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“I cannot. I can’t force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do.”
“I thought you controlled this whole circus.”
His face twitched. “I control this whole circus, yes, save one person. Theo Zamora.” Michel gave her an assessing look. “But I know someone who could control him, if she has the courage to do so.” He paused. “The show opens in less than two weeks. I need you to bring him back to us.”
Kelsey twisted her hands in her lap, furious and terrified. “He has to come back,” she agreed. “But what if I can’t get him to?”
“You did it once,” said Lemaitre briskly. “You can do it again.”
“Well, let’s go,” Kelsey said, swinging her legs over the bed, ignoring the ache in her shoulder. “Let’s go now.”
Lemaitre pushed her back yet again. “Soon. When the doctors say it is okay.”
“I feel fine,” Kelsey argued. “A dislocated shoulder is nothing. They happened all the time at the gym. You pop it back in and you keep training.”
Michel chuckled softly. “You are a tough girl, ma mignonne. Very tough. But in this, you will obey me.” She subsided at his tone, and fell back with a sigh.
“How dare he leave me?” she grumbled. “I would never have left him. Horrible man.”
“He doesn’t deserve you,” Lemaitre said quietly.
It wasn’t until later that afternoon, when they were flying to Paris on Lemaitre’s private plane, that Kelsey put her hand to her cheek, remembering a vicious slap, a searing glare. You never let go. You wait for me to let go, always.
“Kelsey?” Lemaitre asked. “Is everything okay?”
No, nothing’s okay. I thought I knew this man, but I didn’t know him.
Nothing made sense. Wayne wasn’t a harmless friend, but a player. Theo wasn’t murderous, but selfless. The “accident” hadn’t been an accident at all, but a tragic suicide. And to cap it off, Lemaitre, dungeon despot and ass fucker extraordinaire, was patting her hand as tenderly as her own father ever had. Instead of a red ladybug with black spots, a black ladybug with red spots. All of it, such a shock.
She turned into Lemaitre’s arms and cried until they touched down, and then dried her eyes and prepared to do battle. This was a fight she intended to win.
Chapter Sixteen: Confession
The first knock was timid, a small rap, rap. For a moment Theo thought he was hearing things, but then it came again, louder, more insistent.
Of course she would come.
Theo stared at the ceiling, willing her to turn around and go. Give up on him as she should. He’d almost gotten her killed, for fuck’s sake. Stupid, stupid girl.
He was shirtless, hung over, too weak and miserable to drink the headache away. He had to try. He grabbed the nearest bottle and took a swig, flinching at the burn of straight whiskey.
“I hear you in there,” Kelsey said, pounding very hard now. He grabbed his head and oriented himself to the door before he tried to stand up.
“Go away!” he yelled.
“Open the door, or I swear to God I’ll kick it down.”
He laughed helplessly. Miserably. If he let her in, he was lost, but he really could envision her kicking the door down.
“Go away,” he yelled one last time.
“I’m going to stand out here and raise a ruckus until you open the door, Theo Zamora. I’ll call the police. I’ll get a sledgehammer and rip a fucking hole in the--”
He swung the door open and scowled at her. “Shut the fuck up. My head is pounding.”
She pushed past him into his house. This was the house where all this had begun, this fucking mess. It took most of his effort just to kick the door shut after her. He turned to find her scanning his blown-up living room in disgust. He walked past her, heading for the couch.
“Really nice, Theo,” she snorted. “All you’re missing are the cigarettes.” She threw a carton on the floor in front of him. He stared at them a moment, then picked them up and flung them back at her, hitting the wall over her shoulder. “Get out!”
She threw the carton back, and this time it glanced off the right side of his head. He lurched to his feet, advancing on her, not fully sure what he intended to do.
“You didn’t drop her,” Kelsey yelled in the face of his charge. “She let go. You lied to me, to everyone. You liar!” Theo faltered. Kelsey backed away from him, a combination of fear and anger in her eyes. “So, I forgive you for the time you slapped me. Go ahead, smoke up. But you should have told me, you ass.”
So she knew now. Fine. It made no difference at this point.
“And you left me, you asshole! You didn’t even say goodbye. I woke up in the hospital with fucking Lemaitre sitting beside my bed. How dare you leave me?”
“Get out,” he ordered, nodding at the door. “I left you because I’m done with you.”
She shook her head and stood her ground, shriek-mouthed little witch. “An accident. You lied about all of it. You told me you never lied. I guess that was a lie too. You fucking liar!” She pitched herself at him, a hundred pounds of spitting, furious gymnast with claws extended. “And guess what? You can’t be done with me,” she yelled. “I won’t let you be done with me!”
He caught her and shook her. “It’s not your choice, stupid girl!”
“I’m not a stupid girl! I’m not stupid or good or innocent. Not anymore. Why did you lie to me, Theo? Why did you let everyone believe it was your fault?”
“I never lied. It was my fault! And you know nothing.”
He released her and she toppled on her ass, going still. He turned his back on her, kicking a liquor bottle and almost stumbling. Five minutes back in his life and she was already plaguing him beyond what he could bear. “You don’t understand,” he said, turning back to her. “No matter what happened...either way...it was always my fault. Even you. You falling. It was my fault.”
Kelsey would never understand what had gone through his mind when he saw the silk shearing away beneath her grasp. When he closed his eyes he saw it. When he slept he dreamed of it, to the point he didn’t dare sleep. She could never understand the damage it left behind, even now. Just to see her here, in all her beautiful outrage. Alive. When she might have been--
Kelsey shook her head, rising slowly to her feet. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t cut the silks. And Minya--what she did--it was her choice. Her stupid choice.”
“No,” he barked. “Don’t you see? I made all her choices for her. She forgot how to make intelligent choices because I stripped her bare. I did it on purpose because I liked the feeling. The feeling of power. The feeling of dominion over her.” He raked his eyes over Kelsey, his precious coccinelle. His triumph and his downfall. “I still like that feeling. Save yourself. Go away.”
“What about our act? That’s it? You’re abandoning me?”
“I’m sending you away.”
Kelsey threw up her hands. “Because that tactic really worked when you tried it with Minya.”
He unleashed a tirade of vile French epithets before he found his way to English again. “Go, now,” he yelled in her face. “Go away from me and do what you do. Bulldoze on through life, eating colored sugar and shitting rainbows out of your goddamn ass, never realizing how much danger you’re in. I don’t want you on my head. I won’t have you on my head.”
He was so in love with her. In love enough to make her go. “Please go,” he said. “I can’t stand looking at you anymore. Take the cigarettes, if you please.”
Kelsey stepped back, as if he’d slapped her again. Theo rubbed his eyes, unable to bear her vitality, her loveliness. This had to be the end of it.
“You’re insane,” she finally said. “You’re living in some fantasy world of Lemaitre’s if you really believe all this shit. Don’t flatter yourself, that you were the one who killed Minya. That you were the reason she cut that cable and let go. And don’t flatter yourself into thinking you have the power to take me down. You couldn’t do it if you tried.
You saved me, Theo.” Her voice broke. Oh, Jesus, not the tears. He ground his teeth, wanting to kill her. Wanting to kiss her.
She took a deep breath. “You can make me cry, and you can make me hate you, but you don’t have the power to destroy me, not ever. You megalomaniacal ass.”
