“And now?” Alexandre glances at me. “Do you not still love it?”
“It’s felt more like a struggle since then. We couldn’t really afford presents or a tree afterward—I know now because of my father’s gambling—but I found a way anyway so my brother could have it. I could never enjoy it the way I did before.”
“My father hated the holidays,” Alexandre murmurs, glancing at the tree. “He would never allow us to decorate, or really celebrate in any way. But Margot loved it. She and her mother both hated how much he despised it when they came to live with us. We celebrated after that, but he made it plain that he wanted nothing to do with it and complained every moment he had a chance.”
“Margot?” I glance at him curiously. I hadn’t seen that name on any of the papers in the office.
“The first girl I ever loved,” Alexandre says quietly. “And my stepsister. I met her when I was sixteen, when our parents married. We should not have fallen in love, but we did.”
He says the last almost defiantly, as if he expects me to judge him or be disgusted, but of all the things I’ve found out about him so far, that shocks me the least. “You weren’t actually related. And you were almost adults. I think it would be hard to argue that it wassoterrible. It’s not as if you were raised together.”
“My father thought it was,” Alexandre says darkly. “My life was difficult before, as a child, but my stepmother made it miserable. She hated a reminder that he had loved any woman but her. And my father—” He breaks off, his face suddenly crumpling with grief that I’ve only seen on it once before. “We shouldn’t talk about this,” he says suddenly, turning his head towards the fire. “Especially not tonight.”
I’m curious, but I don’t push. I don’t want to ruin the night. But I also know that my time here is rapidly coming to an end, and I wanted to know the truth about Alexandre before I left. I didn’t want to always wonder who he truly was,whyhe became the man he is now, so strange and unwell in so many ways, and good in others.
I might never understand him. I see that now. But I can enjoy tonight, at least.
What is Georgie doing while you cuddle with a man you should hate by the fire in a luxurious Parisian apartment?
The guilt grips me again, choking me for a moment. I tense, and Alexandre notices, because he glances over at me with a worried expression in his eyes. “Petite souris?”
I frown, looking up at him. “Why do you always call me that? What does it mean?”
His mouth twitches lightly. “It’s a nickname,” he says finally. “It meanslittle mouse.”
I stare at him, horrified.“Mouse?You call me amouse? Why on earth—”
His lips press together, and I can tell that he’s trying very hard not to laugh. “The first morning you were here, when I brought you breakfast—” he pauses, still clearly trying not to laugh. It’s the most humor I’ve ever seen from him. “You picked up that piece of cheese and nibbled on it like a little mouse—and it was what I thought of.” He looks at me, something soft and unreadable in his eyes. “It made me feel something I was afraid of. You were so innocent, so adorable, sosweet, and in that moment, I both wanted all of you and knew that I would ruin you if I tried.”
I stare at him, unable to speak. I want to say something in response, but nothing comes. It’s the sweetest thing he’s ever said, like nothing I would have ever imagined coming from his lips, and my heart twists in my chest as I look at his sorrowful, handsome face.
“I wish I could touch you right now, Noelle,” he murmurs, his blue eyes still fixed on mine. “I want to touch your hair, your face, to run my fingers along the line of your cheekbone, all the way down to your jaw, your lips. I want to learn every inch of you with my hands, and yet I can’t.” His mouth twists in a rueful grimace. “So many punishments I tried to devise for myself, and this one is the worst of them all.”
“I can’t stay and be your little mouse,” I say softly. I don’t want to hurt him, to take away the sweet haze of this moment, but I can feel this building to something I know I have no choice but to run away from. “I can’t—”
“What were you just thinking of, when you looked so sad?” His eyes search mine, and I feel his fingers twitch helplessly against my leg, as if they crave reaching up and touching me, as he’d just described.
I press my lips together, feeling the night take a turn I’d hoped it wouldn’t. But maybe it was always inevitable. “I was thinking about my brother. What he’s doing right now—if he’s okay. If he misses me, where he thinks he went.” I breathe in shakily, trying not to let the tears well up. “What I’ve thought about every day since I woke up in Kaito’s mansion.”
Alexandre looks away, towards the fire, and I can feel him tense next to me. “You should have left me that night,” he says quietly. “You should have let me die and gone home. You could be there spending this evening with your brother, where you truly want to be, instead of me.”
A hot flare of anger wells up in me out of seemingly nowhere, and I pull away, putting inches of distance between us. “Are you serious?” I glare at him, wrapping my arms around myself as if to hold in the sudden rush of emotion. “How? How would I have done that, exactly?”
Alexandre frowns, glancing back at me. “What do you mean, how? You could have left me and—”
“Withwhat?” The words burst out of me in a torrent, sharp and cutting. “I wassoldto Kaito, drugged, and shipped halfway across the world, withnothing.How would I have gotten home? I have nothing—no money, no passport, no way to get back. If I had gone to the police, what would I have said?I was trafficked to this man, who is dead in his apartment right now, and I absolutely had nothing to do with it, officers. He did it to himself.” I shake my head, the anger rising hotly. “Do you know how well that works out for women? A dead body and claims that they were the ones being hurt? Do you know how often they’re believed? Well, I do, and that wasn’t an option. I had no way of leaving. So yes, I chose compassion and helped you, saved you, because I didn’t feel like I could live with myself if I left you here to die, but I also wasn’t sure that I had any other fuckingchoice. All of my choices were stripped away the minute I was drugged and bundled into a cargo plane to Tokyo.”
My chest is heaving, eyes sparking angrily, and I can see Alexandre’s shoulders sagging as if my words have weighed him down.
“Is that true?” He asks quietly, his eyes slowly lifting to mine. “Is that all of it? You stayed because you felt you had no choice?”
The question hangs between us, and I bite my lips, knowing there’s more to it, as surely as he does. I’d stayed for all the reasons I just said—but also because I wanted answers. Because I didn’t want to go home wondering what the hell I’d fallen into, who he was.
“What do you want, Noelle?” Alexandre murmurs, still looking closely at me. “Besides to go home to your brother—what do you want?”
I feel my chest tighten, my hands fisting in my lap. “I want the truth,” I tell him flatly, feeling the magic of the night slip away into the background, the beauty of it lost.
“The truth about what,petite?”