Chapter 36
CATELINE
My eyes are damp as I sit on the edge of the river.
The rock under me has the same familiar contours, and the tinkling water trickles past with the rhythm I remember all too well.
During my rare breaks, this is where I’d come when I felt overwhelmed or upset.
I’d sit here and pray, seeking God. Seeking guidance.
Nothing has changed here except me.
Just as I’d found myself at a crossroads when I stopped dancing, once again, I need time to figure out my life.
Why would Connor want to marry me after seeing where I came from? The mess I’d left behind? Much like the one in my bedroom at Blancbourg, I’d closed the door on the past and hoped no one would ever witness it.
Fog drifts in as the hour draws later. I ponder my future at Blancbourg. Even if I can somehow return to Concordia, no doubt the Board of Regents will ask me to resign or fire me.
Just like Connor has his rules from the coach and the playbook among the guys, as the headmistress, I’m not supposed to be involved with any of our clients.
In my defense, it was almost like the moment Connor and I left the manor, our relationship shifted, and then morphed again when we did the challenge and he saved my life.
I pull out my phone and dial Giselle, my cousin, wishing we were together.
When she doesn’t answer, I try my old friend Gemma.
She recommended her former roommate, Pippa, for the job.
I recall afternoons when the sun painted squares on the wood floor in her flat on Golden Strasse before she got married, and she and her husband bought a house just outside the village, leaving Pippa the apartment.
Gemma and I met when I first moved to Concordia and we’d gab for hours about work, life, and dating—her escapades, not mine. She always had tea and a plate of ginger cookies ready for our long chats.
We catch up and I hear her twins in the background, who just started preschool a few days a week, freeing up some of her time. She asks about our idea for an online etiquette program.
I bypass the question and ask her about the kids and family life.
“They’re a handful, but the best kind. And don’t worry, I’m already teaching them proper manners.”
“I’d mind mine if it meant I could have one of your ginger cookies.”
“Oh, and I’ve perfected the shortbread recipe, too. Remember, they were too crumbly?”
“I was glad to have suffered through all your testing. You never told me that I was your guinea pig.” My heart lurches at the inside joke Connor and I have.
We both laugh and then I fill her in on everything that’s been going on with me.
“Initially, Connor’s surprise trip to France was welcome.
Then, when everything happened with my parents and Gaston, I thought it was the biggest mistake.
I love my family, but over the years, I’ve had very little desire to go back.
They’re not the kind to forgive, forget, or set out cookies. ”
“I’m eating one for you, er, us. Anyway, what’s that saying? You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family? I’m sure they care, but their way of showing it—”
“Stinks like a codfish left on the riverbank in the sun.”
“Ew. I’m going to put this cookie down now.”
“The weird thing is, it was almost like coming back here woke me up. Renewed my resolve or gave me a second chance to think about what I really want from my life.”
“And that is...?”
“I’m getting closer to the answer, but since college, I’ve changed, only it was so gradual, I can’t quite pinpoint how.”
“Makes sense. It’s like when you see a cousin once a year, you see how much they grow, but if you’re with them every day, it’s not something you notice.”
“Exactly. This might sound weird, but on the anniversary of my decision to leave France and dancing—I check in with myself every year—something was different. Then I met Connor a few days later and...I can’t explain it.”
“Oh, Pippa has a word for that. She calls it the heart fluffies. It’s a particular kind of good feeling inside.” I can practically feel her smile through the phone.
“I’m not a fluffy kind of gal.”
Gemma laughs. “But you said that you’ve changed.”
I let out a long breath, realizing she’s right.
“Going back to my family and seeing that they haven’t moved on at all made me see more clearly.
Then, reading the letter I’d written to myself, reminding me to seek the desires of my heart and not solely the future my parents had mapped out, was like a highlighter pen emphasizing it all. But I still don’t know what to do.”
“Understandable. Have you been praying?”
“Yes,” and as soon as the word is out of my mouth, I send up one for my mother, then go on to tell Gemma what I overheard her say. “She was already planning to sabotage my fake marriage to Connor and then sue him for taking advantage of my need for citizenship.”
“That’s diabolical.”
“I know. Now, she has an immigration officer coming in the morning to expose us. Or something. This is such a mess.”
“What’s your heart telling you? God?”
I tune in as I’ve been doing for weeks now, even before I had the health scare. “There are two things. One is me, light on my feet, leaping and pirouetting. I miss dancing and want to return to the barre, but not to the stage. I want to dance on my terms.”
“There are adult classes right in town,” Gemma says excitedly.
“Madam Tissot is retiring and closing the studio. Plus, that would mean I’d need to be in Concordia. Not sure how, since I’m not allowed to re-enter the country. And as for the other one—”
“Wait, just a minute. You’re a teacher.”
“Probably not for long.” Did Gemma hear a word I said?
“You’re a ballerina and a teacher. You could be a ballet teacher.”
My pulse quickens. “I could? I could.” I leap from the rock and spin around, my thoughts whirring.
“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. It’s perfect.” Then, as quickly as my excitement appears, it fades as I drop back onto the rock. “But my heart desires something else as well and I don’t think it can have both, or this one at all.”
“Is this something a someone who’s tall, muscular, and has a slight southern drawl?” Gemma asks, ever perceptive.
A tall, muscular, and handsome distraction with a slight Appalachian accent. Oui.
Gemma continues, “I’ve learned in life that sometimes the right people come together at the wrong time. But that doesn’t mean the right time won’t come along.”
We get off the phone and I start to brainstorm ideas about having my own ballet school. But where? How? Details come at me fast, but an emptiness remains. It’s the size and shape of a wonderful distraction that brought me alive these last four weeks.
And it sounds and looks an awful lot like Connor Wolfe. I want him in my life, even if it’s messy. Even with uncertainty. Even if I have to fake marry him, get my green card, and then convince him that I don’t not not love him.
I’m in a fog the next morning. I shuffle through my parents’ kitchen, pour coffee, and eat half a croissant before I hear a third voice in conversation with my mother and father coming from the living room.
I peek through the gap in the door and see a man in a light gray suit sitting tall opposite Mère and Père.
My mother spots me and calls, “Good morning, Cateline. Mr. Marais is here from the immigration office. He wants to discuss your citizenship.”
I wince, wishing I’d stayed in bed. Remembering that Connor called me Miss Manners, I enter the room and greet the man like royalty.
We all chat for a few moments, and then Mr. Marais indicates he’ll need to interview me alone. There’s no doubt my parents will sit on the opposite side of the door and listen, so I tell myself to choose my words carefully.
“Please, Miss Berghier, tell me about your home life. Seems like a very nice place to grow up.
I agree and then add, “I love my parents, but they never saw my life as mine. They pushed me too hard from a young age—I forewent friends, school, and my own interests because they wanted me to dance. I pushed my body, ruined my feet, and rarely rested. They forced me into a partnership with Gaston Lazereaux. In front of them, he put on a good show. After all, he was a performer, but in private, he treated me like garbage, something to be tossed aside, sometimes literally. I’m not a heifer, a cow, a commodity for families to trade for status. ”
“I am very sorry to hear that.”
“Then I met Connor Wolfe.”
His eyebrow jumps sharply.
“Everything about him is different.” I leave off the part about our rocky start, but tell stories about how Connor and I laugh, enjoy each other’s company, and most importantly, how he respects me. “Connor would do anything for me.”
“And would you do the same for him?”
A car crunches over the gravel outside. My pulse leaps. Could that be him? Or is it Gaston? Someone else?
I nod. “I would. When we came here, I was afraid that we’d built a wall between us—one I feared we wouldn’t be able to cross the way we did the raging rapids.
I was afraid of letting him in because I’d risk losing the person I worked so hard to become—independent, focused on my future goals, and not getting caught up in a man as I had with Gaston. But—”
“Do you still have feelings for Gaston?”
“Not in the slightest. But when I was young, I thought he was my ticket out from my mother’s pressure.”
“And do you feel that Connor is a ticket out of your predicament with your work visa expiring and your citizenship status in Concordia?”
I’m sipping my coffee and almost sputter it everywhere. “I never fell for someone as I have with Connor, but my heart is fragile.” I explain what happened when we were camping and how he saved my life.
“So perhaps you feel indebted to him. My research shows that he’s trying to clean up his image.
Perhaps the two of you view this ‘marriage’ as a mutually advantageous arrangement.
You marry him so you can obtain a green card and return to Concordia.
He marries you to remain in good standing with his team. ”
Wow, this guy is sharp, and so wrong, or maybe my mother planted the seed. His comment pokes me in the ribs as voices rise and fall from the other room.
I’m about to explain that I wouldn’t take advantage of the system and that I want to marry Connor because I believe we’re meant to be together, even if it takes work, even if he doesn’t see it yet.
“Cateline,” someone calls from the other room.
I spin around.
Connor fills the doorway to the kitchen. His copper eyes are dark and bleary.
With a jerk of my head, I try to indicate that I’m in a meeting with the official from the immigration office, but he and I haven’t quite perfected our couple’s telepathy abilities.
He closes the space between us and whispers into my hair, desperation lacing his voice.
“I understand why you’d want to end this, but—”
I turn back to Mr. Marais, “If you’d excuse me for just a moment. Connor came to make sure I took my medicine today.”
Leading us both outside so neither the official nor my parents can hear, Mr. Marais calls, “Actually, this is perfect. Cateline’s statements are sufficient. Now I can interview you both.”