by J. D. Fox
The Mercure was one of the more expensive hotels in town, and it was exactly the kind of place that Gen would have expected Clint to choose for a stay. As she neared the entrance, she spotted her former fiancé, his back half-turned, looking for her. There had been a time in her life when she had thought that Clint was probably the most good-looking guy she could ever hope to get; he had always been tall in a lanky kind of way, with the lean muscle that came with playing tennis competitively in high school. He’d grown into his lankiness as an adult and kept his blond hair neatly trimmed instead of the tousled mane it had been when they’d been in school together. He was dressed in carefully casual-dressy clothes: slacks and a button-down work shirt with a light cardigan over it, no tie, and pristine black Converse low tops. He wouldn’t quite blend in with the French men around him, but he wasn’t blatantly American. Clint turned his head and spotted her, and Gen saw his big blue eyes widen, and his smile turn appreciative. As soon as she was close enough to hear, he let out a low whistle and started in her direction, meeting her halfway to where he’d been standing.
“Clearly France agrees with you,” he said, leaning in to kiss her on the lips. Gen turned her head slightly so that it landed on her cheek instead, and then, flashing him a flirting grin, pulled back just enough to offer him her other cheek, French-fashion.
“It agrees with me a lot,” Gen agreed. “I may never leave.” Clint chuckled indulgently, and Gen wondered, in the back of her mind, how she had ever thought she could be happy married to someone like him. It had probably been because she’d once confused happiness with achievement, much like he did.
“Depending on how business goes here in the next few weeks, I may spend some more time in this part of the world myself,” Clint said. He reached for her hand and Gen considered, as quickly as she could, whether or not to let him touch her. Don’t be too standoffish, she thought, but don’t give in too quickly either. She edged her hand away from his grasp and let her eyelashes flutter slightly as she stepped back.
“I have to admit, this sudden change in how you’re feeling about me is kind of a surprise,” Gen said, glancing up and down as casually as possible along the street. It wasn’t terribly busy, but there were still plenty of people bustling around them, going about their errands.
“I realized how stupid it was just to let you break things off like that,” Clint said, and Gen thought blandly that he had put real work into his performance of regret. She couldn’t believe that he really regretted losing her; not in the sense that mattered. She was a trophy that he had lost, rather than he cared about. But what if you’re wrong? Gen almost laughed mentally at the optimistic question. Is it really too much to think that he might have actually had feelings for you? You were going to get married.
“I had figured that by now you’d have found some heiress— a Hilton, or a Johnson, or someone a class or two behind us from school,” Gen commented. It was a little strange to be having this conversation standing outside of the hotel, but she had prepared herself for some awkwardness at the beginning.
“At first— I admit— I thought it was for the best, for both of us,” Clint told her. “I figured that if you wanted out of the whole lifestyle, then us breaking things off made sense. But then I started missing you.” Behind her put-on surprised smile, Gen thought: You certainly didn’t miss me when my parents were on trial - or being sentenced.
“I would never have guessed,” she said, and that at least was the truth. Clint’s easy confidence wavered for a moment, but he smiled again. “Why don’t we get a drink before dinner?” Gen returned his smile.
“I’d like that,” she said, and that time she let him take her hand.
They walked along Rue de la Croix de Fer, across Places des Carmes, and eventually came to Bar des Fleurs at the edge of the square. She would have picked a more casual spot, but Gen let him lead her inside.
“Let’s see how your time in France has improved your command of the language,” Clint suggested, and Gen chuckled, knowing the challenge when she heard it. She waited for the waitress to come to their table and ordered a Ricard for Clint at his request and a kir-cerise for herself. The waitress nodded her acceptance of the order and was off with a minimum of pleasantries, leaving Gen and Clint alone once more.
“So what is this mysterious business that brings you all the way over here? You were pretty evasive on Skype,” Gen said, knowing that she had to bring it up sooner rather than later; if she sprung it on him too suddenly, Clint would get suspicious. This way, she would just look generally curious.
“Just starting a business partnership with some folks here,” Clint said with a shrug. “It’s a big investment opportunity for a lot of people on both sides of the ocean, so we want to make sure everything is above-board.” Gen raised an eyebrow at that very pat explanation and wondered just how many people Clint had fooled with this pleasant sounding non-reason.
“Anything I might want to get in on?” Gen kept her pose as casual as possible.
“Maybe down the line, but I thought you were out of that world?”
Gen shrugged. “I might want to get my toe in, just to be on the periphery of things while I sort out what I want for my life,” she said simply. Clint looked at her for just a moment before he continued.
“What have you been up to since you ran away from Manhattan?” Their drinks arrived, and they clinked glasses.
“Not a whole lot,” Gen said, hedging. “Taking stock of things, figuring stuff out… taking my first real vacation since I became an adult.” she smiled, remembering all the hustle and bustle of her life before. It was as though she hadn’t realized how stressed out she’d been until she’d left the environment altogether.
She was careful to nurse her drink, savoring it slowly instead of gulping it down. Gen knew that she didn’t want to be drunk for what she had to do, or even a more than just slightly tipsy. Of course, she couldn’t be too sober either, or Clint would get suspicious. They chatted about “old times,” and Gen realized just how differently her former fiancé viewed the life they’d grown up in than she did— it was almost as if they’d existed on different planes. Even though she’d always been moderately successful and popular, it was strange to think of how many times in high school she’d considered running away to England or Germany, and studying something entirely different in college, purely for the joy of it; a thing that apparently Clint had never even considered. He hadn’t needed to dream of anything beyond money and how to get more.
They moved on from the bar to a restaurant that someone had recommended to Clint called Le Kitsch. It was tucked away near Le Gros-Horloge, Rouen’s enormous clock, and it took them a little bit of wandering to find the nondescript door. Inside, it was an entirely different story: garden gnomes, fake flamingos and Christmas lights dominated the decor, and Gen reflected with amusement that the restaurant’s name was a pretty solid expression of its aesthetic. As she glanced over the menu, she mused that it was far from the most expensive restaurant in the city, but the dishes were classics: duck confit with potatoes, hachis parmentier made with duck, a couple of steak dishes, and a few composed salads.
Once again, Gen ordered for them both, accepting the house red wine that was on the table when they sat down and asking for a bottle of water for the table as well. “Il voudra ‘La cirrhose Poêlée, et pour son plat, ‘Ho le con...fit la patate,'" she explained to the waitress, who nodded. Foie gras and duck confit sounded a little rich to her, but Gen thought it would be easy to get Clint to drink more of the wine that way— and ultimately, it was his choice.
“Et pour vous, Madame?” Gen glanced over the menu once more.
“Je voudrais ‘L’ovule Stérile,’ et puis pour mon plat ‘Monsieur Canard et Madame Patate.'" The waitress nodded again and left them to their own devices. Gen could almost taste the egg en cocotte, cooked with cream and local neufchâtel cheese, and the main— a kind of shepherd’s
pie with duck confit as the filling— would hit the spot just fine.
“You’re getting good at this,” Clint mused, and Gen shrugged.
“Just one of those things,” she said dismissively. “Practice makes perfect, and all that.” Gen smiled slightly to herself; she had become just fluent enough for the puns on the menu to make sense, and she thought to herself that she should come back someday with someone she actually liked. Like Olivier, maybe, Gen thought before she could stop herself, but shook herself out of that sentiment and reminded herself, wryly, but you’ll probably never be here with him.
She encouraged Clint to drink as much of the wine as possible as their food came in courses as she drank as little of it as she could get away with. Gen fully intended to get Clint as drunk as possible so that maybe he would open up a bit— at least about more than why he suddenly wanted her in his life again. She had to admit, deep down, that she was fascinated by that as well; not because she wanted it, but because she was curious about his reasoning.
“I have to admit,” Clint said, digging into his potatoes and duck confit, “I was kind of hoping that you would be in bad shape— or at least, not in this good of shape— when I met up with you.” Gen raised an eyebrow. In spite of drinking as slowly as possible, she could feel the warm, buzzing hum of the wine in her veins.
“That’s not a very promising thing to tell me,” she pointed out.
“I don’t mean it like that,” Clint protested. “I just thought… maybe if you were down and out, I could, sort of, rescue you.” Gen chuckled, shaking her head at that.
“You wanted to have some kind of power over me,” she said. “I’m not sure I like that.”
“Not power, just…” Clint seemed to think for a moment, his blue eyes swimming a bit from the alcohol he’d consumed. “I wanted to do something you’d be grateful to me for. Win you back.”
“You could have easily done that back when my parents first got nabbed,” Gen told him. “Instead of abandoning me, you could have stood by me. I would have been pretty grateful then.” Clint nodded.
“Yeah I know,” he admitted with a sigh. “I was a turd.” They’d finished their meals at that point, and the waitress asked if they wanted dessert. Gen translated to Clint. “I think I’m good, but how about you?”
She wasn’t sure whether she wanted him to say yes or no to dessert. If she got him too drunk before they got back to the hotel— and she knew she would be able to get him to invite her— he would be more or less useless to her. But if he weren’t drunk enough, then she wouldn’t be able to get any of the information she wanted without making him suspicious.
“I know exactly what I’d like for dessert,” Clint said, smiling at her. For all of one second— maybe two heartbeats— she could remember what it had been like when they’d actually had something when the feelings had gone both ways. Gen felt her cheeks warming in reaction to what he said, and she thought about the way that Olivier had coldly dismissed her. Some tiny, vindictive part of her considered the possibility of just going along with whatever Clint’s plan was and letting Olivier take the fall— after all, hadn’t he rejected her help? And he had fired her, for no really good reason.
But then her thoughts turned back to Mathilde; even if Gen had issues with Olivier, Mathilde didn’t deserve to know what it was like to see her beloved, doting father go to prison. And until she knew for sure that Olivier wasn’t going to be arrested, much less tried, it would bother her. Then too, you know good and damned well that you’re suspicious of Clint having something to do with your own parents going to jail. If he did, can you really let him get away with it?
“What’s that?” Gen leaned forward just slightly, displaying the subtle cleavage shown by the neckline of her dress to egg her ex on. “I think dessert back at the hotel, don’t you?”
Gen smiled slowly. “Why don’t we pick up a bottle of wine on the way?” The waitress brought the check and she reached for it, just because she knew it would trigger more of Clint’s gallantry; he grabbed it and threw her a playful look before taking his card out. “You do have to pay at the counter,” she reminded him, rising and acting more unsteady on her feet than she was. Clint looked to be still fairly steady on his feet, but Gen knew from experience that he had trained himself to look more sober than he was.
They left the restaurant together, and Gen looked around, knowing that she had seen a Monoprix on their trek to Le Kitsch; it was just a matter of finding it before making their way back to the hotel. And then we’ll see what we can get out of him, she thought firmly. She had come with a mission in mind, and she would see it through.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Papa! Tu m’as manqué!” Olivier smiled down at Mathilde and gathered her up in his arms, bringing her close to his face to kiss each of her cheeks twice. “Je t’ai manqué aussi?” Olivier chuckled.
“Of course I missed you, my little one,” he told his daughter, setting her back down on her feet. “How was it with Memé et Pépir?” Mathilde chattered away, following Olivier into the kitchen; she had wanted to come home as early as possible that morning, and as a result, Olivier hadn’t gotten much sleep. He’d been up until almost four waiting to hear from Gen that she was all right before deploying some friends to investigate where she might be; now three and a half hours later, his daughter had arrived.
Olivier moved about the kitchen, preparing breakfast for Mathilde and himself both, answering her questions absently while his mind toiled away at the issue in front of him. Sleep-deprived, he was no longer fully worried that she might have come to harm. Instead, he was concerned that she might be up to something that would harm him. But now a question weighed on his mind: whether or not Gen was up to something, there was still the matter of him firing her to contend with. He still hadn’t told his daughter, and he knew he would have to soon. Genevieve would only be with them another few days at the most.
He sat down at the table and saw that Mathilde was frowning. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”
“Usually we have breakfast with Genny,” Mathilde said. “Should I go wake her up?”
“Oh, she isn’t here— she went out last night,” Olivier told his daughter. “She must have had a sleepover with friends again.” Mathilde looked doubtful but ate her first bite of toast with Nutella nonetheless.
“Do you know when she’ll be back?” Mathilde wiped the corners of her mouth and drank some milk to follow the sticky mixture of bread and chocolate.
“I’m not sure, but she should be around again soon,” Olivier replied, hedging his answer and hating himself for it. He would have to come up with some way to tell his daughter about her nanny and why Genevieve was leaving, and he certainly couldn’t tell her the full truth.
“I hope she comes home soon! She promised she would take me to see the flowers at the museum,” Mathilde explained, and Olivier gave his daughter a tense smile in response.
“If she doesn’t come home soon enough, then I can always take you,” Olivier pointed out. Mathilde nodded, but she still looked dissatisfied.
“But you won’t do the flower voices,” Mathilde said quietly.
“What are the flower voices?” Olivier looked at his daughter in bemusement.
“Genny does voices for all the different flowers, and tells me stories like that,” Mathilde explained, brightening as she remembered. Olivier felt his stomach sink further inside of him.
“That sounds like fun,” he observed.
“It’s great! She always remembers which voices go with which flowers and they’re all different,” Mathilde said.
“You could teach me the voices, and I can do them,” Olivier suggested. Mathilde shook her head.
“It wouldn’t be the same,” Mathilde told him, going back to her breakfast. Olivier tried to think of something to reassure her with, but he couldn’t. She will take it hard when it turns out that Genevieve is leaving
for good, he thought grimly.
“Well, I am sure you will see her today, at least,” Olivier said. He was confident that the people he’d sent to track Genevieve down would find her, but he was less sure what the situation would be. If she has been harmed… anger at the thought rose up in him, directed at unknown people. But at the same moment, he considered the possibility that she was out because she was betraying his trust even further— and the anger redoubled. Olivier took a deep breath to calm himself down.
“Is something wrong?” Mathilde peered at him curiously, and Olivier shook his head.
“Nothing that should bother you, sweetheart,” he told his daughter, rising from his seat to lean across the table and give the little girl a kiss on the forehead. He would just have to wait and see what the result of his investigations was.
Mathilde finished her breakfast and Olivier drank down his coffee and had a piece of toast to go with it, keeping up his end of the conversation as well as he could. But as he chatted with his daughter, Olivier couldn’t keep his thoughts from swirling around his impending business deal, not to mention the frustrating, intriguing woman he had hired. When Mathilde left the kitchen table to go and play in her room for a while, Olivier was alone— and his tired brain reminded him of what had really started the mess in his life.
