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"A year," Manon says, as if weighing the weight of the words. Her brother is saying her name over and over and it’s pretty obvious she isn't hearing him. She's looking at me like she's searching for the trick, the trapdoor, the fine print written somewhere on my face.
"One year," I say. "That's all I'm asking for."
It's not.
CHAPTER 2
Manon
"You can't marry him."
Julien has been telling me this since the Novak funeral home gates closed behind us. He says it through a split lip that makes every word a project. I stare at the bandage I taped over his brow in that driveway while armed men watched me work and sigh. I feel a headache coming on, and my heart is racing. I wish he'd shut up and let me think.
"You can't," he kept going. "Papa won't allow it. The family won't allow it. Manon, are you listening to me—"
"You were kneeling on Novak’s terrace not long ago with a napkin shoved in your mouth," I say. "Now you have opinions about my wedding. I wish you'd thought about all this before you did what you did."
"That's not—"
"Did you even think when you were stabbing that guy? Besides, you heard the whole thing, Julien. You were six feet away. Did you say anything then? When it would have mattered?" I take the ramp onto the coast road. "No. You knelt there and let your sister buy your life, and now that your neck is safe you've discovered your principles. They have wonderful timing, your principles. They always arrive just after the danger's gone."
That shuts him up all right. He turns to the window and I watch his reflection try to build a version of tonight where none of this is his fault. He'll manage it. He always does. Give it a week and he'll believe the story completely—that he was provoked, that Nicko had it coming, that I overreacted by intervening. My brother could fall down an elevator shaft and land blaming the building.
His blood has dried on my cuff. It isn't the first blood I've had on me today. Not even close. But everyone else I bled on tonight had the sense to be grateful once I stitched them shut and they came to. Not Julien.
"He's going to eat you alive," Julien says quietly, to the window. "You don't know what Novak is. You've been playing doctor in your other life while the rest of us—"
"Playing." I don't raise my voice. I learned from the best that you never need to, but damn, I want to strangle him right now. "Just zip it, Julien, or I'll do something I'll regret later."
He registers the frustration in my voice and stops plaguing me. He knows this family business always has my emotions in a twist, and I'm at the end of my rope.
Our phones have been ringing non-stop the entire drive and I haven't been in the mood to respond. I'll probably let him deal with that. Haven't I done enough?
My family's mansion appears through the trees and every window is lit. All of them, both wings, the lanterns along the drive—and my stomach drops, because nobody in my family lights the house like that at one in the morning unless there's an emergency or unusual activity they're aware of. Calls have been made, of course. They've gotten some answers.
Cars I recognize are parked three deep on the gravel. Olivier's grey Mercedes. Sandro's ridiculous American thing. The old Citroën that Février has driven since before I was born and will apparently be buried in.
The men are here. All of them.
Julien notices them too and suddenly he is no longer spilling out his opinions. He's gone very quiet beside me, and his knee has started bouncing.
"Papa knows," he says.
"Papa knows you stabbed Nicko Novak in that club. He doesn't know the rest." Although that is bad enough… I park between the Mercedes and the fountain. "So here's what happens. Sit down, shut up, and look sorry. Fake it if you have to. I just watched you fake being brave in that garden."
"Manon—"
"Not a word, Julien." I get out of the car.
At the gates, Denis and Rémy stand with rifles slung, and neither of them will look at me straight. So many years ago, Denis taught me to swim, while Rémy wept at my medical school graduation and has denied it since. These men have always had my back. Tonight, they look at Julien's ruined face, then somewhere past my shoulder, and Rémy murmurs, "On vous attend dans la salle à manger," and my stomach drops the rest of the way.
The dining room.
The last time I saw my father with his most trusted men in the dining room, at a late hour, I was twelve. Unbeknownst to them, I sat on the stairs in my pjs, watching. I knew them all. Uncle Théo laughed too loudly at something in the hall, the door closed, and I never saw him again. Nobody has said his name in this house in more than two decades. His wife still sends my mother cards at Christmas, signed only from her.
Problems go to the study.
The dining room is where my family decides things.
