by Alix Nichols
She gave me her number and told me to use it anytime.
I drove off, praying she wouldn’t wait too long before contacting her employer. Despite her striking beauty, I really don’t care for the prospect of “meeting her again soon.”
Right now, what I long for is sleep. Next to Diane. I picture myself performing what’s become my favorite bedtime ritual. It consists of spooning Diane to my chest, wrapping an arm around her, and breathing in the skin at her nape.
It occurs to me as I climb the stairs to the second floor that I haven’t had a single sleepless night since she’s been sharing my bed.
I also realize that what I told her the other day about not wanting a relationship with her was, as she’d say, a big pile of shit.
Treading as lightly as possible so I don’t wake her up, I enter the bedroom—and know at once that she’s gone. I turn on the light and look around. The bed hasn’t been turned down. Her nightstand is free of her baubles. I rush to the walk-in closet. One of her suitcases and some of her clothes are missing.
She’s left me.
Why? Up until now, she’d stuck to our deal remarkably well. Why quit now before we have proof that my plan has worked, before our contract has expired, and before we’ve had a chance to discuss this new development?
Was it jealousy?
I’ve suspected for some time now that Diane has feelings for me, but I didn’t think they were strong. And I certainly didn’t think she’d let them cloud her judgement.
I sit down on the bed and drop my head into my hands, disappointment washing through me in cold, sticky waves. The funny thing is I’m more upset about Diane’s walking out on me than jeopardizing my plan. Her departure makes the prospect of a future without her real for the first time.
That future holds no witty commentary on everything under the sun, no adorable goofiness, and no refreshing disregard for my money and status.
Nor does it hold lovemaking that’s been growing sweeter every night, instead of palling.
I’d believed a future without Diane Petit was what I wanted.
But all I can see in it now is bleakness.
Depressing, morbid, unbearable bleakness.
What have I done?
In the quiet of the house, the sound of a door unlocking and gently closing comes from the foyer. I jump up and run down the stairs, tripping on the carpet, getting up, and running again. Is it Diane? Has she changed her mind? Did she reconsider the wisdom of her actions?
Let it be her. Please, let it be her.
But it’s only Octave—the last person in this household I expected to come home at this hour.
He smiles apologetically. “I hope I didn’t wake monsieur up.”
“No, I was awake.” I hesitate. “Have you seen Diane?”
He shakes his head. “Didn’t she come home with you?”
“No,” I say drily. “She didn’t.”
I wish Octave good night and return to my bedroom, which feels awfully empty without my lover.
When I crawl into bed fifteen minutes later, I lie on her side and bury my nose in her pillow.
I’m a fool.
Blinded by Diane’s charm, I was beginning to convince myself she could be the right woman for me—a partner for life, my anchor, my rock. Drunk on her body, I was beginning to see her as the woman who’d stay by my side through good times and bad, sickness and health, society obligations and job demands, babies to be raised and mistakes to be forgiven.
I’m such a pathetic fool.
TWENTY-NINE
It’s my second day in Octave’s cellar.
I shift my position to sit a little more comfortably and close my eyes. My mouth and lips are on fire. I’m dizzy and so tired I can barely think.
Tyrion’s words from Game of Thrones come to my mind: “Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.”
With the prospect of death a lot closer to home than when I watched the series with Chloe, I’ve been thinking a lot about possibilities. My favorite one is code named Clean Slate. It goes like this: Sebastian Darcy isn’t the filthy-rich fragrance mogul who ruined Dad. It was his main competitor, David Bauer, who did it.
Dreaming here, remember?
Actually, no one has ruined Dad. His business is doing well, he didn’t suffer a stroke, and he and Mom are still together. Sebastian exposes Octave, thanks to his formidable powers of deduction. This means he doesn’t need to hire me—or anyone—to be his fake wife.
We meet in the most conventional way at Jeanne and Mat’s, and we fall in love. Just like that—Bam!—at first sight. It doesn’t matter that he reads Le Figaro and is worth more than the GDP of a small country.
Nobody’s perfect.
We date, kiss, make love, make babies, and live happily ever after.
I open my eyes and stare at the door.
He’ll find me.
Just as he found me after the cake incident, which now seems like a lifetime ago. If there’s something I’ve learned about him, it’s that Sebastian Darcy won’t just shrug at my sudden departure and move on. He’ll want to know why I left. He’ll call. He’ll poke around, talk to Mom, Chloe, and Elorie.
And he’ll end up figuring it out.
I must believe it.
The alternative is to give up and stop struggling to stay alive even before Octave turns up to finish me off.
The door opens and Octave comes in.
“Have you made up your mind about me?” I ask, my voice coarse.
“I had last night,” he says. “I was going to come here and strangle you. But then I lost my nerve.”
I look into his eyes. “Bummer.”
“You’re funny, you know?” He lets out a sigh. “It is a bummer.”
“Tell me something, Octave—just so I don’t die stupid—why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you doing this? Why are you going to such pains to punish the person who thinks the world of you?”
“Does he now?” Octave smirks. “He is less full of himself than his legendary Grandpa Bernard, and his adored papa. I’ll grant you that.”
An image flashes in my head when he mentions Sebastian’s grandfather—that of Octave’s birth certificate.
“Your middle name is Bernard,” I say.
The side of his face twitches. “So what?”
“It isn’t a coincidence, is it? Your hatred of the d’Arcy men… it has something to do with your middle name, I’m sure.”
“Not only are you funny,” he says. “You’re also perceptive.”
I wait for him to continue.
Because he will. The man is clearly burning to tell his story to someone. He’s been burning for years, decades maybe. And now he has an ideal audience: captive, genuinely interested, and expendable.
He’d have to be made of steel to resist that.
“Bernard d’Arcy had a fling with my mother when they were both young,” he says.
I knew it!
“It was more than a fling, actually. They were together for over a year until he ditched her and married the fancy-schmancy Colette.”
“What did your mother do?”
“She up and married a good-for-nothing from her hometown. And then she had me.”
“Are you Bernard’s son?” I ask.
He sighs. “I don’t know. My mother always denied it, but she never got over Bernard and she did give me that middle name. Besides, she wrote to him when I turned eighteen, asking if he could offer me a job at Parfums d’Arcy.”
“Did he?”
“He offered me a job at Darcy House instead.” Octave runs his hand through his thinning hair, his expression melancholy. “I was over the moon. I thought it was a sign that the Count was willing to take me under his wing, maybe even acknowledge me one day… I was so naive.”
“I take it he didn’t acknowledge you?”
Octave shakes his head. “Worse. He never even bothered to get to know me, let alone groom me for bigger t
hings. He groomed Thibaud, all right, and then Sebastian. But never me.”
“Did you ever talk to him about your mother?”
“I didn’t dare. He was so distant, so much above me… We weren’t equals. He was Count d’Arcy du Grand-Thouars de Saint-Maurice. I was the help.”
“Why didn’t you walk away?” I ask. “Once you knew Bernard would never treat you like a son, why didn’t you just leave?”
My mouth and throat hurt from talking, and I’m extremely tired but still lucid enough to remember that as long as Octave is telling his story, he isn’t strangling me.
“At first, I had hope,” he says. “I thought if I proved myself to him, if I showed him how good and loyal I could be, he’d let me in. I tried so hard, for so long… And then, when I accepted that I’d never earn his love, it was too late. I’d become too appreciative of the grandeur of Darcy House and the comforts of my life to quit everything and start over.”
“So instead you chose to stay and poison their lives,” I say.
“Exactly.” Octave puts his chin up. “My mother died around the same time, and I made a promise on her grave. I vowed I’d make the lives of Bernard, Thibaud, and Sebastian miserable without risking my freedom or my job.”
“My hat’s off to you,” I say. “You succeeded.”
He gives me a smug smile. “Yes, I did.”
For a moment, we’re both silent. Then Octave’s eyes dart to my neck. Oh no. I must get him to start talking again—and presto!
“Have you done a DNA test to find out who your father is?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
He hesitates and then shrugs as if to say, What the hell, I might as well be honest with the soon-to-be-dead woman. “I’m too scared. What if the test says I’m not related to the d’Arcys? Do you realize the implications?” He points at me. “Your… end, Thibaud’s disgrace, Sebastian’s grief—it would all be for nothing. Meaningless. I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
“And you think you’ll be able to handle murdering me?” I ask.
He opens his mouth to say something when the door bursts open and a bunch of police officers in bulletproof vests storm in. Two of them slam Octave to the floor and cuff him. The others rush to me and cut my restraints.
It all seems surreal. A few moments later, I’m wrapped in a blanket and carried up the stairs into the daylight.
Sebastian runs to me and takes me in his arms. He’s crying.
“You’re alive,” he says, raining kisses on my cheeks, eyes, nose, and forehead. “You’re alive!”
I start crying, too.
“Shush, mon amour,” he says in a hot whisper, kissing away my tears. “You’re safe now. It’s over. I’m here. You’re safe.”
THIRTY
“I signed up for meditation and yoga.” Mom turns to Chloe. “And I might call your therapist as well.”
Chloe smiles. “It won’t hurt.”
Mom takes my hand. “First Chloe in October, now you… Please—both of you—don’t scare me like that ever again.”
I nudge her lemonade glass across the garden table. “You should taste it. Michel makes it from a medieval recipe he guards with his life.”
She takes a sip and swishes it around in her mouth before swallowing. “Mine is better.”
An hour later, they’re gone and I recline on the deck chair for a nap. I’ve been sleeping a lot over the past two days, which is weird because I hadn’t been exactly active during the preceding forty-eight hours.
When I wake up, I find Sebastian sitting on the grass at my feet.
“It’s Wednesday,” I say. “Shouldn’t you be at the office, bossing people around?”
He kisses my ankles. “I’d rather be here.”
“I need to stretch my legs,” I say.
He jumps to his feet and helps me up.
As we stroll through the garden, I brush my hand over tree branches and shrubbery, caressing the leaves. Everything smells so good, looks so beautiful, feels so pleasant to touch… God, I’m happy I made it.
“Mom told me you went on TV, offering a ransom,” I say.
He nods.
“She says you didn’t specify an amount—you just said, ‘Name your price, I’ll pay it.’ ”
He nods again.
I give him a sidelong look. “Don’t you think that was a little presumptuous?”
He shakes his head.
I’m itching to ask whether he’d have paid up if Octave had demanded a billion euros.
“I would’ve given everything I have,” he says. “Don’t you ever doubt that.”
I stop and hug him, burying my face against his chest. He puts his arms around me and kisses the top of my head. There are so many things I want to say to him, but they’re all too sentimental for my cynical mouth. So I hug him tighter instead, hoping he’ll understand.
Praying that he knows.
“When did you first suspect foul play?” I ask after a long moment.
“Sunday morning. I called you a dozen times. I called Elorie, Chloe, and your Mom. When your Mom said she hadn’t seen or heard from you, I knew you hadn’t just upped and left.”
“Thank God you didn’t call Dad, and thank God he doesn’t own a TV,” I say.
“Chloe was very helpful. She called him for a chat and ascertained that you weren’t with him.”
We walk in silence for a few minutes. I listen to the birds in the trees and insects humming around us. But I have too many questions to fully enjoy the peaceful magic of this place.
“When did you start suspecting Octave?”
“Sometime Sunday night. I tossed and turned, and then I remembered him coming in at four a.m. the night you disappeared.”
“Powers of deduction,” I say under my breath.
“Pardon me?”
“Nothing.” I wave my hand dismissively. “Just a side effect of having only me to entertain myself for two days straight.”
He puts his hand around my shoulders.
“What did you do once you had your suspicions?” I ask.
“I texted my PI to forget Valerie and start tailing Octave ASAP. Then I dressed and drove to the nearest commissariat.”
“Thank goodness you didn’t call the police or your PI from home. Octave had the bedroom bugged.”
Sebastian stops in his tracks, his jaw clenched in anger.
“Finish your story,” I ask.
“Things went pretty fast from there,” he says. “On Monday morning, the police figured out Octave had inherited a hovel in Yvelines, an hour’s drive from Paris. That’s when the PI texted me that he was driving behind my majordome in that same direction.”
Sebastian trails off, his gaze suddenly unfocused.
“You OK?” I ask.
“Yes, of course. It just hit me how, at one point or another, I’ve suspected everyone—my competitors, my aunt and uncle, Greg, Lynette… even Laurent! But I never doubted Octave.” His nostrils flare. “How could I be so blind? It almost cost you your life.”
“But it didn’t.” I give him a bright smile. “You got there on time. You found me.”
“I love you, Diane,” he says. “With all my heart.”
I sort of figured that out but, dear Lord, it’s good to hear him say those words!
“I love you, too, Sebastian.”
He takes my left hand and strokes my ring finger. “You’re still wearing your engagement ring and your wedding band.”
“Oh.” I pull my hand away and begin to remove the jewelry. “Silly me! We don’t need them anymore now that—”
“Don’t!” He takes hold of my hand again and pushes the rings back to the base of my finger. “Will you do me the honor of remaining my wife?”
My jaw drops.
He smiles. “Your spontaneity is priceless. Please don’t ever change.”
I keep silent, still digesting his words.
“Say yes,” he pleads.
�
�I don’t understand,” I say instead. “What do you mean by ‘remaining your wife’? Our marriage is fake.”
He shakes his head. “Not if I send the missing document to the consulate in Miami. We still have two weeks until the deadline.”
“I can’t.” I say. “It would be against what I profess, against my principles.”
“Which are…?”
I focus on my feet. “I hate rich people. They’re all exploiters and crooks. I don’t believe it’s possible to amass a fortune by being a good person.”
“Diane.” He takes my chin between his index finger and thumb, nudging me gently to look at him. “I don’t care what you think of ‘rich people’ as a class. However, I do care what you think of me. Do you believe I’m an exploiter and a crook?”
“No,” I say without a second’s hesitation. “I don’t. Ludicrous as it is, I think you’re a good person.”
The corners of his mouth curl up. “You sure?”
“Yes. And I have proof.”
“You do?”
I nod. “It was you who ‘persuaded’ Belle Auxbois to go on prime-time TV and credit Dad for her perfume. Now he has so many offers he’s raised his fee and established a waiting list.” I grip Sebastian’s hand and give it a squeeze. “Thank you.”
“How did you—”
“It doesn’t matter.” I bring his hand to my lips and kiss it. “And there’s something else. When I told him who was behind Belle’s sudden generosity, he admitted you’d offered to buy his company before you crushed it.”
“I thought you knew about it,” he says.
I shake my head.
He strokes my hands and touches my engagement ring. “Do you like it? Or shall I get you a new one, something you would choose? We could go to Place Vendôme tomorrow—”
“No!” I cut him off. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind something less ritzy, but that’s not what I… It’s just… How…”
He tilts his head to the side, waiting for me to form my question.
“What would be the terms?” I finally manage.
“Let’s see.” He opens the thumb of his left hand. “You’ll have to kiss me. A lot.” He extends his index finger. “You’ll have to sleep in my bed, and you’ll be expected to have sex with me—both in and out of that bed.”
