HAGEN: 1. Revelations

by Jadhe HAMILTON

  The house-techno music, the sensual colors, both dark and warm, and the elegance of the people around them, had transported the young woman into another world, under Tara's amused and caring gaze.

  “What would you like to drink?” she asked.

  Emma grabbed the cocktail menu and started to read. But when she saw the price of a Mojito she nearly suffocated.

  “I’m paying,” Tara reassured her. “Order whatever you want.”

  “Do you come here often?” asked Emma, impressed by the distinction of the place.

  “From time to time,” answered Tara with a mischievous smile.

  Happy to be in such a chic and fabulous place on her birthday, Emma quickly chose her cocktail. When they were served, they sat down at the bar and chatted, watching the other guests undulating to the rhythm of the music.

  “There are some really good-looking men here!” Emma exclaimed, fascinated by the beauty of some of the people around them.

  “Indeed,” Tara answered without really paying attention, as her thoughts had automatically turned to Victor.

  “Is there one you like in particular?” Emma asked, turning to her.

  Tara casually shrugged her shoulders, remembering the kiss Victor had placed on her lips a few hours earlier.

  When Emma saw her sister's silly smile and dreamy look, she immediately understood:

  “Are you sure there isn’t anything you haven't told me yet, Miss Châvigner?”

  Tara blushed before giggling with discomfort:

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  But her radiant smile deceived her.

  “You've met someone!” Emma guessed, pointing at her. “What's his name?”

  Tara hesitated and bit her lip. She wasn't sure she wanted to start this discussion now. The music was too loud, and she had just met him. They weren't together yet.

  “It's a long story,” she began, without losing her broad smile. “I'll tell you more when I know where I stand with him. We've only just met.”

  With a mischievous grin, Emma nodded: she understood and wouldn't insist. However, she was determined to make the most of her evening.

  “What about him?” she asked, pointing to a handsome young man. “What do you think of him?”

  Tara, who wasn’t taking her little game seriously, looked in the direction of the young man without really paying attention. But when she looked at him, she was taken aback by his beauty. With short black hair, olive skin, and a superb muscular body, he looked like a gladiator straight out of a Roman arena. However, it wasn’t so much him who attracted her attention as the young woman at his side. She was the same height as her but much thinner, with a slightly turned-up nose and full lips. Her chestnut brown hair cut in a boyish style, reflected the orange light of the bar.

  “Who are they?” Emma asked, as intrigued as she was.

  The young man’s eyes met theirs at the same time. When he saw Tara, he froze on the spot. The expression on his face sent a chill down Tara’s spine.

  “Why's he looking at you like that?” Emma asked nervously. “He looks like he's seen a ghost...”

  Tara, confused, swallowed in apprehension. At the same moment, the gladiator grabbed the arm of the young woman by his side and pointed at her. The short-haired girl turned towards Tara and when their eyes met, her body literally stiffened. She seemed to be extremely shocked.

  “Uh... Tara,” began Emma, alarmed, “I think we should get out of here... Those two are looking at you really weirdly.”

  Tara, whose heart was pounding fiercely, was no longer aware of her sister's presence by her side. The short-haired woman had completely hypnotized her.

  “Tara,” Emma repeated, grabbing her arm. “I don't feel safe anymore. Let's get out of here!”

  At the same moment, the gladiator started walking towards them, never taking his eyes off Tara.

  “Hurry!” cried Emma as she jumped from her chair and pulled on her sister’s arm, hoping to escape from the bar before he showed up.

  However, even though her instinct told her something was wrong, Tara was unable to move. She remained motionless, fascinated by the young man who was approaching her as he slithered through the crowd.

  “Tara!” shouted Emma who was starting to panic. “What's the matter with you? Let's get out of here!”

  All of a sudden, when the handsome young man with the dark eyes was only a few yards away, he abruptly stopped in his tracks and looked back: to Emma's relief, the short-haired young woman had grabbed his arm to prevent him from approaching further.

  The two strangers exchanged agitated words as Emma and Tara observed them, frightened. They seemed to disagree. The young man turned regularly towards Tara while the young woman glared at him with disapproving eyes. She seemed to be forbidding him to approach them, visibly threatening him.

  Short of breath, Tara and Emma watched their dispute, totally forgetting about wanting to leave the bar. In the end, the gladiator abdicated. Giving Tara one last look, he turned on his heels and took off towards the exit, followed by the young woman who raised her chin and completely ignored them. After their departure, the two sisters remained bewildered for several minutes, unable to finish their cocktails nor appreciate the music.

  “You would have thought they were gang members coming to kill you,” Emma said, when she finally regained her speech.

  “I don't think they meant me any harm,” replied Tara who, despite her distress, regretted that the young man hadn’t come to them.

  They sat at the bar for a few more minutes, but the scene they had just experienced had affected their entire evening. They decided to go home.

  “Thank you for the evening,” Emma said, hugging her before getting into the taxi that was waiting for her.

  “Take care of yourself little sister. We'll find a solution for your job. You'll become a florist if that's what you really want.”

  “Don't you worry. I'm already lucky to have you and Julie.”

  With these words, she disappeared into the taxi. Taking a last look around her in the hopes of seeing the short-haired young woman again, Tara walked to the curb to hail a taxi for herself while her heart continued racing.

  Chapter 3

  Madeleine firmly lifted up her long dress as she ran across the corridor at full speed. The gardens. She had to hide in the gardens.

  She laughed uproariously, which slowed her down in spite of herself. Although she could feel her hairdo coming undone and the pearls falling out of her long blond mane one after the other, she couldn’t bring herself to stop. She took a quick glance back and saw the two young Des Prés girls catching up with her. They too were laughing joyously, the younger one revealing the gaping hole that adorned her gums after the disappearance of her two baby teeth. Their blond curls were bouncing to the rhythm of their stride as they chased Madeleine with a dirty feather duster they had stolen from one of the maidservants.

  A few seconds later, Madeleine finally reached the gardens. The delicious scent of the pines filled her nostrils. Still running, she by-passed the fountain and took refuge in the labyrinth, in an angle where she knew the Des Prés girls wouldn’t find her. It was hot and the Provence sun was shining brightly on the white gravel.

  Without warning, she heard the two little girls arrive in front of the labyrinth and hesitate about which direction to take. Luckily, as she crouched further down so as not to be seen, she heard them choose the wrong path. Trying to hold back her mocking laughter, she lifted her dress and discreetly set off again towards the castle: the two girls would never find her!

  Suddenly, as she arrived at the fountain, she brutally reduced her speed when she saw a carriage pulled by four white horses rolling over the cream-colored gravel in the direction of the gardens in front of the castle. Then, with one rough pull of the reins, the animals stopped abruptly, and a valet rushed to greet the passenger. When he opened the door, a slender, elegantly dressed man proudly descended, like a sovereign in his k
ingdom.

  Annoyed by what she saw, Madeleine pretended not to have seen anything and quickly returned to the labyrinth to look for her cousins. But when the man saw her, he rushed to join her and kiss her.

  “Madeleine!” he called.

  The young woman pretended to have just now seen him arrive, turning around in surprise. The man moved steadily in her direction, devouring her with his eyes. His elegance and presence were that of a mature man, which betrayed their difference in age.

  “Good morning, your Grace,” Madeleine said with an elegant sign of the chin.

  “I forbid you to call me “your Grace”, it's so impersonal! If I call you Madeleine, you can call me Louis!”

  “As you wish Louis,” she replied with the same distinction, as she left for the labyrinth.

  Wounded to see her turn her back on him once again, the Duke suddenly grabbed her wrist:

  “Where are you going my beauty?”

  “To join the Des Prés girls,” replied Madeleine innocently.

  As she tried to free herself from his grip, the man pulled her against him and held her tightly by the waist.

  “Please!” exclaimed Madeleine outraged. “This is indecent!”

  “What do you mean, indecent? Aren't I in my home, and aren't you my wife? There's no indecency in any of this.”

  “What if my cousins see us? What example would we be setting for those young ladies?”

  As she tried to escape his masculine embrace, he pressed her even tighter against him. He brought her face closer to his own and said in her ear without whispering:

  “Listen to me, my dear. You've been running away from your wifely duties ever since we were married…”

  His tone became more and more insistent:

  “To hell with what others think! Give the Des Prés girls over to the first servant you find. I want you in my room in five minutes, and don't be late: I won’t tolerate this anymore.”

  He let go of her violently and entered the castle, fed up with her prudishness. Feeling pressured, Madeleine went to find the girls who were playing alone in the labyrinth and brought them to one of the servants, as the duke had ordered. When she was done, she duly went to join her husband who was already waiting for her. He was naked and admiring himself in front of the mirror. When she entered the room, he closed the door and locked it savagely. With an abrupt gesture, he threw her on the bed and lay down on top of her, kissing her neck.

  Disgusted, Madeleine violently grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. Surprised, the duke could do nothing but surrender to her grasp with a scream and move aside, liberating her. Madeleine then grabbed the silver dagger hidden in her corset and pointed it at the duke's throat, while still holding him firmly by the head:

  “Let me be clear,” she began in a deadly voice, pushing the blade even harder against his pallid throat. “I never wanted to marry you, and I never wanted to come and live in this rat hole far away from Paris either!”

  Petrified, the duke listened without daring to breathe.

  “I'll make a deal with you,” she continued. “You stop harassing me,” she insisted, twisting his head violently, “and you never lay your eyes on me again. In exchange, I won't slit your throat, not today and not tomorrow, and I'll allow you to enjoy your pathetic little life and your basic instincts on your own. What do you think about that, Louis?”

  Horrified at having brought a murderess under his roof, the duke nodded in despair in despair while trembling from head to toe.

  Satisfied, Madeleine condescendingly threw his head backwards, freeing him of her grip, then rose with arrogance. From now on, she would be in charge in this castle.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, Tara woke up with a jolt. The image of the duke she had threatened with her blade hadn’t left her mind. Where did this strength of character come from? Moreover, this was the first time she had incarnated the same character twice in a dream, and the second dream followed the first one in a strangely logical manner: Madeleine, the young bourgeois girl with the dagger had married the duke, and she had indeed settled in Provence. Why had her mind invented a story of such a bloodthirsty young woman?

  Regardless of the intrigue these dreams aroused within her, she stopped dwelling on the question when she remembered she was going on her first date with Victor that very evening...!

  She panicked as she thought about it. Her heart started pounding violently in her chest. It had been years since she'd had a proper date! Where to start? She would never have time to get dressed. She had to go to work and she never left the office before 9 p.m...!

  After allowing her thoughts to run wild for several seconds, she made a radical decision: to hell with Cesucom! She would leave the office much earlier than usual so she would have enough time to get dressed and make herself pretty for her date. In any case, her motivation for her job at Cesucom had decreased drastically since the partner position had been given to someone else, and that was no bad thing!

  That morning, Max, who had become accustomed to watching his owner get ready hurriedly every morning before she rushed out of the apartment, enjoyed the love and cuddles that she lavished on him as she took the time to have a quiet breakfast.

  On her way to La Défense, she savored every step she took, feeling the fresh air against her face, smiling at the love she felt birthing within her, admiring the already clear sky. She would arrive at the office much later than usual, but she didn't care at all.

  When she entered the subway car she didn't bother sitting down, she was far too distracted to fight for a seat. Then, without thinking, she looked up at one of the large advertising posters on the opposite platform. The message was minimalist but powerful. On a simple pink poster, a sentence was written in large, bold white letters: "Wake up".

  Without understanding why, those words gave her goosebumps. Immediately, her mind went back to the evening before with Emma at the Hotel Costes, as the face of the young short-haired woman sprung into her mind. Instantly, her heart leapt, and she could feel her breathing becoming shorter and more irregular. All thoughts of Victor had completely vanished from her mind. Until she sat down behind her little desk, the only thoughts that preoccupied her were those of the young woman. She thought back to her face over and over again, trying to remember every last detail, while her heart beat wildly. What was going on? Why was that woman inhabiting her thoughts like this?

  Then, as soon as she sat down with a cup of coffee in her hand, Nicolas passed his head through her half-open door with the excited smile of a child:

  “May I come in?”

  When seeing the man who had stolen the promotion of her dreams, Tara couldn't help but feel a slight pinch in her heart. However, Nicolas' smile was so sincere that she couldn’t hold it against him any longer:

  “Please, come in.”

  Not hesitating for a second, he entered her office:

  “Where were you yesterday afternoon?” he asked. “I looked for you at lunch break, had you already left?”

  “I wasn't feeling very well,” replied Tara, avoiding his eyes. “But I’m better now,” she reassured him with a smile.

  Nicolas plunged his eyes into hers, smiling timidly. He seemed to have understood the reason behind her discomfort and he responded with compassion:

  “You're better than me Tara, I know it.”

  On these words, she felt her throat tighten. Indeed, she knew it too. Then why had things gone the way they did?

  “Unfortunately in life,” Lecoindre continued modestly, “it's not enough to be the best at what you do. The human aspect is important too.”

  Tara held her breath. He wasn't going to lecture her, was he?

  Nevertheless, she couldn’t help but admit that he was right: in just a few short weeks at Cesucom, Nicolas had gotten to know all the teams and was able to get on their good sides. He had the intelligence necessary for his job, both technically and humanly speaking. The speed with which he understood the stakes of very complex s
ituations, as well as his oral eloquence, had not escaped Tara. His only flaw, according to her, was that instead of spending hours behind his computer screen delving deeper into his work, he let someone else do it for him… In fact, Nicolas was essentially there to give advice, come up with new ideas, lead and manage... Yes, she admitted, but not without a certain emotion, he would do very well as a partner. He would be respected by his subordinates and he would always be able to get back up on his feet. She was the one who needed to learn from him.

  “You're right,” she concluded, looking at him thoughtfully. “You'll make an excellent partner.”

  Touched, Lecoindre gave her a satisfied smile:

  “I’ll always be your ally,” he added with obvious sincerity.

  “Thank you. And make sure I get the next associate position will you” she joked.

  “I will,” promised Nicolas with an enchanted smile.

  They exchanged friendly glances.

  “Do you want to see my new office?” asked Lecoindre, who was dying to show it to her.

  “Gladly,” Tara accepted, as she gracefully got up.

  With the stride of a conqueror, Nicolas crossed the corridor towards his office. With a ceremonial gesture, he grabbed the doorknob and opened the door, inviting her to step in. Tara entered with her characteristic elegance; however, she had barely set foot into the room when she stopped abruptly, flabbergasted by what she saw: standing in front of her was the short-haired woman from the Hotel Costes. She was placing a photo of a sailboat back on the shelf, totally absorbed in what she was doing. Her movements were graceful and flowing, although the leanness of her arms gave them a somewhat dry quality.

  The questions and the images collided in Tara's mind. What was she doing here? Why was she in her colleague's office?

  Suddenly, as if she had read her mind and felt her presence, the young woman turned around instantly. When she saw Tara, the serene expression on her face gave way to panic. She froze on the spot, as unable to utter a word as Tara was.