Chapter 15 #2
The room descended into absolute quiet. For a split second, Bastien felt like someone had swiped the carpet from under his feet and he was tumbling, tumbling, tumbling down into an abyss.
“I beg your pardon?” he whispered, stupefied.
“That man who just left my office was our attorney. He is temporarily removing you from the family tree until you get your act together and stop frolicking, when I specifically warned you to replenish your accounts.”
“I am doing just that!”
“How? By strolling around Rue Cambon every day?”
Bastien was going to murder his brother. He was actually going to kill Jacques and bury him six feet under.
“Jacques doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he snapped defensively. “I told him I was there for a reason.”
“It wasn’t Jacques who told me.”
Bastien’s eyes narrowed. “You’re having me followed?”
He wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. It had happened once before, when he was younger and imagined he could get away with anything.
“I’ve given you plenty of chances before, Bastien. I needed to see if you were going to take it more seriously this time. It appears not.”
“So what, you’re cutting off your own blood now?”
“I thought you said you didn’t want to be part of this family.”
Silence filled the office, choking Bastien with its presence. Only his incredulous breaths could be heard.
“If you wanted to find anything, you should’ve found a better informant,” he replied drily. “Someone who’s not blind. I wasn’t there for fun.”
“By all means then”—his grandfather laced his fingers together and planted them on the desk, waiting—“explain.”
Bastien parted his lips, ready to argue, “I—”
But he couldn’t. Not without breaking his promise to Celine. Not without disclosing she was participating in the competition and sabotaging both of their chances to win.
He wasn’t seriously considering being wiped off the family tree just to keep a secret, was he? It wasn’t as though Celine had murdered someone and needed him to keep quiet or risk being dragged into the mess. It was only a fashion contest. And yet…
And yet, he wouldn’t tell. They had made it through four rounds already.
Celine’s designs kept getting better and better, and Bastien refused to erase all that effort by uttering a single confession.
Plus, he was benefitting from her too, even if everyone else and their mothers thought he was simply frolicking around.
He couldn’t believe what he was about to do.
“You’ll just have to trust me,” Bastien insisted. “I will pay you back.”
“Well, if that’s true, you have nothing to worry about, hmm?
It is only a temporary removal, anyway. Benjamin will add your name again once you show me the fruits of your…
endeavours.” His grandfather leaned back on his chair.
“I’m sure you understand that means you cannot use the Ménard last name either, nor claim the benefits it comes with.
When I said you don’t have access to your accounts, that included the tabs our family has around the city. ”
In short, he was cut off from everything: stores, restaurants, cafés. That meant he had to survive off of Juliana’s showgirl diet. Bastien pinched the bridge of his nose, ready to leave. “I should have known you would be this vindictive.”
“I am merely teaching you a lesson, Bastien. Even a savage wolf can be domesticated if you tinker with its habitat and render it desperate.”
Afterwards, Monsieur Ménard went on uttering something about his annual soirée, but Bastien had zoned out.
All he could focus on was the fact that his grandfather had switched the order of his agonising speeches.
It was a stupid thought to cling to, but he would rather contemplate that one, than think about the fact that his name had been wiped off clean like chalk on the sidewalk after rain.
Surely, there had to be something more he could say, something for him to pick at and argue his case.
Unfortunately for Bastien, even the quicksilver remarks were inclined to abandon him at times of distress.
His head was empty, save for the words I am merely teaching you a lesson that bounced off the walls of his mind, circling each other until they became a jumble of letters that didn’t make sense anymore.
A lesson. Disowned. Not a Ménard anymore.
Slowly, he turned on his heel, and was out the door before his grandfather could call him back inside the office.
He needed a strong drink; or whatever was the right amount to drown in.
Nodding a swift goodbye at Agnes, he began descending the stairs, when another door cracked open at the end of the corridor.
Ana?s poked her blonde head out. “Bas? Why didn’t you say you were coming?”
He didn’t reply. Maybe Ana?s hadn’t told anyone about his whereabouts, maybe she had. It didn’t quite matter at the moment. Bastien simply didn’t want to talk to anyone, least of all his little sister.
Seeing that he was about to leave, she pattered towards him quickly.
“Get out of my way,” Bastien said, shoving past her when she blocked his next step on the staircase.
But there was no dissuading Ana?s. Her fingers latched onto his shirtsleeve. “Don’t leave like this. Without saying goodbye.”
“Fine, goodbye,” Bastien snapped, wrenching his arm free. “Now get out of my way.”
She planted her hands on her hips, pouting at him. “You can’t order me around.”
“Move or I’ll push you down, Ana?s.”
“I thought you had more respect for her,” Jacques chimed in from the landing. “Considering what you think of the rest of us.”
Bastien clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. His lips parted to let out a dry chuckle. “You don’t want to be in front of me right now either.”
Jacques’s expression shifted to complacence. “I’m guessing Grandfather introduced you to Benjamin.”
That’s all it took for Bastien to reach the landing before Ana?s could stop him, and before Jacques could register what was happening.
The rings on Bastien’s fingers cut a thin line across Jacques’s mouth, knocking him off balance. He staggered back, nearly colliding with two delivery boys. One of them rushed to his aid—Jacques shook him off.
“You know what?” he rasped. He looked up, and to Bastien’s surprise, there was nothing but amusement in his expression.
And a trickle of blood. Jacques wiped it off, smearing it across his lips.
“I hope it bruises. I hope that when Grandfather sees, he will call Benjamin again and make his decision permanent. And when Celine sees, she will know immediately who to blame.”
“You two are wretched,” Ana?s shouted suddenly, causing both of her brothers to pivot and look at her. She appeared visibly hurt, as if the blow Bastien had dealt Jacques had ricocheted onto her.
The commotion around the house had stilled. It seemed the staff, too, was waiting in awkward silence for the next blow.
“Ana?s—” Jacques called when she started going up the stairs again.
“No!” She halted, fingers curled on the railing. “No—you two won’t stop until you make everyone else miserable, will you? You cannot just get along. Hell, you can’t even pretend to get along, can you?”
At least for my sake, she left unsaid, but they could all feel her words lingering in the air.
Bastien tensed. “Ana?s—” he tried again.
She only shook her head. “I thought things would change once you two grew older. That we would finally be the happy family that Grandfather praises.”
“Maybe you need to grow up, Ana?s,” Jacques said in a tone Bastien had never heard him use with their sister. “You like to remind us you’re only a year younger, but you still live in the delusions of your childhood.”
She staggered a step back. Bastien levelled a murderous glare at his brother.
“Open your eyes,” Jacques persisted. “None of us are happy.”
“You’re one to complain,” Bastien scoffed. He tried to keep his tone even—tried to see through the blinding rage that was drumming at his temples, but it was growing difficult to do so by the second. “You aren’t happy? You, the only one who gets to have everything, you’re suffering?”
Jacques’s lips pulled back to show his teeth. He winced when the fresh cut split again right as it was knitting back together. “Do you really think the things you do have no consequences for me?”
“What could I have possibly—”
“Celine,” Jacques seethed, cutting him short. “And that little meeting Ana?s had arranged for you.”
Bastien’s next glare was shot straight at her. “I don’t think you have any rights to complain about our fights anymore, do you, Ana?s? This one is your doing.”
He hated the fact that she had broken this easily under Jacques’s interrogations.
Especially since she knew what Bastien and Celine stood to lose if one of her little gossips started crawling around.
This time it had been about a random meeting, next time it could be about the competition.
Bastien couldn’t risk that over niceties for his sister.
She stared at him with tears trembling in her eyes, then slowly stalked back inside her room.
Bastien waited until Ana?s’s door slammed shut before dropping the conversation altogether. The whole house, along with its wrong smell, was closing in on him. He needed to get out, now. But he only made it halfway through the foyer, when Jacques’s fingers latched onto his arm.
The grip wasn’t one of standstill or forgiveness. It was threatening.
“If you ever think of meeting Celine again—”
“You’ll do what?” Bastien taunted. Falling back into the habit of quarrelling with Jacques was almost mechanical at this point. It didn’t matter if his bones felt heavier than usual, or that his mind was reeling with thousands of thoughts—the score needed settling.
In one vicious tug, he brought Jacques closer.
“It’s sad how you think those threats will dissuade me, brother.
Maybe in the beginning I did flirt a little with Celine just to get on your nerves.
It was nothing serious, of course, but now I’m starting to think what a shame it would be to toss away all that hard work. ”
“Leave her out of this.”