Chapter 31 Armand Is an Open Book
Armand Is an Open Book
I’d known he was going to be here. I’d prepared myself to see him in the crowd, to see him and Lucas chumming it up. I was even prepared for him to talk at me, saying things that sounded reasonable to everyone else but were especially designed to cut me to the quick. But we hadn’t got that far.
I’d merely glimpsed him across the room, and here I was, hiding in the loo. Again.
The gallery toilets were unsurprisingly minimalist and off-putting, but all I needed was a sink to lean on and a mirror to glare at.
It had been easy to put on a happy face—or at least the closest I ever came—for Lucas at the start of the evening.
Now, I could feel the collar of my purchased costume tightening, the smooth fabric nonetheless prickling against my thighs and back, the ball of dread in my chest growing a thousand tendrils and seeping through the rest of me like rain through a dodgy ceiling.
I was never going to tell him. All I was ever going to do was hold on until the implosion.
“Darling.”
And there it was.
There he was. Behind me in the mirror, like a monster in a film. I didn’t say anything or turn around.
“Please, mon tresor.” He stepped further into the room, and I moved back against a stall.
He scoffed. “Always such drama. I’m only trying to help you and your little American patron.
He’s adorable, Armand, and really quite talented.
You could be such the It Couple, you with your Falcon Award and he with his new, naive eye. It complements well.”
There wasn’t going to be any Falcon Award, unless Jean kept talking to whoever he’d been talking to. I’d rather attend a thousand cons and teach a thousand workshops than have my horizons dictated by the span of Jean’s web. Again.
I tried to say that, but there was a painful membrane covering my vocal chords, and I couldn’t break it for the life of me.
Jean rolled his eyes and slipped his hands into his pockets. He looked almost casual for once: gray slacks, cashmere sweater, and brown blazer. I felt doubly ridiculous in the fancy black tie. “Armand, you always act as if I will attack you. I will not attack you, mon cher.”
He wouldn’t.
He’d never needed to.
I swallowed, trying to break through that stinging membrane.
I wanted to say something like No, you’ll always be there, hanging on the edges like a spider biding his time, but that would’ve been living up to his characterization of me as dramatique.
There was nothing I could say that would sound sane, no way to sound reasonable, though he knew the context.
He’d created the context. And what—he would insist, my own mind would insist—had he really done to me?
Other than give me everything I’d ever thought to ask for.
I opened my mouth, rallied my lungs, clenched everything that could clench, and tried to say something, anything, to prove to us both that I could. When—
“Armand?” Lucas looked concerned, one hand holding the door open. The world in all its buzz and light flickered behind him. He looked from me to Jean. “What’s going on?”