“Can someone let me finish…?”
“Shh!” she snapped. “Vera, I suggest you…”
Someone put a hand on my shoulder, startling me. A firm, masculine hand.Oh, no, I’m screwed,I thought, believing it was the security guard. It had been a nice experience while it lasted. Then, seeing that the hand was slender, I thought of Alex. Maybe my pre-teen friend was going to get me out of this mess. The hand moved from my shoulder to my arm, gently stroking my skin.
“Is everything okay?” he said.
Except that voice wasn’t Alex’s. There wasn’t a trace of a French accent, and it sounded much more mature, rougher, more…
Like the voice that had accompanied me for most of the day.
My head spun like a gazelle in a lion’s jaws. Was I hallucinating? Having some bizarre, lemon sorbet-induced vision? This couldn’t be real.
“Vera?” he said, his smile faltering for a moment with concern. “Are you feeling alright?”
I was stunned. I couldn’t respond.
Enzo Woods didn’t lose his smile. Instead, he gave a nod to Eloïse and dragged me through the room toward the exit.
Chapter 20
I didn’t pay attention to the route Enzo led me through. We brushed past Eloïse and Bastian, who were wrapped in an uncomfortable silence. I followed Enzo in silence, the sound of heels clicking on the ground echoing in my head. We stopped by a door guarded by burly, suited men who stepped aside with a solemn air upon seeing us—well, seeing Enzo—, and stepped inside.
Enzo Woods was here in Bordeaux, not in London, as he had led me to believe.
Enzo Woods hadseen me kiss Bastian.
“Chéri, what are you doing here? Has the party ended?” a woman around my mother’s age, dressed in white from head to toe, asked Enzo.
She had interrupted a conversation she was having with another man. I didn’t know who he was, but she…
She was the woman hanging on Laurent Dubois’s arm during the gala. His current wife. The other man, holding a champagne flute, stayed a step behind her, keeping his distance from us. It looked like we were in a meeting room. I hadn’t known stadiums had places like this. I realised that at some point, we had left Eloïse and Bastian behind. It was just Enzo and me, that woman and that man.
“No, we just needed to catch some air,” Enzo replied.
The woman softened her expression. Wrinkles hung from her cheeks like two fabric sacks. She looked at us—well, looked at me in the most blatant way possible—and added, “We’ll leave you some privacy.” She nodded at the man. “Come on, Norman.”
“Thank you,” Enzo said.
She seemed to weigh something in her mind. Then, before leaving, she planted a kiss on his cheek.
“I’m going to find your father. Let me know if you need anything, alright, Laurent?”
Enzo gave a single nod in affirmation.
We were left alone.
The woman’s voice echoed in my ears. It could have been the extra sorbets, the whirlwind of the moment, the rush of blood to my head from the kiss, or the weight of everyone’s stares pressing down on me, but the word spun in my head faster each time. Laurent, Laurent, Laurent, Laurent.
I swear I’m not that dumb. This weekend wasn’t my best,that’s all. Oh, come on. How did I not notice sooner that Enzo Woods is just a translation of “Laurent Dubois”?
Damn it, Vera. Damn. It.
Enzo Woods is Laurent Dubois. Not the Laurent Dubois who was married to Antonia, of course, but his son. The other Laurent Dubois on the list I found in André’s office. Their son.
How had I been so easily deceived?
“I want to know what’s going on,” I declared, trying to summon every ounce of courage I had. A brave act, considering how much restraint it took to keep myself from just slapping him across the face.
