Chapter 25 Olivier
Olivier
Now
I wait until Cassie is dead asleep to leave the room. Well, not dead, exactly. Not yet anyway. I was so close. The plan was working. The pills were working. Poor Cassie.
It was all going so perfectly until I’d walked into the room.
I thought I was having the worst nightmare of my life and a heart attack all in one.
I didn’t mean to hit her. Technically, I didn’t hit her.
I grabbed her and pulled her back so she wouldn’t take one more step into the bathroom.
She’d been stunned—no shit, me too—and flailed her arms about, trying to get out of my headlock.
That’s when I tripped backward, and when she hit her head against the edge of the bed.
Now, over an hour later, I’m still shaking as I wander the streets of Paris. I should be back in the room with Cassie. That’s what a husband would do.
What the fuck is she doing in Paris? For a while I just walk around, trying to wrap my head around it. And now, as I arrive at the edge of the little square in Montmartre, I’m so scared out of my mind that I can barely remember to breathe.
It could be a trap. There might be cops waiting for me.
But what proof would they have? I was careful.
The sleeping pills Cassie took, she bought them.
Took them willingly. Not the ones I slipped in the bottle of wine, obviously, but no one saw me crush them and drop the powder in.
Plus, I pulled Cassie out of the bath when she was about to drown.
I made her vomit it all. I saved her. Though, of course, I’d rather not get into that with the police.
I check that the coast is clear, no one left or right, before jumping the short fence to the park.
The tree leaves rustle loudly in the wind and my heart is racing, my palms sweaty.
It feels like summer is over. I sit down on a bench far away enough from the street.
The metal feels cold against my back. Cassie tried to fight me when I got her out, soaking my shirt through.
The sound of twigs being crushed on the ground startles me. Footsteps. The shape of a woman comes out of the night’s shadow, haloed by a lamppost on the edge of the park.
“Reese!” I say, jumping to my feet. “You came.” My voice trembles.
Reese stands there, arms idly by her side. I can’t quite make out her face in the darkness, but her chest rises and falls in rapid movements.
“Are you okay?” I add. “I’m so sorry about what happened.”
“What did happen?” Her tone is incredulous, her voice a whisper.
This conversation, us even being here, is beyond incomprehensible. We have so much to talk about and so little time. “I protected you. That’s what happened. Why are you here?”
“I hated you so much.”
She sits on the other end of the bench, where I can see her better. There are tear streaks down her face. Her red lipstick is smudged all the way to her chin. Her hair is wild, like it used to be after we had sex.
“I know,” I say. Of course she’d hate me.
“You lied.” Her voice rises in the night. “You lied and you left me.”
It kills me, not to touch her. “I didn’t lie. I love you. I don’t think you ever believed me, but I do.”
I shuffle over to her. She flinches when I reach for her hand but lets me take it anyway. It’s soft and warm, just like I remember it. It was only a little over a week ago that I last touched her.
Her green eyes open wide as she stares into mine. Her shoulders start to shake, like she’s convulsing. “You’re right. I never believed you.”
I want to wrap her in a hug, but first, I have a lot of explaining to do.
So I start. “I fell for you that night we met at the bar, the first time we really met. By then I already knew Cassie and I were doomed. Our marriage was always fake, but it felt like it had all been for nothing. I thought my life was over. It was. And then I walked into that bar, and it’s like you were there to rescue me. ”
I shuffle even closer to her until our thighs touch. I need to be against her. To feel her, like before. “I didn’t buy the flashy engagement ring. The first time I saw it was on Cassie’s finger that day when the three of us were in the living room. And I didn’t plan the trip here.”
I pause then, knowing Reese will want to protest. Because I tried to tell her already, after Cassie sprung that on me, on us.
I can still picture it, the way Cassie looked at her sister, waiting for her pain to manifest. Then I thought Cassie had found out about us.
We were careful though. Whenever we were at the house, Reese wouldn’t even look at me, wouldn’t allow me in the same room as her, even when Cassie wasn’t home.
Especially when she wasn’t home. And Reese worked so hard—at a clothing store every weekend, at the bar most nights, at any other odd job she could pick up.
But the moments we did have, we made them count.
I had never felt so happy. Scared shitless, but happy.
Cassie must have guessed. She was fucking with us; hence the sudden “engagement.” That night, after Cassie’s bizarre announcement, I’d sent Reese a message.
Soon after meeting, we’d each created new Instagram accounts (frenchguynewyork for me and thereseladouce for her) so we could communicate when we couldn’t talk in the house.
Reese wouldn’t text using our phone numbers—too risky.
But now the account was gone. I couldn’t send her a message.
I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn’t let me utter a word.
Reese thought I’d betrayed her, and she’d cut me out of her life in an instant.
Now she takes a deep breath, staring straight ahead at the trees.
“You have to see why it’s a little hard for me to believe you.
You told me you loved me, that you couldn’t stand being without me.
That you might kill for me. A few hours later, Cassie announces that you two are engaged and going to Paris to celebrate.
And then you come home and double down, talking about a surprise wedding, saying that the trip to Paris is actually your honeymoon.
Sure, she could have been lying. Wouldn’t be the first time.
But you went along with all of it. You married her again, in front of everyone we know, and went off on your honeymoon as I watched you go.
And that’s not even all of it. I got into that suite and you stopped me.
You saved her. You knocked me over and threw me out in the hallway. ”
“I had to do all of these things! That night, I saw an opportunity. After weeks of paying little attention to me, Cassie was acting like she wanted to be with me again, with her blingy engagement ring and the tickets to Paris. It couldn’t have turned out better, in fact.
Suddenly, it all looked real between us again, the way it needed to be for my plan to work. ”
I take a deep breath and get up. I can’t say what I have to say while looking at her.
I start pacing back and forth in front of the bench, aware of her gaze on me. “If you hadn’t walked into our room tonight, Cassie would be gone.” Reese lets out a gasp, barely audible, but it’s there. I look at her. “Why are you even here, in Paris?”
She seems to ponder the question, hurt and confusion written all over her face. But she’s not ready and I won’t push her.
So I go on with the rest of the story. “That afternoon in the car, what I said about getting rid of Cassie… I was serious. And you didn’t stop me.
You didn’t tell me I was out of my mind, or that you would call the police.
You didn’t throw me out of the car, and you didn’t run away.
That’s all I needed to know. But then, of course, Cassie had her own plans.
“You were mad. I got it. You didn’t know I had nothing to do with them.
And then I realized I couldn’t involve you in any of it.
I couldn’t stand to be away from you, but it would all be worth it in the end.
So I kept doing my research and read an article about a woman who drowned in her bath.
She was exhausted and drank too much. Most likely she dozed off, slipped to the bottom, and that was that. A friend found her body two days later.
“And then I read something else, about Americans dying abroad. That makes it hard for the government to get answers. They have to deal with the police in the other country, and the local law enforcement is going to care less about a foreigner, especially if her death appears accidental. So many people die every day. They can’t investigate everything in too much depth. ”
Reese looks up at me, her eyes full of questions she doesn’t want to spell out. I come to kneel in front of her and rest my hands on her thighs. “The hotel we’re staying at… It’s the one where I used to work.”
“I noticed that, but I thought it was more proof that you did organize the honeymoon.”
“Cassie had already made up that story about our engagement and booked the flights. There was no turning back. But then she left the rest up to me, a huge mistake on her part. I told her I had the perfect place in mind. When I worked at Bhotel, before I moved to New York, I was friends with some of the security guys. They often commented about the cameras on the sixth floor. They didn’t work, so you couldn’t see who was coming in and out of the two suites at the end of the corridor near the fire exit.
The guys thought maybe it was because famous people sometimes stayed there and they wanted privacy.
If you looked closely enough, you could see that they weren’t even wired.