Before You Say I Do

Chapter 19 Fish in a Pond

Getting over Ari isn’t easy.

Tom sits around his parents’ house — no, his mother’s house now, he painfully corrects himself — and doesn’t do much of anything. His father’s plane sits abandoned in the old hangar, and Tom takes her into the skies on occasion, keeping his flying hours up. His father would have liked that, Tom reminds himself. If there was one thing Doug Somerset ever took seriously it was his flying. He might have been a race-car driver by design, but he was a pilot at heart, and Tom can’t bear the thought of his father’s plane going to rust and ruin in Doug’s eternal absence.

“You can keep her, you know,” Marnie tells him one evening, and Tom looks up at her, blank-faced and confused. He couldn’t keep her, he thinks. He lost her. She’s moved on, married to someone else, with a baby. His mother doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

“The plane,” Marnie clarifies, looking at him with concern.

“Oh,” Tom replies. “Right.” For a moment he sits quietly, mulling over her words.

“And anything else you want to keep of your father’s,” Marnie offers, her voice rippling with pain and loss anew. “Anything at all. All his stuff... all his junk...” There’s a bittersweet smile on her face as memory strikes. “Maybe it’s time to move on. Find it all a new home.”

Tom shrugs. “Thanks, but there’s nothing I want. Not really.”

His mother frowns. “Not even the plane?”

“I don’t have anywhere to keep her in Brooklyn.”

“Brooklyn? Who said anything about Brooklyn? It can stay here. Besides, since when do you live in Brooklyn? You’ve practically moved back here since your father died. That was two years ago.”

“If I’m in your way—”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Marnie cuts him off. “All I’m thinking is that your place in the city is costing you a small fortune every month in rent, and you’ve hardly been back to the place. Why don’t you give it up? Stay here with me?”

At the almost pleading tone to her voice, Tom shrinks back. His mother retired during the worst of Doug’s illness to care for him, and her lack of purpose is starting to show. Suddenly, Tom realises that she’s thinking of making a project out of him. If he continues to stay here, continues to mope and grieve and dwell on what could have been, he might as well give up now. He takes a deep breath and sits taller.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” he says, as gently as he can. “In fact, I’ve been thinking recently about going... Well, maybe going back to the apartment. Getting a job. Doing some travelling.”

“You only just got back from London,” Marnie complains. “And you want to travel again?”

Tom swallows hard, trying in vain not to think about Ari, the image of her baby in another man’s arms.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “I want to travel again.”

“Another European jaunt?”

Tom tries not to flinch. “No. Somewhere new.”

Somewhere , he tells himself, that doesn’t remind him of Ari.

Marnie chews on her lip, and Tom can sense her displeasure. “What is it?”

His mother taps a finger on her table. “I don’t think travelling is a good idea. You were a mess after your father died, and then, just when you seemed to be getting brighter and better, you took yourself off to London and went straight back to square one. You’ve been in a dark mood since you got back from England, you know. I’ve been worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” Tom lies, and his mother, to her credit, doesn’t try to argue with him.

“If you say so. But let me say this. Travelling isn’t the answer for you.”

Tom sighs. “So, what is then?”

Marnie gives him a pointed look. “Staying here with me. Maybe meeting a nice woman—”

“Mom—”

“Let me finish,” Marnie complains. “You could meet a nice woman. Start a family. Maybe take up that position on the board of the family business they keep offering you—”

“No,” Tom says firmly. “That’s not for me. It was a great role for you. But it’s not for me.”

“It’s a family business,” Marnie says again, and her finger is tapping double-time on her glass tabletop now. “It’s wrong for it to be run by a bunch of strangers in suits when you’re sitting right here twiddling your thumbs and spending all your time feeling — forgive me — sad.”

Tom gives her a look. “Mom,” he says softly. “It’s just not for me.”

At that, Marnie slumps back in her chair. “No,” she says bitterly. “It isn’t for you, just like it wasn’t for your father and just like it wasn’t for Corentin.”

With a sigh, Tom comes to a stand. He walks over to his mother and crouches beside her.

“Mom,” he says softly, “I’m sorry I’m a disappointment to you.”

Marnie sighs too, reaching over to take one of Tom’s hands. “You aren’t a disappointment to me,” she offers. “Never that.”

“Corentin—” Tom begins, and Marnie gives a short laugh.

“I love your brother, but he left a decorated naval career to become a Druid. Tell me any family that wouldn’t find that a little odd.” She gives Tom a small smile. “Okay, I’ll pin all my hopes on a grandchild one day then.”

“Mom—”

“I’m just kidding,” Marnie says quickly, but Tom knows his mother, and can hear the grain of truth in her tone.

“Sure you are,” he says.

“I am,” Marnie argues. “But you really should try and meet someone, Tom. It isn’t healthy for a man of your age to be alone. I mean, there’s never been anyone special in your life since you were a teenager. You should fall in love a little more.” Marnie squeezes his hand, and Tom knows she’s thinking of Doug. Even with all their troubles, Tom knows his mother loved his father.

“Love is wonderful. Magical, even.”

Magic.

Tom takes a deep breath as, once again, Ari’s face and smile come to his mind. Without even thinking, he feels for the playing card he keeps in his pocket. These days, the fool is always with him, still chasing Ari’s queen. Always chasing Ari’s queen, Tom realises. Reassurance floods through him when he feels the familiar outline against his fingers, the edges now beginning to wear thin with his repeated caressing.

Marnie’s eyes, always sharp, follow his movements.

“What’s that?” she asks, nodding to Tom’s hand.

“Nothing,” Tom replies, trying to keep his voice calm.

“Tom,” his mother begins, and he looks into her eyes. They’re brown, as deep and warm as usual, though tinged with what Tom thinks might be doubt.

“Yeah?”

His mother stares at where the card had sat in his hand. “There hasn’t been anyone special in your life recently, has there?”

“What makes you ask that?” Tom replies, trying to sound neutral. Trying to sound as though there’s no guilt in his soul or heart.

Marnie’s gaze moves from his hand to his eyes. “I don’t know. Just a feeling I’m getting.”

Tom’s mouth runs dry. “Your feeling is wrong. There’s no one. There’s been no one.”

It’s not a lie. She’s no one to his mother. But, in his heart, Ari will never be ‘no one’. Not to him.

Marnie nods. Whether she believes him or not she doesn’t say. Of all her many brilliant qualities, Marnie’s uncanny ability to know when to speak and when to stay quiet always did shine the brightest. Whatever she’s thinking, whatever cards she’s holding, she chooses to keep close to her chest.

“Okay,” Marnie simply nods, and Tom stands.

“Maybe you should sell Dad’s plane,” he offers. “Maybe it’s time for all of us to move on.”

“Sell his baby?” Marnie scoffs. “What a ridiculous idea. She’s yours, and she’ll be here whenever you need her.”

Something inside of him eases at that thought. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Tom?” Marnie reaches over, taking his hand once more.

“Yeah?”

“I meant what I said. Maybe instead of finding playing cards in books you could find a nice woman. I want you to be happy, Tom. I really do.”

“Thanks,” he says again, “so do I.”

It’s only later, as he’s falling into bed, that he realises he meant it. Of their whole conversation, that was the most honest thing he said.

He does want to be happy. He just doesn’t know how to be happy without Ari.

* * *

He goes back to his apartment in Brooklyn, though ‘back’ isn’t really the right word when it’s the first time he’s ever actually lived in it. He rented it on an impulse during Doug’s final illness, bought furniture for it and registered all his mail to be delivered there, but never got round to moving in. His first night there is strange, with the noise of the city keeping him awake, the shadows and lights playing on his wall unfamiliar and distracting. He figures he’s grown too used to his mother’s house, too used to the quiet countryside and dark skies. He knows it will take time to adjust to the change, and time is something he has plenty of.

The apartment comes with big built-in bookcases — probably why he rented it in the first place, Tom reflects, having always been a reader — which he fills liberally with literature. Among the contemporary thrillers and great American novels, Tom starts quite the collection of self-help books. Books on grief and moving forward. One particularly catches him, and he stays up an entire night reading it. It talks about the human body and how it repairs itself. Wounds and disease wreak havoc, but the body can heal, creating new tissue. Tom wonders if heartbreak works the same — can’t help but wonder if the shattered pieces of his soul will ever reform, just as he wonders if the ache inside him will ever ease. He knows wounds leave scars, and maybe that’s what will happen in his case. Maybe Ari will be the scar on his heart he’ll carry forever. In a way, he almost hopes so. There’s a cold kind of comfort in knowing that he’ll carry part of her with him until he dies, a cold kind of comfort in knowing the flame of his love will burn for ever, even if that flame leaves ashes of grief within.

But he has to move on. He wants to be happy. His father told him to be happy.

He finds work easily. The family name and his mother’s reputation still carry a lot of weight in the world of finance, and he picks up work as a trader for a private banking firm. The salary isn’t outrageous, but the bonuses are, and Tom throws himself into the role with gusto, trying not to admit to himself that he doesn’t really have much else to do these days. He develops a routine, which is strangely comforting in its unending familiarity, and he sticks to it rigorously. He regularly puts in twelve to fourteen-hour days, but he makes a point of travelling to his mom’s house at least one day a week. There, he has lunch with Marnie before taking his dad’s plane into the sky. He loops and swirls in the air for an hour or two, emptying his mind and still-troubled soul, before returning to the ground and giving her a maintenance check.

“She’s still the same old beauty, Dad,” he always whispers when he closes the log book, before making the slow walk back to the house. He takes tea with Marnie in the evening, and most days he’ll end the meal by offering his mother a kiss before hopping into his car. But one night she stops him.

“Before you leave, you should see something,” she tells him, and leads him down to the gallery, her heels clicking lightly on the marble floor. “That painting you bought? In Europe? It’s finally ready. The framer took his sweet time with it, I have to say. He said he wanted to use Norwegian Fir to make the frame, keeping with the theme of the painting, or some such nonsense. Well, I’m no artist, and obviously Peterson’s been framing my pictures for years, so I won’t judge his choices... But I think American Oak would have worked just as well, don’t you?”

She switches on a light at the end of the long hall, and there in front of them is The Ends of the Earth , just the same as the last time Tom saw it. He inhales sharply, the painting momentarily flooring him, and he has to take a moment to steady the sudden rise in tempo of his heart.

“You put it where I asked,” Tom whispers gratefully. “You put it where it belongs.”

The orange is still as vibrant as he recalls — the greys and whites just as beautifully blended. Tom tucks his hands in his pockets, the ghost of a smile crossing his face as he remembers how delicately Ari would hold a paintbrush in her hands, nibbling on the end while she considered how to translate her thoughts and feelings onto canvas. He remembers how her tongue always poked out when she painted — how her brow furrowed in concentration. Momentarily, Tom closes his eyes and allows himself the luxury of remembering. Allows himself to remember her hands, and how paint would stay under her fingernails and in the slight creases of her skin. Remembers how they always smelled of flowers and turpentine, an odd but addictive mix. Remembers how her fingers felt running down his cheeks.

When he opens his eyes again, he gives his mother a warm smile. “Thank you,” he says, honestly and gratefully, and Marnie smiles back.

“It’s not a bad piece, you know. I couldn’t make out the signature though. Who’d you say it was by again?”

“I didn’t,” Tom replies tightly. “I got it in Norway.”

“Well, if you ever see any more of their work, I wouldn’t mind having another.”

“More of their work?” Tom parrots back, a thought suddenly striking him. More work. Ari might have painted more work.

“Mm. Yes. You know I like things in sets. A companion piece to this one might be nice.”

“I’ll look into it,” Tom replies, keeping his voice even. “I’ll look into it.”

* * *

It becomes a hobby over which Tom has little control. Ari, he learns, has an online shop where she sells a few of the canvases she’s created. He buys one before he thinks the better of it, before buying another just a few days after that. Within a month, he’s emptied her shop. He then waits for her site to update, waits for her to sell the pieces she must currently be working on. But the site seems neglected, and a worrying thought builds in Tom’s mind, that maybe — just maybe — Ari’s given the whole thing up. Maybe the baby takes up all her time , Tom thinks with a painful swallow. Or maybe her good-looking, well-built husband does , his mind adds bitterly.

So, he starts to seek out her earlier work. He finds a few pieces from a seller who operates out of Greenwich market, and another few from a small gallery in Brighton. Soon his collection of her work spirals from three to twenty-two, and then swells again to thirty-one. He has them framed, catalogued and hung, keeping his favourites in his Brooklyn apartment and loaning the rest to small, independent galleries in New York. A few buyers contact him, looking to buy some of Ari’s work, offering him double, even triple what he originally paid for each. But he always turns them down.

He let Ari go. He lost her. But he won’t lose her work. He won’t lose all he has left of her.

He learns from an art contact that one of Ari’s paintings sold to an American stockbroker, and Tom makes a point of traipsing to a polo match to buy it from him. The guy’s an absolute shit, cocky and smarmy, and through gritted teeth Tom negotiates a buying price. The guy seems to realise Tom’s determination to own the piece, and as such haggles like a fucking pro. Tom ends up offering a five figure sum, just to shut the guy up, and he stands in the sun afterwards, holding an ice-cold glass of water to his head, wondering just what sort of madness has infected him.

He has to admit that if this is his attempt at letting Ari go, he’s not doing a very good job of it.

It’s then, while a headache builds behind his temple, that he hears a voice he recognises. He turns when it calls his name, and comes face to face with Sasha.

“Hello stranger,” she practically purrs. “I haven’t seen you in years.”

* * *

Sasha looked as immaculate as always, examining her perfectly manicured nails with a remarkably detached expression, given her anger the day before. Tom paced around her, his mind racing, with what felt like a hundred thoughts striking him at once. He turned them over and over in his head, trying to decide which one to tackle first. Ari, Reine, Sasha, his mother... Tom collapsed onto the sofa in the room he was sharing with Sasha, running a hand tiredly over his face.

Above everything, he knew it was time to do what he’d been putting off for days. No, weeks.

No, he thought again, as realisation hit him. Something he’d been putting off for years .

“Sasha,” he began, his voice low but firm. “Look—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Sasha cut him off, leaning back on her hands and staring at him with an irritated expression. “Don’t say what I think you’re about to, Tom. Don’t be that stupid, okay?”

Tom stared at her. “What do you think I’m about to say?”

Sasha rolled her eyes. “I’m getting the feeling that you’re about to try and call off our wedding.”

“Sasha—”

Sasha held up a hand to stop him. “But you must know how utterly ridiculous that would be, don’t you?”

Her words made him pause. “Ridiculous?”

Sasha gave him a pointed look. “Utterly and completely ridiculous. I mean, I know you’ve always had idiotic tendencies, despite being a mostly intelligent and well-thought-of person, but to cancel our wedding would be beyond stupid.”

Tom shook his head, trying to stay calm. “Sasha, for you and me to still get married — now, with everything that’s going on, everything that’s still going on... that would be the stupid thing to do. Not calling it off.”

“Everything that’s going on?” Sasha raised an eyebrow. “Let me just clarify the situation for you, Tom. We’re at your mother’s house. We have my wedding dress designer here. We have my wedding photographer here. We have my dream wedding planners here. Now, just because you happen to have slept with one of those wedding planners a million-who-cares-years ago, does not mean anything between us has to change.”

Tom stared at her. “I have a child with that wedding planner, Sasha. That changes things.”

Again, Sasha rolled her eyes. “This is just another one of your idiotic tendencies showing, Tom. You don’t even know for a fact that the kid is yours. You’re just taking the mother’s word for it. For all you know, the kid belongs to someone else, and Ari just saw this place and the money you have and decided she wants a piece of it. I don’t blame her. I’d do the same, if I were in her shoes.”

Deep inside Tom, something hot and ugly erupted. She’s awful, a voice in his head suddenly said. Sasha is a truly awful woman.

“Don’t talk that way about Ari,” he said, his tone sharp. “Reine is mine.”

“Okay, so let’s say she is,” Sasha shrugged, as if it were no matter. “You and your mother have enough money to buy Ari off. We ship those two back to merry olde England and you and I can get on with our lives. Simple.”

Tom’s hands clenched, and he felt his jaw tighten. “I want to be a father to Reine. I don’t want to buy anyone off.”

Sasha sighed. “Fine. So, you’ll fly across to London once a month, give the kid a few gifts and take her out for lunch or something, and then come back. We still don’t have to change in this situation, Tom.”

Tom swallowed down a rising lump of bile. “Okay.” He leaned back in his chair. “So, say we get married, and one day have children of our own? I’ll want Reine to know her siblings. I’ll want Reine to spend time with us as a family.”

“Sure, fine.” Sasha stood, going to the mirror and running her fingers through her hair. “She can babysit for us. She’ll be old enough by that point anyway.”

At that, Tom closed his eyes. She’s horrible, his mind said again. What have you been doing? What were you thinking? “Sasha,” he said slowly, opening his eyes. “I don’t want to marry you.”

“Well, I don’t particularly want to marry you either, but that’s my own idiotic tendency I’m willing to work through.”

“You don’t want to marry me?” Tom asked her in disbelief. “If you don’t want to marry me, why the fuck are you still here? Why the fuck are we having this conversation?”

Sasha sighed again, spinning on her heel to stare at him. “Please get real here, Tom. You and I have hardly been couple of the year, have we? We’re very different people with very different needs. But you know something, in many ways we work. We’re of a similar background and we look fabulous together in photographs. We aren’t meant for one another, but we work together. We make sense.”

“But if you don’t love me, and I don’t love you—”

“Love.” Sasha rolled her eyes, opening her make-up case and pulling out a lipstick. “Please. You think I’m here because I love you? Of course I don’t love you, Tom, and I’ve known for a long time that you don’t love me.”

Tom stood, looking down at Sasha angrily. “If you don’t love me, then why are you here?”

Sasha applied her lipstick without even looking back at him, the scarlet shade making her mouth look sweet and appealing.

How can something so beautiful spew such ugliness? Tom thought. How can something so lovely be so ugly inside?

“Well,” Sasha replied evenly, blotting her lips on a tissue, “I’m here because you were a catch, Tom. With your money, looks and background, you’re the prize fish in the pond, believe it or not. So, I caught you.” Abruptly she turned to him, giving him a long and appraising look. “But just because I caught the fish doesn’t mean I want to eat it, Tom. It was never about the fish for me. It was about catching the fish, which I did. Now, how does this shade look on me? Good, right?”

Tom stared at her in disbelief. “I don’t want to marry you, Sasha.”

Sasha pressed her lips together, a touch of anger seeming to strike her. “Oh, for fuck’s sake — look, Tom, please get real here. If this is about Ari — ? ”

“Don’t bring her into this,” Tom interrupted. “This isn’t about Ari, not right now at least. This is about you and I being completely unsuited for one another.”

“Of course this is about Ari,” Sasha spat, walking over to the cupboard and pulling out a dress. “Admit it, if she hadn’t walked through the door this weekend with her little brat you would’ve married me and never thought the better of it—”

“I would have thought the better of it one day,” Tom said violently. “I would’ve woken up from my stupor eventually.”

“Fine, if you say so, like I care anyway. But let me tell you this.” Sasha stepped closer to him, jabbing a finger in his chest. “If you think Ari’s going to take you back just because you’ve ditched me, you’ve got another thing coming. She doesn’t love you anymore, Tom. She never loved you, in fact. Just the man you pretended to be. She hates you, Tom. Really and truly.”

Tom felt all the air pulled from his lungs as he exhaled hard at Sasha’s words. Her cruelty was like a punch to his stomach, and he recoiled away from her, stumbling back towards the wall.

Abruptly, Sasha’s face changed. “You’re going to end up a lonely man if you break up with me, Tom,” she said, suddenly sweet. “And you know how you hate to be lonely.”

“Sasha, don’t—”

“I’ll keep you company,” Sasha promised, stepping towards him, running one of her long nails down his cheek. “With me, you’ll never be alone.”

“Don’t, stop—”

Sasha stepped even closer. “You know you can’t cope when you’re alone, Tom,” she carried on relentlessly. “You know you don’t make good decisions when you’re lonely.”

“Yeah,” Tom croaked, shaking his head. “That’s how I ended up with you in the first place.”

He collapsed into the chair again, where he suddenly began to laugh. He laughed and laughed and laughed, until Sasha began to look at him with concern.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, her tone sharp. “Why are you laughing?”

“I’m funny,” he told her, “I’m the reason I’m laughing.”

“Tom—”

Tom wiped his eyes. “I don’t want to marry you, Sasha. I really don’t. You know something? You’re only ever nice to me when you want something. That’s how you’ve always been, and I’m just seeing it now. I guess before all this, I was willing to... not overlook it, that’s not right, but, I guess, be blind to it. But now that I know, to be completely honest, I’d rather be lonely than with you.”

Sasha’s painted mouth dropped open as she gaped at him.

“I’m sorry we got to this point,” Tom added, and the laughter and smiles disappeared. “I’m sorry I let us get this far. If it means anything to you, I’m sorry I used you. Because I did use you, Sasha. You’re right, I don’t like being alone. That fish in the pond, the one you wanted to catch? I think it wanted to be caught, and it didn’t matter who held the rod.”

“Tom,” Sasha spluttered.

“I don’t want to marry you, Sasha,” Tom said again, for the final time.

“But . . . but . . . but Ari doesn’t want you—”

“I told you, this isn’t about Ari. Not really. This is about me now. And it’s about you too, in a way. I don’t want you to be unhappy, Sasha. I really don’t. Life’s too short to be unhappy. And you’d have been unhappy with me, eventually.”

Something in Tom’s chest loosened, and he took a deep breath. His lungs felt cleaner, less tight, and he smiled up at Sasha. It was a bittersweet smile, one he hoped she understood.

“Thank you,” he said honestly. “Thank you for getting me through the last few years. Thank you for being with me.”

For a moment, Sasha stared at him. Her mouth still hung open, and her beautiful face was set into a porcelain mask of shock.

“Sasha?” Tom asked in concern.

At his words, she snapped back into action. “ Thank you for being with me? Thank you? You are fucking kidding me, right? Years of you moping around and all I get is a fucking thank you?”

“That’s all I have to offer right now.”

“Well, you can keep it,” Sasha snapped. “Fuck you, Tom. Fuck you.”

And with that, she stalked out of their room, slamming the door behind her.

* * *

Ari was sitting in the garden with Reine, shivering in her coat while the little girl played. She felt cold and tired, weary right down to her bones. She wrapped her arms around her legs, burrowing closer into herself. Reine had a little collection of dolls out, ones Marnie had pressed into her hands earlier.

“They were mine, once upon a time,” Marnie had said. “It would be so lovely if Reine could take them. It would make me very happy.”

Ari hadn’t had the heart to refuse Marnie. The older woman was trying hard, Ari reflected. She was treading carefully, clearly desperate to be in Reine’s life while giving Ari the space she thought she needed.

Ari rested her head across her folded knees, watching Reine move the dolls around the garden, talking to them, or making them talk to one another. She was still her usual vibrantly intelligent self, and Ari felt a flicker of relief. Despite the upheaval of this weekend, Reine was okay — happier, even, for the time she’d been spending with the man she now knew to be her father.

Ari blinked. She couldn’t help but wonder what was happening with Tom and Sasha. Couldn’t help but wonder what they were doing, saying or thinking. After Sasha had come upon them earlier, Tom had whisked her away into the house, leaving Ari and Reine with apologies and a promise to find them later.

Ari didn’t know what to think or how to feel. This afternoon, Tom had tried so hard with them both. He’d really made an effort where Reine was concerned, and Ari couldn’t help the flush of pleasure that had rushed through her when she’d seen her child playing with her father. It was something she’d long worried she would never see, something she’d hoped against hope Reine would experience. Reine had Sebastian and Luis, it was true, but seeing her with Tom had been a long-held and deeply cherished dream for Ari.

The sound of a car pulling into the gravel driveway made Ari look up, and she peered across the grass, watching as a man stepped out of a beaten-up old Sedan. He stretched, looking up at the house, before turning back to the car and pulling out a case — just as beaten up and old as his car — from the back seat.

Another visitor? Ari thought. How many more people does this house need right now? She went to call out to Reine, always wary of her child when a stranger was present, when the man suddenly seemed to clock her, peering at her curiously.

“Hello,” she called out, raising a hand. “Are you looking for Marnie? Or Tom? I think they’re all inside.”

The man peered at her more closely, then put his case down and walked in her direction.

Bollocks, thought Ari. She wasn’t really in the mood for a conversation with anyone. Not when her mind was still thinking about what was happening between Tom and Sasha.

“I know you,” the man said, nodding as he walked closer. “You’re just some woman.”

Ari blinked twice. “Um . . .”

“Forgive me, that was abrupt. I mean, I’ve heard about you,” the man corrected himself. “I spoke with Tom about you, years ago. You were just some woman then, although clearly not, since he was mad about you. And obviously Mom spoke with me about all this.”

Ari blinked again. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand, I’ve never...”

“Oh, of course. I’m Corentin. Tom’s brother.”

“Oh.” Ari nodded, trying to give the impression of knowledge. “Right.”

“You’re Ari.”

“Yes, well—”

“So, you’ve been in this place a whole weekend? Good for you. Can’t stand the place myself. Too much goes on here.”

Ari nodded, keeping one eye on Reine. “Yes.”

“Prefer things a little quieter myself. Keeps me closer to the old ones.”

Old ones? thought Ari. Does he mean Marnie? Marnie’s not ancient.

“Okay, well, I think Marnie is inside and—”

Ari was cut off by the sound of a door slamming, and both she and Corentin looked up to see Sasha stumbling in her heels across the gravel drive. She swore loudly when she lost her balance, then recovered and moved towards her car. She stepped into the vehicle with another profanity, slamming the door closed before starting the engine loudly, tearing down the drive and away from the house.

Ari’s stomach turned when she pondered what Sasha’s sudden departure might mean.

She looked from where the car had been to the front door of the house, where Tom stood. He wasn’t watching Sasha’s car depart. His eyes were only for her, and Ari felt a tingle run through her when she met his gaze and held his eyes.

“Ah,” said Corentin from next to her, his voice knowledgeable and rich. “Looks like I’ve arrived just in time.”