Lie For You

by Pippa Summers

  I had missed his testimony, unable to drag myself into court day after day to re-live that awful night, but had a vague memory of seeing that detail in the newspapers.

  ‘You did tell the court that. And me. You said you were in a rage.’

  ‘I told a half-truth. You see,’ he continued unsteadily, ‘Eva had been having an affair behind my back. Worse, it was the same man she’d been seeing before we married.’

  ‘That’s awful, I’m so sorry.’ I put a hand to my face, seeing his distress. ‘If it helps, I can perfectly understand why you were arguing in the car. And why you didn’t want the world to know your personal business.’

  ‘Except you don’t understand,’ he said, his forcefulness surprising me. Then he bent his head and stared woodenly at the floor. ‘Sorry, it’s not your fault.’

  ‘It’s fine, honestly. You’re upset, I get it.’

  ‘Not upset. Ashamed.’ He shook his head. ‘It was a sham marriage. Eva wanted my money. But she didn’t want me. I thought she was in love with me, as I was in love with her at first. But it was all make-believe. A dream that dragged on uneasily for several years before exploding in my face, and I saw at last what a fool I’d been.’ He exhaled slowly, a flush in his face. ‘When I began to realize there was a pattern to Eva’s frequent absences, I … I hired someone to watch her. Not my finest hour, but I had to know.’

  I could understand that too. The burning need to know the truth.

  ‘The detective brought back photographs,’ he said grimly. ‘Times and dates of their secret meetings. That’s when I found out the truth. She was still sleeping with Baptiste, this former lover of hers, who was also a friend of mine, and CEO of his own software company.’ His face darkened at the terrible memory. ‘We’d been at a friend’s wedding, like I said. At their house just outside Paris. I’d been drinking, and so had she, though I wasn’t aware of that at the time. Baptiste was there, with some other mutual friends. They both disappeared.’ He swallowed hard. ‘So I went looking.’

  I felt tears prick at my eyes; his unhappiness and despair was so palpable.

  ‘I found them upstairs in one of the bedrooms.’ His lips drew back from his teeth, a thick contempt in his voice. ‘Making love.’

  ‘Oh, Jean-Luc!’

  ‘I held it together long enough to make our apologies and get out of there. We drove back to Paris, but it was slow progress. Eva kept pulling off the road to yell at me. She was furious. Her!’ He shook his head, not looking at her. ‘She said it was my fault. That I was no good in bed. That I couldn’t give her the kind of passion she needed.’ His eyes closed briefly. ‘Then she told me what I had most feared.’

  I waited, holding my breath.

  ‘Zena isn’t my daughter. She’s Baptiste’s child.’

  I was shocked, and could only stare at him in horror. He was so close to the child. Loved her deeply, anyone could see that. Yet he wasn’t the father?

  Discovering that must have blown his world apart.

  ‘She’d been seeing us both at the same time. Only Baptiste was married. Happily too, at least outwardly. Then she fell pregnant, and wasn’t sure which of us was the father.’ His voice was raw with agony. ‘So she concealed the truth and told me I was the father. Baptiste had no intention of leaving his wife. So I was the next logical choice, and I was rich too. It was the perfect outcome.’

  ‘That’s appalling.’

  ‘Worst of all, my lawyer advised me to press for a paternity test before our wedding, and again after Zena was diagnosed with an inherited genetic defect that simply didn’t seem possible if I was the father.’

  ‘But you didn’t ask for a paternity test?’

  ‘I refused both times.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Yes, perhaps it was blind stupidity. Or a desire to hide from a slowly dawning truth that was too terrible to face. With hindsight, it feels like both. But I trusted Eva, at least in the early years of our marriage. I was in love with her, for God’s sake.’

  I nodded. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said again.

  ‘Anyway, I was in a towering rage when she told me. When I realized how I’d been taken for a ride. I’d always been so careful not to open up to anyone, knowing my money made me a target for manipulative people like that. But Eva’s big eyes and smile had me completely fooled.’ Jean-Luc folded his arms across his heaving chest, and sought my face at last. His eyes were stormy. ‘That night, coming back to Paris, I told her I’d had enough of her lies, and I wanted a divorce.’

  ‘And she lost her temper too?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Everything came pouring out. Her contempt for me, her obsessive love for Baptiste, how she had given up any chance of happiness by marrying me, and even … ’ He sounded almost broken as he added, ‘How disappointed she was in Zena. In her sickness, her fragility. She said it was my influence that made her so weak, and that Baptiste would have made a better father. Except for the money.’ He shook his head. ‘Eva hated me, but she didn’t want to lose access to my fortune. She warned me that if I divorced her, she would take little Zena away from me. That I’d have to fight to see her, even for five minutes, and that her condition would deteriorate without all the expensive treatments that we had lined up for her in America.’

  ‘But that’s evil!’ I burst out, disgusted.

  ‘She was beside herself with anger. Maybe she never meant to go that far, to threaten me like that, to use our sick daughter as a pawn … ’ His brows drew together sharply. ‘But I’ll never know for sure. Because she died a few minutes later.’

  I recoiled at those words, suddenly remembering the headlights coming towards us, how Lisette had struggled to control the fast car in the wet, tyres screeching …

  ‘Don’t!’

  He reached out a hand to me, saying softly, ‘I’m sorry,’ but I pulled away.

  ‘I don’t see how this changes anything,’ I said, trying to calm my racing heart. ‘It’s awful, what happened … And I’m so sorry about Zena. I take it she doesn’t know you’re not her father?’ When he shook his head, I nodded. ‘I can see why you made that decision.’

  ‘Zena will have to know one day,’ he said quickly. ‘But not yet. I couldn’t bear for her to know the truth. In her world view, her mother died in a tragic accident, and her father has brought her up ever since in a happy, loving environment. I don’t want to shatter the stability of that illusion. I confronted Baptiste with his paternity soon after the accident, thinking he had a right to know. But he dismissed Zena’s existence as “not his concern”. Like she was a business deal that had gone bad, and he was disavowing all connection.’

  ‘What a bastard.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly.’ His smile was grim. ‘I punched him in the mouth.’

  ‘Good.’ I paused. ‘Except it’s not an illusion.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You said, you didn’t want to shatter the illusion that Zena has been brought up by her father in a secure, loving environment. But what illusion? She does have a loving father, and her home life is stable and happy.’ I looked at her. ‘Thanks to you.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’ His dark eyes met mine. ‘Certainly, I’ve done everything in my power to make that a reality for her, and to ease her suffering.’

  ‘No biological father could have done more.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But none of this makes any difference to what happened that night. There was an accident. A car crash. Your wife died. So did my sister.’ I sucked in a shaky breath. ‘How does knowing why it happened change anything?’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ he said quietly. ‘But there’s more.’ Jean-Luc took a step closer, and I tensed, unsure what to expect. ‘Look, it’s not going to be easy for you to hear this. I’ve been torn over whether or not to tell you, because I can guess how much it’s going to hurt. The truth always hurts. But I think it’s time.’

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘What your sister said to me that night after I pulled her from the wreckage,’ he
said, his sombre gaze fixed on mine. ‘Her dying confession.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I took a step back. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I haven’t repeated any of this to another living soul since that night. And by saying anything at all, I’m breaking a solemn oath I made to your sister. But I’m sorry, I can’t hold it in any longer. And given what’s happened, it would be wrong not to tell you.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I promised her, you see. She begged me not to say a word to anyone. And especially not to you.’ Jean-Luc hesitated. ‘Otherwise, I would have told the police at the time.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ I said, my heart thumping with sudden anxiety at the grave tone in his voice, ‘told the police what?’ I searched his face for answers, but saw nothing there except a reflection of my own conflicted emotions. ‘Please … ’

  ‘Your sister was dying, that was clear. I could see how serious her injuries were. She’d lost too much blood, and was fading in and out of consciousness. I cradled her head in my lap, sheltering her from the rain as best I could, while we waited for the ambulances to arrive.’ He ran a hand through his hair, his air distracted. ‘It was probably only a few minutes, but it felt like forever. She kept trying to tell me something, and I begged her not to exhaust herself. But I could see it was too late anyway.’

  ‘What do you mean, too late?’

  ‘She wasn’t going to make it. Not even if she’d been in hospital. Not with the extent of her injuries.’ He took a deep breath. ‘So I held her hand, and listened.’

  ‘Tell me what Lisette said,’ I whispered.

  ‘Your sister told me a story. A sad, awful story like the one I just told you.’ His gaze locked with mine, and held me captive. ‘A man and a woman in a fast car, late at night. The woman was behind the wheel, though she’d been drinking.’ His voice dropped at the horror on my face, the way I was shaking my head. ‘Hear me out.’

  I nodded, though I felt sick and shaky.

  ‘She was angry, not looking at the road properly. Her attention was all on the man, this friend of hers, who wanted to get her into bed. Only she wasn’t interested.’ He paused. ‘An argument sprang up. He was desperate. She was young and impulsive. They were both pretty drunk. She put her foot down, driving too fast.’

  ‘No, no …’

  ‘Suddenly, too late to do anything about it, she realized there was someone crossing the road ahead. A young woman. Just a girl, really.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘The woman braked hard but couldn’t avoid her. She hit the girl.’

  I said nothing but shook my head, wishing I could blot out the words he was saying. I felt my heart speed up, the beat loud and erratic.

  But Jean-Luc continued relentlessly, ‘They stopped and ran back to help. But the girl, a teenager, was dead. Killed outright by the impact. There was nothing anyone could have done to save her.’

  ‘Stop, please stop.’

  ‘But there were no witnesses either. It was late and the road was empty. The houses nearby were all dark. So they got back in the car, and kept driving. The woman was terrified. She feared going to prison. Losing everything.’ He grimaced. ‘A few days later, when it became clear a car like hers had been spotted near the scene, he scrubbed the car down, drove it into a wall, and then sold it to a scrap yard, effectively destroying any evidence. The police tracked the car down, but found nothing conclusive. The man gave the woman an alibi, and the police had to drop the case.’

  I hid my face in my hands, a strange buzzing in my ears.

  It was all true.

  I remember what you said, that you never wanted to talk about it again.

  Damian.

  How could I have been so blind?

  ‘But as that woman lay dying, herself the victim of a terrible accident, she held a stranger’s hand and gave him her confession.’

  ‘I … I can’t … ’

  ‘She begged me to complete secrecy,’ he said, ignoring her protests. ‘The secrecy of the confessional. I thought afterwards that I must have misunderstood what she was saying, in the horror and confusion of that night, listening to her story in a foreign language. You see, when I was taken to the morgue to formally identify my wife, I heard the news on the radio. The French presenters were talking about the two British pop stars involved in the accident. Twin sisters Sasha and Lisette. And they were saying that Sasha had survived, and Lisette had died.’

  ‘No,’ I said faintly.

  He raised his voice as I backed away, my hands clamped to my ears. ‘Except that woman whispered her name before she died, and it wasn’t Lisette.’ He paused. ‘It was Sasha.’

  I closed my eyes, willing the truth back to the dark pit where I had consigned it, five years ago on a rainy night in Paris. But the truth would not be silenced. Not any longer. Jean-Luc Ressier had spoken her name out loud, and said my own in the same second, and I knew the long charade was over.

  A dreadful rushing noise filled my head, a sensation like dizziness catching at my head and weakening my knees as everything faded to merciful oblivion.

  ‘Lisette?’

  I opened my eyes at the sound of my name, half-expecting to feel the sting of rain on my skin, hear the tick of cooling metal nearby, the distant wail of sirens …

  But I was lying on the floor in my suite at the Meurice, my head in a man’s lap, my body numb with shock as I looked up into his dark, concerned eyes.

  The crash that night was five long years in the past. My sister was dead and buried, mourned by thousands, her voice silenced. I had woken up to a world without her, blinking at my first day without Sasha beside me, and had instantly taken her place, desperate to bring her back to life, guilty that I had survived the crash. Without Sasha by my side, I was not bold or strong enough to go about the world as Lisette.

  ‘What’s your name?’ the paramedic had said when I opened my eyes briefly in the ambulance. ‘Ton nom, qu’est-ce-que c’est?’

  ‘My sister … ’ I’d replied in English, my tongue thick and slow. ‘Where is she? The other woman in the car?’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ the man had said, his eyes sympathetic. ‘The other woman … She died.’ He busied himself with a saline drip, glancing round at me. ‘Ton nom?’

  ‘Sasha,’ I had said, unthinking, my heart bursting with pain.

  Then darkness had fallen again.

  The next morning, when I opened my eyes again, I was Sasha. Who else could I be? Lisette had been driving, I told the police, and believed it completely. Lisette had been wild, so wild …

  I had seen Missie’s astonishment and dismay, and ignored it.

  I was Sasha.

  I let my old name die with my sister, and my old self too, adopting what I could of my sister without ever quite losing sight of the person I had been before the crash. The quieter, book-loving girl behind the brash, impulsive Sasha with her love of clothes and jewellery and nights spent clubbing.

  And soon, I had no memory of being anyone other than Sasha. That was who I was. I would live Sasha’s life for her, and let Lisette die in her place.

  Jean-Luc stroked the hair back from my eyes, looking down at me anxiously, his face upside-down. ‘Are you okay? You’ve gone completely white.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ I whispered, and struggled to sit up. He helped me, his hands careful and gentle. Once upright though, the world spun, and I felt perspiration break out on my forehead; a cold sweat, my stomach knotted, pulse racing. ‘Though I think … Sorry, I feel sick.’

  He got me to my feet and led me to the bathroom.

  ‘Do you need any help?’

  I shook my head and shut the door in his face.

  ‘I’ll be right outside,’ he said softly, on the other side of the bathroom door. ‘I’m not going anywhere. Just say my name if you need me.’

  Say my name.

  ‘Sorry?’ he asked, coming closer to the door.

  I blinked at myself in the too-bri
ght mirror.

  ‘Say my name,’ I croaked.

  He understood.

  ‘Lisette,’ he said through the door. ‘Your name is Lisette. It was Sasha who died in the crash. You’ve been living for her ever since, haven’t you?’

  I nodded wordlessly, though he couldn’t see me.

  The girl in the mirror stared back at me. Wet eyes, dark lashes matted together with tears, pallid skin, slightly freckled from the sun, my gloss-slicked lips parted …

  Lisette.

  ‘You kept those photos of me and her. Those newspaper cuttings.’ I splashed my face with cold water, willing my heaving stomach to subside. ‘Why?’

  ‘I was suspicious from the start that there had been some confusion.’ It sounded like he had turned his back and was leaning against the bathroom door outside. ‘But I was too absorbed with Eva’s death and the aftermath of the crash to stop and ask questions. The whole thing was horrific, a circus. The police investigation into the crash, endless meetings and legal statements. Plus, the gruesome media fascination that dragged on for weeks, and the grieving teenage fans, with candlelight vigils and flower tributes for your sister at the spot where she and Eva both died, as though only one person had lost their life that night.’

  I closed my eyes, blotting out the bright spotlights above my head, my dazzling reflection in the mirror, everything suddenly too real for me to cope with.

  ‘And my poor Zena … ’ His voice broke with a deep, gnawing pain that I understood only too well. ‘Only three-years-old, so fragile in her sickness, asking every day where her mummy was and unable to understand that she’d never be coming home.’

  ‘And later?’

  ‘About eighteen months after the crash, I was at a conference in New York and caught an interview with you on some American television network. I think you were touring the United States at the time.’ He paused. ‘I think I knew right then, though at first I merely thought I’d got the names mixed up. But when I got home, I looked up my personal journal, where I kept notes on that night, and sure enough, I had written your sister’s name down as Sasha. The woman who had died. Not you.’