ChapterNineteen
Jonathan
I suspect Emelia’s fallen asleep she’s so quiet.
Her slight frame sags in my passenger seat. Her face is tilted toward the window. But when I look over, I see her eyes reflected in the flashing street lights, an artificial swirl of reds and greens dancing across her sad features.
Her arms are wrapped around her stomach, and I think to reach over to comfort her somehow then chide myself for it. I’ve done enough for one evening.
“I know you must count Emmett as your friend,” she says quietly, after some time. “But after tonight, I never want to see him again for as long as I live.”
Even though I just had my hand wrapped around my friend’s throat, I still feel the need to defend him, to remedy this situation somehow. “He’s your family.”
“No, he’s not. Weren’t you listening? We aren’t related at all.”
I stay quiet as I try to digest everything she’s shared tonight. She’s not a Mercier? Does that matter? I suppose it does to her, to Emmett and Alexander at least.
Her revelation explains quite a lot, actually: why Emmett and Alexander never spoke about her, why she didn’t attend Saint John’s like her brothers, why she’s found herself in her current circumstances, up to her ears in debt and living in a crappy apartment. If she were Frédéric Mercier’s real daughter, she’d be a pampered princess, a completely different person.
“Do you know why he said that at first?” she asks weakly. When I don’t pick up her trail of thought, she continues, “The comment about me being the whore’s daughter? It makes no sense considering Emmett didn’t know about my mother’s affair until tonight…untilafterhe said that.”
I sigh, knowing full well it’s not my place to divulge what Emmett has shared with me, but I owe it to Emelia, especially after what she just endured.
“He’s under the impression that your mother played a part in breaking up his parents’ marriage.”
She whips her gaze to me, sitting up straighter.
“No. That didn’t happen. My mother met Frédéric while she was at university,afterhe was divorced.” She shakes her head vehemently. “My mother would have said something if—”
“Would she have?”
She’s struck silent by my question, and then she shakes her head again, slower now as a fresh tear rolls down her cheek. “Well, never mind. It doesn’t matter now, does it? She’s dead. I can’t very well ask her the truth. I can only assume the best of her, and while she might have cheated on Frédéric and gotten pregnant with me, I don’t believe she played the part of a mistress twice. I don’t believe she had it in her.”
She’s right that it doesn’t matter.
She’s better off not knowing the truth.
“So Frédéric is not your father.”
“No.” Her tone is almost harsh. “He claimed me to save face and to keep the scandal of the affair quiet. I’ve never met him.”
“And your real father? Who is he?Whereis he?”
“Oh, who knows. Living in France somewhere? I don’t even know his last name.”
She doesn’t sound the least bit concerned with him.
“You don’t have any interest in finding him?”
“None.”
It’s a nail in a coffin, that word.
I sigh, realizing now that Emelia is more alone than I thought, adrift in this city. And Emmett just rubbed salt in that wound.
“What happened just now is unacceptable. What Emmett said…”
“I know my mother was kind and loving. He doesn’t get to speak about her. His words mean nothing.”