the mystery woman he brought to the funeral, so it would be best that I sit with the general public.
So that’s where I am now, watching as the casket is lowered into the ground, feeling like I got off the hook when everyone else is so affected.
Watching Olivier as he grapples with saying goodbye, his sister leaning on him on one side, his older brother, Renaud, leaning on the other.
So much is going to change now. The company and wills. I can already tell that things are going to get really ugly with his uncle and everyone else. They were at each other’s throats before this happened, and now . . .
It’s really the perfect excuse to leave.
If I was someone else, I would.
In fact, I think if I were the Sadie Reynolds I had been pretending to be all this time, the one who threw caution to the wind and chose to stay in the French Riviera with a stranger and follow him to Paris to have hot sex, I think that Sadie would say au revoir.
After all, Olivier is going to be extra busy now.
He’s not going to have any time for me.
He’s going to be dealing with all this change and grief and loss and stress, and I’m the last thing he needs to worry about.
I need to go.
I need to get to Madrid and get on that plane the day after tomorrow and go.
It would be better for him to deal with all this on his own.
But that’s not me.
I’m not that person who leaves. At least, I don’t want to be that person.
I want to stay.
I want to make sure Olivier is okay.
I want to be that shoulder for him to lean on, the same way he lets me lean on him.
I don’t want to be the person who turns around because a situation gets difficult.
That’s not what he would do for me.
If this situation were reversed, he would give it all up to make sure I was okay, that I was taken care of.
It’s one thing for him to tell me to go.
But even if he did, I won’t.
It’s scary to decide this, right here, right now.
But I’m deciding it.
I’ll have to defer my studies for another year, but at least they’ll still be there when I get back (an added bonus is that Tom won’t be in my classes anymore, but who gives a fuck about Tom).
And I won’t be with my mom.
That’s the worst thing. That’s the only real thing that keeps me tied to Seattle. I don’t want to let go of her. But the more I’ve been talking to my mom lately, the more I’ve realized that her dream wasn’t just about me spreading my wings and learning to fly—it was about her. She’s relied on me, and it was that reliance that made me rely on her. Now she’s better. Slowly, but surely, she’s becoming a better, more independent person.
I’ll still have to call her and explain the truth and hope to God that she understands. If there’s any tremor at all in her voice, the kind that tells me that her life will collapse without me there, then I’m getting on the first plane back.
But if that doesn’t happen, if she’s convinced she’ll be fine on her own, and if she can bring herself not to worry too much about me, then I’ll stay.
I have to say, my decision scares me.
But it’s not just about our relationship—yes, I’m afraid of whether Olivier even wants me around (it wasn’t what we agreed upon)—and about what it means to take it to the next level, to turn this from a vacation fling into a full-blown relationship.
But it scares me because . . .
His family scares me.
And Ludovic was the kind, smart, gentle soul holding everything that they are together.
Now he’s gone, and the threads are going to start unraveling.
And like it or not, now I know that, somehow, I’m going to be tangled up in those very same threads.
It might not be pretty.
I’m slowly walking away from the gravesite with the crowd, lingering by the trees at the cemetery, when I feel a rush of a cold breeze pass over my arms and then hear, “There you are again.” The voice comes from behind me, but I’m not even surprised.
A little scared but not surprised.
I stop and turn to face Pascal.
His face is stoic, no charming crooked smile, no coldness or heat in his eyes. It gives me nothing and