I walk back toward the party, hoping to get out of here once and for all, when my father steps in front of me and pulls me aside.
“What the fuck was that?” he says in my ear, his voice low but simmering and barely contained. I know that voice. That’s the voice that comes before a strike. Well, I fucking dare him.
My eyes must say that exact thing, because when I pull away from him, my gaze fixes on his and I’m not backing down. He manages to, just an inch.
“That fucker isn’t welcome here,” I tell him.
“You couldn’t have made that more apparent,” he says, jaw tense. “And now it’s going to be reported that Blaise Dumont is not only the most useless member of the family but the most violent as well.”
“That will always be Pascal. You’ve trained him so damn well.”
“Pascal always knows his place, and he knows not to make a scene.”
“But that’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it? For them to write about us in some way. Your brother makes headlines one way, you make headlines another.”
He flinches like he’s been slapped. “What did you say?”
“I said I’m doing exactly what you want, and I fucking hate it,” I say, my voice tight, anger building up inside me. All around us are fairy lights in the trees and beautiful people decked out in elaborate jewels and gowns and masks, yet all I can see is a hell burning around us, a fire that started inside me.
“Then why did you do it?” he asks me, brow arched. “Whose honor were you defending there? It sounded like Seraphine’s, but that couldn’t be right. That girl is nothing. She has no honor. Why on earth would you waste time on her?”
My eyes narrow as I take in the sharp, stiff face of my father, a person I hate more than anything in the world. “Because she has more honor in her little finger than you do anywhere.”
He doesn’t say anything at first, just takes me in, breathing in long and deep through his nose. I don’t care what he’s thinking, but he’s thinking something.
“You’re mistaken, Blaise, and I hope this is the last time you ever make this mistake. You hear me? I hope this is the last time. I hope you realize that there are few things in this world that you stick your neck out for, and your cousin isn’t one of them.”
“And neither are you,” I tell him and then turn to leave.
“She’s not even one of us,” he says as I walk away. “She’s not a Dumont.”
“Yeah,” I reply under my breath. “Maybe that’s why I did it.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
BLAISE
I have no fucking idea what Seraphine is doing.
What I do know is that Pascal was right.
There is something going on with her, something that’s making her hole up inside that dirty bar called the Terrible Cat in the forgotten seedy section of the Latin Quarter, the last place I expected to see Seraphine disappear into, let alone have some sort of meeting with her ex-husband and some nondescript guy who moves like a hit man.
The sight of Cyril is most confusing. I’m outside the bar, just out of sight, pretending to be on my phone and sneaking a look inside the joint every few minutes. It’s not like she’s happy to see her ex. In fact, she’s sitting on the opposite side of the booth and watching him with disdain. She hasn’t cracked a smile once, though he’s done plenty to try to charm her.
My stomach knots up with jealousy. Over the years I’ve had to watch Seraphine date others and fall in love, and all this time I’ve dealt with it. I didn’t see her often anyway; it was easy to pretend she didn’t exist. And then, when I decided to join forces with my father and brother and start working for the company, I had to see her every day.
I was there when she first started dating Cyril.
I was there when she’d bring him to the office, all proud and in love and showing him off, and it was like my heart got a jump-start for the first time. It moved in my chest, poking and prodding sharply, reminding me that I used to have feelings at one time. I used to want and yearn and lust. I haven’t felt any of those things since the day I left Mallorca and wiped her clean from my mind.
Then they got married. It happened quickly. I knew it was a mistake for her, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt in a very acute, very unreasonable way. They had a wedding. I didn’t go. I was invited out of formality, but I knew she couldn’t care less if I was there. In fact, if she’d remembered at all what happened between us once, she wouldn’t have wanted me there.
They were married for two years, and during those two years I had to look at that wedding ring on her finger, and I had to pretend that it didn’t bother me. I’m her cousin; I’ll always be her cousin. It’s fucked up that she could even affect me that way.
But I’m used to being fucked up. I don’t fear it. I don’t feel shame in it.
It made me bitter, though. It made me angry. It made it so that my interactions with Seraphine were sharp and harsh and full of spite. She hated me, too, adding fuel to the fire, making it easier to be around her when she looked at me with disgust, and so I looked at her the same way.
Then she and Cyril broke up. Marriage over. He cheated on her repeatedly, caught by tabloids, and I know it destroyed her. It reminded me of the masquerade ball, when she was just sixteen and I’d caught her douchebag boyfriend making out with someone else. She was publicly humiliated, though part of that was my fault too.
During the divorce, she did her best to hold her head up high and let it roll off her. She put up a strong front. But I knew she was hurting inside. Beneath her beautiful and polished veneer, she has a big heart, and she comes from a lost and damaged place. She’s sensitive and delicate, and sometimes I think I’m the only person in her world who knows that.
Of course, that didn’t stop me from secretly delighting that her marriage failed. I know you’re supposed to want what’s best for someone and you shouldn’t take pleasure in someone’s pain, but that’s not how it works with me.
“What are you doing, Seraphine?” I say out loud, my words swallowed up by the noise and traffic on the nearby street. In this narrow cobblestone alley there is thick silence tempered by the occasional drunken shout from inside the bar.
I end up watching her for two hours.
She talks the entire time, looking emotional with a lot of hand gesturing. Cyril tries to butt in every now and then, but she’s dismissive with him. Meanwhile, the hit man only asks her questions.
I wish I had known they would be here so I could have gotten a spot somewhere inside, though the chances of me hearing their conversation would be low. The minute she abruptly left work, I had to do the same, following her to her apartment and then to the café around the corner, where she stayed for a few hours, drinking champagne by herself. Then she hopped on the métro, and a few stops later, got off here. I nearly lost her in this unfamiliar area and just happened to be looking in the window of the bar when I saw her and Cyril together.
I’m not sure what to say to Pascal about this.
Part of me thinks that she’s getting in over her head with something dangerous. I mean, she drove all the way down to Bordeaux in the middle of the night and snuck into her brother’s castle, and now she’s meeting with her ex-husband and a stranger who looks like he strangles people for fun. Part of me wants to protect her from whatever this is.