AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No surprises there.” He laughs, deep in conversation with Ken. “Stock-oriented hedge funds have low net exposure. I hardly ever deal with those time wasters.”
It’s all gibberish to me, so I open the manila folder without waiting and pull out the heavy stack of papers. It’s mostly pictures, which I wasn’t expecting. Largely printed and in good quality. I’m not even sure what I’m looking at. How could the private investigator capture pictures of Paul and Grace after they’ve passed away?
And yet that’s exactly what I’m holding in my hands.
The first picture is of Grace perched in Paul’s lap, grinning at the camera. The picture is taken by someone else, and the backdrop seems to be a party. A company party, to be exact. Why would they be so openly intimate in public?
Maybe their affair was Silver Arrow Capital’s worst-kept secret.
This explains why none of Paul’s colleagues wanted to answer my questions about him. Chose to send me flowers rather than pick up the phone.
The second picture is of both of them in Paris. Paris. Where they shared an apartment. A second, domestic life full of bliss. The window behind them is open, overlooking the Eiffel Tower. They’re not touching each other, which is somehow almost worse. Grace seems to be serving food to a small group of people while Paul cracks open a bottle of wine. This goes beyond betrayal. This wasn’t an affair, I realize—it was a love story.
The third picture is peculiar. I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s of Grace only. Puffy eyed and tired. She is slung over a bed, her mouth in a surly pout. There’s an Instagram caption under her face that reads, miss my baby
Said baby, I’m going to take a wild guess, is my late husband.
The final picture is the one that breaks me. It’s a picture of Paul and Grace kissing—full-blown kissing—in Italy. I recognize the background like I do the palm of my hand. The yachts. The bay. The pastel-colored buildings. I can almost smell the brine and the olive oil and the blossom of the nearby trees. They were at it when their partners were nearby.
With a soft gasp, I grab a pile of documents and throw them on top of the pictures so I don’t have to look at them. They’d met privately in Italy. Before that awful dinner, seeing as Arsène and Grace left hastily in the middle of it.
Paul kissed her before he kissed me on that balcony.
Been inside her before his mouth roamed the most sensitive parts of my body.
Then he shared a peach with me. Told me he wanted to have a child with me. Gave me hell for my coffee intake.
“My apologies.” Arsène slides into the seat next to me, tossing his smart phone to the other side of the table. “New client. I had to pretend to care.”
I’m already full to the brim with rage. Lashing out at him, the man who not only showed me more evidence of Paul’s indiscretions but treated me like I was an unwelcome cold caller since I walked into this apartment, is a no-brainer.
“Where’d the private investigator get all these pictures?”
“Grace had a secret Instagram account,” he supplies. “Finstagram, I think the clued-in youngsters call it.”
“Why would she be so mindless?” I roar.
Arsène shrugs. “I don’t have any social media, so the prospect of being caught by me was slim. Plus, it was set on private. It allowed Paul to leave her flirty comments without you seeing them.”
“From his real profile?” I splutter. He nods. I want to throw up.
“They really loved each other, didn’t they?” I worry my lip. How else can I explain the frequency, the intensity, with which they carried out their affair? It was almost like they were begging to be caught.
Arsène’s eyes hunt my face for something, for a reaction I don’t deliver. After a moment, his attention returns to the thick file. “Yes. I suppose they did love each other. We were their safe bets. But they were each other’s safe haven.”
I go through the rest of the file. It’s comprehensive. Not that I would expect less from a man like Arsène. Though it must be said, he doesn’t look half as heartbroken as I thought he’d be when we go through the material.
Paul and Grace shared an apartment in Paris and biweekly trips to their favorite Manhattan hotel. They also went to Saint Moritz together for a skiing trip, were treated as a couple by their colleagues, and were planning to buy an apartment together in SoHo, not too far from my place. They’d already put in an offer at the time of their deaths. The contingency fell through when they passed.
There were presents, and holidays, and plans for the future. Romantic dinners, shopping sprees, and even nicknames. He called her Gigi.
