Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR
Neither one of us speaks of that night.
Neither one of us really speaks at all, for that matter, which I decide is just as well. And soon enough it is time to head over to France and enter what I’ve been thinking of as the endgame in this little pretense of ours.
It has only been two weeks. This is a good thing. He cannot have done too much damage in that time—and I know that aside from Tess, he has seen very few people who will connect his face to the mysterious Luc Garnier. I assume that when he gets what he wants from this party he will disappear.
I am hoping he will.
I have dug up as much information as possible on the expected guests, and I have some names, but no idea what it is I should be looking for. And more to the point, no idea what he is looking for, either.
He is unreadable in every regard.
What I can’t understand is why I remain…fascinated.
Much more fascinated than I ought to be with a con man who’s taken over the firm I built and the figurehead I’ve created.
I can’t make sense of it. I want to tell myself I feel the same sense of paralysis I did when I realized he could expose me to the world as the liar my stepmother always called me, back in those days when I told only truths.
I want to assure myself that I’m only going along with this because he claimed this would only last a short while.
I want to believe that this is me white-knuckling it through until he disappears.
But that fascination lingers in me like smoke, making me a liar all over again.
Making me wonder if even I should trust me.
But it is not until we are both sitting in a town car, heading for the airport, that he informs me that we will not be taking the commercial flight I’ve been expecting.
“What do you mean? Tess booked the tickets—”
“Luc Garnier does not travel commercial,” he says dismissively.
He does not even look at me as he says it. And I want to argue—about a great many things—but I stop myself. Because he is not wrong about the way Luc Garnier travels. I have always made it seem as if he has his own fleet of jets.
How is it possible that this man can know a character I made up better than I do?
The car takes us to a private airfield that I have been to before, not far from Manhattan.
And though I am beginning to feel something like trepidation—I tell myself it’s just the lingering unsettled feeling of being schooled on my own creation by the person pretending he is him—but I refuse to let him see any of it.
So I follow Not Luc as he crosses the tarmac and climbs the waiting steps to a sleek, unmarked plane that waits there for us.
It is clearly not the kind of plane that a person can charter.
I see that at once as we board. It is privately owned.
The devil is in the details, as ever. The hints here and there that this is not a craft that needs to project a certain neutral elegance, accessible to anyone who can meet the going rate.
This plane is opulent. Fewer of the nautical wood and brass flourishes that scream finance bro.
From the moment we step inside, everything is bright and gold and hushed, like the lobby of a fine hotel.
We move through a dining area—complete with a dining table that looks like it seats twelve—then into a lounge area that is set up to give the impression of more space than there ought to be on a plane, with crescent-shaped couches and tables that could seat four.
This is definitely not a charter.
And my impression is confirmed when I see Luc lift a brow at the flight attendant who has led us through this quiet, gorgeous, sleekly designed plane. She turns to me and smiles.
“Welcome aboard,” she says in scrupulous English, though she has much the same accent as he does. “Mr. Garnier—” and she doesn’t stumble over the name, but still “—we expect to take off within fifteen minutes.”
“Good,” he says, and nods, which is apparently enough of an order for her to turn and stride off with purpose.
I am certain that this is his own private plane, whoever he is, but any identifying details have been removed.
Meaning that if I knew more about jet interiors, maybe there would be clues in the silk coverings on the couches and chairs, or the recessed lighting that makes it feel like we’re outside.
But otherwise, there is nothing in plain sight that I can use to triangulate his identity.
There is a hallway that extends beyond the lounge we’re in, but Luc waves me to one of the tables.
I sit where he directs me, because I want to exude calm serenity.
What I feel is…on edge.
We are not even alone, Luc and I, as the plane rolls down the runway and takes off. I know that his staff is here, but it feels perilous, somehow, to leave New York in the company of this man.
To follow him into the unfamiliar when I already can’t quite trust myself around him.
I would like to pretend that nothing occurred that night in the office, but I know better. I know better, and more—I know that he experienced the same thing that I did.
Maybe even in the same way. Our eyes met. I couldn’t breathe. He was there.
He knew.
Much as I want to pretend, it’s always there, shimmering in the space between us. I’d like to deny that—and have, in fact, denied it to myself repeatedly—but I can’t quite manage it on this plane where there are no ringing phones to distract me, or Tess just down the hall.
I watch him pull out that slim, metallic laptop of his. I pull out mine.
Then, for some while, as the plane soars high into the sky and leaves New York far behind, there’s nothing but the sound of the air and the engines and the tap tap tap of our keys as we type away on our respective laptops. It’s almost peaceful…until I remember where I am.
And who’s with me.
It’s like I keep jerking myself back from the edge of some daydream where I’m imagining he really is Luc Garnier and this is our life, jetting about to solve mysteries together—
My God. I am astounded at myself. You need to pull it together, kid.
I return to my work with a vengeance.
And I can’t tell if she is acting on a signal from Luc when one of his staff members appears some while later, but if so, I miss it.
She glides up to our seating area with silver trays on each arm, each one filled with the sort of five-star delicacies that are not usually on offer on any flight I’ve been on.
Even in recent years when I’ve treated myself to more comfortable air travel—as a business expense—it has never been anything like this.
The finest linens and cutlery that would not be out of place in a Michelin-starred restaurant. Plates of fine cheeses and meats, the fruit so fresh it looks almost tropical, a soup and a salad that are inviting and smell delicious—no plastic or processed or microwaved food to be seen.
A glance at Luc makes it clear that none of this is new to him.
This is only more evidence to suggest that whoever he really is, he is so used to such niceties that they barely register.
Once again, I am left to wonder what rung of the social ladder could possibly lead to such unconscious elegance without stripping away the ability to function.
I find myself thinking about a prince I once worked for who was unable to dress himself without assistance.
That is not this man, I am certain.
His tray is set before him and he nods his thanks. His gaze sweeps to me as a matching tray is set beside me, and then he returns his attention to his laptop.
I finish the email I’m writing, summing up case findings and recommendations of next steps for a client, and send it off. Then I sit there, looking from the tray filled with crystal and gold-plated treats set before me to Luc himself.
Every day I look for more information about who this man really is. And every day, I come up empty. I’ve had a similar run of bad luck when it comes to the woman he seeks.
And it occurs to me then, as I watch him type, that I have absolutely no reason to believe that what he told me about that woman is true.
He might not be looking for a woman at all. He might not be looking for anyone. How can I possibly tell?
Following an urge I’m not sure I entirely understand—but I think, deep down, that it’s a gut feeling or even a hunch, and in my line of business as well as in life the smart move is to follow those—I open up the camera option on my laptop and take a picture of him.
We are sitting opposite each other. I can get his full features in the shot, almost full on.
I take three.
More than enough for facial recognition, I tell myself.
In an abundance of caution, I email the pictures to myself. Then delete the outgoing email before I shut down the program entirely.
Just a little safety measure or two. Just in case.
In case of what, I don’t know.
“You are looking at me as if I am a piece of veal,” he tells me in that low voice of his that sounds wry to me, though his expression remains unreadable.
I wonder, briefly, if he knows that I took a picture of him—and more than one at that—but I quickly shake that off. Somehow I have the feeling that if he did know, he would not be sitting there so calmly.
Because I know that this man does not want pictures of himself. Not in my hands. Not anywhere.
And the moment that thought penetrates, I realize further that this is likely the reason that he is so interested in the masked ball we’ll be attending.
I don’t know why it took me so long to get there.
Because what this tells me is that he expects that if he attends a party like this with no mask, he’ll be recognized. I start flipping through what I know of the guest list in my head.
“Veal is cruel,” I make myself reply, just in time to make it seem like a reasonable pause since he spoke instead of me drifting off somewhere. “Though perhaps you’re a bit too high in the instep to have gotten that message.”