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My fingers curl into a ball at that admission. It would’ve been easier and less confusing if he was cruel. I don’t know how to place the man, and I need to know. He’s my enemy. An unpredictable enemy is the most dangerous kind. I don’t understand him, and that scares me. I don’t understand his actions or motivations.
A shadow stretches over the floor. Maxime steps up next to me, dressed in tracksuit pants and a T-shirt. I don’t turn my head to acknowledge him. I keep my gaze trained on the water and the lights, an image as pretty as it is traitorous, because I know what ugliness lies underneath the foundations of this city.
He takes the cigarette from my fingers. I only notice now how much I’m shaking and how my teeth are chattering from the cold. I sense him looking at me. I’m aware of him, no longer lost in my head, but I don’t look at him or acknowledge his existence.
He takes a drag before putting the cigarette out in the ashtray. “Do you smoke?”
“No.” I experimented a little after school but decided I didn’t like it. “Do you?”
“No.”
My question was meant to be sarcastic, but his answer surprises me, and even more so his placating tone. Leaning my elbows on the rail, I finally turn to face him. The jacket falls open, but I don’t care. I don’t care that I’m cold. I welcome the frozen numbness of my body. I don’t care that he sees. He’s seen it all. There’s nothing left to give.
The wind blows his fringe over his forehead. He must be cold, but he just stands there quietly, watching me. It infuriates me. I want him to talk, to tell me why I’m here, to explain this twisted game he’s playing.
“Why did you do it?” I ask.
He dips his head, his stance casual but his eyes sharp and aware. “Do what?”
“The dress, the flowers, the opera…the extravagant dinner. Why?”
His gaze is level. “For the same reason I brought you here.”
“You’ve already done the convincing role-play for Damian’s sake yesterday. You didn’t have to repeat it today.”
“I could’ve done that anywhere.”
I still. I’ve had it figured out. Didn’t I? If not to convince my brother I was here out of my own free will, a loved and pampered woman, then why? I will him to speak, to say it, but he’s keeping that little distance between us, waiting patiently for me to connect the dots.
“I don’t get it,” I finally say.
His monotone voice is flat, a robot conveying facts. Or maybe reserved, as if he’s not sure how I’m going to take this. “To give you your fantasy.”
The words bowl me over. For a moment, I still don’t understand, but then, slowly, the meaning sinks in. Oh, my God. My chest constricts. It hurts to breathe. He didn’t bring me here to show my friends and Damian how lucky and happy I am. Maybe that too, but that was just a convenient bonus.
My lips part in shock. “You brought me here to fuck me.” Because he knows my most intimate ideals. He knows about Venice, my fixation with this particular opera house, and my version of the perfect dress. He stole my life and my dream, mixed them together in some fucked-up fantasy, and served them to me in a twisted version of reality. He knows my desires and used them against me. “You son of a bitch. You used my dream to create this whole romantic little scenario.”
His regard remains cautious. “Would you have preferred the crueler version?”
“I prefer the truth.”
He closes the two steps between us. Grabbing the lapels of the jacket, he brings the edges together to cover my body. “Is that why you didn’t tell me, Zoe? Because you prefer the truth?”
I look away.
His tone is gentle, one you’d use trying to coax the truth out of someone. “Why were you still a virgin?”
“I was waiting for the right man,” I say like it doesn’t matter.
He nods, a silent acknowledgment of understanding. There’s no remorse in his voice when he says, “No man can be more wrong than me.”
I’m shaking violently when he picks me up, sheltering me against his chest. He carries me inside and easily closes the door balancing me in one arm. He goes to the bathroom and lowers me onto the rug next to the bath. I wrap my arms around myself, shivering as I watch him open the tap to let the water run warm. The petals and candles are gone. The bath has been cleaned. Housekeeping came in while we were having dinner.
The bath is only a quarter full when he slips his palms under the jacket and brushes it off my shoulders, carelessly disregarding the expensive garment crumpled on the floor. He picks me up and puts me on my feet in the bath. Taking a jar of bath salts from the edge, he empties the whole jar in the bath and scoops water into the jar that he empties over my shoulder.
