ANA
Despite my outburst, Alexandre and I still wind up going out.
Without a word, as I’d stood there numbly in the middle of the room staring at the jewelry box, he’d gone to the bathroom and gotten a hot washcloth. He’d returned and tilted my chin up with one hand, wiping away my snot and tears until my skin was clean and pink, and then disappeared back into the bathroom again. When he’d reemerged, he’d come to stand in front of me, his fingers under my chin as he’d looked almost disapprovingly into my eyes.
“That’s enough of that,petit,” he’d said firmly and then gestured for me to follow him, whatever he’d been about to get out of the jewelry box forgotten.
Outside, away from the confines of the room and the shuddering fear I’d felt at the imagined music, I feel foolish. I can’t believe I’d panicked over something so clearly imagined. Beyond that, it feels like magic to be outside again. I haven’t felt the sun on my face since Alexei kidnapped us, and the Paris sunshine in late spring is something else altogether. I tilt my face up, feeling it warm my cheeks as the scents of flowers and fresh bread and restaurants cooking food for the evening dinner crowd fill my nose. I feel a sudden rush of happiness that I haven’t in what feels like an eternity.
I forget for a moment where I am and who I’m with and the circumstances that have brought me here and just soak in the sound of birds chirping in the late afternoon, the warmth of the sun and the cool breeze, the feeling of being warm again after the bone-deep chill of Viktor’s safe house and the mountain chalet.
“You look happy,petit,” Alexandre observes. “Very different than a moment ago. What happened back there?”
“Nothing,” I mumble, feeling abruptly pulled out of my happy moment and slightly resentful of it and him. “I just had a flashback, that’s all. It happens sometimes.”
Monsieur Egorov warned me about this. These…fits.
Alexandre stops on the cobblestone street, reaching to slide his fingers under my chin so that I’m forced to face him. “You need to learn to control it,petit. It’s embarrassing, such—emotion.”
You try going through the shit I’ve had to deal with and not having “fits.”I want to snap it at him, to lash out, but I don’t. Something in his expression tells me that he would be even less tolerant of a public scene, and so I keep my mouth clamped tightly shut. I just nod, and he reaches up, stroking my hair as we start to walk again.
“That’s my good girl,” he says, but I don’t feel the same flush of pleasure that I’d felt earlier when he’d complimented my cleaning, and the afternoon feels as if it’s fallen flat. I’m reminded all over again that he owns me, that if my panic attacks and emotional outbursts upset him, I’ll have to find a way to force myself to control it, no matter what.
We walk slowly, Alexandre clearly still mindful of my feet, and I’m grateful for it because they hurt, though I don’t let on. The cushion in the flats helps somewhat, but I haven’t spent this much time on my feet since I’d recovered enough to begin walking and physical therapy. I’d stayed in the wheelchair whenever possible, too depressed to even try, and now I’m paying for it.
“How are your feet,petit?” Alexandre asks suddenly, as if reading my mind. I pause, glancing over at him as I wonder how honest I should answer.
“They’re alright,” I finally say hesitantly. “A little sore. I haven’t been on them this much in a while. But I feel better, overall, than I have in a while.” It’s true, even despite my outburst and Alexandre’s reaction.
“It’s Paris,” Alexandre says with a grin. “The good sleep and fresh air does wonders for a person. It’s not as good as the countryside, of course, but even here can heal a great many wounds.”
A great many wounds.I go quiet for a moment, and Alexandre notices it.
“I think you have a great many,petit poupée,” he says softly. “But that doesn’t mean that you can’t still have a good and happy life if you try.”
And how does you owning me figure into that?I want to ask, but I don’t. I remember his irritation with my emotions earlier, and I don’t want to spoil his pleasant attitude now.
Even with the earlier blow to my mood bringing me down slightly, it’s still pleasant to walk through the farmer’s market, Alexandre guiding me as he stops at stall after stall, purchasing items and slipping them into the fabric bag he gave me to carry. He buys fresh eggs and an array of vegetables, fruit and cheese, and a baguette as long as my arm that smells so freshly of yeast and dough that I could cry.
I’d thought, at Alexei’s, that there was a chance I’d never experience anything like this again—walking through a city, breathing in good smells, feeling something closer to happiness than I’ve felt in a long time. Even before Alexei, when Franco destroyed my feet, I’d wondered if I’d ever feel even a flicker of something to bring me happiness again.
When I’d met Liam, when his eyes met mine, and he’d kissed my hand, it had been the first real time I’d felt it since Franco kidnapped me.
That afternoon in the garden had been the second.
The memory gives me a flush of pleasure, my skin heating as I remember how he’d looked at me, his eyes lighting up with interest and—attraction? I hadn’t dared to think that someone like him could really have been attracted to me, not this version of me, but what I’d seen in his face had said something different.
I push the thoughts away as we leave the farmer’s market. It feels wrong to think about Liam while out with Alexandre, as if I’m betraying one or the other, and I’m not sure which it is. I barely know either man, and one of them owns me. The other I know it does no good to think about. He’s half a world away from me now, and I’m sure he’s given up. He’s back in Boston, and if he thinks of me at all, it’s certainly not with anything but pity.
That last stings, making my chest ache.Pityisn’t what I would have wanted from him. But thinking about anything else is ridiculous. Just foolish hope that will only hurt me more in the end.
Alexandre leads me to a small street-side café, and when we stop at one of the tables, I realize with a start that there’s a woman already sitting there. She looks quintessentially French, tall and model-thin with dark hair cut in a stylish bob and large sunglasses, wearing skinny jeans and a striped t-shirt with perfectly applied red lipstick, some of which is on the end of the cigarette she’s lazily smoking. There’s a small cup of coffee and a pastry in front of her, and it takes a moment for her to see us.
The moment she does, I can see the difference in her body language as she stands up, going from relaxed and careless to attentive. “Alexandre!” she cries out in a thick French accent, her voice caressing the syllables of his name as tenderly as a lover. “Mon cher,I’m so glad you came! I was afraid you might cancel on me.”
“On you, Yvette? Never.” He smiles, but it’s tighter than the smile on her face, more reserved. He reaches for her, though, pulling her into an embrace. As she kisses him on each cheek, lingering a bit longer than strictly necessary, I feel a strange flash of jealousy.
I’d felt pretty in the silk dress he’d put me in, with my hair loose, even with my face pink and eyes slightly swollen from crying. But now, next to this elegant woman, I feel young and frumpy, out of place. She looks like the very picture of French beauty, cool and classic, effortlessly put together. There was a time when I might have felt that way about myself, usually when I was in my ballerina costume, ready to go on stage. But I haven’t felt that way in a very long time, and next to Yvette, I feel even worse.