Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MADELINE
I've been in London for less than a day, and I've already memorized every crack in Iris's ceiling.
Her flat is small but warm. Fairy lights she's never taken down since Christmas, a corkboard crammed with Polaroids, mismatched pillows in optimistic yellows.
She's been here two months, still waiting for Prestwick to place her, still checking her email every hour with that hopeful expression that makes my chest ache.
Right now she's in the kitchen, making tea for the third time since I arrived.
"I just think," she calls out, clattering mugs, "you should eat something. You've been staring at that wall forever."
"I'm fine."
"You showed up at my door this morning with a suitcase and yesterday's mascara under your eyes." She appears with two cups, nearly trips on a stack of books, catches herself on the doorframe. "That's not fine, Maddie. That's a cry for help wearing a cardigan."
I almost smile.
Iris settles beside me on the sofa, close enough that our shoulders touch. We've sat like this a hundred times. Exam week at Prestwick, her disastrous almost-relationship with that sous chef, my quarterly crises about whether I'd made the right choices.
"Remember when you thought you were in love with Professor Hartley?" she says.
"I was nineteen. And he had very nice hands."
"He was fifty-three and married."
"I didn't say it was a good crush." I take the tea. "Why are you bringing this up?"
"Because you had the same look then. The 'I've done something I can't undo' look." She tilts her head. "Except this time you actually did something."
I stare at the window. Rain streaks the glass.
Emma would say it looks like the sky is crying. Sophie would call that derivative. Luc would already be sketching it.
Stop.
"I slept with them," I say.
Iris blinks. "Them?"
"The fathers. The ones I was working for."
"Fathers. Plural." She sets down her mug very carefully. "More than one father."
"Three."
She chokes.
"Three?! You slept with three—" She presses her hand to her chest. "Madeline Blake. Triple-checks-the-exit-routes Blake. Three men?"
"Not at the same time. Well." I wince. "Mostly not at the same time."
"Mostly?"
"It's complicated."
"I'd imagine!" She's laughing now, that incredulous giggle she does when reality exceeds her expectations. "God, and here I am, still refreshing my inbox waiting for Prestwick to call, and you're out there living some kind of—I don't even know what to call it."
"A disaster. You can call it a disaster."
The laughter fades. She looks at me, really looks.
"You love them," she says quietly. "Don't you?"
I don't answer. Don't have to.
"All three?"
"Differently. But yes." The admission sits strange. "Which is insane—"
"Says who?"
"Says everyone. Says basic relationship structure—"
"Says the same people who told us professional boundaries were sacred and emotional attachment was failure." Iris raises an eyebrow. "How'd that work out?"
My mind returns to those core moments. The moments in which I truly knew the children had let me in. About Emma, who learned to braid just so she could do my hair. About Luc, who let me sit with him while he drew. About Sophie, who saved me the seat beside her at breakfast.
"Not great," I admit.
"So maybe everyone doesn't know everything." She takes my hand. "What happened? Why are you here instead of there?"
I tell her. The school complaints. Dubois. The parents who heard things at the retreat and filed formal letters. The meeting where they suggested removing me would be the simplest solution.
"So you left," Iris says when I finish, "before they could make you leave."
"I left to protect the children—"
"Maddie." Her voice is kind but firm. "You're so scared of being rejected that you reject yourself first."
The words land somewhere unprotected.
I stare down at the tea in my hands. The steam curls upward between us. Iris doesn't rush to fill the silence. She never has, when something real slips out like that.
Rain taps against the window.
"Anyway." I bump her shoulder lightly. "Enough about my spectacular life decisions. Tell me about you. I haven't heard anything in months."
Iris lets out a quiet laugh.
"Honestly? Pretty normal." She tucks one leg under herself. "I wake up, answer a ridiculous number of Prestwick emails, walk around the neighbourhood pretending I'm being productive, and then end up at this bakery near the station that has no business making croissants that good."
"Rough life."
"Tragic, really." She smiles. Then, with a completely straight face: "Still waiting for my official placement, so everything's temporary. Mostly just trying to enjoy the break before someone sends me to wrangle three children and their emotionally unavailable father."
She glances at me sideways.
"No offence."
"None taken."
She gestures around the flat. "This flat is tiny, but the location's great. Two minutes from the tube, dangerously close to the bakery."
A small pause.
"What about Indira?" I ask.
The shift is subtle but immediate. Her shoulders stiffen just slightly.
"She got placed already."
"That was fast."
"Yeah. Some private household. They wanted someone immediately." She turns her mug slowly in her hands. "She says she likes it."
Something about the way she says it makes my stomach tighten. "That's not a convincing answer."
"She called me last week," Iris says after a moment. "Two in the morning. Said she'd dialled by accident."
I sit up slightly.
"Indira doesn't do accidents."
"No." Iris glances up. "She sounded… careful. Like she was choosing every word. The call lasted thirty seconds and then she said everything was fine and hung up."
"Was someone there?"
"I don't know."
The word careful sits heavily between us.
"Maybe it's just first week nerves," I say. "New people."
"Maybe." But she doesn't sound convinced. She shrugs lightly, trying to shake it off. "I'm keeping an eye on her," Iris says quietly. "Subtly. Because if I ask directly she'll send me a very calm explanation of why I shouldn't worry. You know how she is."
I do. God, I do.
After a moment Iris leans forward, elbows on her knees. "So. What's your plan now?"
I exhale slowly. "I don't know yet. I just—I need a few days. To stop feeling like this." I gesture vaguely at myself. "Then I'll call the dads properly. Actually talk to them, not just disappear on them. And then figure out the next job. Prestwick placements, see what's open."
Iris looks at me, scrutinizing.
"That's very tidy," she says finally.
"It's a start."
"Maddie—"
A knock at the door.
We both freeze.
"Are you expecting someone?" My voice comes out strange.
"No." Iris frowns, pushing herself up. "Maybe the landlord. He's been promising to fix the radiator for a long time. Maybe he's finally here to—"
She opens the door.
Goes very still.
"Oh," she breathes. "Oh my."
I stand. Cross the room.
And stop breathing.
Three men.
Etienne. Bastien. Raphael.
Standing shoulder to shoulder in the narrow corridor, too large and too expensive for this building with its flickering lights and worn carpet.
They look terrible.
Etienne's shirt is wrinkled. Etienne, whose clothes are always immaculate. Bastien has charcoal dust on his jaw, shadows carved under his eyes. Raphael's hair is uncombed, his coat thrown on carelessly, that steady composure gone.
But that's not what stops me.
It's the way they're standing. Close. Shoulders nearly touching. No tension crackling between them, no ice, no wary distance.
Bastien's hand rests briefly on Raphael's back. Raphael shifts to make room for Etienne. Small movements. Unconscious. The kind of body language that comes from comfort, not calculation.
What happened?
"How did you find me?" I ask instead.
Raphael holds up his phone. The little blue dot on the map sits squarely on Iris's building.
The location app. I installed it in the first week, at their request—in case something happened with the children, they said, in case I needed to be found. I'd forgotten it was still running.
Of course I had.
"We tried calling," Bastien adds.
"I turned off my phone."
"We noticed."
Iris clears her throat. "I'm going to—go. Somewhere. Give you some space." She grabs her jacket, her keys, nearly walks straight into the doorframe. "The café on the corner. Terrible coffee, but… it's fine. Anyway. Take your time."
She slips past them and disappears down the stairs.
"Can we come in?" Raphael asks.
I step aside.
They look wrong in Iris's flat. Too large for the fairy lights and throw pillows. Bastien has to duck under a beam. Etienne surveys the clutter with an expression I can't read.
"You shouldn't have come."
"We know." Raphael hasn't stopped looking at me. "That's why we're here."
"That doesn't make sense."
"You left to protect our children," Bastien says. "From scandal. From whispers. From whatever fallout you thought was coming."
"It is coming—"
"Maybe. Probably." Raphael moves closer. Not crowding me, but close enough that I can see how tired he is. "But you didn't ask us what we wanted. You just decided, and then you disappeared."
"Because it wasn't about what you wanted. It was about what's best for—"
"This morning," Bastien continues. "Etienne called the kids from the car. Sophie asked if Madeline left because of them. Very calmly. Like she'd already figured out the answer and just wanted confirmation."
I freeze.
"That's not—I didn't leave because of Sophie."
"She doesn't know that. All she knows is that you're gone." He pauses.
I close my eyes. "God."
"Yes," étienne says quietly.
I look at him, really look, and the shock of it hits me. He's here. Etienne Laurent, who told me he doesn't share, who pushed me away on the terrace. Standing in Iris's cramped flat, shoulder to shoulder with two men he could barely tolerate a day ago.
"What happened?" I ask. "Between you three. Something's different."
"We talked," Raphael says.
"You've talked before. At coordination meetings. Very professionally, while avoiding eye contact."
"Not like that." Bastien shifts his weight. Glances at Etienne, then away. "After you left, we started arguing about whose fault it was, and then we started arguing about older things, and then..."
"We said things we should have said three years ago," Raphael finishes. "About the project. About what was really happening in our lives while it fell apart. About why we stopped being able to look at each other."
I watch them. The subtle ways they're positioned. Raphael slightly in front, Bastien at his shoulder, Etienne a half-step back but present in a way he wasn't before. They're not performing unity. They're just together.
"So you fixed three years of resentment in less than twelve hours?"
"Fixed is a strong word." Bastien's mouth twists. "We yelled a lot. Raphael made us drink tea. Etienne admitted he has feelings, which I'm pretty sure is a sign of the apocalypse."
Etienne cuts him a look. But there's no real ice in it. "I said I missed them. That's not the same as having feelings."
"He also cried a little."
"I did not—"
"Your eyes were wet. That counts."
"We were all tired. Eyes water when you're tired."
They sound like friends. Like people who know each other well enough to bicker without it devolving into a real argument.
"Okay," I say slowly. "So you've worked things out between yourselves. That doesn't change the school. The complaints. The parents who think I'm—"
"—We have a meeting tomorrow," Etienne interrupts. "With Dubois and the parents who filed complaints."
"And?"
"And we're going to handle it. Together." He meets my eyes. "As a unit."
"You're going to, what, tell them you've decided to be friends again? That doesn't make the scandal go away."
"No. But it makes us harder to break." Raphael steps forward. His hand rises, hesitates, settles gently against my jaw. "They were able to pressure us because we were already fractured. Because we couldn't agree on anything, couldn't present a unified position. That's changed now."
"Because of one conversation?"
"Because of you." His thumb traces my cheekbone. "You left, and suddenly nothing else mattered. Not the old grudges, not the project, not three years of being stubborn and proud and stupid. The only thing that mattered was figuring out how to bring you home."
"Home," I repeat.
"That's what Sophie called it," Etienne says quietly. "When she told me to find you. She said 'bring her home.' Not back. Home."
I close my eyes. Open them.
"I can't just walk back into a scandal. Into judgment and whispers and parents who think I'm corrupting your children."
"You wouldn't be walking back alone." Bastien moves closer. Not touching me, but close enough that I can feel his warmth. "We're not asking you to fix anything. We're not asking you to manage us or hold us together or sacrifice yourself for our convenience."
"Then what are you asking?"
"For you to let us fight for this." His eyes hold mine. "For you to give us a chance to prove that whatever comes, we face it together. All of us."
"As... what, exactly?"
The question hangs.
Raphael glances at the others. Some silent communication passes between them.
"We don't know yet," he admits. "We haven't figured out all the logistics. How it works, what it looks like, what we call it. But we know we want you there while we figure it out. Not as an employee. Not as someone who manages the household."
"As family," Etienne says. The word costs him. I can see it. "Or as close to it as we can get."
I look at them. Three men who spent years destroying each other, standing united in my friend's flat. Rumpled and tired and here, because they got on a train instead of letting me go.
"And if I say no?"
"Then we go back to Paris and tell our children we tried." Etienne's voice is rough. "And we figure out how to live with that."
Silence.
I should be sensible. I should think about logistics, scandal, the thousand ways this could fall apart.
But I'm so tired of being sensible.
"Okay," I whisper.
Raphael's expression transforms. "Okay?"
"Okay. I'll come back… home. I'll figure it out with you. Whatever that means."
Bastien exhales like he's been holding his breath. Etienne closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them, they're bright.
"Thank you," he says. Just that.
Raphael pulls me into his arms. A moment later, Bastien is at my back, his forehead resting against my shoulder. And then Etienne, hesitant, uncertain, his hand settling on my hip like he's not sure he's allowed.
Four people in a cramped London flat, holding on.
"The meeting tomorrow," I say into Raphael's chest. "What's the actual plan?"
"We'll explain on the way." His smile presses against my hair. "But first, we have a train to catch."