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Chiara was sure her sharp inhalation was very much audible. “You are indispensable, Renate. Without you, there is no Lilien. What will Frankie say?”
Renate blew the bangs out of her eyes and her mouth twisted in an unpleasant grimace.
“You are the indispensable one, Chiara Conti.” The sound of her name, said in that deep accented voice, so simple, so to the point. Renate was the first to use her maiden name, to give it back to her. Chiara’s eyes stung. She swallowed convulsively.
“Renate—“
“I’m guilty. I am. No, don’t say anything!” She dismissed Chiara’s raised hand and barreled on. “I knew. For years. I knew, and I looked the other way, I covered up, I stood silent.”
“I hope you know I don’t blame you—“
“Iblame me!” The outburst, the rage, was so out of character for the usually phlegmatic Swiss. Chiara could count the instances she had ever heard Renate shout on the fingers of one hand. “And not just for the cheating. I blame myself for standing aside while, for twenty years, my sister placed the sole responsibility for our family business on your shoulders. I blame myself for you taking it on and breaking your back while she hawked all the credit and slept with half of Paris and a third of London.”
“I think there might have been a quarter of Milan as well?” Chiara raised an eyebrow and smirked. Her attempt at levity was received with a huff and a twitch of the thin lips.
“I have no idea how you can be so calm about any of this.”
“Well, you yelled enough for both of us this past year, and you’ve thrown more mannequin parts at her than we could spare. I think you single-handedly kept that entire industry in business.” Renate’s lips twitched again.
Chiara’s smile was pensive as she wrapped her arms around herself and she could hear her own voice going hoarse. “The marriage was broken long before she started sleeping around, Renate. And I am no saint, either.”
“Oh please…” Renate’s dismissive gesture did not soothe.
“I’ve had an entire year to think about things. I was so desperate to be something she wanted, I forsook myself. Simply dissolved in all of this. And I guess in trying to please her, the Chiara she loved was gone. So I have not been a good wife, Renate. I wasn’t, and you know it.” Chiara’s voice was barely above a whisper. The cat, as if sensing her distress, reached out a paw and patted the mesh of the carrier, trying to get to her.
“When all is said and done, who could fault you? I certainly never would. And honestly, neither did Frankie. She was never easy to be a goodanythingto. Wife, sister. She didn’t even use it during the divorce proceedings. This… whatever it is you weren't good at. And god knows, she used every little thing to drag this out.”
Renate’s tone held a tacit note of disgust, and Chiara smiled mirthlessly.
“Yes, she used it all, and to what end?”
“To the end of you letting her keep absolutely everything!” And now the disgust was loud and clear. “How could you? Why would you? You worked for twenty years! You are solely responsible for Lilien Haus making it onto the haute couture list. Nothing that has been achieved these past two decades could have been done without you.”
Renate’s chest rose and fell, and she visibly struggled not to raise her voice again. “Yes, she is my sister, and yes, we started this business together, but I was never incognizant of her limitations. She is talented, and her swagger certainly got us very far. But you…” And now the agitated tone broke and Renate’s cheek flamed, perhaps embarrassed at her own emotional state.
“You took us beyond anything we ever dreamed of being. Top ten brands in the world. Millions in profit. Biggest, most famous, most innovative and creative… The awards, the accolades. Chiara,Liebling, how could you have let her keep it all? After all she has done?”
A tear ran down Renate’s cheek, and Chiara uncrossed her arms and wiped it away, then enveloped the older woman in a gentle hug before turning back to the rain-stained windows above Rue Saint-Honoré.
“Are you upset about me not taking half of everything? Or about Frankie not paying?”
She heard Renate shuffle behind her, coming closer until they were side by side, overlooking the gloomy street.
“Honest to goodness, I don’t know.”
Chiara laughed, and Renate joined her with a smile.
“If I would have demanded anything, so much as a penny, Frankie would have dragged this out even longer. She’d have gotten what she wanted. The attention. My time. My mind, my heart. And I have none of that to spare for her. I’ve been buried for a year, Renate, and I needed her to tread lightly over my ground. She didn’t anyway, but at least I get my peace from now on.”
“So you win by letting her keep millions?”
Chiara nodded and looked away. Behind her, Renate’s “tsk” was all disgust again.
In the distance, pigeons cooed and cars honked. The familiar and beloved sounds of Paris, soothing her raw, abraded emotions. She would miss this. The view, certainly. But also the safety of this place. The safety that was no longer there.
“I’ll go with you.” In the quiet of the rainy afternoon, Chiara thought she’d hallucinated the words. She turned to look at Renate, but her companion was focused on the street beneath them, an unlucky pedestrian getting his very nice shoes drenched in the puddles. “I told you I’m selling my half. If she doesn’t buy me out, I’ll simply sell to the first person who offers me decent money and leave. She can’t keep me here, and she can’t make me hold on to my share. I don’t want it anyway. I love her. And I can’t stand her. So that’s that.”
“Renate…” Chiara felt as if she was submerged in water, too deep to swim, the shock overwhelming.
