“Oh, we’re all a little ruthless, Olivier,” Blaise says. “We all have our ways of climbing to the top. You did. Not with the Dumont brand, but with the hotels. And you did, too, Seraphine, to get to the position you have. If you could, you would be at the top. I see that ambition in you. It runs in our blood. I think my side of the family just fed it more.”
He walks over to Seraphine and takes the bottle from her hands, taking a swig himself, not breaking eye contact with her. When he’s done, he wipes his mouth and says, “Is this our label, or is it actually something good? It all tastes like fire to me.”
“You never answered the question,” I remind him.
He shrugs. “What does it matter why I hate him? Just because someone is your brother—family—doesn’t mean you have to like them. Let’s just say that I have lived a different life from you in a different house. But my aspirations, my goals, they’re all the same.”
To get to the top, I think. If he can get Pascal out of the picture somehow, then he can take his position. But I don’t know if Blaise realizes his father and Pascal are a united front he will never get past. There are favorites in that family.
“So what are you going to do?” Seraphine asks me as Blaise hands me the bottle.
I take it. Why not?
It does taste like fire, but the kind that baptizes you.
The kind that burns away the fog and brings a certain type of clarity to your head.
I know what I have to do as I’m saying it.
“I’m going to Seattle,” I say. “Tonight. And I don’t know if or when I’m ever coming back.”
I expect Seraphine to make a fuss. I expect her to tell me that I’m doing what they want, that they’ll win this way, that father would disapprove.
But the truth is, father only ever wanted me to be happy.
And I know what makes me happy.
It’s Sadie.
It’s Sadie and nothing else.
“Good,” Seraphine says, and even though they aren’t related by blood and don’t look at all the same, I can see my father in her, hear him in her voice. I know he’s speaking through her, or she’s speaking through him. “I think that’s the right thing to do. Maybe it’s the only thing to do.”
“You don’t mind?”
She laughs dryly. “Mind? I’ll miss the hell out of you, but if you’re worried about leaving me on my own, don’t be.”
“I’ll make sure she’s okay,” Blaise says.
Seraphine looks at him, eyes wide in surprise. He just holds her gaze, and in that moment I know he’s telling the truth. For what it’s worth, she’ll be okay without me. Maybe she’ll even be better. Maybe we’ll all become better versions of ourselves once we’re left alone to figure out who we really are.
And what we really want.
And what I want is about to board a plane and fly thousands of miles away, across an ocean, to another land.
And I know I’m about to follow her there.
“I think I have a flight to catch,” I tell them, heading into my bedroom to grab my passport. When I come back out, Blaise and Seraphine are passing the bottle of brandy back and forth between them. “Can I trust you guys in my apartment?”
“You think we’re going to start fist-fighting?” Seraphine asks.
Not particularly.
“Fine. Can I trust you guys to get yourselves to the hospital at least?”
“I’ll take her,” Blaise says. “You just get the hell out of here.”
For a split second, I’m hit with the feeling that I’m doing exactly what they want, that my leaving Paris would only benefit Gautier and Pascal, as well as Blaise.
But that doesn’t mean I’m turning my back on any of this.
I’m just moving forward.
There’s just one stop I have to make on the way to the airport.
Gautier’s house is located just outside of Paris in a peaceful part of the country where rolling hills meet oak forests, a place I know like the back of my hand. All those summers I spent there as I was growing up, my days at that house and running around their property, rotating with all the days my cousins spent at my house.
On the surface, the memories seem pure. Untainted. Maybe that’s the way it is for so many people. Your childhood is full of sunshine and the smell of fresh grass,