I held my ground, refusing to answer her question until she complied.
After what felt like a solid minute, she dropped her arm and looked at me, her eyes full of displeasure at her forfeit.
I nodded toward the stairs, and we headed out the main doors to the vehicle waiting for us. Through the darkness, we drove, leaving Cap-Ferrat and venturing toward Nice and the French Riviera. An acquaintance had invited me to his cocktail party, and social situations were the events where I made my biggest sales. Having a brick-and-mortar shop opened you up to robbery and theft. And most rich people didn’t do their own shopping, so the only people that walked by were those who couldn’t afford a single item. Truly wealthy people wouldn’t be seen shopping at my stores, because if they walked out with anything, it was just an announcement to anyone watching they were wealthy, and that put a target on their back.
Camille was quiet on the drive, her eyes directed out her window, her body pivoted away from me. One elbow was propped on the armrest as her fingers supported her chin. She seemed to be in her own world, as if I weren’t there at all.
I knew she wished I weren’t there at all.
I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed our intimacy until it wasn’t there. I’d never been close with a woman, never slept with the same woman more than a couple of times, but Camille and I had a relationship, a relationship that had filled a void I hadn’t noticed before. Now that she was gone…I could really feel it.
Feel it all the time.
Thirty minutes later, we arrived at the private residence, white lights interwoven in the trees on the property, a line of cars waiting to be taken by the valet. Each estate looked like every other estate I’d been to, so it was impossible to be impressed anymore. I was certain none of my visitors was impressed with my accommodations, even though they gave compliments to be polite.
We exited the car, and my arm immediately circled her waist.
She flinched at my touch, but not in the good kind of way, like when my affection once excited her. She tried her best to keep the distance between us, so the least amount of skin between our bodies came into contact.
We made it inside, got our champagne, and then I started the rounds.
She stood beside me, silent as ever, not even bothering to make small talk. When she introduced herself, all she said was her name. She didn’t bother to shake hands with anyone. When we left the group and walked away, I rounded on her.
“You can do better than that.”
She sipped her champagne and ignored me. “I sleep with you, and you kill Grave. That’s our deal. I don’t owe you anything else, asshole.” Her eyes turned into sharp daggers, and she gave me the coldest stare I’d ever seen.
A waiter passed with an empty tray, so she set her glass down and walked off, heading where, I had no idea.
Too pissed off to say anything, I let her go.
A half hour later, I found her on the back terrace where some of the guests had congregated. Instead of having a conversation with someone else at the party, she stood alone, smoking a cigarette as she looked across the well-kept lawn.
She was really trying to piss me off, wasn’t she?
I walked over and pulled the cigarette from her mouth.
“Um, do you mind?”
I put it in my own mouth and took a drag, feeling smoke in my lungs for the first time in months. I held my breath and kept the smoke trapped, feeling that relaxing kick of nicotine before I released it as a cloud of smoke. “You’re a fucking hypocrite, you know that?”
“Or maybe I just don’t care anymore.” She took the cigarette back and took her own drag.
Like two social outcasts at a high school party, we stood together and shared a smoke, going back and forth until the cigarette was just a nub.
“You go to so many of these things and know so many people, but you don’t seem to have any friends.” She stepped on the butt on the ground with her heel and squashed out the little fire that still burned. The ash smeared into the pavers. It was inconsiderate, to say the least, but this woman wouldn’t listen to reason right now.
“Because I don’t.”
She studied me, her arms crossing over her chest. “Sounds lonely.”
“You can be alone but not lonely.”
“True. But is that you?”
Now I wished I had another cigarette. I’d severed ties with my addiction because of the promise I made, but it didn’t seem like anything mattered anymore.
“I don’t think it is. You’re a bitter, lonely man whose only purpose in life is to destroy other people. It’s pathetic.”