I knew I wasn’t. I only hoped he could see in my face how utterly outrageous his accusation was and how much he’d hurt me with it. To think how differently we’d gazed at each other not so long ago, our bodies slick with sea water and desire.
I’d known our relationship was temporary, but there was no way I could have predicted the hammer that would come down on us. I swallowed and set my chin. “I think you’re forgetting who I am. I have a life waiting for me back home. A career.” If I could build it back up. “I am an architect. Something I worked hard for. I didn’t ask to be here. And I don’t even work for you anymore.” My chest heaved. “I was going to leave, Xavier, remember? This trip to Corsica, that I’m now regretting with every fiber of my being, was your idea because you were horny and lonely. And don’t you forget it.”
Without his brief display of rage a few moments ago, and his general dishevelment, you wouldn’t even know what he was thinking. His gaze on mine flickered, the only clue that he heard what I was saying.
I tore my eyes away and stared out at the graduated blue canvas of the horizon. Then I closed my eyes and conjured Dauphine’s sweet, joyful, laughing smile. She was going to be okay. That certainty struck me deep. “Stop pointing fingers at me, and let’s start thinking about how to find her,” I added tiredly.
“You are correct.”
“Excuse me?” I opened my eyes.
He looked back at the phone in his hand and read a text and then began texting someone back. “I should be focusing on Dauphine, not you,” he said after a few moments not looking up.
I blinked at his coldness. My eyes flooded, and my breath left me like I’d been winded. A little girl was missing. This wasn’t the time to indulge the tsunami of rejection and pain engulfing me. But my heart was breaking, tearing off in great jagged chunks. And I simply couldn’t hold it together anymore.
My chest constricted, unable to hold back the choking sob. Yanking my mouthpiece down so he didn’t have to hear it, I stuffed my fist in my mouth and curled over as if I could keep my heart from falling out of my chest.
The rest of the helicopter ride was silent for me. Xavier had gone onto a channel with the pilot, and I was left hanging in the muffled silence as we sliced through the air to mainland France. I could see the coastline, littered with the towns and cities of the Riviera.
I’d barely registered we were coming down on the roof of his mother’s house and then we were touching down. Clearly, I’d missed the flat roof and helipad on my tour. I glimpsed Madame out the window. She clutched the sleeve of her secretary, Jorge—both shielding their eyes from the sun and the wind of the blades.
My legs were jelly as we disembarked.
The elegant grand-mère I’d met had been replaced by an old lady with shaking hands who grabbed Xavier into a close hug, tears streaming down her face. Then she turned to me, and it was the most natural thing in the world for us to reach for each other, and in a moment I was wrapped in a hug full of warmth and sorrow and shared fear.
The engine turned off and the blades slowed, the roar slowly dying. My ears rang.
“Come, we will speak to the police, they have arrived downstairs,” Madame all but shouted.
Xavier nodded and stalked ahead. He looked broken, and terrified, and so utterly alone, and I wanted to support him.
Instead, I held out my arm for Madame, and she clasped it tightly while we followed.
Jorge held open a door to a stairwell with stucco walls and tile steps. The metal clanged closed behind us.
The sound of Xavier’s phone bleated loudly in the echo chamber of the stairwell. Ahead of us, he brought it to his ear, mid jog down the steps. “Allo.” He stopped dead, his hand reaching for the railing. His legs collapsed as he sat.
My stomach bottomed out. Oh fuck.
Beside me, Madame’s bony hand squeezed my arm like a vice. “Ô, mon Dieu, ô mon Dieu,” she wailed.
“Shhh,” I soothed. There was no way Xavier could hear anything if she cried any louder. “Shhh. Let him listen.”
We hurried down, stepping around him so we could see his face and try to