a lump in my throat. I’m sad, but it’s more than that. I barged right into someone’s most sacred, intimate moment and didn’t even bother to ask permission. Leila’s note was private—a wish, a prayer, a confession to a lover long gone. There is obviously an amazing essay in here that I’m sure would blow away the Art Institute judges, but there’s a quiet whisper in my mind telling me that we haven’t only been trespassing at the h?tel; we’ve been trespassing on someone’s life, too. Is Leila’s life my story to tell?
Alexandre shifts in his sleep.
I think about his family and how afraid they must be of what they might lose. How the possibility of finding a missing Delacroix carries a kind of burden for him that it doesn’t for me. He’s trying to save his legacy; I’m trying to build my future. And the fact of the matter is, I have more options than him, more chances. It wasn’t coincidence that brought us together; it was his uncle. But somehow when he reached for the past while I grasped for the future, our hands linked and formed a circle.
I get up and stretch, then pad into the kitchen to start some coffee. The smoky, nutty smell swirls through the room, and slants of bright light fill the apartment, rousing Alexandre from his sleep.
He twitches, yawns, and pulls himself up from the sofa. “How long was I asleep? You could’ve woken me,” he says in a gravelly morning voice and runs his fingers through his messy hair.
“A few hours. And it’s okay; one of us deserved some beauty sleep.”
He smiles, reaching for his phone. “I’m the only one in this room that needs it.” Then he crosses the room, excusing himself to freshen up.
I realize I haven’t looked in the mirror, so I quickly splash some water on my face from the kitchen sink and finger-comb my hair. I’m relying on this coffee to take away my morning breath, so I add an extra cube of sugar and whirl it around with milk and take a big gulp before Alexandre comes out.
When he reemerges, he walks to the kitchen and drapes himself across the bar. I’m distracted by his tousled bedhead that somehow makes him more attractive. But I snap out of it when he sets down his phone in front of me. “Check out this email. It’s the reason I wanted to go to the Chateau de Monte-Cristo. My uncle Gérard—” He catches himself and pales.
I wince when he mentions his uncle—the one who hatched the whole Insta-stalker plan. I may have softened slightly toward Alexandre, but Gérard Dumas is still high on my shit list. I nod at Alexandre, giving him the silent okay to continue.
He takes a swig of his coffee. “Apparently, there’s a legend that a mysterious Middle Eastern woman might’ve inspired the sack death in The Count of Monte Cristo.”
“The Giaour sack death? Leila being thrown into the sea by the Pasha? But Byron made that up; I mean, she’s alive. Was. The poem was a fiction. You saw her letter.”
“That’s exactly it.” Alexandre runs his hand over his face. “Dumas would obviously have known about the Byron poem but also the truth of Leila’s story. My uncle says there are stories of cryptic journal entries Dumas left when writing Monte Cristo—maybe about the sack death—but he’s never seen the originals. Could be rumors.”
I chuckle. “Oh, so I guess it’s up to us meddling kids to do the grunt work to find them, right?”
Alexandre gives me this blank look. Apparently Scooby references don’t translate, and I don’t take the time to explain. “It feels like Dumas’s ghost has masterminded this whole mystery, because we have the makings of a classic Dumas novel—intrigue, family secrets, hidden treasure, duels—”
“Don’t forget hope and romance.” Alexandre looks at me with expectant eyes.
“Don’t forget jealousy, deception, and revenge,” I counter.
Alexandre sucks in his breath. “I could never forget. But Dumas also wrote about the strength of friendship and finding a way to carry on after everything feels lost.”
I put a hand on his arm, directing our attentions back to his phone. “What exactly am