Chapter 24 Blood in the Water – Aurora
BLOOD IN THE WATER
AURORA
Linette escorts me to one of the hotel's luxurious restaurants exactly twenty minutes after bringing me to my room. I know I'm underdressed before we're even over the threshold, but that's by design.
I could have brought something Elijah bought for me in Paris to wear, but an old, plain black skirt and a faded emerald long-sleeve blouse felt more like something this version of me would wear. Wanting to look like I put some effort in, but not nice enough to stand out.
The hostess looks leagues nicer than I do in the simple black zip-up dress that hugs her curves just right. Her nails and lashes are long, her hair glossy as she greets us warmly and Linette passes me off to her as if handing her a delicate gem.
"You'll bring her in, won't you?" Linette tells more than asks the hostess. "There's something I have to deal with."
"Of course, right this way, Miss Bellerose." The hostess, who wears no name tag, makes no secret of judging my outfit and general state of being. "The dress code is meant to be more formal, but since you'll be in the private dining room, it shouldn't be a problem."
"Oh, am I underdressed?"
She laughs nervously. "You're fine. It's through here. Mr. De La Rosa will be right with you, and your server should be along any minute. Is there anything I can get for you while you wait?"
I'm so relieved I'll have a few more minutes alone in a private space to compose myself that I tell her I'm fine so that she'll leave quicker when we get there.
"Great, here we are— Oh! Mr. De La Rosa, I didn't realize you'd already arrived."
Fuck. I stop dead in the hall behind the hostess, just shy of the open doorway to the private space.
"So sorry, I'd have sent a server back to—"
"It's no trouble. I had some things to attend to. Is my guest with you?"
Hadn't Linette said something similar? About having something to deal with?
A prick of icy dread makes me shiver.
It doesn't mean anything. They don't know.
They don't know.
"Yes, she's—" The hostess pops back into the hall, giving me a confused look. "It's in here, ma'am."
Ma'am? She's, what, two, three years older than me?
Steeling myself, I remember that it's perfectly fine to appear nervous and walk sheepishly into the room.
The man sitting at the table stands when he sees me, buttoning his jacket.
I've seen photos of him. Many of them. But he's different in person.
Ambrose De La Rosa in three dimensions seems bigger, taller.
And there's something in his eyes that's softer than I expected.
The muted brown shade is unassuming, not calculating and cold as I thought it would be.
In all his photos, both online and in Atticus's dossier, he's been clean-shaven, but the man in front of me is bearded.
The short brown facial hair is groomed, with the mustache part a bit longer than the rest. And while there's a fair amount of silver in his dark hair, there doesn't seem to be any in his beard.
He doesn't look like an evil mastermind. He's good-looking in the aged way some men in their fifties can be. If it weren't for his strong nose, he'd almost be too pretty. I could see how a man like him would be able to charm his way into the Ashfords' lives.
His magnetic smile falters when our eyes meet, and his lips part like he's forgotten what he was about to say.
"Hi," I say, attempting to cut through the tension.
"Your server will be along shortly," the hostess repeats one more time and rushes away.
Ambrose clears his throat, composing himself.
"You must accept my apologies," he says, stepping out from his seat at the table. "It's that you look…"
I tuck some hair behind my ear, in the way his wife always had her hair in the photos—one side tucked, the other loose.
He stops a step away from me. "God, it's uncanny."
When he suddenly gestures to the table, I flinch and pray he didn't notice.
"Please," he says loudly. "Join me. I would very much like to hear more about your history, Miss Bellerose."
He makes a face. "Ha! De La Rosa, and Bellerose. I hadn't noticed. A strange coincidence."
Yeah, there have been a lot of those.
I laugh a little uneasily, which, I mean, valid—the guy is acting weird.
A server comes in to greet us, but as Ambrose pulls out a chair for me, he waves the younger man away. "Come back with that bottle of cava I had set aside."
"Right away, sir." The server turns right back around and leaves.
Were the men who hurt Elijah at his command as eager to please him?
I swallow the acid in my throat, smiling at the monster as he lifts my chair into place. "Thanks."
"No, thank you for coming to meet me on such short notice. I imagine it was difficult to make time between work and your studies. What was it you're majoring in again?"
I adjust myself in my chair as he seats himself opposite me, unbuttoning his jacket and sweeping it out behind him as he sits, at home in all this finery.
I bet he knows what every single one of these forks and spoons on the table is for, too.
"Um, I'm studying music business and management," I reply, throat scratchy. "And I do English tutoring on the side."
Is there no fucking water?
I lick my lips, eyeing the empty water glass and the pitcher condensing in the middle of the table. I'm about to reach for it when the server returns with an exclamation of, "The '04 cava, as requested."
We wait as the waiter makes a spectacle of opening the pressurized bottle, and pours two flutes of the bubbly wine.
Honestly, I don't care what it is. The instant he sets it down, I lift it back up and take a swallow to soothe the scratchiness in my throat.
"Well, cheers," Ambrose says disjointedly, lifting his glass while I'm still drinking.
"Oh. Sorry. Just thirsty," I mutter, setting the flute down.
"Tonight we have a lovely special of—"
"Not now," Ambrose interrupts the waiter, who I can tell dies a little inside at the sharp dismissal.
"Right, I'll come back shortly, then."
"So tell me, Aurora, do you have any memory of your parents?"
I shake my head. "Not really. I…sort of remember a woman singing to me, but I'm not sure if it was my mom or maybe an early foster memory. And I don't remember my dad at all."
He nods like this makes sense to him and gestures with his champagne flute. "Yes, well, you were so very young when you entered the system."
"I was."
"How old were you?"
"Uh." I struggle to remember with too many things still swirling in my brain.
There are things I am supposed to know and things I'm not and I need to be careful.
But I can answer this. I can answer any questions he throws at me about my history before the night I met the guys because it all fits the profile of what he's looking for.
"I don't know, exactly. That's why I put 'not applicable' on your form. They registered my birthday as the date the woman left me at that fire station, so I'm not sure how old I was."
He swallows his sip of cava and sets his flute down with a mimicry of real empathy in the lines around his eyes. Either I was right and I don't have anything to fear from this man as his maybe-daughter, or he's an even better actor than I am.
"I can't imagine the things you've been through, but look at you now, a young woman in university making her own way. Any parent would be proud of that."
My face heats, and I tense at the compliment because I am not a scholarship student working her way through university.
I'm the girl who helped steal a priceless work of art in a Parisian museum and then murdered a man on its streets.
I'm the girl whose only actual goal in life right now is to make this man pay for his sins.
Wherever they are out there, I don't think my real parents would be proud of me. But then again, they did abandon little two- or three-year-old me at a fire station in upstate New York, so…
Fuck those assholes.
"It's not exactly glamorous," I say with a shrug, waving an arm to indicate the room where we sit, its jacquard wallpaper and heavy velvet curtains, the opulent chandelier over the six-foot mahogany table. "Not like…all this."
He leans over the table as if sharing a secret, and says, "It's not all it's cracked up to be. Between you and I, I'd much prefer a simpler life. All of this," he shrugs boredly, "it's exhausting. Boring, really. But it was the legacy I was born to."
…so you had to go and steal someone else's.
My knuckles pop beneath the table, even as I grin and let out a small, breathy laugh.
"So, over the years," he swirls his wine, "your parents never made any attempt to reach out to you? None at all?"
Ambrose smiles at me over the rim of his glass, and it’s warm. Genuine, even.
It’s disconcerting.
Monsters should look like monsters. They shouldn’t be allowed to have kind eyes or flawless table manners.
My throat is dry again, and I reach for the cava, but I know I need to stay sober for this, so I don't lift it to my lips.
"No, never," I reply, reaching far over for the pitcher in the middle of the table and pouring water all the way to the brim of my water glass.
When I'm seated again, water glass in hand, I go still at the expression on Ambrose's face. He's staring at me—at the spot beneath my throat like a shark that's smelled blood in the water.
I look down and see my necklace slipped from the collar of my blouse when I reached for the water. It now rests atop the crepey fabric.
Why is he looking at it like that?
I tense.
Does he recognize it?
Surely not.
Shakily, I bring the water to my lips and take a long swallow, but when I set the glass down, he's still staring.
My lips part to ask him if he recognizes it, but I can't seem to make myself do it.
"How are we doing in here?" the server asks as he reenters the dining room, and I take the opportunity provided by the interruption to slip the necklace back down the front of my shirt. The instant it's out of sight, it's like a spell is broken and Ambrose smiles pleasantly at the waiter.