was talking about him.” Her eyes narrowed vindictively, and Fleur understood she was about to be punished for refusing to help Shawn. “I went to see Michel. Such a beautiful boy. He looks just like me. Everybody says so.”
Did Belinda really think she could make her jealous? Fleur felt a flash of pity for her brother. Michel hadn’t told her about the visit, but she could imagine how painful it had been.
“We had a wonderful time,” Belinda said defiantly. “He told me he’d introduce me to all his famous friends and design my wardrobe.” Fleur could hear the echo of a child’s voice in her mother’s words.
“Michel’s a special person.”
Belinda couldn’t hold it together any longer, and her face crumpled. She bent forward in her chair and shoved her fingers through her hair. “He looked at me like Alexi does. Like I’m some sort of insect. You’re the only one who’s ever understood me. Why does everybody make things so hard for me?”
Fleur didn’t waste her breath pointing out that Belinda’s own choices were what had made her life so hard. “It would probably be best if you stayed away from Michel.”
“He hates me even more than Alexi does. Why does Alexi want to lock me up?”
Fleur stubbed out her mother’s smoldering cigarette. “What’s happening with Alexi right now doesn’t have very much to do with you. He’s using you to bring me here. He wants to settle old scores.”
Belinda’s head shot up, and her petulance fell away. “Of course! I should have thought of that.” She stood abruptly. “You have to leave right away. He’s dangerous. I should have realized…I can’t let him hurt you. Let me think.”
Belinda began pacing the carpet, one hand pushing her hair back from her face, the other reaching for her cigarettes as she tried to figure out how to protect her child. Fleur was annoyed and touched. For the first time, she understood how blurred the roles between mothers and daughters could become as they grew older.
As Belinda paced the floor, trying to figure out how to shelter her daughter, Fleur knew her time of being Belinda’s baby was gone forever. Belinda could no longer control the way Fleur viewed either the world or herself.
“I’m staying at the Ritz,” she said. “I’ll come back in the morning, and we’ll settle his.” She needed to take Belinda with her, but the mortician and his cohorts would make that impossible. She had to find another way.
Belinda gave her a swift, desperate hug. “Don’t come back, baby. I should have realized it was you he wanted all along. It’ll be all right. Please, don’t come back.”
Fleur looked into her mother’s eyes and saw that she was as sincere as she knew how to be. “I’ll be fine.”
She made her way back through the maze of hallways to the staircase. The mortician waited for her at the bottom. She regarded him evenly. “I’ll see Monsieur Savagar now.”
“I’m sorry, mademoiselle, but you’ll have to wait. Your father is not yet ready to see you.” He indicated the rococo chair that sat outside the library doors.
So the warfare dragged on. She waited until the mortician disappeared, then made her way to the front salon, where she plucked one full-blown white rose from the mantelpiece and pushed it into the deep V of the velvet bodice. It gleamed against her skin. She carried its heavy fragrance with her as she returned to the hallway and the library doors.
Even through the heavy paneling, she could feel Alexi’s presence on the other side-grasping for her, clinging to her as tenaciously as the scent of the rose. Alexi, malicious and confident, marking off the minutes in his war of nerves. Slowly she turned the knob.
Only one dim lamp burned in the ornate room, throwing the periphery in shadow. Even so, she could see that the vigorous man she remembered had shrunk. He sat behind his desk, his right hand resting on top, his left hand hidden in his lap. He was dressed as immaculately as ever-a dark suit and a starched shirt with a platinum collar pin at the neck-but everything seemed too big. She saw a small gap at the neck of the shirt, took in a looseness at the shoulders, but she didn’t let herself believe for a moment that these were signs of frailty. Even in the room’s shadows, she saw that his narrow Russian eyes missed nothing. They slid over her, taking in her face and hair, sweeping along her dress, and finally coming to rest on the white rose between her breasts.
“You should have been mine,” he said.
Chapter 28
“You are a
“That’s right. How could I forget?” She wished she could see his features more clearly, and she stepped closer to the desk. “All my Irish Flynn blood is too uncivilized for you, isn’t it?” She had the satisfaction of seeing him stiffen. “I understand one of his ancestors was hung for stealing sheep. Definitely bad blood. Then there was all that drinking and whoring.” She paused deliberately. “His young girls…”
The hand resting on the desktop curled in upon itself. “You are foolish to play games with me that you have no hope of winning.”
“Then let’s end the game. Stop terrorizing Belinda.”
“I intend to institutionalize your mother. Lock her up in a sanitarium for incurable alcoholics.”
“That might be difficult considering that she no longer drinks.”
Alexi chuckled. “You’re still naive. Nothing is difficult when one has money and power.”
The day had been long, and she could feel her own weariness catching up with her. She wanted to go back to the hotel, call Jake, and feel that life was sane again. “Do you really think I’d sit by and let you do that? I’d scream so long and so loud that the whole world would hear.”
“Of course you would. I don’t know why Belinda hasn’t realized that. I’d have to silence you first, and that would be quite impossible without resorting to barbaric measures.”
Fleur thought of Jake with his blazing Colts and ready fists. Jake, who was so much more civilized than the old man sitting in front of her. She took a chair across from him and wished he’d turn on the desk lamp so she could see his expression more clearly. “You’ve never had any intention of locking her up.”
“From the beginning, you’ve been a worthy opponent. I expected you to discover the fire in the basement, but substituting the dresses was quite clever.”
“When you’ve been around a snake long enough, you learn how to crawl in the dirt. Tell me what you want.”
“How very American you’ve grown. Blunt and vulgar. No patience for
A chill crept through her. Was he talking about Kissy? Michel? Or was it Jake…? Alarms shrieked inside her. She had to keep her relationship with Jake tucked safely away, well hidden from Alexi’s ruthless calculations. He surely knew Jake had lived in her attic. Maybe he even knew about her trip to his house. But he had no way of knowing she’d fallen back in love with him.
She crossed her legs and launched her counterattack. “I’m happy with my friends. Especially my brother. You made a disastrous mistake, you know. Michel is an extraordinary talent, and he has a brilliant career ahead of him. Admittedly he’s bad at business, but I’m very good at business, and I’ve made sure his money is tucked safely away.”
“A dress designer,” Alexi said contemptuously. “How can he hold up his head?”
She laughed. “Believe me, with the entire city courting him, he doesn’t have any trouble. It’s funny. He’s so much like you. The way he carries himself, his walk, his mannerisms-they all come from you. He even has your habit of looking at someone he doesn’t like with his eyes narrowed and his brow lifted. You can practically see the person shrink. It’s very intimidating. Of course, he also has the humanity that you lack, which makes him a far more powerful person.”
“Michel is a
“And your mind is too small to see beyond that.” She heard his sharp intake of breath and concentrated on
