Chapter 25
Emma
“Don’t look down,” Matthew shouts into the wind.
I look down. My knuckles twitch as I grip the railing, the metal cool and reassuring.
Paris sprawls beneath me, the Seine a silver ribbon threading through the geometry of streets and buildings.
I’m aware of every breath as my mind struggles to process the sheer distance between my feet and the ground below.
An icy gust rocks me slightly, and my stomach lurches. The world tilts and sways.
“Race you to the top,” Matthew yells again, though I can barely hear him.
When I catch up with him, he grips me around my waist. He’s gotten much more handsy during our last two dates, even during a candlelight concert in the catacombs beneath the city.
He’s also been incredibly contrite after his poor showing in his apartment.
We haven’t gone any further than some making out at the end of the evening.
It’s as though Stella’s death reset everything.
But tonight, Matthew said he wanted to give me a thrill.
I thought he meant something very different than what we are currently doing, climbing the stairs of the Eiffel Tower.
“Stella was the first to climb these stairs with me,” he explains as we catch our breath.
“I was eight, Caroline was ten, and my mother had recently left us with a governess in London to take a position in the States. Mother was never very warm to me, not that I remember, but I still cried and cried when she left. A boy loves his mother even when the feeling is not reciprocated. Caroline took it much better. Not much has ever surprised her. So Stella brought us to Paris, took us out for a special adventure, just the three of us. We had hot chocolate and crêpes for breakfast at Angelina, and then we came here. It was a day like this one, cold and windy. The tower wasn’t crowded and there was no one on the stairs.
She told us to scream at the city. ‘Paris can take it,’ she said.
‘Scream it all out into the streets. Give it away. All your pain, all your sadness. Let the city take it from you.’ ”
“So your grandmother and Caroline were close once?”
“Very much. But something happened between the two of them about a year after that climb. Caroline refused to see her after that. I don’t know the details.”
Of course he doesn’t know the details. Why do men have far less curiosity about emotional stuff than women? They always accept things as facts without questioning them.
“What about you and your sister? Are the two of you close? I’m an only child and I always wished for a sibling.”
Matthew considers it for a moment. “Caroline can be difficult. She’s always been bossy, brash, and a little shrill, to be honest. She’s been my biggest protector my entire life.
I think she’s the reason my father went easier on me.
She took the brunt of his bullshit. And we’ve always been united against the twins Father had with his next wife.
Once he had them, we grew even closer. Sometimes a mutual disdain for others is the best way to bond. ”
“What’s your beef with them, exactly?”
Matthew shrugs. “Competition. Father pits us all against one another. He keeps a running document of how much profit each of us have made the company. He should really add on a column about how much each of us spends though. Artem bought a Tyrannosaurus rex skull last year at auction for about ten million dollars and I don’t even think it’s real. ”
“Have you and Caroline ever thought about teaming up with them? With the twins?”
He considers it for a second. “We went in together to buy an island once. It didn’t end well.” With that he keeps on climbing, the conversation over.
At the second platform we encounter, Matthew walks over to a gate, produces a key from his pocket, and unlocks it.
“What are you doing?”
“They don’t let the general public climb higher than this. Most people take the lift from here.”
“But why do you have a key?” It’s ridiculous to ask. There are no locked doors for Swansons.
“They gave me a key after I worked on a new fundraising campaign to repair some of the platforms.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal, though he clearly wants me to be impressed.
“I’m something of an amateur architecture buff.
I studied a bit in undergrad, and they let me indulge myself when they were designing new girders. Shall we take the secret stairs?”
I nod, though it’s getting colder and windier by the minute. The secret staircase is unlike the first two sets of stairs meant for the public. It’s a fragile winding spiral of a thousand more steps.
“You lead the way,” I say.
From the next platform, the tower gets narrower and narrower. The stairs wobble and sway. It’s forty minutes of concentrated climbing. I push myself to stay close to Matthew. He stops short and turns to face me, pulls me gently up to his stair.
“There’s a door up here, which will take us onto the main platform up top, but I wanted to let you savor this before we join the crowd.”
His hot breath in my ear combined with the dizzying views of Paris below has me lightheaded and silly. I grasp onto his waist for balance and look up at him.
Before I know what’s happening, he lets out another gut-wrenching howl so visceral he sounds like a wounded animal.
Without thinking, I join in. We’re both braying into the wind, screaming at the vast beautiful grid below us.
I can barely make out what he’s saying, but I hear a string of expletives, perhaps his father’s name.
I don’t think I’m forming words at all, just wailing like a feral cat.
The release is better than an orgasm. Matthew’s face is ruddy and glowing.
He pulls me to him, cups both of my cheeks in his, and presses his lips to mine, pushing open my mouth hungrily with his tongue.
I grip the back of his head, asking for more.
It’s like we’re back in the museum, like we’re just starting out, back at the place before Stella disappeared from his world and before I marked him as prey.
I want him for all the wrong reasons. But eventually I pull back, breathless.
“Where do we go now?” I smile shyly up at him.
“Wherever we want.” He entwines his fingers with mine and whispers in my ear. “Could I make a request of you that might seem terribly forward?”
I try very hard not to giggle at his formality. “Please, do.”
“Would you accompany me to my family’s holiday gathering next week? It’s outside of the city, in the country. White tie. It is always a wonderful party, and I think you would enjoy it.”
The invite I’ve been waiting for in order to get into Stella’s safe. I pretend to be coy.
“I don’t know. Meeting your family?”
“Oh, it isn’t like that.” His cheeks go rosy in an adorable way. “It’s…I like you. I do. But I always bring a friend with me. Sometimes more than a friend, but often mates from school or work. It won’t be strange.”
I’m smiling now. He knows the answer is yes. “What should I wear?”
“I could take you shopping,” he says tentatively. “If you don’t have the proper kind of dress.”
Part of me relishes the idea of his taking me on an excursion through Paris’s most expensive boutiques, à la Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. But I don’t want to be more indebted to him.
“I have something I can wear.”
“I’m sure.” He stammers a little. “I didn’t mean to presume you didn’t. You will come?”
“I will. But only if we can take the elevator down from here. I’m freezing. And maybe we can have a hot wine or something up at the bar on the top platform first. My fingers might fall off and then how would you explain bringing the sad fingerless girl to your father’s holiday party?”
“I’ll tell him it was an equal opportunity invitation,” he spars. “Even fingerless girls deserve to go to parties. But yes. Hot wine, warm elevator. Do you want to see if I can get us a table at the Jules Verne on the second floor?”
I remember Lucie and her bomb expert, what they did on the table in the private dining room. “I’ll pass. I’m not that hungry.”
For a moment I turn back to the city and pull in a breath so deep it strains my belly. I release one final earsplitting scream that contains all my terror, joy, hysteria, and trepidation.
Matthew is laughing at me as he opens the door to the public platform with his top secret key. “What was that for?”
“For me.”