“In a sense.” Alexandre shrugs. “I would say a woman like that Italian girl on the other stage—she was your friend?—was more a product of her family’s traditions than the country she lived in. The same goes for you. You might have lived and gone to school in America, but a part of you will always be Russian. Just as I, to my core, am French. No matter where I live,Vive la Francewill always be deep in my soul.”
“Sofia.” I grab on to his first statement, clinging to it like a raft. “The Italian girl—her name was Sofia, and the other girl was Sasha. And the two children—do you know what happened to them? Did someone buy them, too?”
Alexandre pauses for a moment, then shakes his head. “No, sadly, I cannot tell you,ma petit.I had purchased you and left before any other transactions took place. There was a couple looking at the Italian girl—a Greek shipping magnate and his wife, I believe. But I do not know what came of it. As for the children—” His eyes narrow, his expression darkening. “It is a poor choice onmonsieurEgorov’s part to traffic in children like that. I have certainly made a note of it, myself.”
I blink at him. “So you think that’s bad?”
“Merde!”Alexandre exclaims, startling me so that I stop with a bite halfway to my mouth. “The sale of children? Particularly as Alexei wished to sell them? Of course. It is pure evil. The man ought not to breathe the same air as any sophisticated individual. For anyone else, I would not have given him my money in sheer protest of such a thing. But for you—”
His blue eyes flick upwards to mine, searching my face, and I can see something lingering there, some deep and dark emotion that I’m afraid to see too clearly. Instead, I bring the bite of food to my mouth, looking down at my plate. The flavor explodes over my tongue, something rich and gamey, and I try to focus on that. But my heart is racing in my chest, and I can still feel Alexandre’s eyes resting heavily on me.
“For you, I could not resist,” he says quietly, his voice dropping an octave, deep and rough, his accent thickening over the syllables. It sends a rush through me, my skin prickling, and I stab the pastry again, forcing myself not to look at him. His gaze on me feels magnetic, as if he’s pulling mine upwards, drawing me towards him.
“This is good,” I say quickly. “What is it? It doesn’t taste like any sausage I’ve ever had.”
Alexandre sits back, and when I look up, I see a frown flickering over his face, as if my changing the subject displeased him. “Boar,” he says finally. “It’s boar sausage in an herbed pastry. One of my favorite dishes.”
I nod, taking another bite. “It’s really good,” I repeat, swallowing hard. I don’t know what to say, how to make small talk with this strange man as he watches me eat. However, I’m equally at a loss about how to endure his weighted gaze on me, full of emotions that I don’t feel capable of handling right now.
The manboughtme, for fuck’s sake. What emotions could he possibly have about it?
“Tell me about what you used to do,” Alexandre says suddenly. “Back in the States. Before—this.” He gestures at my feet, and I feel my chest tighten again.
“I don’t—it’s not very interesting.” I lick my lips nervously. “I don’t know if there’s anything to tell, really.”Why the hell does he want to know?
“I know that you used to be a ballerina,” Alexandre says it smoothly as if it’s nothing. Still, the words send a rush of emotion through me until my throat feels choked with it, my chest hot and tight, and I feel like I won’t be able to speak.
Used to be a ballerina. Used to be. Used to be.
Not anymore. The thing that was most important to me, more than anything else in the world, is gone. I hadn’t said that out loud to myself yet, not in those terms, that Iused to be.Not even the one time I actually went to the therapist my doctor referred me to. I couldn’t.
And yet Alexandre has said it aloud, as if it’s a given. As if I should think of myself that way, in those terms.Used to be.
“Yes,” I manage past the lump in my throat, not wanting to let the silence stretch out for too long and make him angry. “I was a ballerina at Juilliard.” The words slip out, hanging in the air between us.Was.
And then I burst into tears.
They’re not pretty tears. They’re hot, angry tears, tears of pain, tears that make my face screw up and my eyes squeeze tight, my hands fisting in the bedspread beside me as I drop my fork, my shoulders shuddering and shaking. Tears of hurt that I’ve lost so much that I’m still losing, that with every minute that ticks by, I’m getting further and further away from myself. Tears of anger towards Franco, Alexei, and Alexandre—towards every man who has contributed to this. Even irrationally towards Liam, because he wasn’t there. He didn’t save me, and I’d hoped he would. Caterina had pinned her hopes on her husband and Sofia on hers, but I’d had no one to hope for.
No one other than a handsome, red-haired, sunny Irishman who once had kissed my hand and called melass, told me how beautiful I was, and listened to me talk in a cold Russian garden by a firepit.
It was nothing to go on. I have no right to be angry. But I am, if for no reason other than I need to be angry as much as possible, so that I don’t hurt as badly. Anger is easier than loss, easier than grief. Anger can be directed outwards instead of slithering inside of you, wrapping itself around your soul until it crushes everything you have left.
Vaguely I feel the tray being taken away, the silverware scooped up, and then suddenly the weight of someone in bed next to me. I flinch away, but Alexandre’s hands on me are insistent, pulling mine away from my face, moving me so that I’m lying in bed on my side facing him. He’s on his side, too, watching me as his eyes search my face and his hands wrap around my clenched fists.
“Cry it out if you need to,petit,” he says soothingly. “It’s hard to lose things. Hard to let them go,ma petit poupée casée.You can cry as long as you like.”
“What do you want from me?” I whisper it through my sobs, and I don’t know if he can understand me because he says nothing. He just holds onto my clenched hands, listening to me sob as he hums under his breath, that same song that he’d hummed while he brushed my hair.
Alexandre is a strange man. Deep down, I know that some of his eccentricities should terrify me because he could be anything. He could be a serial killer for all I know, toying with me like a mouse, luring me into a false sense of security before he takes me apart piece by piece. It wouldn’t be a stretch for his oddities to point towards such a thing. But after facing Alexei, I can’t bring myself to feel as terrified as I should.
I cry for a long time, lying there, feeling it all pour out of me. Alexandre lays there too, silently, and when I finally open my eyes, he’s watching me, as if he hasn’t looked away from my face all this time.
I don’t know if I should feel comforted or creeped out, or maybe a little of both. I’m too exhausted to feel anything at all if I’m being honest.
Alexandre rolls off of the bed then, letting go of my hands and getting up in one of those lithe, graceful movements that remind me of the male ballerinas back at Juilliard. He gets the cup of tea and leaves the room, coming back a few minutes later with a fresh, hot one that he pushes into my hands.
“Drink it,” he instructs. “It will make you feel better.”