Chapter 13 Qxf7#
I message Bernard on the cab ride to the Antient show.
Sorry, wild day. Yes to Japan. :) Where?
I will be there, come hell or high water. Buying my own plane ticket isn’t out of the question.
Fashion week—to those who don’t devote their lives to this—is something of a magical, fictional place.
Think Camelot, or Stars Hollow. But one does not simply walk into fashion week and see the fashion shows; the schedule is a rotating buffet of countries, primarily Paris and New York and Milan and London, and the shows themselves are exclusive.
Invite-only, industry preferred. That’s why influencers will get photographed showing off their street style.
For many of us, a fashion week is about the streets, the afterparties, satellite events.
Nabbing an invite to an Antient fashion show is akin to opening your closet and finding Narnia. Furs and all.
“Nervous?”
I glance at Faust, who’s looking at Christine. She’s in the far back of this shiny black car, knee bouncing. Each bounce seems to make another brown ringlet escape from her swept-back bun. “No,” she answers sullenly.
“You look really good. And cool. And smart,” I reassure her.
“You really do,” Eddie agrees.
“Shut up,” she says. “But thanks.”
Mei’s flight from Australia got delayed due to weather, and since we’re only here until tomorrow morning, she ended up going straight to Japan.
A bonkers sentence, if there ever was one, but this is my life now, and I dressed three of the most famous racing drivers in the world and, truthfully?
They do look good. Mei had come through with the Americana sponsorships, and I’d kept Christine in a pair of her own pale blue jeans, rigid yet pricelessly worn in.
That’d gotten paired with a soft gray cashmere sweater, slightly oversized, and my own Peretti Bone Cuffs for a dash of sparkle.
It’s relaxed—nothing too try-hard. The seasoned fashion girls would sniff that out from a mile away, and being here is just as much about remediating her image as it is capitalizing on Faust’s podium finish. I don’t like it, but it’s true.
“You’re just here to have a good time,” I remind her. “You showing up is a win. Don’t even smile if you don’t feel like it. Bitchy is cool, too.”
“Is that her character?” Faust asks, his voice light. Completely calm.
I take a deep breath. “Sure.”
The rest of our dinner had… gone. It’d happened.
We’d finished our chess game, he’d won, and I ate my cold french fries.
I’d avoided any other probing questions and kept my questions casual.
Afterward, we’d parted ways, and I’d popped my rationed sleep aid pill and hoped to miss a visit from the Hat Man.
It was the sleep of the medicated, but it was sleep, and I woke up feeling better.
Statistically, it would be extremely unlikely for Faust to know who I am and what I’m doing with Bernard.
He wouldn’t be so chill. Just look at history.
Study how semi-decent men never pick morally gray women over horrible men.
Even if Faust has a famously fractured relationship with his former best friend.
He talked a big talk in Melbourne, but he would never—
“Cat?”
I’ve been staring at Faust’s arm for the past minute and a half. And yeah, he noticed. Huffing, I recross my legs so I’m leaning toward the car window. “Nothing.”
Thank you, over-the-counter sleep aid. Thank you, lucky red Carels.
We make it down the winding cobblestone pathway without anyone twisting an ankle or falling into a street photographer.
I follow loosely behind Christine, who’s tagging behind Faust, who’s letting Eddie lead the charge.
Antient had eschewed the Carrousel du Louvre this year and is hosting their show in a cavernous warehouse on the outskirts of the city—the drama.
I do love it. Antient is an example of my favorite parts of French fashion: founded in the sixties by an eccentric couturier, over-the-top like a hand-rolled cigarette, articulate and critical yet soft, with a lot of love to give.
Social media fumbles and imperfect bag launches don’t get them down; there’s always a shoulder wiggle and another Aperol Spritz, and they’re back, because they mean this.
The pale purple trench coats and tweed Bermuda shorts and bowl cuts, the chunky loafers and day-collar chokers and bowling bags, it really is life and death when it’s how you live your life.
The only way you know how to express yourself. They love fashion. It shows.
We go to the front entry point, I talk with security.
Faust pretends to be exceedingly interested in the warehouse’s front brickwork while I pull up Mei’s emails for Antient’s people.
When I’m cleared, I catch up to him with a full-on scowl.
“You still have to go do photos. You aren’t getting out of it by hanging around me. ”
He gives me a very bow-wow look. Hangdog, in his black-on-black-on-black ensemble.
I’d outdone myself with Faust. It’s those street photos of Mads Mikkelsen smoking outside Milan Fashion Week, with a shorter black coat over a black button-down and black trousers and black shoes.
Leather loafers. Thought he’d appreciate a switch-up from his spite Docs. And every shade of black matches.
I give him my best don’t start stare and turn him around to the interior pap walk.
While I stand guard with the other stylists and assistants, off to the side of the moody warehouse room, I observe Faust struggle gracefully through his photo call.
He’s nice to the camera people. Smiling when he has to, presumably understanding that they’re not the people to blame for his current torture.
He looks over when someone goes to fetch Christine for a team shot—and I find myself smiling when our eyes meet.
Are you dying yet? I mouth with very exaggerated hand gestures.
Surprise makes him look younger, almost boyish. And I watch in fascination as his mouth blossoms into a full, real, unbelievable smile, just for me.
No, sorry, he mouths, less exaggerated. And it’s almost, slightly nice. Proof that I was just exhausted and paranoid when I thought he was onto me.
Then we sit down for the show.
Christine and Eddie are a few rows back.
Faust is front row. And my seat is right next to his.
As in, our legs are touching. I’m in all black clothing, too, the stylist’s wardrobe.
No one will notice but him. I sit up straight anyway, cross my legs at the knee, trying to take up less space.
Each movement presses our bodies closer together.
The side of my thigh, the side of his. My hand brushing his shoulder.
“Can you relax?” Faust mutters.
I shoot him a glare. His legs are crossed, arms crossed, a fortress of a man. “You first.”
There’s music overhead, light chatter behind us.
Nevertheless, Faust’s breathing is audible.
He starts to lean away from me, one long leg shuffling behind the other, then he pauses.
Maybe he’s noticed that there’s nowhere for him to go, strangers boxing us in on either side.
The lights dim, once, warning that the show’s starting soon, and he runs his palm down his thigh. Like he’s nervous about something.
And… that’s new.
Thoughtlessly, I press my leg against his. Just a brush. An experiment.
He lets out a shallow, deeply unhappy, very surprised breath. “Cat.”
“Sorry, just relaxing.” Not true. I’m completely rigid, my heart beating in my chest, my thighs, where we’re touching. “That’s what you wanted, right?”
From the corner of his eye, I catch him steepling his hands over his lap.
“Mmhm.”
Even his pretentious humming sounds strained, and I’d like to bottle the sound so I can sip on it for the rest of my life.
The great Fausto Ferreira Sanchez, so cool-headed, so impassive, in palpable pain because of my legs?
This level of stun-gun flirtation isn’t something I’ve done before—using my body like the short-range weapon I know it can be.
But God, it feels good to take some of my power back after how much he’s messed with my head.
A tiny, invisible, defensible helping of revenge.
The lights dim one more time, a final call for us to take our seats, and I sway closer to him. Cupping my hand over his ear, I murmur, “I hope you enjoy the show.”
His shoulders stiffen, one hand jerking to his knee.
I bite back a smile. That’s more like it.
I’m enjoying the steady pulse of satisfaction when the lights above the warehouse fall for the final time, and fingers wrap around my wrist.
It happens the moment the lights are out. A thick, warm grip, circling and holding my wrist like a handcuff. My lashes flutter, hand instinctively jerking away only to find that I can’t—and my mouth goes dry as I realize it’s Faust. Faust is holding my hand. Faust is holding me captive.
The lights fade back up and thumping disco music tumbles out of the ceiling, speakers hidden away in the shadows, and I’m already angling to meet Faust’s amused brown eyes as the first model hits the runway.
I can’t speak. Speaking would bring more attention to us.
We’re front row at a fashion week, arguably one of the single most photographed rows of folding chairs on planet Earth, and slapping him across his smug face would hand him the points for this round.
Because we’re still playing his game.
My eyes dip to his plush lips as he silently mouths, Just relaxing.
And I should be angry. I am angry. I’d thought Faust was marginally different than the other men I’ve known, who’d fall into the stereotypical Formula 1 athlete category.
Handsy, egotistical, demanding. I’m constantly having to draw and re-draw boundaries with them. He’s crossed the line and he knows it.
So then why am I not angry?
My teeth find the inside of my cheek as I turn back to the show, each centimeter of my wrist acutely aware of his touch.
I can tune this out. Antient puts on a wonderful show, and I can pay attention to the hauntingly beautiful woman wearing cascading layers of raffia, the straw-like fibers trailing around their muscular legs.
Tune into the breathlessly glittery gladiator sandals they’re wearing and the probability that I might be able to one day afford them.
Antient gladiators are one of my bucket-list splurges.
Literally impractical, thousands of dollars for sandals that’d get ruined by tromping on sand or a splash of chlorinated water.
A thumb brushes up the back of my hand and my breathing trips, landing face-first on the shiny tile floor that is my rib cage.
Faust strokes my hand. Once, slowly. Like he’s just gotten really into the retro disco music and he’s forgotten he’s touching me. It’s an excusable touch, a remediable accident. One touch while the lights are dim is an accident. I’d know.
Twice, though?
With all the exaggerated slowness of a man who’s waiting for me to yell at him in a room full of journalists and millionaires, Faust drags his thumb back over my skin.
Teasingly. He’s teasing me. And if I look over, he wins.
That is what he wants, isn’t it? To bother me back?
Prove his point about me not liking Bernard?
He doesn’t want to touch me. Or to get photographed touching me, which could be what’s happening right now, every pulsing second I don’t work out of his grip.
Snapshots of Faust with his hand tight around a fashion influencer who’s working for his team—and another.
And another. And fuck, fuck, fuck. I don’t want him to stop.
I can’t remember ever wanting something less.
Another model appears at the top of the runway in a long silk coat that billows behind her.
When she passes in front of us, Faust loosens his grip, swirls his fingers around my palm.
A thousand tiny sparks flicker across my skin along the trail he makes, his fingertips tracing up to the top of my palm, then back, ghosting the bumps and dips of my hand.
His touch is so light, so intimate, that I don’t notice his knee’s brushed mine at first.
What’s next? If I stay like this, will he put his hand there?
Trail his rough fingertips over my knee, find the inside of my thigh, push me until—what?
This isn’t going to end well for either of us.
One grainy photograph of questionable proximity and my job is done.
Both jobs, probably. Which Faust knows. I’m a puddle, liquid heat trained to his fingers, but now is when I’ll snatch my hand away.
And I will. Any second now.
I have to.
With a rough swallow, I slide my fingers away from his.
I move quickly while the lights are still low, and Faust shifts, too, like he’s getting more comfortable in his seat.
It’d be enough to make anyone doubt what they could’ve seen.
He’s a large, broad athlete sitting on a thin plastic chair during a Paris Fashion Week show—he’s going to move around.
I, on the other hand, stay very still for the remainder of the show.
Frozen, while my brain runs at a hundred miles per hour.
He’d only been touching me like that to screw with me, I know, but I hate that I feel screwed with, like he got the last laugh in after an endurance challenge.
Hand-on-hand combat, and he’d won. His prize: I am extremely aware of him for the next ten minutes.
How he breathes harder but quietly, next to me.
How he isn’t touching me at all despite how little he’s moved.
My skin replays the sensation of his fingers on my palm, each loop worse than the last. Faust’s large hand spanning the width of my thigh, pulling my legs apart.
Tendons dancing along the back of his hand as he works down the zipper of my tight black jeans.
Touching me like how he treats me; incisive, serious, prying.
Sex with Faust would not require any acting. He wouldn’t let me.
And that’s the worst thought yet. By the time the lights lift and Antient’s creative director walks out, my mind has fully turned itself inside out. The moment the designer vanishes again, I’m on my feet, sweaty, pulse pounding.
Faust stands, too. His dark eyes track mine, and a muscle in his cheek flexes dangerously, like he’s just about to speak. “Cat,” he says, very softly. Very earnestly. He doesn’t look like he’s about to gloat, or point out that, see, I don’t want Bernard. He caught me. Voila. Thanks for playing.
I don’t have to wait around for it, though. “I’ll meet you out front.” The words rush out so quickly that I feel sick. Then I walk to the warehouse exit, back to real life, with cloudy, cool Parisian air and taxis and people chain-smoking and my responsibilities.
I don’t want there to be a next time—there can’t be a next time—but if there is… if I’m ever pushed to that point with him again…
Next time, I wouldn’t move first.