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“I’m the main person involved, El, so I think I know the gravity of the situation, yes,” she huffs.
“You might have to go to court for drug trafficking, but I assume you know that already, too. This is swiftly getting out of control and you aren’t doing anything to mitigate damage here.”
“I know about the criminal investigation,” Roxie confirms, sounding grim as she continues pacing the floor around the dining table. “I’ve been talking to my lawyer, so it isn’t like I’m avoiding it altogether.”
“Sit down,” I push the chair next to me out with my foot. “You’re stressing me out with all the pacing. So, what you’re saying is that you’re working to fix the damage legally but you’re letting things fall apart with your fiancé in private because you’re too scared to be honest with him?”
“You have no idea of how this is all affecting me, El, so I wish you’d just quit pretending like you do.” Her tone is snappy, but she does as I ask and sinks into the chair next to me, letting her head fall into her hands with her elbows on the dining table.
“Have you considered how badly this could play out between the two of you if you don’t own up to things before we get home?” I ask, folding my hands in my lap.
“Yeah, our engagement––”
“No,” I interrupt. “That’s not what I mean. What if once we are back in Amsterdam you get arrested? If you don’t tell Andries what’s going on he’s just going to watch this happening under his nose and have no idea what for.”
Roxanne blanches. “That’s… fuck… I don’t know, Elise…”
“Youhaveto give him time to process it,” I insist.
“I don’t want him to know anything just yet.” She sounds desperate, even lost. “He hasn’t figured it out yet, what’s so wrong with giving us a few more days of peace together before everything goes to hell.”
There’s no way she can be so blind to what is going on here. Roxanne’s denial has me on the edge of being angry, but I tamp it down the best I can. I need to be reasonable if I’m going to get her to finally confess. I can feel her teetering on the edge of telling Andries everything, but if I push too hard she’s going to balk. I have to be careful. All of the time in my life that I’ve spent manipulating people to do what I want for less-than-noble reasons can finally be used for something positive, and that’s saving my brother from embarrassment and mental ruin.
“He likely already knows, Roxanne,” I tell her, reaching over to touch her knee so she looks up at me. “It’s destroying him. He’s testing us all, I’m sure of it.”
“I’ve had that thought too.” She pauses, taking my hand that I laid on her knee and holding it between both of hers, trying to express her sincerity to me. “You know why I’m hesitating so much, don’t you? I’m usually not scared of things like this, El. I'm not afraid of the media, or what this could do to my public reputation, which has already been dragged through the mud lately… but now I have something that I am frightened of, and that’s losing your brother. I’m so scared that he will leave me just like he did when he found out about the escort agency, and as much as I loved him then, the amount of love I have for him now is unimaginable, and losing him would utterly destroy me.”
There are tears both in her voice and glimmering in the corners of her eyes. My heart aches for her, and for my brother, and I wish so badly that there was an alternate path for us to take where everyone could walk away without being hurt. But it’s too late, and Roxanne’s single lie about being the owner of Bar Rouge has snowballed out of control, and now the revelation of that fact will harm us all. But it has to be done… there’s no way around it. I just have to convince her of that.
“Roxie, you have to come to terms with the reality that you’ve been lying to him your entire relationship now. First about your job, and now about Bar Rogue. That’s why he broke up with you then, and that’s why you’re afraid he’s going to do the same thing now. Andries is going to come to this same conclusion–that the two of you have not had one day of your relationship that hasn’t been shadowed by a lie of yours.”
Roxanne swallows hard, and I think she might be sick, but I can’t stop now. “It might have been okay if you told him immediately about owning Bar Rouge,” I continue, “I’m not sure how much that would bother him, since it isn’t outright sex work, but you kept that a secret. You should have just sold it along with your escort business, but that’s neither here nor there. Now, the single lie about you owning the cabaret has become a firestorm of drama. You went from owning a slightly inappropriate business to beinginvestigatedfor drug trafficking charges.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” She nearly sobs, her eyes holding back tears on the verge of falling. “Don’t you think I’ve thought about that every second of every day since the scandal first broke?”
I take my hands from hers and sit back in my chair. It looks like she might crumble in on herself, and I figure that if there’s ever a time she’s going to be vulnerable enough to be influenced by me completely, it’s now. Roxanne and I are wildly different women, but we both share a stubborn streak a mile wide, so this might be my only opportunity.
“Let me call Andries and the three of us can talk. I’ll stay by your side if you need me to, but we can end this agony once and for all. I will help you talk to him, Roxie. You just have to let me.”
My words roll over her like the ocean itself, they are so heavy, but with tears streaming down her lovely face, Roxanne Feng nods and puts her heart in my hands. “Okay,” she utters, her voice barely audible. “I’ll do it.”
I’m on my feet before she can even process changing her mind, all but running down the hallway and out to the terrace. My pulse is racing faster even than my thoughts, and I can’t even believe that I’ve finally gotten this chance to clear us all of the heavy guilt we’ve been carrying. If Roxanne does it with me there, then Andries can’t hold anything against me for not telling him in the first place, because his fiancée and I will be doing it at the same time.
I slow myself down when I reach the terrace so I don’t alarm anyone, but Dan sees me immediately and knows that something is different. He stops the game and swims to the edge of the pool, watching me like a hawk as I approach the water.
“Andries, Roxanne, and I need to talk to you in the dining room,” I announce, causing everyone in the pool to look at me. My brother stiffens, and out of the corner of my eye, I can see Dan already climbing out of the pool. I don’t need him with us, because I’m afraid he’ll be too quick to back Andries and encourage his anger without even realizing he’s doing so, just by being overly supportive. Their friendship has been on the rocks the past few days, and I can see Dan overcompensating to try and repair it at the worst possible time.
“Alright,” Andries says simply, climbing out of the pool as well. He goes to dry himself off, where Dan has just finished doing the same thing before coming to me and speaking quietly.
“Can I join you?”
“I’d rather that you didn’t,” I tell him seriously, but Dan is already pulling his t-shirt on.
“El, I only asked as a courtesy. I’m coming no matter what.”
I roll my eyes, resisting the urge to punch him in the arm. “Fine, but you aren’t there to be a cheerleader for my brother. We’re trying to salvage their relationship if we can, not make Andries feel righteous or whatever.”
“Have a little faith in me,” Dan says just as Andries comes to join us. His expression is stony, and I can’t read him at all. He’s been so impossible this entire trip that sometimes it feels like I’m talking to a stranger and not my brother that I’ve grown up with.
