Chapter 5 #3
“And how long do you think the apartment money will last? You keep spending it on maintaining your money pit in Arcangues.”
“It will hold us for a while, until I go back to work,” he said, trying to retain some semblance of dignity, and pretense of hope.
“And how long has it been? Three years?” she said, slicing through him like a scalpel. He was used to it, but it still hurt anyway.
“It’ll last as long as it has to,” he said grimly.
“You’re not going to find a job, sitting at the chateau, feeling sorry for yourself.
” Xavier wasn’t staying with her to preserve a marriage, but a house.
Their simmering dislike of each other for twenty-seven years had erupted into rage in the last three years, once he gave up his job for the start-up and lost his money.
It had turned Brigitte’s disrespect and dislike to hatred during the pandemic.
The pandemic had changed everything for them.
It had made a hero of her as a doctor, and a fool of him in business and in her eyes.
She had been tormenting him ever since. And they couldn’t afford a divorce, or he would lose the chateau.
It was the only valuable asset he had left.
“How much is she willing to pay to rent it?” Brigitte asked him.
“I have no idea. I’ll know more tomorrow.
If we get a decent rental price, we can live on that for a while, and preserve the money we have left from the apartment sale.
” Their life was a constant juggling act now.
It was exactly the opposite of their life before his start-up failed.
While he was CEO of the ad agency, he had a huge salary, bonuses, commissions, investments.
They had a beautiful apartment and a golden life.
He had gambled it all and lost, and Brigitte would never forgive him for it.
The only thing she ever liked about him was the prestige she got from being married to him, and the material benefits, and now all of that was gone.
“If you get a decent rental price from this woman, I’ll give you another six months to find a job.
And if you don’t, I’m done. I want a divorce and you’ll have to sell the chateau and give me half of it.
That’s it, Xavier. Six months.” He listened to her and didn’t comment, and started putting some clothes and papers in a small suitcase.
She looked surprised. He had just arrived that day. “Where are you going?”
“To Arcangues. I want to get a look at the woman tomorrow and make sure she’s sane.
” He closed the bag, put on his coat, and walked to the front door.
He looked at Brigitte and didn’t respond to the ultimatum she had just given him, but he had heard her loud and clear.
She watched him leave and didn’t say goodbye, and neither did he.
He closed the door behind him, and she poured herself another glass of wine.
He had a seven-hour drive ahead of him that night, for a worthy cause, to buy time, and save his chateau.
—
The realtor called Sabrina in her suite at the Ritz. She’d spent the day at the Louvre, and went to Chanel afterward to shop for her daughters. She found nothing for herself and didn’t care. She had no one to dress for now.
He told her Xavier’s terms. He named a hefty price for the rental of the chateau, on condition that she allow him to live in the dower house.
He would be in Paris part of the time. And for now at least, the chateau was not for sale.
Sabrina was quiet as she thought about it.
The monthly rent sounded reasonable to her.
She wondered what her children would think, and if they’d like the chateau in Arcangues, instead of the south of France, for their annual vacation.
The chateau was less glamorous. But it felt like a healing place for her, and she could afford it easily.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and wondered what Malcolm would have advised her.
She could always buy an apartment in Paris later, and the Chateau de Bonport was the only place she had liked.
It was an hour’s flight from Paris, and she could go to the city anytime and stay at the Ritz.
“I’ll take it,” she blurted out. It felt like a big decision, but there wasn’t any risk involved for her.
If she hated it, she could go to Paris or back to Malibu.
She had nothing to lose. It seemed a little crazy, but her whole life felt crazy now.
“I want to see it one more time. I’ll fly down tomorrow, and if I like it, I’ll rent it for a year.
” She could fly to France from L.A., whenever she wanted to.
She was free to do as she wished, and she could afford to.
“I’ll pass the message on to the owner,” he said solemnly. “He’ll be here tomorrow, and he’d like to meet you.”
“That’s fine,” she agreed, and they both hung up. She called the concierge then to arrange an early morning flight to Biarritz.
—
Xavier drove to Arcangues that night, to get a look at the crazy American woman the next day.
He wanted to clean the place up a bit before she saw it again, maybe put some flowers around the house, but mostly to get a look at her.
If she rented the chateau, it gave him another six months to find a job, and money to live on.
It would give him a reprieve, after three years of bad luck.
And there was still enough money left from the sale of their handsome apartment to support them for some time.
Rent for the chateau would help him stretch that for a while.
Things weren’t quite as dire as Brigitte made them out, although they were pretty bad.
He hadn’t been able to find a job in three years, and at fifty-six, he was beginning to doubt that he ever would.
His days as CEO of a large, important company seemed to have come to an end.
They had had a sizable amount of money from the sale of the apartment, and about half of it was left.
He wasn’t thrilled at the idea of splitting what remained with Brigitte, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
She wanted him to sell the chateau and split that with her, cheating their only child of the only valuable asset they had to give her, and robbing her of her ancestral history.
Xavier would not let that happen, even if it meant staying married to a woman who hated him to protect that asset for his daughter.
He had missed their elegant apartment at first, but had learned to live without it.
The miserable apartment they had rented on the rue de Sèvres to take its place was a travesty.
And without the apartment, he had lost his Parisian life.
But the Chateau de Bonport was not just a piece of real estate to him.
It was his ancestral heritage and his daughter’s.
It was in his blood, and was a sacred responsibility he’d been given to protect for future generations, Victoire’s children and grandchildren.
It meant nothing to Brigitte, who didn’t have the same sense of history or family.
The only thing she understood and respected was medicine.
She had been a vital force saving lives during the pandemic and he readily agreed that human lives were more important than houses, even historical ones.
There was nothing in Brigitte’s life or family that meant as much to her.
She liked the status expensive belongings gave her, but she didn’t care about the ancestral bond that he had been taught to love and respect.
It was just a house to her, and she’d rather have the money.
She had no conscience about forcing him to sell it, a sure thing in a divorce, which he was trying to avoid at all cost. He felt he owed it to his ancestors, his daughter, and the children she would have one day to preserve it.
It was the only thing he had that mattered.
Brigitte had tried to convince their daughter how ridiculous and meaningless it was, just a pile of old stones in an old town in the Pyrénées, and money in the bank would be better and less troublesome.
But Victoire was more traditional than that.
She was her father’s daughter and she had deep affection for the noble home she would inherit one day, and felt the same responsibility for it that Xavier did.
Her mother hadn’t found an ally in her. Brigitte knew she would never make a fortune practicing medicine, so she wanted to squeeze Xavier for whatever she would get, and the chateau was all he had left of any value, after his fiasco with the start-up.
She resented every penny he had lost. It was that much less for her to take from him one day.
If their marriage ended, she wanted to take everything she could get on the way out, and had set her sights on the chateau he loved.
It would be doubly rewarding if she got it, because she knew how much he loved it.
She wanted to hurt him as much as he had hurt her with the money he lost. She took it personally and was out for blood now.
The last few years had been the worst of his life, with the humiliation of losing the business he had started and believed in so completely, and the worry of all the money he had lost, and being unable to find a comparable job to replace it.
He was afraid that at fifty-six he was too old now, and his reputation had been tainted by the failure of the start-up.
And being unemployed for three years was the greatest humiliation of all.
He wasn’t sorry he had launched his start-up, but he was desperately sorry it had failed.
Global travel had died instantly in the pandemic and hadn’t fully recovered yet.
He stopped several times on the road that night for coffee, in order to stay awake on the long drive.
He had a meeting set up in Paris, trying to network for a job, and canceled it so he could be in Arcangues when the American woman came to see the chateau again.
He was deeply protective of his ancestral home, and wanted to get a good look at her.
He didn’t like the idea of renting it for a year, or even six months, but if he got some income out of it, it would stall Brigitte for a while, and they could use the money.
He intended to stay close by at the dower house to make sure that she wasn’t damaging the property, or running it as an inn of some kind.
The realtor had said he would discuss it all with her, and would bring a standard lease with him for her to sign if she agreed to Xavier’s price and conditions.
Xavier finally got to Arcangues at two in the morning.
He was exhausted and headed for his bedroom to sleep in his comfortable bed, maybe for the last time for a year.
He didn’t know how soon she wanted to move in.
He walked to the main staircase in the dark, he knew the house perfectly, and tripped over the skateboard he had left there.
It was an old one of Victoire’s and he used it on the driveway sometimes to get to the far end quickly if he didn’t want to drive.
He’d forgotten he left it there, and reminded himself to put it away the next morning before the American woman came.
There were a number of things he wanted to do, to make the chateau look inviting to her.
He was running them all through his mind when he lay down on his bed a few minutes later.
It was better than counting sheep. He fell asleep instantly, woke up at seven, and bounded out of bed to get started.
He had a lot to do, starting with the skateboard he had fallen over the night before.
Victoire had left it when she took the job in Africa.
He liked seeing it to remind him of his daughter and happy times.