15. CHAPTER 13
Léonie
“You shouldn't hide there, Lée. Your mother wouldn't like it.”
Ten year old Isolde’s whisper was frantic, but I only grinned, pulling the heavy velvet curtains tighter around us. I was just nine at the time.
My mother had hired an interior decorator to breathe life into the drawing room just the week before, filling it with things she said made the space feel alive.
“It’s okay,” I whispered back. “She won't even know we're here.”
We were children; we believed we could be invisible.
But then came the footsteps—my mother and her guests on a tour of the house.
A muffled giggle escaped me, a sudden movement followed, and then the sound of history shattering.
A Ming-style celadon vase, a collector's piece my father had acquired at an auction, lay in broken green shards at my feet.
My mother didn’t scream. She didn’t act like anything had happened. She just wore that tight, polite smile for her guests while her eyes promised me an ending. Once the doors closed behind them, the mask dropped.
“You never know how to act right,” she’d hissed, her voice like a firecracker. “An heiress running around like a common street urchin. Why do we even pay for etiquette classes if you're learning nothing but how to be a disappointment?”
I'd stood there with my head bowed, the image of the perfect, repentant daughter.
But beneath the folds of my silk puffy sleeved party dress, my hand was shoved deep into my pocket, my fingers enveloped a small, heavy weight.
A vintage, emerald-encrusted brooch that had fallen from the lapel of one of her guests during the commotion.
I had seen it hit the rug just as the vase shattered. While my mother was busy apologizing to the Duchess, I had knelt down, pretending to sob over the broken porcelain, and palmed the emerald.
The lecture lasted twenty minutes. She called me reckless, clumsy, and unworthy of the title of an heiress.
The entire time, all I could think about was the cold, prickly bite of the gold pin digging into my right thumb.
It was the first time I realised that if I couldn't be the perfect daughter they wanted, I could at least be the one who walked away with a piece of the prize.
I could own all the shiny things I liked.
Now, standing in this room, taking in the blush-pink roses and the new drapes with the gold linings my mother is so obsessed with, I can't help but think that no matter how much silk she hangs, the walls still held sour memories.
The gold lining on the curtains looked like the bars of a gilded cage. Over the years she kept decorating to keep the space feeling alive, yet all I felt was the numbness of growing up here.
I looked at the spot where the vase had shattered all those years ago. The floor was pristine now, the blemish long gone.
Standing there, it became painfully clear, my mother didn't care that the vase broke; she cared that I had shown the guests we were a family capable of making a mess. That we weren’t perfect after all.
I rarely came into the drawing room, except summoned.
Today there was no summoning, just my mother pulling me from the chaos of the study to…I wasn’t sure exactly.
“Come,” my mother said, a light hand at my elbow as if the shouting we’d just heard belonged to another house entirely. “Let them roar. They will tire themselves out.”
She led me to sit on the new sofas installed in the room. They were upholstered in a muted blue silk my mother had imported from somewhere with a waiting list and a feature in Point de Vue.
My mother loved things she could show off in the aristocratic circle.
I sat because what else could I do?
She sat next to me, every angle of her posture composed as usual. éliane Moreaux-Fernández never sagged in public. She never sagged in private either. She’d never be caught dead losing that perfect Moreaux composure.
“How are you feeling today?” she asked, studying my face with an intensity that made me want to fidget. “Any pain? Headaches still?”
It was the first time she’d asked, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. A lump formed in my throat. I swallowed and shrugged a single shoulder.
“It’s nothing. Just tired.”
My head throbbed and my heart still ached, but what was the use of even mentioning them to her?
She leaned forward and, for the first time in longer than I could remember, reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.
The gesture was so gentle it made my skin flinch. I held very still.
My mother’s touch had always come with an agenda—straightening a hem before a gala, angling my chin toward the light for photos, smoothing a wrinkle on a dress that offended her. Never just because I was her daughter and she wanted to touch me.
“You’re looking a bit ashen,” she remarked, her fingers moving along my temple before she drew back. “It will pass.”
Sure it will. That was all I was going to get anyway.
While I wasn’t expecting anything more, I didn’t know what to do with the sudden softness in her tone. It felt like wearing a borrowed coat—warm, but not mine.
Then she smiled. It was small and almost…
girlish. I hadn’t seen her smile in a while.
The last time I saw something close to a smile was when Laurent had made a comment at dinner about the colors of the new curtains.
That was weeks ago, before Marseille, before I left home.
I’d thought it was a simple irrelevant comment but for an instant, her composure cracked.
I wasn’t surprised anyway. Her smiles were mostly reserved for Laurent.
Seeing her smile at me today, made me very nervous.
“Lady Kade reached out today,” she said.
That explains her sudden sweetness.
“Did she?” I managed.
“Yes,” my mother replied, and now the light in her eyes sharpened with a more familiar type of excitement. “She called just before I came down to the study.”
“Since the truce was finalised today, they’d prefer not to delay,” she continued, trying to keep her visible excitement restrained. “They’re looking at a wedding by the first week of next month.”
Panic moved through me in hot dizzying waves before I locked my face down.
“In one month?” I asked like I didn’t hear the first time. My stomach twisting in knots as I tried to put my thoughts together.
“Yes, a month,” she confirmed, all smiles. “A small intimate wedding. It’s better that way. Swift. No press. Before anyone has time to stir nonsense.”
By nonsense, she meant me probably making another attempt to disgrace the family or start something they couldn’t control.
My heart tried to climb into my throat. I swallowed it down.
“I see,” I said, because what else was there to say.
My mother continued as if I’d just agreed with her.
“Esmé has been very gracious,” she said. “After… everything, she could have insisted on new terms. On a different match…humiliating us.”
She said the last word airily, apparently forgetting that I already carried it with me.
“Instead,” my mother went on, “she has pushed for this to go ahead. She told me Orion is quite firm about it. He still wants the match.”
Still wants.
Like I were a damaged lot at an auction; a piece with a visible crack that he was still more than happy to pay a premium for.
“You are fortunate,” she said, her eyes glittering. “To be liked by the Kades. To be… wanted like this. Especially after—”
She let the sentence trail off.
I could feel the rest of the words hanging between us.
Especially after you ran.
Especially after you let that nobody touch you.
I looked down at my hands so she wouldn’t see whatever emotions crossed my face.
In the corner of my vision I saw Yves instead—his smile, the way his hair fell into his eyes when he laughed, the sound of his voice when he’d said we can leave, Léo, we can make it work, I promise.
I'd thought about him every single day since they tore us apart. My brothers and their men had left him for dead on that pavement, and the guilt was eating me alive. I was the reason he’d stepped into the line of fire and put himself in danger in the first place.
So many things crossed my mind that I would have done differently.
Two nights ago, I’d called Céleste. My voice shook when I’d asked for her to help me find him.
Her cousin Cassian Vassier knew people who could find anyone.
I knew that much from the stories Céleste told us about him.
I didn't need a miracle; I just needed someone who could trace a name through a hospital registry, a police report... or a morgue. The latter gave me chills.
Céleste had gone silent for a long moment before promising to see what she could do. I'd heard nothing since then.
My mind refused to settle, spiraling into the worst-case scenarios, especially since the mere mention of his name was enough to make my brothers’ exchange dark looks.
“Focus on your future, Léonie.” was always my mom’s response when I mentioned his name. Or, “Let the past stay where it belongs,” another favorite of hers.
Blaise checked on me every day, but he dodged the question each time. Debo went from talking to me in full sentences to nods in hallways. None of them said the words I was most afraid to hear.
He died from his injuries. He's gone. It wasn't worth it.
Laurent, on the other hand, alternated between cruel jokes and violent remarks that made my skin crawl. I was convinced that even if Yves was found dead, Laurent would kill him all over again.
éliane reached out again, tucking another invisible strand of hair behind my ear. I could never get used to it—the faux tenderness—as if I were suddenly worth handling gently.
It should have made me suspicious, instead it repulsed me.
I could see clearly why she suddenly cared. I was the golden goose. The future Kade.
I’m not sure what Orion promised with this alliance, but whatever it was explained her unusual behavior.
“You know—” she said, her voice dropping conspiratorially, “I heard Orion defended you today.”
My head snapped up. Surely I'd misheard.
“What?”
She looked pleased at my reaction.