“Gina? What did you do?”
“I lost the money.”
Her voice was so faint I wasn’t sure I had heard her correctly.
“What?”
“I lost the money!”
Well, I had heard her correctly. I remained silent. I didn’tbombard Gina with questions. If anyone could lose a hundred thousand pounds in one night, it was her. I believed it. Instead, I savoured my thoughts. Had that been a possibility from the start? To abandon the money in some corner, in a dark alley, and get rid of it as if it were trash? Just like that? If it was, I had accidentally chosen the complicated route. If it wasn’t, I was fucked.
There was no time to worry about that. It was nine in the morning, and I had a flight to catch.
“I swear I don’t know what happened, Vera.” Gina undid her braided bun, resting her head against the back of the sofa in a defeated gesture. “It was in my bag before I went into that room Eloïse took me to, but when I got to my parents’ house… Poof!”
I got up. “Do you think you lost it on the way back home?”
Gina shrugged. I went to my room.
“Or at the club. Who knows?” She got up and followed me, her puppy-dog expression tugging at my patience as I tied my hair back into a ponytail and slipped into comfortable clothes. My pyjamas smelled like frying oil from the churros. “Aren’t you mad?”
“I don’t know what happened to the money,” I replied, “but I don’t intend to worry about it.”
I looked at Gina, who sighed with relief. I thought about the extra ticket for the game.
“Do you want to come to Bordeaux?”
“You haven’t told me what you’re going to do there.”
I went back to the living room and checked that I had everything necessary. Downloaded ticket. Portable charger. Extra money. Passport.
“Meet with Laurent Dubois, I hope. And watch a basketballgame.”
“Oh la la. Lakers?”
I snorted.
“Of course not. The Bordeaux team.”
I couldn’t even recall who they were or who they were playing. If I wanted to infiltrate the party, I needed to catch up.
“No idea. I don’t know shit about basketball,” Gina said, sliding back onto the sofa. “But I’m going to sleep for a bit. I’ve got class this afternoon.”
Just as I was about to leave, I heard her shout, “Next time you wake up next to a mountain of money, you won’t get rid of me so easily!”
With that, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and set off for Bordeaux.
Chapter 17
Waking up in one country and deciding to travel to another on a whim isn’t as glamorous as it sounds. I barely slept, my head felt like a jackhammer was pounding inside it, and I’d just spent an entire hour sparring with a flight attendant who didn’t believe my trip to Bordeaux was so urgent. They wanted to bump me to a later flight, but when it comes to stubbornness, I’m in a league of my own. I landed in the French city at three in the afternoon. Despite my exhaustion, a small flicker of satisfaction made my chest jump, but it didn’t last long. I still had no concrete plan for confrontingLaurent Dubois.
All the gossip magazines had placed Eloïse Hawtrey-Moore at the Palais des Rois that night, with her father. The stadium doors opened at 18:00. The game started at 19:00. The Dubois party, according to the website, would begin after the game, but its guests could watch the game from a privileged spot. I would meet the reseller BordeauxBsqtFTW at the same time as the doors opened.
The Palais des Rois was nearly forty minutes by car from where I had stopped for lunch on the outskirts of the city, which left me with less than two hours to buy a dress and shoes, get ready, and catch a taxi to the stadium. I also needed to learn something about basketball on the way to the game, just in case. I was running down a busy street when I got amessage from Enzo.
Then he asked what my plans were for the afternoon. Oh no. What if he wanted to take me somewhere else? What if he wanted to pick up right where we left off yesterday, with my lips just inches from his? Then I’d have to explain that I was in France, and that I would love nothing more than to spend more time with him, but it would really,reallyhave to wait.
But explaining things felt complicated. I was running through Bordeaux looking for a boutique that accepted foreign currency. If there was something the French liked less than a foreigner, it was a foreigner with a thick accent asking if they could pay in cash. I could have opted for option B, which was to tell Enzo that I was in France because of the money.
