Chapter 25
DIANE
Two hours later, after I get to my apartment and frame the rest of my rooftop prints for Jeanne’s gallery, my thoughts are still in a jumble of epic proportions.
So, Sebastian worked behind the scenes to help Dad, and hid it from me. Clearly, he didn’t do it to improve my opinion of him. Does this mean he’s sorry for what he’s done to Dad? Is this his way of making amends?
Am I prepared to forgive him?
After all, he can truly be held responsible only for Dad’s bankruptcy. My parents’ divorce and Dad’s stroke were the consequences of that but they weren’t, strictly speaking, Sebastian’s fault.
There’s another question that’s been growing in the back of my mind for weeks now. It started as a tiny seed that I could ignore, but it’s exploded inside my head, deafening me.
Could our fake relationship ever turn into something real?
I lean my forehead against the window and stare outside.
Don’t be daft, woman.
Sebastian and me, it’ll never work. We’re like fire and ice, matter and antimatter. We’re wired for mutual destruction. Whatever it is that’s sprouted between us, it’s doomed.
I read Libération, vote for socialists, and believe in strong government.
He gripes about France’s “archaic” labor laws that “overprotect” employees and discourage entrepreneurial initiative.
Even though in public he supports environmentalists, I’m sure it’s only because his PR people told him it’s good for the company’s image.
Deep inside, he’s as conservative as it gets.
He’s a billionaire, for Christ’s sake.
And he reads Le Figaro.
I hate that kind of people. They have no civic sense, no notion of solidarity.
Their only concern is how to make more money and pay less in taxes.
And while these glorified crooks succeed in dissimulating their income in Swiss banks and offshore companies, people like Dad—hardworking, honest people—go belly up.
I rack my brain for additional arguments.
What I’m trying to do here is to wind myself up into a righteous anger against Sebastian. Only a couple of months ago, I had no difficulty doing it.
It used to come naturally.
But now, all my valiant attempts hit a brick wall and fly into pieces.
That wall is the belief—a conviction, really—that Sebastian is nothing like the rotten, self-absorbed golden boy that I’ve been painting him to be.
His arrogance is superficial. It’s just a mask he wears to hide his insecurities from the world.
And to project an image of someone who “knows what he’s doing. ”
Underneath the veneer, Sebastian Darcy is an honorable man in every single way that matters.
I take my head in my hands, wishing I was on a deserted island so I could bawl my confusion to the four winds.
My door buzzer sounds.
It’s Sebastian.
I let him in, wondering what’s so urgent it couldn’t wait ’til I get to the town house later tonight.
He steps in, a huge cardboard box in his hands.
“What is this?” I ask as he sets it on my desk.
“A top-notch professional-quality printer,” he says. “So you can make your own prints. And a landscape camera.”
I sit down, flabbergasted.
He opens the box and unpacks the printer first. Unable to resist, I jump up and take a closer look. He’s right—it’s top-notch equipment. To think of all the stuff I could do with it…
“I hope this is what you were talking about.” He hands me a camera.
Not just any camera—a Seitz 6x17 Panoramic.
I’ve read articles about it. I’ve dreamed about it. This baby takes the world’s largest digital photos. The quality is so good I can make a wall-sized print of the Chateau d’Arcy and still be able to see the little spider swinging under one of the third-floor windows.
It’s the best of the best of the best.
I push it back toward him. “This thing costs a small fortune. More than what I make in a year.”
“It’s nothing,” he says.
“I can’t accept it.”
“And I can’t have you walking on roofs so that you can take enough shots with your portrait camera to assemble them into a landscape.”
“Why…” I look away, trying to form my question. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“Do you want the conveniently honest answer or the brutally honest one?”
“Give me both.”
He places the camera on the table, takes my chin between his index and thumb, and turns my face toward him.
I stare into his somber eyes.
“The conveniently honest answer is that I’m nice to you because I like your photos and want to help.”
“And the brutally honest one?”
“I’m being nice because I want to continue seeing you after our contract expires and you leave me.”
“You want a real relationship?”
“I’m not sure that’s exactly what I’d call it.” He hesitates. “Diane, I don’t want to mislead you or give you false hopes. You’re not the kind of woman I’d ever pick as a real wife.”
I square my shoulders, trying not to show how much his words hurt me.
“You despise what I stand for,” he says. “You have no interest in my world, in being my partner in every aspect of life.” He pauses before adding, “My mother had the same distaste for the things that mattered to Papa… And look where it got them.”
He lets go of my chin.
We’re both silent for a long moment, gazing out the window, at our shoes, at the equipment on the table—everywhere except each other.
I’m the first to break the silence. “Thank you for your honesty.”
His gaze burns into my eyes as he waits for me to continue.
“I think it would be best if we stopped seeing each other after the contract expires,” I say.
His face hardens. “If that’s what you want.”
I nod.
Dammit, this conversation is hard.
“Tell me something,” I say to get us out of the minefield. “Why are you so sure your nemesis will use the same method on you as he did on your father? Maybe this time he’ll do something different, something more drastic.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know… poison you?”
He laughs. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just not his MO. You see, the guy—or the gal—hates me, but he won’t take unnecessary risks. He’s super careful.”
“If you say so.”
“From what I’ve observed, he seeks to inflict pain—not to kill. What he wants is to punch me where it hurts most. If I wither and die as a consequence, he probably won’t complain. But his goal isn’t my quick death. I’m sure of it.”
Punch me where it hurts most.
Isn’t that what I’ll do to him if I make those letters public?
He doesn’t need his nemesis to give him pain and suffering—he has me.
“Ready to go home?” he asks after our conversation returns to the equipment I’ve agreed to keep.
“You go ahead,” I say. “I still have some stuff to do.”
“Need help?”
I shake my head. “Need privacy.”
He nods and walks out.
I place his mother’s letters into the kitchen sink and put a match to them. As they burn to ashes, I tell myself that now nobody—not Sebastian’s nemesis, not even me in a moment of anger—will be able to punch him where it hurts most.