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He reappeared, clasping a bronze picture frame in his hands. “Bernard had it framed,” he explained, almost apologetically, as if afraid of being perceived as sentimental. He passed the frame to me, and I examined it, unable to contain my gasp of surprise.
The boy in the picture was clearly the same man who stood in front of me, with the same dark, hooded eyes. The boy wore the same guarded expression that I had seen in so many of the Beast’s publicity shots, but he was slighter, not yet the giant that stood before me. He was maybe 20, and his arms, though impressively muscled, were free of the scars that they would come to bear in years to come. He had indeed been a beautiful young man, but even in this picture I could sense a darkness that hung over him, that closed him off from anyone who tried to know him.
“Oh wow,” I said, brushing my thumb gently over the face of the boy in the photo. “When was this?”
“A few years after I came here,” Jacques said, returning to his seat. “I had just started to make a name for myself.”
I studied the man in front of me, comparing him to the boy in the photo. “How do you feel when you look at pictures from that time?” I asked.
Jacques shrugged, and I thought he wouldn’t answer. But then: “I worry about that boy, about what was going to happen to him. He didn’t know — about the world.”
I took a moment to digest this. “What would you tell yourself, if you could go back in time?”
“I would tell him to be careful, to make better decisions, so that he wouldn’t end up like me.”
Silently, I handed the picture frame back to Jacques, and he clasped it to himself without looking at it, as if seeing his younger self would be too much to bear. The beginnings of an article began to form in my mind.
I couldn’t wait to start writing.
14
Jacques
This was torture. I hated talking about myself, about my past. What was the point? There was no changing it now.
As if sensing my distress, Isabel stood. “Why don’t we take a break for a bit?” she suggested. “I’ve got some ideas, and I’d like to make a few notes for myself. We can talk more later this afternoon, if that’s all right by you.”
I nodded stiffly, grateful for the reprieve. I watched her carefully as she walked away, focusing on the graceful sway of her rounded hips as she moved. My cock twitched as I imagined gripping those hips, feeling the soft swell of her ass grind against me as I dominated her. There was no denying that I wanted her.
No wonder my men had been so cheerful since her arrival. The prospect of bedding a woman like that would put a spring in any man’s step.
I shook my head roughly to dispel the images that came to me, unbidden. I had to get ahold of myself. I had a plan: do the interview as quickly as possible and get this woman out of my home before she got too close to the truth. Getting caught up in fantasy about the girl’s full breasts and shapely lips was not part of the plan.
I needed a distraction. Despite the nip in the air, I knew that Alexandre had not yet drained the outdoor pool for the winter. A dip in the chilly water seemed just the thing to cool my unwanted ardor.
For the next hour, I pushed my body to its limit, slicing through the icy water until my skin was too numb to feel the cold, and my muscles screamed out for relief. This had always been my way: When the world around me became too loud or chaotic, I took it out on my body until everything else faded away. I couldn’t control the things that made my life difficult, but I could control my body, could keep it strong so that I was never again weak or helpless, could never be made a victim.
When I finally emerged, I was exhausted, breathing heavily. I remembered suddenly that I hadn’t slept the night before, which accounted somewhat for my bone-deep weariness. I checked the time; Isabel would likely be wanting to resume our interview soon. I hoped that I could get through it quickly, that her questions would remain as surface level as they had been earlier.
I don’t know what had possessed me to show her that photograph, nor why I had thought to retrieve it from deep within my closet after my conversation with Étienne that morning. I had hidden it away with the rest of the relics of my former life years ago, and had never given it a second thought. Why, then, had I brought it out so readily today?
