If there was anything stranger than waking up in a millionaire’s mansion in France, it was Gina getting up before me.
“I didn’t get a wink of sleep,” she explained, and then she dropped a pile of clothes on my bed.
“I don’t know if there’s anything you like,” she said, sitting cross-legged on the mattress, “Eloïse gave them to me.”
Eloïse. It seemed my friend hadn’t spent the night in the room that nice little man had assigned her. I dropped into the seat across from her and sifted through the pile of clothes. Not a trace of pink. I let out a low groan, my eyes barely open, and her laughter echoed in response.
I chose a white dress, short, with wide sleeves and a corset-style fitted waist. Eloïse and I were different sizes, but Gina did her best to adjust the bodice to my waist. The dress covered enough and had an elegant flair. It was giving white tie, in the sense that it was white and so tight that my breasts were like a tie around my neck. I still get dizzy thinking about how hard it was to breathe in it, for God’s sake. I wished that day would end soon.
“Aren’t you going to brunch?” I said to Gina, seeing her lying back on my bed, still in her pyjamas.
“I am,” she stifled a yawn. “Tell me, on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it that the French included a decent chicken tikka masala on the menu?”
I chuckled. “Slim to none, I just hope they have chocolate crepes.”
Gina sat up like a zombie resurrected at the mention of food, back straight, eyes wide open.
“Crepes! If they have ham and cheese, I think I could let go of the chicken thing.”
I slapped her thigh.
“You’re not going to eat crepes with your dear Eloïse looking like that. Get dressed!”
I planted my feet on the ground and started to get up. There were a few things I wanted to take care of before meeting the Dubois. I admit, I was eager to snoop around the house a bit.
“Wait,” Gina stopped me. “I saw him earlier.”
I thought she was talking about Bastian. To be honest, I didn’t understand the ins and outs of the relationship Gina, Eloïse, and he had put together in just over a day. Both of them were dating Eloïse. Eloïse was dating both. Did I think Gina was moving too fast by traveling to another country to meet the family of the girl she had met the night before? Yes. Did it surprise me? No. Gina has done crazier things for love in the few months we’ve been sharing a flat.
“What? Did he walk into Eloïse’s room? Did he kill the mood?”
Gina pursed her lips, squinting at me.
I quickly realized my mistake.
“No, Vera. I’m talking about…”
“Oh. Enzo.”
“Elo told me they are siblings,” she added, biting her lip.
The conversation we had last night came back to me all at once. What Laurent Dubois had told me, what Bastian had discovered. It wasn’t a topic I could just let pass. Gina had to know.
I lowered my voice, just in case.
“Listen, Enzo is helping me with the money issue,” I said. “It doesn’t matter who he is or what his family is like. He’s with me.”
“That’s great!” I replied. “Maybe I can convince Eloïse tohelp us, too. She has a lot of influence, right?”
It pained me to shatter her dream with what Dubois had told me. I recognized that look in her eyes: Gina was already daydreaming about the future. If I dated Enzo and she dated Eloïse, we could be family. We could get married on the same day and wear matching dresses.
But I didn’t believe in fate, and I wasn’t sure that was the future I envisioned, either. Not with so many things happening around us.
“Eloïse can’t know,” I said, carefully choosing my words, “not yet. Not until we know how the Club’s money ended up in my hands.”
I told her that Mr. Dubois had revealed that Antonia Hawtrey-Moore had left a small part of her inheritance to Eloïse. Nothing had gone to her current husband, nor to Laurent Dubois… nor to Enzo. An inheritance of ten million pounds. The Club belonged to the Dubois family, but if Eloïse was as much Dubois as Hawtrey-Moore, it wasn’t too far-fetched to think the money came from her.
Or was it?
