I remember seeing my mother crying in the bathroom after an altercation with my uncle. I remember my aunt telling Pascal he wasn’t as handsome or as smart as I was, which then made Pascal lash out at me. I remember Blaise pushing me down one day, telling me I wasn’t welcome. I remember my uncle continually comparing me to his sons, using me as something to measure up to, even though I was just a boy and hadn’t done anything wrong. I remember he used fear to drive them into doing anything he wanted, and when things didn’t go his way, he’d turn into a violent beast.
I remember seeing Blaise with a bruise on his cheek.
Pascal crying after his father locked him in the basement during his own birthday party.
Camille trying to get my mother more and more drunk.
My uncle telling me that I come from a line of liars.
Now I remember all those dark moments I had tried so desperately to hide away, and they’re creeping through like that dying summer light through the lines of oak trees.
I pull up to his house, and with all the shadows and new memories, the sprawling three-hundred-year-old estate looks especially sinister.
It also looks like no one is home. There is only one car parked outside. I would have thought at least Pascal would be home since he lives here most of the time, but I’ll have to do with my uncle.
He’s the one controlling Pascal at any rate.
I park and get out of the car, looking up at the top windows of the house. I see my aunt’s shadowed figure as she peers down at me and then disappears.
I knock on the door, and there’s only silence for a long time. If this were a horror film, there would be big demonic dogs barking from somewhere in the house, but Gautier and Camille have a hatred for most animals.
The memory hits me hard, just a flash of when we picked up a kitten named Felipe from the shelter, thanks to Seraphine’s wish for one. Pascal was so in love with that cat, every time he was over at our estate, he would spend hours with it.
He’d kept asking for one from his parents, but they were adamant that they would never have filthy animals in their house. The most Pascal could do was save up enough for a hamster. He bought the cage and the animal from money he’d saved, and I remember when he brought me up to his room to brag about the fact that he had finally gotten a pet too.
Except the hamster was gone. The cage was empty.
And after we spent a good twenty minutes frantically searching the room for it, his mother appeared and told him she flushed the hamster down the toilet.
Pascal changed after that moment. It’s like whatever boyish innocence he possessed at that age was snuffed out, and something cold and impersonal took over. I remember feeling all the shock and horror and disgust at what his mother had so casually done to a living creature, but, most of all, I recall being afraid of Pascal after that, as if the one good side of him was flushed away too.
I take a deep breath, about to knock again, when finally the giant doors open, and Charlotte, the young, petite maid, appears.
“Hello?” she says in her soft voice.
“Charlotte,” I say with a nod. “Is Pascal home?”
She shakes her head, looking fearful.
“Is my uncle?”
She swallows, and from her body language I can tell she’s getting ready to close the door on me.
Then from behind her, “It’s quite all right, Charlotte, let him in.”
Gautier’s voice.
She opens the door wider and moves out of the way. I stride inside to see Gautier by the entrance to his library, holding a glass of sherry.
“Good to see you, Olivier. Come, join me.”
He turns and walks off, disappearing into the room.
Charlotte gives me a worried glance and then scurries off down the hall, disappearing into the dark bowels of the house.
I go into the library, trying to control the anger rushing through me, the impulses that make my fists clench and unclench.
Gautier stands in the middle of the room, dressed in a suit—though I think it’s Gucci, not Dumont. The man doesn’t even wear his own fucking label.
“To what do I owe this impromptu visit, Olivier?” he says, taking a casual sip of his sherry.
“Where is Pascal?” I ask. I’ve stopped where I am, just inside the room. I don’t want to get close to him. I’m afraid of what I might do.
He shrugs. “I haven’t a clue,” he says. “I don’t keep tabs on my sons.”
I smirk, letting out a dry laugh. “Yes, you do. You sent him today. You sent him today to harass Sadie, just as you sent that driver to have us killed.”
Gautier raises his brows. He doesn’t look surprised. “Sadie? Have you killed? Are you sure you’re all right there, Olivier? You haven’t been drinking? Because you’re not making any sense at all.”
“You can pretend all you want,” I seethe. “It won’t make a difference. I know what you did. I know your plan. I know you wanted us out of the picture today, not to just give us a scare. Well, it worked. It worked on Seraphine and me. It worked on Blaise too.”
His eyes narrow. “Don’t mention my son.”
“Why not? You almost had him killed today, do you know that? How do you think that made him feel?”
He wants to take the bait. He wants to know how Blaise feels. He wants to know if he’s okay. But he reels himself back in. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And Sadie. You had Pascal threaten her, do your dirty work. You thought that if you got rid of her, that would weaken me. That it would lower my resolve and I would flee with my tail between my legs. You were wrong.”
“Olivier, please. I don’t even know who this Sadie is. Some new whore of yours?”
I don’t know how it happens, but I fly across the room and lunge at my uncle, knocking him to the parquet wood floors, the sherry flying through the air.
All logic and restraint have left me, and I’m punching him, a blast to the cheekbone, to the nose, to the jaw. I think I might just beat his head into the floor until it resembles ground beef.
My uncle is yelling for help; he’s trying to fight back. He’s strong for his age, and through the blood on his face I can see the anger in his eyes and the fear that I might just kill him, or maybe the shock that he’s losing. Loss of pride is a dangerous thing in this family, especially for him. It’s the thing he fears the most.
And I won’t stop delivering it.
Not even when my knuckles are raw.
Not even when Camille and Charlotte are trying to hold me back, and Camille says she’s calling the police.
Not even when I’m standing over Gautier’s bruised body, panting hard, feeling more animal than man, and I know that I’ve won this one small round.
“I know what you did, Gautier,” I snarl at him, very aware that Camille is trying to get the cops, aware that they’re in Gautier’s pocket and will do their worst to me. “We all know what you did. You might think for now that you’ve gotten away with it, but you haven’t. When your guard is down, when you think no one is looking, that’s when your own world is going to collapse, and you’re going to wish that all you got from me was this beating.”
Then I strike out with my leg, kicking him in the side. In English, they say don’t kick a man when he’s down. But they also say karma is a bitch.
With Gautier groaning and swearing at me, I shrug off Charlotte’s and Camille’s half-hearted grasps, and I leave. I get out of there before the police have a chance to do anything to me.
I get out of there knowing that I’ve damaged his pride in front of his wife.
I get out of there knowing exactly where I’m going next and who I’m going to see.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SADIE
I’m not sure if it’s because of everything that’s happened, or if it’s the way the jet stream and the world work, but the flight home from Paris seems to take a million hours longer than the flight I took there.
I spend all eleven
hours writhing in my seat, chewing on my nails, and downing glasses of wine until the flight attendant kindly suggests I’ve had enough, and the person next to me is convinced I’m the world’s worst flier.
The only thing I’ve been able to hide are my tears. Every time I feel my nose growing hot and my eyes burning, I get up from my seat and try to make it to the bathroom. They’re all probably thinking I’m throwing up in here, but I’m actually crying my eyes out.
I’m mourning everything I’ve lost.
I’m mourning Olivier.
The man I love, the man I fear I won’t ever see again.
After Pascal antagonized me in the catacombs, I knew I didn’t really have much choice in the matter, and there wasn’t a lot of time to make any decisions. Yes, I wanted to go to the police and tell them that I was being threatened, that my mother was as well. I wanted to fill them in on what has been happening.
But I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I’m a backpacker who has officially been in Europe for too long, overstaying my visa, and the person I would be accusing is one of the richest men in France. I would be laughed at—the idea that Pascal would have any interest in me. In fact, because Olivier had kept me hidden, there was no real evidence that I was even involved with him at all.
And the fact is, my flight was leaving soon. I couldn’t risk all that, only to not show up for it, to have Pascal get on the flight instead.
So I did the only thing I could do.
I left.
I went back to Olivier’s, and I packed my bags in a flurry. I left a note that, if I had more time, would have been filled with a million sentences of how much I love him, how much he matters to me. How much he’s changed my world, my life. I’m not just leaving him behind, I’m leaving the person I never knew I could become.
The only thing I could write was that I loved him, and that I had to do this, and I was sorry I couldn’t think of any other way.
“We’re landing soon,” the flight attendant says to me, motioning to the seatback that I’ve had reclined as far as it will go—which is pretty far, considering I’m in business class. I don’t know what Pascal was thinking; you’d think he would have gone out of his way to be extra cruel and stick me in a middle seat in coach by the bathroom, but instead it’s business class with all the perks. Too bad I can’t enjoy it one bit.
“Sorry, I must not have heard the announcements,” I mumble as I make the seat pop upright.
“That’s okay,” she says and then gives me a sympathetic smile. “Don’t worry—I’m sure you’ll be back in Paris before you know it.”
She continues her walk down the aisle, checking on everyone else. I guess she knows the face of someone who has to leave before they’re ready.
The truth is, I would have never been ready to leave. When I decided to stay with Olivier, I never gave any thought to how long it would be. To what my future would be. Did I think I would live in France forever, illegally? Did I think we could continue our honeymoon period for months, years? Then what? Would I ever go back to school? Would I ever see my mother? Did I expect Olivier to come over to the States and live there?
I mean, Pascal was right. I hate to admit it, but Olivier’s life is rooted in France. It was always a one-way street with us. Even though we loved each other, things were always on his turf, in his life.
Maybe this is for the best. Maybe Pascal is doing us both a favor.
I shake my head, having a hard time accepting that. Pascal is pure evil, that’s what he is. Or at least partially evil. Even though all signs point to his having something to do with Ludovic’s death, I have a strange feeling that he had nothing to do with it. Or, rather, that maybe Seraphine’s theory was just that: a theory. Perhaps it really was a heart attack. It happens all the time, even to healthy people, and it was no secret that his father was under a lot of stress at the time. It’s the whole reason Olivier was helping out to begin with.
Oh, it doesn’t matter what the truth is anymore. The only truth that really matters is that I’m on a plane about to land at Sea-Tac Airport without the man I love. His absence feels more real now than ever.
But even with my heavy heart, I go through the motions of coming back home. I get off the plane, get my bags, marvel at the sounds and sights of something as simple as the airport, the transition from the easy but chaotic European rhythm to the brusque and efficient way things are in the States. I get myself in a cab and am immediately reminded of how much the cabbies here love to talk, and now I can understand every word.
In a way I wish I could still sit in silence, remain anonymous, at least until I sort myself out and become something human again.
But I survive the inane chitchat, and soon we’re pulling up in front of the apartment I shared with my mother.
No, share, I remind myself sharply. Present tense. Things are going back to the way they were.
I sigh, stepping out of the cab and tipping the driver with the last of the cash I have. Good timing to officially be broke.
But the moment I knock on the door and my mother opens it, a rush of relief comes flooding through me.
“Sadie?” she exclaims.
“Mom,” I cry out, bursting into tears and falling into her arms.
She clutches me—well, mostly my backpack—and we stay like that for a few moments while I cry and cry and cry.
Then she leads me over to the couch and tells me she’s going to make me tea, and I look up and around. For the first time in a while, I feel safe. I always felt safe when I was with Olivier, but never when I wasn’t. Here, I am safe, I am home, just sitting in my living room and looking at the crappy pictures I drew when I was young that my mother insisted on framing, and the photo albums with my father’s face cut out of them, and the cat lounging on the bookshelf, and . . .
Wait. Where the hell did that cat come from?
“Mom, did you get a cat?” I ask. “Or are you aware there’s a cat in here?”
The cat has been watching me this whole time, and now that I’ve noticed it, its tail starts twitching. It’s completely black except for one white paw.
“That’s Kismet,” she says to me, bringing the teapot into the room and placing it on the worn coffee table. “We’re best friends.”
I raise my brows and look at her. “I thought you—”
“Didn’t like cats?” she says with a chuckle. “Well, that’s what I thought. But while you were gone, I was getting lonely, and after a while I realized it might be good to take care of something else. I thought I was finally well enough to do it. So I went to the shelter and saw him, and when the volunteer mentioned that black cats rarely get adopted, I knew I had to take him home.”
I can’t help but beam at her. “I’m proud of you.” I never really thought that my mother would be in a place where she could not only keep a job and make friends, but adopt a pet—but here she is.
And here I am.
She gives me a wan smile. “I’m just taking it a day at a time. That’s the only thing that’s really keeping me going. If I mess up, well, that was today. There’s always tomorrow, and tomorrow is never the end.” She pours me a cup of green tea and hands it to me. “I’m sorry that you’re here.”
I take the cup, blinking at her. “You are?”
“I mean, I’m glad you’re here. It was the greatest surprise I could ever get. But I know that if you’re here, that means things didn’t quite work out. And I so wanted them to for you, darling.”
I exhale loudly, suddenly exhausted at even the thought of trying to tell her everything that’s happened. “I wanted them to work too” is all I can manage to say.
“Well, we don’t have to talk about it right now. You’ve had a long flight. You must be so tired. Let’s just have some tea, and if you’re hungry, we can order in pizza. I bet you haven’t had real pizza in a long time.”
I don’t bother telling her that there was a lot of real pizza when I was in Italy. Instead, I say, “Pizza would be awesome.”
B
ut even before she can place a call to Domino’s, I’m lying back on the couch, closing my eyes, and slipping into a deep sleep.
The next morning, I wake up at nine o’clock, having slept more than twelve hours. Jet lag doesn’t even know what to do with me anymore.
Somehow I ended up in my old bed, and I assume my mother put me there, even though I have no memory of anything after falling asleep on the couch. The house is quiet, and when I walk into the kitchen to make coffee, the cat darts between my legs, making me yelp.
The cat also yelps and then runs across the room, scampering for safety in the heights of the bookshelf.
“Sorry,” I mumble, my hand at my chest, trying to bring my heart rate down. I’m jumpy as fuck, and I guess I can’t really blame myself, considering I was pretty much forced on a plane back home in order to save the ones I love. That whole thing.
That’s one thing I’ll leave out of the conversation with my mother. The less I say about Pascal or Gautier or any of them, the better. It’s just about Olivier and me, which is what it should have been about all along. It’s like the minute we went to Paris, whatever precious thing Olivier and I had between us was torn in a million different directions, whether by work or his family duties or his perverted and conniving cousin. I’m starting to wonder if Olivier and I really ever had a chance to become more than what we were. It was like the sex we were having every night was the only thing holding us together.
And yet I know that if we had been given a chance to make it, just the two of us, somewhere else in some other life, we could have been something amazing.
I pour myself a cup of coffee from the pot and spy a note from my mother, saying she’s gone to work and is doing a double shift, and she’ll see if she can get off early. Also, there’s pizza in the fridge.
I open the fridge and pull out a slice of pepperoni and start munching away on it, trying to figure out the next course of action.
The first thing I did after the plane landed was open up my phone to see if there was anything from Olivier. Then I sent a few texts and emails, wanting to talk to him on the phone, to make sure he’s okay, to explain what happened to me. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I actually left because I wanted to.
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