Chapter 29
DIANE
It’s my second day in Octave’s cellar.
I shift my position to sit a little more comfortably and close my eyes. My mouth and lips are on fire. I’m dizzy and so tired I can barely think.
Tyrion’s words from Game of Thrones come to my mind: “Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.”
With the prospect of death a lot closer to home than when I watched the series with Chloe, I’ve been thinking a lot about possibilities. My favorite one is code named Clean Slate. It goes like this: Sebastian Darcy isn’t the one who ruined Dad. His main competitor, David Bauer, did it.
Dreaming here, remember?
Actually, no one has ruined Dad. His business is doing well, he didn’t suffer a stroke, and he and Mom are still together. Sebastian exposes Octave, thanks to his formidable powers of deduction. This means he doesn’t need to hire me—or anyone—to be his fake wife.
We meet in the most conventional way at Jeanne and Mat’s, and we fall in love. Just like that—Bam!—at first sight. It doesn’t matter that he reads Le Figaro and is worth more than the GDP of a small country.
Nobody’s perfect.
We date, kiss, make love, make babies, and live happily ever after.
I open my eyes and stare at the door.
He’ll find me.
Just as he found me after the cake incident, which now seems like a lifetime ago. If there’s something I’ve learned about him, it’s that Sebastian Darcy won’t just shrug at my sudden departure and move on. He’ll want to know why I left. He’ll call. He’ll poke around, talk to Mom, Chloe, and Elorie.
And he’ll end up figuring it out.
I must believe it.
The alternative is to give up and stop struggling to stay alive even before Octave turns up to finish me off.
The door opens and Octave comes in.
“Have you made up your mind about me?” I ask, my voice coarse.
“I had last night,” he says. “I was going to come here and strangle you. But then I lost my nerve.”
I look into his eyes. “Bummer.”
“You’re funny, you know?” He lets out a sigh. “It is a bummer.”
“Tell me something, Octave—just so I don’t die stupid—why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you doing this? Why are you going to such pains to punish the person who thinks the world of you?”
“Does he now?” Octave smirks. “He is less full of himself than his legendary Grandpa Bernard, and his adored papa. I’ll grant you that.”
An image flashes in my head when he mentions Sebastian’s grandfather—that of Octave’s birth certificate.
“Your middle name is Bernard,” I say.
The side of his face twitches. “So what?”
“It isn’t a coincidence, is it? Your hatred of the d’Arcy men… it has something to do with your middle name, I’m sure.”
“Not only are you funny,” he says. “You’re also perceptive.”
I wait for him to continue.
Because he will. The man is clearly burning to tell his story to someone. He’s been burning for years, decades maybe. And now he has an ideal audience: captive, genuinely interested, and expendable.
He’d have to be made of steel to resist that.
“Bernard d’Arcy had a fling with my mother when they were both young,” he says.
I knew it!
“It was more than a fling, actually. They were together for over a year until he ditched her and married the fancy-schmancy Colette.”
“What did your mother do?”
“She up and married a good-for-nothing from her hometown. And then she had me.”
“Are you Bernard’s son?” I ask.
He sighs. “I don’t know. My mother always denied it, but she never got over Bernard and she did give me that middle name. Besides, she wrote to him when I turned eighteen, asking if he could offer me a job at Parfums d’Arcy.”
“Did he?”
“He offered me a job at Darcy House instead.” Octave runs his hand through his thinning hair, his expression melancholy. “I was over the moon. I thought it was a sign that the Count was willing to take me under his wing, maybe even acknowledge me one day… I was so naive.”
“I take it he didn’t acknowledge you?”
Octave shakes his head. “Worse. He never even bothered to get to know me, let alone groom me for bigger things. He groomed Thibaud, all right, and then Sebastian. But never me.”
“Did you ever talk to him about your mother?”
“I didn’t dare. He was so distant, so much above me… We weren’t equals. He was Count d’Arcy du Grand-Thouars de Saint-Maurice. I was the help.”
“Why didn’t you walk away?” I ask. “Once you knew Bernard would never treat you like a son, why didn’t you just leave?”
My mouth and throat hurt from talking, and I’m extremely tired but still lucid enough to remember that as long as Octave is telling his story, he isn’t strangling me.
“At first, I had hope,” he says. “I thought if I proved myself to him, if I showed him how good and loyal I could be, he’d let me in.
I tried so hard, for so long… And then, when I accepted that I’d never earn his love, it was too late.
I’d become too appreciative of the grandeur of Darcy House and the comforts of my life to quit everything and start over. ”
“So instead you chose to stay and poison their lives,” I say.
“Exactly.” Octave puts his chin up. “My mother died around the same time, and I made a promise on her grave. I vowed I’d make the lives of Bernard, Thibaud, and Sebastian miserable without risking my freedom or my job.”
“My hat’s off to you,” I say. “You succeeded.”
He gives me a smug smile. “Yes, I did.”
For a moment, we’re both silent. Then Octave’s eyes dart to my neck. Oh no. I must get him to start talking again—and presto!
“Have you done a DNA test to find out who your father is?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
He hesitates and then shrugs as if to say, What the hell, I might as well be honest with the soon-to-be-dead woman.
“I’m too scared. What if the test says I’m not related to the d’Arcys?
Do you realize the implications?” He points at me.
“Your… end, Thibaud’s disgrace, Sebastian’s grief—it would all be for nothing.
Meaningless. I wouldn’t be able to handle it. ”
“And you think you’ll be able to handle murdering me?” I ask.
He opens his mouth to say something when the door bursts open and a bunch of police officers in bulletproof vests storm in. Two of them slam Octave to the floor and cuff him. The others rush to me and cut my restraints.
It all seems surreal. A few moments later, I’m wrapped in a blanket and carried up the stairs into the daylight.
Sebastian runs to me and takes me in his arms. He’s crying.
“You’re alive,” he says, raining kisses on my cheeks, eyes, nose, and forehead. “You’re alive!”
I start crying, too.
“Shush, mon amour,” he says in a hot whisper, kissing away my tears. “You’re safe now. It’s over. I’m here. You’re safe.”