“That’s what you always said.” I search her eyes, trying to get a feel for her. I know she’s scared, of many things and not just me. But if she could only see . . .
“And then maybe it was never a good idea. You kiss me and then what? I sleep with you?”
“Yes.”
“And after that?”
“I keep fucking you.”
“Until the end of time?”
“Something like that.”
“We can never be together, Blaise,” she says, like frustration is rolling through her. “I know you understand that.”
“But it doesn’t mean we can’t try.”
“No,” she says and suddenly gets up to her feet, walking out of the room. “No. I can’t do this. I can’t handle this,” I hear her cry out as she heads down the hall.
I get up and run after her, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her right up against me, and she opens her mouth to protest and then my mouth is on hers, swallowing her words.
I kiss her with everything I have, every bit of anger and frustration and the years of lust and pining and wanting. I should be more gentle after the night she’s had, but I can’t help myself; in fact, I think I’m seconds from turning into an animal as I hold the back of her head and press my hand at the small of her waist, keeping her pressed as close to me as possible.
She gasps. “Blaise,” she says, trying to pull away, but I won’t relent. Not until she sees that I’m done waiting for her, that she needs to be with me, now more than ever.
I kiss her until she kisses me back.
Her tongue slides across mine, hot and fevered and—
She pulls back, gasping for breath, and slaps me across the face.
Whack.
Fuck me, that hurt.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she says. “What are you doing? What am I doing?”
Her face is red with anger, perhaps even shame. I mean, my cheek is stinging from her powerful wallop, but even so, I expected it. She’s always been the type of woman to put you in your place. But I didn’t expect her to slide so easily back into hating me.
“Don’t pretend you haven’t been dreaming about that,” I tell her, trying to control myself. “Don’t pretend that you haven’t wanted that, wanted me, all these years.”
“The only thing I’ve been dreaming about, Blaise, is getting justice for my father. That’s it. That’s all that matters. And as far as I’m concerned, you’re no better than the rest of them.”
Anger pokes at me, building up inside. “Hey,” I say, my inflection razor sharp. “I risked my neck tonight for you. I saved you from a bad situation. And more than that, I let you know the truth. I chose you over my family.”
“And I’m choosing not to trust you,” she says. “You’ve given me no sign over the years that I mean anything to you at all. Why should I believe you now? Why do that when it might derail everything I’m working on?” Something comes over her, a flash in her eyes, as she’s realizing something. “This is all a setup, isn’t it? This is just something that Pascal is having you do, just like you followed me. You’re supposed to tell me all this shit, all this nonsense about wanting me and staying celibate like some joke and waiting for me, and it’s all a lie to get my guard down. If you’re telling me I’m in danger, it’s because you’re putting me there.”
I knew she’d go this route at some point, but even so, it stings. “That’s not it at all. Seraphine, please, I’m serious.”
“You just want me to back off because I’m close to the truth,” she says, shaking her head wildly as the idea takes over. “For all I know, every single thing this evening that’s come out of your mouth has been a complete lie, all to throw me off.”
I run my hands down my face, trying to squash my frustration. I knew this was coming, and yet that tiny coal of hope was always burning inside. “That’s not true,” I mutter into my hands, but I know when she gets like this that there’s no changing her mind.
“Get out,” she says.
I look up to see her opening the door and gesturing for me to hurry up.
“You’re making a big mistake by not trusting me,” I tell her.
“And I don’t take threats very well. Get out, and if I see you around me again . . .”
I almost laugh. “You will see me again. At work tomorrow.”
“Right. I almost forgot that you’re taking over my job.” She runs her fingers under her eyes and sighs so defeatedly that leaving her feels like a crime.
“It’s not like that,” I tell her.
“Just go,” she says quietly, holding open the door and looking away, like she can’t be bothered to face me.
“You know where to reach me, if anything happens,” I tell her as I walk past and out into the hall.
“If anything happens, you’ll be the first one I’ll blame,” she says to me.
Before I can say anything in response, she closes the door in my face.
Later that day I wake up feeling like shit. I have a headache from the lack of sleep I got from staying half the night at Seraphine’s, my knuckles are all cut and bruised, and it’s snowing.
It’s not the nice kind of snow, either, not the kind that blankets Paris in white flakes and looks like a postcard. It’s dirty, wet snow that the traffic on the Champs-Élysées churns up and splashes everywhere, the snow that gets your shoes wet and chills you to the bone.
I’m running late to work because of the snow and my headache, and I park around the corner from the office. I’m only a few strides from my car when I run into Pascal, clothed in a thick wool overcoat.
Smoking a cigar.
At nine thirty in the morning.
“What are you doing?” I ask, expecting him to walk alongside me to the office. “Acting like a mob boss already?”
But he doesn’t follow. He calls after me, “You can stop following Seraphine now.”
I stop in my tracks, almost slipping, then turn to face him. My heart has started to pick up the pace in my chest. “What do you mean?”
“I mean just that. Stop following her.”
“But why?” I walk back over to him, keeping my coat closed tight against the blowing wet snow. “You haven’t even asked me how it’s been going. What I’ve seen.”
“Okay. Then what have you seen?”
Now this is where it gets tricky. Pascal is uncannily good at picking through lies, so I have no choice but to tell him the truth.
“A lot. She’s been meeting with her ex-husband and someone else.”
“Oh really?” he asks before taking a puff. He blows dark smoke into the air. “Do tell.”
“I don’t know. It looked pretty suspicious.”
So far, not a lie.
“Uh-huh,” he muses. “Well, thank you for that. But we’ve found out some things on our own, and we’ll be handling it from now on.”
I blink at him, my veins running cold. “What things? Who is ‘we’?”
“Father and I,” Pascal says casually.
“You said you wanted him out of it.”