Chapter 27 #4
I clean myself off, dress quickly, and fetch my underwear from behind the curtain.
They’re heavy and awkward, but manageable once I get them up around my waist. I have to get what I’ve stolen into the car as quickly as possible because I know I’ve got the gait of an old western cowboy who’s been kicked in the balls.
Matthew is lingering at the bottom of the stairs by himself, almost posing, glancing around, looking superior.
He smiles broadly as I approach, his face still glowing from our secret encounter.
“May I have a dance?”
“I’d love that. But I just got a terrible headache. I brought my migraine medicine with me in my overnight bag, but it’s in the car. Do you mind if I go get it quickly?”
“I can do it for you.”
“No, no. It will be easier for me to find the pills. The case is so tiny. I don’t want to take you away from the party again so soon. But later…” Again I let the promise trail off to distract him.
Matthew snaps his fingers at one of the men posted up at the front door and asks him to contact his driver and have him bring the car around.
“Of course. Right away, sir.”
“Wait here for a second.” He turns to me. “I should go find Father. He’s apparently going to make some big announcement. I hope it’s what I think it is. Meet me in the ballroom. And if you can’t find your medicine, I’m sure we can get something for you.”
I have no doubt they have an entire pharmacy on hand. I kiss him demurely on the cheek.
The driver pulls the car around a moment later.
“I could use a bit of quiet to myself,” I tell him, rubbing at my temples as I slip into the back seat.
“Absolutely. Have them fetch me when you’re finished.”
I close the door, grateful for the tinted windows as I slide the panties down to my ankles and load them into my overnight duffel.
Then I take out a small silver case filled with tiny white pills.
They aren’t for my migraine though. They’re to help Matthew sleep so that he’ll stay over at the chateau.
I plan to have the driver take me back to Paris with everything I’ve taken.
The absence of the pouch from under my dress and what I’ve just accomplished makes me feel light and fizzy as I float back into the ballroom. Matthew hands me a hot cider.
“With a wee tap of whiskey,” he says. “Did you find your pills?”
“I did. They’re starting to work. Your drink already looks finished. Now, let me get you another one before we start to dance.”
“Excellent. My father is making some kind of speech soon.”
I get him another cider, duck into the powder room, and easily crush a pill into it. It’s only a small dose of muscle relaxer but it will make him sleepy in about fifteen minutes. Back in the ballroom, Matthew’s father has taken the stage. Caroline stands regally at his side.
“Should you go up there?” I nudge Matthew.
“He didn’t ask me to.” He frowns and slumps slightly against me.
Caroline and Louis are complete opposites.
They barely even look genetically related.
She towers over him by nearly a foot. The only similarity is their deep brown eyes, which gleam with the same cunning, obvious even from across a crowded ballroom.
Louis’s arm encircles his daughter’s taut waist as he clears his throat and coughs into a microphone.
“How lucky are we to get to celebrate here tonight in this beautiful setting surrounded by all our beautiful friends.”
I glance around the room at all the beautiful friends.
There’s a gaggle of supermodels and the rich men who adore them until they’re twenty-six.
At least three heads of state and another handful of minor dignitaries.
Two men Matthew identified to me as the world’s third- and fourth-largest arms dealers, some Russian oligarchs and their fourth wives, socialites from all over the world.
Everyone is indeed beautiful in a way that only money can buy and preserve.
They raise their glasses in unison with Louis.
Caroline takes the microphone from her father.
“I don’t think luck describes it, exactly.
My grandfather, who we lost over a year ago, used to say that we make our own luck, and I think that is true.
This home is not ours because we are lucky.
We didn’t gain all these wonderful friends because of pixie dust and providence.
The Swanson art collection didn’t just appear under a Christmas tree one day.
How could Santa have even gotten a Tintoretto down a chimney?
” She pauses for the obligatory laughter.
The crowd is well warmed up. All eyes are on Caroline. She’s magnetic.
“I count all of us fortunate to be able to spend this time together and I am incredibly grateful for all the hard work my father and his father before him put into building this extraordinary community.” No mention of Stella at all.
Not that I expected one, but I wonder if anyone else in this room notices the oversight.
Louis takes the microphone back. “We lost my father a year ago and when he passed this company was handed over to me. I want to make sure we have a solid plan of succession for our business for generations to come.”
Matthew perks up slightly at the mention of succession.
“That’s why I’m naming my beautiful and brilliant daughter as the next president of Swanson Enterprises.”
The applause and cheers from the crowd drown out Matthew’s audible gasp. Back in the café, during our first lunch, he had said he was readying himself for a promotion, this promotion. He clearly had no idea it would go to his sister.
I grab his hand in mine and squeeze. The cruelty of this family knows no bounds. Louis kept him in the dark on purpose.
“Why?” Matthew manages, quietly but not quietly enough.
The room’s attention settles on him, and I realize that this is the evening’s true entertainment, not the ballet, not the symphony, but the blood sport of tearing apart one’s own.
Caroline’s unflinching gaze falls on her brother, and I want to see a glimmer of sympathy, but there’s only naked ambition.