and where you might find a new boyfriend—”
For a contemplative moment, Marie-Claire stared at her sister, digesting, and then fell back on the bed and her gleeful hoot bounced off the high ceiling. “Oh, Ariane, that is brilliant!”
“Take note then, as I have a number of ideas for you.”
Sebastian pulled his Peugeot into his usual spot at the de Bergeron Palace and set the brake. He considered removing his sunglasses, but then thought better of it. The dark circles beneath his eyes were a testament to his sleepless night. This morning, he’d added a lifetime of church and repentance to his “to-do” list because if hell was even half as bad as this last twenty-four hours, he wanted no part of it.
He’d heard through her sisters that Marie-Claire had sequestered herself, refusing to eat or drink or speak to anyone and that had him worried. That, and the fact that she’d ignored his countless phone calls of apology for the way she’d discovered the shocking truth.
Or the shocking pack of lies.
He unfast
ened his safety belt and stared up through his tinted windshield at her window. Just as soon as he’d attended the emergency meeting that Simone had called this morning—to put a plan of action together for future announcements and to come up with a politically correct spin on his somewhat mystifying ascension to the crown—Sebastian planned on forcing Marie-Claire to answer her door.
Whether she wanted to or not, they eventually had to talk. To figure out their game plan, when it came to talking to the press. When it came to treating each other with careful dignity whenever they were in the public eye together. When it came to surviving the black cloud of devastation that seemed to have settled in his gut and left him feeling like a walking corpse.
He knew she felt the same way.
Maybe, somehow, they could bring some measure of comfort to each other. Sebastian groaned and propped his elbows on his steering wheel and wondered when he’d taken this left turn into eternal damnation.
The sound of voices had him opening an eye and peering out of his tortured reverie.
Two parking spots down, Luc Dumont had just arrived and was greeting the shy Juliet, Philippe’s stepdaughter. She looked to be on her way out to run errands. They were smiling and laughing and conversing, as if the very sun hadn’t been snuffed out only hours ago.
Sebastian scowled.
Didn’t they realize that this dump of a planet had stopped revolving? Bring on the global warming. Use aerosol cans. Stop recycling. Buy a box of Blubber Helper and have the whales for lunch. Why not? Nothing mattered anymore.
Nothing.
Sebastian disembarked and trudged toward the guest entry to check in. Behind him, his car squawked as he shot the locks with his remote. With a brief nod and an exhausted grunt, he acknowledged both Luc and Juliet and absently wondered how the bookish Juliet knew Luc. He could feel them watching him as he moved and decided he’d better get used to it.
Very soon, the world would be watching every move he made.
Marie-Claire watched Sebastian get out of his car from behind the curtains where she sat perched on her bedroom’s window seat. At the sight of his handsome face, her heart went into a free fall. Craning her neck, she followed his rangy stride with her eyes, drinking in the sight, memorizing the little details; the way the sun mellowed his usually coffee mane to a deep honey color, the fluid animal-like way of his gait, the blatant masculinity he so unconsciously exuded, the powerful self-possession that made people stop and stare.