Chapter 20 #2
Jacques stiffened beside her for a fraction of a second, caught off guard, while Celine waited for her muscles to respond the same way they had done earlier—for her hands to grip Jacques’s shoulders, for her aching heart to press closer to his.
She waited for him to do the same. But Jacques wasn't all-consuming like Bastien.
Other than the sensation of something colliding with her lips, she felt little else.
When they pulled apart, Jacques looked a little dazed. But Celine’s expression had crumpled into a confused frown. Something did not sit right with her. The kiss was different.
She had kissed Jacques a hundred times before, and yet…
Celine shifted closer, wrapping her arms around his neck, colliding their lips once more. It was wholly improper with the driver in the front, but she was determined to feel something this time.
Jacques seemed to have shaken himself out of the daze.
He snaked his arm around her waist and brought her closer, so close that Celine was almost sitting on his lap, deepening the kiss.
The wind whipped at her cheeks, soothing down the heat that had reached them.
Her hair floated wildly about their bent heads, and she wondered what the driver and the pedestrians strolling along the boulevard were thinking.
She would have expected this sort of behaviour from Bastien.
And that’s all it took for her thoughts to stray away from Jacques, the car, the wind, and send her whirling back to five hours ago, when she had been kissing another man.
It came to her in pieces, each lewder than the last, until she could have sworn she was tasting Bastien’s lips instead of Jacques’s.
Celine pulled away abruptly.
“Will every gift I give you get me kisses as a reward?” Jacques whispered against her lips.
A vague noise left her throat as she tried to blink herself into the present. “If you demand it,” Celine got out at last.
“I don’t want to demand your kisses, my love. I want you to give them to me freely.”
Celine couldn’t find the heart to look him in the eyes.
She was a coward and a liar and, to her chagrin, she was really good at masking both.
But he must have known. After all, their entire relationship was a lie.
And the rest of their lives together would be a colossal lie that they would have to hide behind false, loving smiles for the public’s eyes and sweet, illusive words for the public’s ears.
Or maybe—Celine feared—only her life would be a lie. In that moment, Jacques appeared utterly and foolishly infatuated with a girl whose mind, and maybe even heart, were straying towards someone else.
“Have you read The Age of Innocence by any chance?” Celine asked without preamble. Despite the sudden change of topic, Jacques nodded. “Can you spoil the ending for me?”
It was clear that the situation between her and Bastien had transformed into something awkward she couldn’t name yet. But it was also awfully reminiscent of another story she had been listening to every afternoon at the old house.
“What’s the point of reading it then?” Jacques asked.
Celine shrugged. “I am merely curious. Who did Archer choose?”
In truth, she felt like she herself had entered the book and was burdened with Newland Archer’s indecision between his fiancée, May, and her cousin, Ellen.
Jacques sank his teeth into his lip. For a split second, she thought he was struggling through the same tearing choice, but his answer was simple.
“May, of course. Ellen’s presence was a mere pebble in the shoe.
Anyone would have been able to overlook the temporary discomfort it caused.
And Archer—” he drew himself short. “No, no. I won’t spoil the ending for you. ”
Celine wished he would have. Leaning her head on his shoulder, she felt the car jerk into movement again as the driver picked up speed when they reached Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
The buildings flashed in the background like a filmstrip dotted by lights, and soon, the vehicle pulled up at the driveway of the LeBeau residence.
The driver stepped out. It was only the two of them in the car.
“Before we part,” Celine started, swallowing back a wave of unease, “there is something I need to tell you.”
Jacques halted, holding the door open mid-way. “We can talk about it inside.”
Celine shook her head. “My mother can’t know.”
She couldn’t delay it any longer. Keeping it from her mother was easy; she lied to her all the time. But Jacques? If she didn’t tell him now the guilt would eat her alive. She had to at least be honest about one thing with him, and she sure was not going to discuss that foolish kiss with Bastien.
Celine started fidgeting with the lace trim on her gloves. “I wasn’t with Ana?s today.”
Slowly, he closed the door again. “No?”
“No,” she echoed. “I was…sewing.”
“Sewing?”
“Do you remember a few weeks ago when you asked me what my biggest dream was?” Jacques fell quiet and nodded with recognition. “Well, an opportunity presented itself to enter a fashion competition as a designer and I was accepted.”
Jacques parted and closed his lips several times before landing on: “You have entered a fashion competition?”
“Y-yes.”
“Alright.” He shook his head. “I don’t—”
“That’s not all…” Celine swallowed with some difficulty, as if the words had lodged in her throat like fish bones. She could spin verses when she was lying, why couldn’t she be as good at telling the truth? “I have entered with Bastien…as my model.”
She waited for him to process everything, but every second that ticked by seemed to take the oxygen in the car along with it. Her lungs strained with each uncomfortable breath. Fortunately, Jacques opened the door again. To her dismay, he stepped out.
“Bastien?” he echoed flatly before striding away.
Celine followed after him. The driveway stood still and soundless in the late hour.
Only her heels clattered on the pavement.
Wearily, Celine eyed the lit windows, hoping, praying, begging and pleading whatever forces were at work to prevent anyone in the house from standing near the glass panes, listening in on them.
“You have entered a fashion competition with Bastien?” Jacques repeated, turning sharply when Celine placed a hand on his shoulder. “Bastien.”
“Well…his mother was a designer,” she offered to lighten the mood.
Jacques’s gloom did not disperse. “You must think me a fool.”
“Jacques, I do not.”
“You don’t?” It must have dawned on him then what she had meant earlier, because he continued: “You just admitted that for the past two months every time you told me you were with my sister, you were dallying with my brother instead.”
A warped sound left her throat at that. “I wasn’t dallying,” Celine choked out.
“Then what were you doing?”
“I told you—sewing!”
Biting down on his lip, Jacques started moving around in an agitated circle. “With Bastien.”
“Oh, mon dieu.” Celine threw up her hands and decided to simply stare at him.
“You are being serious,” Jacques said after a beat. “What, there was no one else available?”
For once in her life, she genuinely wished the earth would split open and swallow her whole.
“Look,” Celine tried again, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Bastien found out by accident. Offering to make him my model was the only way I could make sure he wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Anyone being me.”
“No, Jacques—I wanted to tell you, believe me—”
“Then why didn’t you?” His voice was soft—Celine didn’t think it ever went above his usual register, though she assumed he was straining now to keep it level. His expression, however, had significantly morphed into one stiff with suspicion.
Celine chewed on her lip anxiously. “I didn’t think you would understand.”
“And Bas does?” Of course. That was what had hurt him most. Moving to stand by the only windows that weren’t lit up, Jacques ran a hand through his hair, distressing the gelled strands. “My brother plays with anything he thinks will amuse him for a few hours, Celine.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“He cares for nothing.”
“I know…” Celine’s brows furrowed. “I know Bastien says things that—”
“It’s not only what he says. It’s why. You know what he thinks of our relationship. He is never not trying to prove we are only together because our parents arranged it so. And he—” Jacques cut himself off.
“He what?”
“He has played with you, too. Plenty of times.”
Celine staggered back as if she had been slapped. Though she didn’t blame him for the affront. Jacques had grown tired of Bastien’s stunts. She had, too.