Season Five: French Kissing, Book 5

by Harper Bliss

  Wait.

  Was that Inez Larue? Margot’s ex? If so, what were they doing talking like that in the stairwell? What was wrong with the hallways? And what was Inez even doing here? Margot hadn’t mentioned her coming back to Saint-Vincent.

  Claire didn’t go up any further. She hid behind the corner, her heart thumping in her chest. What was this? Inez wasn’t wearing a white coat, so maybe she was just visiting?

  Or maybe not.

  Claire figured there was no point staying hidden like this. It wouldn’t tell her anything, only put more negative thoughts in her brain. Plenty of those swirled around in there already. She trusted Margot. Moreover, she needed her.

  She made sure to make some noise as she progressed up the stairs.

  Margot stared at her. “Claire?”

  “Hey,” Claire tried to sound light.

  Margot’s cheeks flushed in the way they only did when she drank too much wine. Was she embarrassed about something? About Claire running into her in the stairwell with her ex perhaps?

  Margot

  What on earth was Claire doing at the hospital at eleven in the morning? But perhaps the more important question Margot should ask herself is why she felt so terribly caught out. That was an easy one. Because she still hadn’t told Claire about Inez’ return. Last night, Margot had come home late after an emergency surgery, and the time simply hadn’t been right to start the conversation. Even though she had nothing to hide whatsoever.

  “Hey,” Claire said.

  “Babe.” Margot took a step towards her.

  “Lovely to see you again, Claire,” Inez said. She wasn’t the type to wait until spoken to. “I hear you’re Mrs de Hay now. Congratulations on making this one tie the knot.” She pointed at Margot.

  Margot witnessed how Claire’s gaze fixed itself on Inez’ bulging belly. She stretched out her hand and, only then, cast her glance back to Inez’ face. “I didn’t know you were back,” Claire said.

  “And very pregnant,” Inez said lightly. “I’m sure Go-Go will tell you all about it. I have to dash.” She turned to Margot. “Let’s continue our chat later.” She started down the stairs, leaving Margot a little flustered.

  “What are you doing here, babe?” Margot hooked an arm through Claire’s.

  “I’ll explain in the privacy of your office,” Claire said. “I’m still recovering from seeing a pregnant Inez Larue.”

  “Come on.” Margot guided Claire to her office. She reached for her mobile in her pocket. She’d run into Inez—not deliberately this time, not on her part anyway—before she’d had the chance to switch it back on. She noticed the missed call from Claire.

  She sat Claire down and pulled up a chair so she could sit next to her.

  “I ran into Inez the other day. I should have told you earlier, I know.” Margot studied Claire’s face a little more intently. “What’s up, babe? You look very out of sorts.”

  Claire heaved a deep sigh. “Please tell me you love me,” she said rather dramatically.

  “Of course, I love you. You know that.”

  “I screwed up. Royally,” Claire said, and took a deep breath. “And I believe I’ve just resigned from Barbier & Cyr.”

  “Back up a little. Tell me what happened?” Margot took hold of Claire’s hand. What the hell was she talking about?

  She had trouble holding on to Claire’s hand as the story unfolded, even though Claire was crumbling more and more in front of her. But she had to hold on to her wife’s hand. That’s what spouses did.

  “Do you still love me now?” Claire asked after she’d finished.

  Margot scoffed. “My love for you is not dependent on how wisely or stupidly you behave.” Thank goodness for that, she thought.

  “Steph wanted to resign,” Claire said. “I couldn’t let that happen. But my position at the agency has now become untenable anyway.”

  “But it’s your company.” Margot was still trying to wrap her head around all of this.

  “It looks like I’ll be a housewife for a while.”

  “That’s the most terrible idea I’ve ever heard.” Margot tried a smile. “No offence, but you’d make the worst housewife.”

  Claire huffed out a chuckle. “I know what I did was wrong.”

  Margot nodded.

  “But knowing that doesn’t change anything about the situation.”

  “You’re going to have to talk to Dominique,” Margot said. “Offer her your sincerest apologies.”

  “I don’t think Dominique will want me in the Elysée ever again. And she definitely wouldn’t want to work with Barbier & Cyr again, unless I quit.”

  “If that’s the reason you resigned, you’re putting Juliette and Steph in a very difficult position. If Dominique does decide to run, and decides to give them another chance because you’ve left, you’re basically asking your best friends to choose between you and running a presidential campaign. That’s hardly fair.”

  “I’ll tell them it’s not a choice. It would be a given.” Claire fished a handkerchief out of her coat pocket. “Besides, I don’t think there will be a lot of friendship left between us.”

  Margot shook her head. “Don’t say that.” She squeezed Claire’s hand. “Friendships like that don’t fade away that easily.”

  “I made sure that fading away gently over time isn’t possible. My friendship with both Steph and Juliette will crash and burn, leaving nothing to rebuild it with.” She rubbed the handkerchief underneath her nose. “It may be very hard for anyone else to understand, but I believed I was doing a good thing for the company.”

  “You’re too ambitious for your own good.” Margot needed some time and space to think about this, but she had a patient in fifteen minutes.

  “Fat load of good that did me. Now I’m out of a job.” Claire blew her nose discreetly. “I don’t suppose you can take the rest of the day off?”

  “You know I can’t.” Had she driven Claire to work harder because she spent the majority of her time at the hospital? “But I’ll come home as early as I can.”

  “What am I going to do?” Claire’s posture sagged.

  “We’ll get through this together.” It was easy enough to say the words, but Margot had no idea how to fix this.

  “I know I need to apologise, but even if Dominique will even allow me inside the Elysée, it will be so incredibly humiliating.” She sighed. “Why does she even have doubts about running? This would never have—”

  “Don’t try to justify what you did. This is not on Dominique or on Aurore. This is on you.”

  Claire found her gaze. “I know.” Margot had never heard her sound so utterly defeated.

  “Take a taxi home.” Margot tried to inject as much kindness into her voice as she could muster. “Don’t call anyone and don’t do anything until you discuss it with me first.”

  Claire just nodded.

  “Promise me,” Margot insisted.

  “I promise to be a good girl.” When she said it like that, it reminded Margot of the bedroom games they used to play. Maybe this whole thing wasn’t entirely on Claire. Maybe she had neglected her wife a bit too much after the death of her parents. Maybe, when you were married to someone as high-maintenance as Claire Cyr, you were not allowed a lot of time to grieve.

  “I have to go now, babe. I’m sorry.”

  “I know.” Claire stood and opened her arms.

  Margot stepped into her wife’s hug, very unsure of what the rest of their day, let alone their lives would look like.

  Margot was packing up to go home early when someone knocked on her door. A small part of her wished it would be Inez, because she could do with a conversation unrelated to her own mess of a life.

  It was Nadia. How would all of this affect their friendship, she wondered, as she invited her in.

  “Going home already?” Nadia asked.

  “Claire needs me,” she said.

  “I heard.” Nadia gripped the back of a chair.

  “How’s Juliette
?” Margot stopped zipping up her leather jacket.

  “Very, very hurt.” Nadia patted the back of the chair. “Can I sit for a minute?”

  Margot nodded.

  “How’s Claire doing?” Nadia asked.

  “Hurt as well, actually.”

  “I haven’t come here to attack Claire.” Nadia sat. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  Margot leaned against her desk. This was one of the most difficult situations to be in. She trusted Nadia as her friend and her colleague, but Nadia was married to Juliette and Margot was married to Claire. It didn’t feel right for them to discuss this.

  “Frankly, I don’t really know yet.” Margot played with the zipper of her jacket.

  “I heard Claire was in the building, so I—”

  “Let me guess.” Margot scoffed. “From Inez?”

  Nadia nodded.

  “Claire’s my friend, too, Margot,” Nadia said. “I feel for her. Is she… at all remorseful?”

  “Of course she is. She feels like she has just lost everything.” Margot realised she sounded a bit sharp. “I’m sorry. I just… don’t really know how to deal with all of this just yet.”

  “We’ll do what we’ve done before,” Nadia said. “We’ll make them see that their lives are not the same without each other in them.”

  “Kind of feels like déjà vu.”

  “Even though it might not seem like it right now, there’s always a way out, and if not out, at least forward.” Nadia tilted her head. “Something else. What was it like seeing Inez again?”

  Margot huffed out some air. “Rather shocking, in the state she’s in.”

  “I know.” Nadia chuckled.

  “Is there a chance Saint-Vincent will hire her again?”

  “A pretty good one, I would say.”

  Margot zipped up her jacket. “I really need to get going now.”

  Nadia stood up. “Tell Claire she can call me any time.”

  “Really?” Margot asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Then I guess you should tell Juliette she can call me any time as well.” Margot feverishly hoped she wouldn’t. What would she say to Juliette? She hardly knew what to say to her own wife.

  Dominique

  “This could have had an easy solution,” Dominique said.

  “Easy?” Steph glared at her. “Easy for you, maybe.”

  “You could have just resigned, Stéphanie. And left it at that.”

  “Why should I resign for a mistake Claire made?” Steph was pacing in Dominique’s office. Juliette was waiting outside.

  “Barbier & Cyr isn’t just the place where I work. These are my friends.” Steph was clearly shaken by all that had happened.

  “You have to understand the position you’ve put me in,” Dominique said, instead of making a snide remark about the kind of friends Steph kept.

  “I do nothing but consider your position,” Steph snapped. “Basically, my entire life revolves around your position. Going to Barbier & Cyr a few times a week is the only thing that gives my life a tinge of normalcy.”

  “Let’s not go there again.” Dominique steepled her fingers. “Instead, tell me again why I need to speak to Juliette? Why that is a good use of my time?”

  “For me.” Steph stood up straight. “I’m asking you to talk to her for my sake.”

  Dominique could hardly say no to that. “Very well, then. Bring her in.”

  Steph walked out and came back a few seconds later with Juliette.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Madam President,” Juliette said.

  “Oh for crying out loud. Call me by my name.” Dominique sat and invited Juliette to do the same.

  “Okay. Dominique.” Juliette crossed one leg over the other. She still looked striking, despite the bags under her eyes. “Steph has told you that Claire has resigned. I had no idea what she was up to and—”

  “I know all of that, yes.” Dominique planted her elbows on her desk and leaned in Juliette’s direction. “Tell me, how does it feel to be betrayed by your best friend.”

  Juliette looked taken aback by Dominique’s question. Did a tear just pop up in the corner of her eye?

  “Jules feels dreadful about it, as you can imagine,” Steph said. “As do I.”

  What a strange situation. But once again, Dominique couldn’t just do as she saw fit. She had to take everyone’s feelings into account—well, mostly Stéphanie’s. That summed up the problem she had with the presidency. She’d had to relinquish control on too many things that mattered to her.

  It wasn’t as if she relished the fact that Juliette and Steph were sitting in front of her, basically, grovelling. She hated the whole situation. And she wanted them out of her office as quickly as possible.

  “I’m going to ask Solange to join us.” Dominique needed Solange’s opinion on this. Dominique’s view would be too skewed by her love for Steph. With Solange in the room, there would be a more objective perspective.

  Dominique didn’t bother with using the phone. She just yelled for Solange, whose office was right next to hers. Mere seconds later, Solange walked in through the dividing door.

  She gave Juliette a formal handshake and just nodded at Steph.

  “So, the question is…” Dominique glanced at Solange. “Can we still work with Barbier & Cyr?” She leaned back and waited for Solange to say her bit.

  “I don’t think we can,” Solange said, according to expectations. “It shouldn’t even be on the table anymore.”

  “May I remind you that Claire no longer works at Barbier & Cyr,” Steph said.

  “That may very well be,” Solange said. “But the only reason we’re even discussing this is because you work there, Stéphanie. Frankly, that shouldn’t be a reason at all.”

  “Perhaps you’re forgetting that we got Dominique elected last time.”

  “Oh, and that was your doing alone, was it?” Solange shook her head. “Perhaps you, Stéphanie, are forgetting that Dominique was, and is, a very strong candidate, with a strong team behind her.”

  “Enough,” Dominique said. All of this, and she hadn’t even decided to run yet. She was really looking forward to those twenty-four hours on her own this weekend. Although an ever-growing part of her believed it would never happen. A president couldn’t just take a twenty-four-hour time-out to think about her future. Maybe that was the whole problem. This job had been done by men for way too long. Men too old to have young children. Men who didn’t care if they had a semblance of a private life or not.

  “Let’s look forward, not backward,” she said.

  “It’s a bit hard to—” Solange started.

  “Don’t.” Dominique held up a warning hand to Solange. “Don’t go there now. It’s not the time or place.”

  “If I may say something?” Juliette said.

  Dominique nodded.

  “I’m terribly sorry about what happened. I can’t undo it, but, let’s be honest, the damage is not huge. The only true damage has been done to your trust in us.” She paused to lock eyes with Dominique. “But we have cut all ties with Claire.”

  Dominique was astounded by the unwavering quality of Juliette’s voice when she said the words. She knew very well that Juliette and Claire were best friends, more than best friends perhaps. They were ex-lovers and business partners. Or ex-business partners, as it was turning out. Maybe, when she did finally make the decision, she would want someone like Juliette by her side.

  “I understand the impulse to never work with us again.” She turned to Solange now. “But you know what we can do. Moreover, we are your friends. We aren’t just people working for you. No matter what happened, and despite the graveness of it, there’s a connection between us that you won’t find anywhere else. I strongly believe that will always work to our advantage.”

  “No more courting the Socialists?” Dominique said.

  This made Solange shuffle her weight around rather nervously.

  “You have my word,” Julie
tte said.

  “Fine.” Dominique glanced at Steph. “You’ll be the first to hear when I’ve made my decision.”

  “Thank you, Ma—Dominique,” Juliette said.

  “If any of this goes any further than this office.” Dominique raised her voice.

  Juliette gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  “I’ll walk you out.” Steph stood.

  They all shook hands—this wasn’t the time or place to be exchanging kisses on the cheek—and Juliette and Steph left.

  “Solange,” Dominique said. “I thought you and Aurore had broken up? How come she told you about this?”

  Solange’s cheeks flushed bright red. “Because… she wanted to do the right thing.”

  “Are you two back on?” Again.

  “I really don’t know,” Solange said, “but Aurore will no longer be advising Rivière. She won’t be part of her campaign. Just so you know.”

  “Sounds to me as though it’s back on then.” Dominique winked at her chief of staff. She needed some whimsy on this dreadful day.

  Solange

  “Are we back on?” Solange asked. She’d barely walked into Aurore’s apartment, but she had to know. Dominique’s question had thrown her. The straightforwardness of it had left her flustered—and now really wasn’t a time to get flustered in her boss’ office. Especially after Solange had lost the battle to get rid of Barbier & Cyr. Or was it just Barbier now? Or would it become Barbier & Mathis? The latter was unthinkable as long as Dominique was president. Both she and Steph would be accused of abusing the office of the president.

  Aurore ushered her in. A glass of wine already stood waiting on the coffee table. Solange couldn’t stop herself from audibly sighing with relief. It was just so lovely to arrive at Aurore’s cosy, warm, inviting home after a day like this. A day during which everything seemed to hang in the balance again, but they also just had to crack on. Government didn’t wait for anything or anyone.

  “Now,” Aurore said. “Ask me that question again.”

  Solange snickered. “There were moments today when I truly wished you hadn’t told me about Claire.”