Chapter 9
For some asinine reason, André Dubois refused to respond to his wife’s cries for a divorce. Pride, was it? Or were these his true colors coming out?
It didn’t help that he also refused to talk to her, while also making it sound like Valeska’s fault. “I will not entertain these terrible accusations until you come to your senses. Start by reading my letters.” What the hell was that supposed to mean? Was it mud slung at Valeska’s lack of French skills? I get it, André, I do. I’m too stupid to be your wife. I’m too stupid to call this country my home.
It had never been her home. Not Paris, not Monaco, not any part of the Francophone world. They were façades built to give the illusion that she might have a place in them. Her children fit in better than she did. Every time Daniela cried for her papa, she did it in French, as if intending to slide a knife right into her mother’s heart.
The worst part? André wasn’t even in France. He had flown to Monaco to “attend to some matters” while leaving his broken home to further crumble in Paris. I’m not hanging around for this. Valeska had already started packing her things. Her sister had come down from London and insisted on helping, even though Hailey’s definition of “help” was sitting on her ass and using it as an excuse to escape her brood back in England.
“I honestly didn’t think you would respond like this, Leska.” Hailey lay across the master bed, watching her sister choose which clothes to get rid of and which to permanently take back to Vienna the following week. Pretty soon, the only people still living in that Parisian townhouse would be the staff. Come back home and take care of this shit, André. Valeska hoped her departure would have that effect on him. Knowing her luck, however, he’d come track her down in Vienna and demand to take the kids back to Paris.
This was going to be a long, messy divorce, wasn’t it?
“How did you think I would respond? Were you and Mother of some same mind?” Marlene had crowed over the phone that her daughter was a foolish brat for demanding a divorce. It didn’t matter how many times Valeska explained André had forced her hand by refusing to admit to his affairs. At that point, it was Valeska’s pride and self-worth on the line. André had forgone negotiations when he treated her like a stupid, naïve twit.
“For one,” Hailey said with a sigh, “I thought you would go get yourself a boyfriend in retaliation. It’s about time you treated yourself to one.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Really?”
Hailey shrugged. “I love my husband and he’s been good to me? We have no need for other people.”
No shit. You guys keep having kids. There were as many stereotypes to throw at Hailey’s Irish husband as there were to heap upon Frenchman André. I suppose I look like the raging German bitch. Everyone could go fuck themselves.
“I loved him too.” Valeska sat down at her vanity. “He had been good to me, too. Honestly, I saw the affairs coming, but… I can’t stay with a man who will deny them. I will not be married to a liar. How dare he insult my integrity like that?”
“Have you considered that he’s actually telling the truth?”
Valeska almost knocked over her face creams. “Are you kidding me? You saw the pictures Mom received. He was cavorting with the nanny at least. I’m not going to let him get away with lying about fucking her in my own home. The kids are around and will only understand more as they get older. For all I know, they fucked in that bed.”
Hailey looked at it with sudden disgust.
“Yeah, okay, but have you considered that Mom is an overreacting woman with her own issues? Dad’s been cheating on her for years, and she’s convinced herself that it’s okay because she gets to keep his money and properties when he dies. She thinks it’s a price she pays for marrying rich. Do you know how many times she’s tried to convince me that Dillon is fucking our chef?”
“Is he?”
“No!”
“How do you know?”
Hailey sat up. “Because I actually trust the asshole. The man is still head over heels in love with me. He told me he wanted ten kids with me. Can you believe it? I told him after this last one that I think I’m done. Time to retire the ol’ uterus and be happy with five kids in ten years. Know what he said?”
Valeska shook her head.
“He told me that our five children were more than enough to make him happy ‘til his dying day. Okay, so I don’t get across how romantic he made it sound, but the truth is… that man picked me out of a crowd because he knew the cosmos had brought us together for a reason. Hell, Leska, who am I to turn down the cosmos?”
“Did you get religious during your marriage?”
“Maybe a little. You kinda have to go with it if you’re going to be Catholic in England.”
“I suppose. Never thought I’d hear you say stuff like that.”
“All I’m saying is that André always seemed madly in love with you. Maybe it’s not what you think.”
Valeska bit her lip in trepidation. “You think he was madly in love with me?”
“He probably still is.” Hailey shrugged. “I was always kinda jealous, you know. I love Dillon, but André is on another level. It’s the French in him. Dillon is down to Earth and a real family man, but André? Whew. Surprised you guys didn’t have more kids, because you wouldn’t get me to leave that… er, this… bedroom.”
“Don’t talk about my husband like that.”
“See? You still think of him as your husband.”
Of course she did. Didn’t Hailey get it? André is mine. He was always supposed to be mine. From the day I agreed to marry him, I harbored the fantasy that it would only be him and me for the rest of our lives. She didn’t think it was possible, though. Wasn’t she constantly preparing herself for the inevitable two year mark talk?
Except it hadn’t gone the way she expected. Before Valeska knew it, her husband had declared his intentions to stay only with her.
Even though she always screamed at herself that it was a lie.
That all of this was inevitable.
Fuck me. I’m an idiot.
“I refuse to be taken advantage of,” Valeska reasserted. “I know my worth.”
“Great! Go tell him that.”
“That’s part of the problem, isn’t it?” Valeska stared at her reflection, convinced that things were more vain than they seemed. He doesn’t want me because I’ve gotten older. I’m not the same. He’d rather have a younger girlfriend to serve his ego. She told herself it couldn’t be helped. It was his nature as a privileged man. Hadn’t her mother and her sister warned her?
I’m not sure I know his real nature at all. She always looked at André through an English-speaking filter. Neither of them was native in the language. More often than not they relied on their actions and body language to convey what they really meant. So much room for error – on both sides. “We’ve never been great at communicating. He was too busy to learn German, and I never got farther than learning how to shop at the supermarket in French. I can barely communicate with my daughter most days.”
Valeska went back to the closet. There, in a wooden box beneath her evening gowns, was the stack of letters André had sent her over the years. She brought the whole box to the bed, where her sister looked on in intense curiosity.
“He always sent me a letter whenever he went away for business. He’d send little tokens with them. You remember that Swiss keychain you loved so much? It was in a letter he sent me from Zurich.”
“That’s sweet.”
“Yeah, except…” Valeska showed her sister the last letter she received two months ago. “He always wrote them in French. He didn’t start adding English until later.”
“You couldn’t understand them?”
Valeska shook her head, embarrassed. “I really tried in the beginning. I think he thought they would encourage me to practice my French, but it was much too difficult. By the time I started to understand them better, I realized they were letters detailing what it was like and what he did.” Valeska would never forget staying up half the night to translate the first two paragraphs of a letter, only to realize André had written some huge description about the olive oil in Greece. Whoopee. How bored had the man been? Bored enough to write his wife instead of chasing tail, I suppose.
Hailey dug to the bottom of the box. Valeska had always tried to keep them in chronological order. One day, she was going to give them to her daughter so she could see how romantic her parents’ marriage had been. Now? Burning the whole thing sounded good.
“Huh.” Hailey glanced through one of the earliest letters. They always used to be so long and detailed. I wished so badly that I could read them. More than once Valeska had thought about asking her tutors or the staff, but was too embarrassed. They were letters meant for her eyes only. “His handwriting is beautiful.”
“I know.”
“Uh…” Hailey snorted. “I know my French is even worse than yours, but my English is definitely better by this point. And, um… English is a good chunk French like it is German, you know?”
“What about it?”
“Just saying. These letters are kinda… never mind.”
“No. What?”
Hailey picked out another letter. Her eyes immediately widened.
“What the hell is it?”
“I think he’s saying…” Hailey laughed. “No fucking way!”
“What?”
“Oh my God. This is too good. No wonder you were so confused. The man is talking in metaphors. Typical French asshole. There’s this whole paragraph about the leaning tower of Pisa, but I’m pretty sure he’s talking about his dick.”
Valeska couldn’t swallow. What was that about her husband being one centimeter too far to the left?
“Oh, well, this is blunt. He’s saying he jacks off thinking about you.” Hailey tossed the letter back into the box, gagging. “Gross. Did not need to know that.”
“You’re making that up. You said so yourself. Your French is worse than mine.”
“Maybe it’s better than yours, if I can understand that and you can’t.”
“Stop teasing me. This is my time of need, you brat.”
“I don’t mean to tease you, but you should go through and try reading some of these letters again.”
Hadn’t André said something similar? “You should try again! You might be surprised!” He had been mortified to know that she had never fully understood his letters over the years. In the moment, Valeska hadn’t given a shit. Now, however, she rethought her stance on the letters.
She waited until the rest of the household had gone to sleep, including Hailey, who was staying in the guest room. Once Valeska had some quiet and privacy, she pulled the box over to the desk by the windows in her room and turned on one extra light. Her French dictionary was open and her phone prepped with its auto translator.
Valeska started with the very first letter. André had gone on a business trip shortly after they returned from their honeymoon and moved into this townhouse. Barcelona, wasn’t it? Valeska had been surprised to receive a letter two days later, but her French was so poor that she gave up way too soon.
Now, she tried again.
“My dearest wife,” all right, easy enough… “Barcelona is a beautiful Spanish city that is as warm as our heart.”
Our heart? Was that right? Valeska doublechecked the internet for its thoughts. Didn’t he mean his heart? Its heart? Even her heart?
No. He clearly said “our.”
“I miss you.”
Valeska struggled for a good hour, attempting to translate bits and pieces, but as the night wore on and her brain became more sluggish, she realized she didn’t have a prayer in translating it by herself. It didn’t help that one sentence often conflated with another. One minute André talked about the excellent dinner he had at the hotel, and the next he mentioned something about a woman’s colorful skirt. Was it another patron at the restaurant? His assistant from his office? One of Valeska’s skirts? Or was it a metaphor, like Hailey claimed?
Valeska opened a chat window in her phone. She hadn’t texted her husband in days. She figured he didn’t want to hear from her. He was probably busy with whatever mistress he acquired in Monaco.
She couldn’t help herself.
“I’m trying to read your letters.”
Before she retired to sleep, she received a reply. At least fifteen minutes had passed.
“And?”
She stared at that response as if she were supposed to know what to say. “I’m as confused as ever.”
“It’s my fault. I do not write clearly enough for you. I should have tried English.”
“I’ll figure it out. I’m starting with the first one.”
“I remember the first one. Good luck. I am embarrassed now.”
He didn’t respond to anything else that night. The only thing André sent before Valeska drifted off to sleep was a phone number and the assurance that the man could be trusted. “I’ve already contacted him and told him to bill me on your behalf.”
Valeska quickly looked it up. It was a professional translator from a local university.
She supposed she had nothing else to lose at this point. She had already lost her husband. What was a little more dignity taking a box full of letters to a total stranger?
***
Monsieur Michel patted his forehead when he finished translating André’s first letter and brought it back out to Valeska in his waiting room. “Madame Dubois… your husband is very… poetic.”
Why was this man sweating so profusely? It was practically winter. “Thank you, I suppose. Were you able to figure most of it out?”
“Let’s say I’m not surprised you had such difficulty for your basic skill level.” A piece of printed paper accompanied the copy of André’s letter. “He employs a lot of literary techniques in the letter. I was thrown off a time or two until I realized that.”
“And?”
“Let us say… when he talks about sights and food, he is not necessarily talking about them. Well, ah… I tried to make it clear in my translation. Forgive me, Madame Dubois. I’m used to scandalous articles in my line of work, but there are times when things get personal even for me. But I think you will like the letter. It was written after your honeymoon, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are quite the lucky woman. That’s all I’ll say.”
Valeska had no idea what to do with that information. Besides take it back to her townhouse and have a look at the translation.
This could be a ploy for all I know. Her husband had recommended the translator, after all. Yet what did André have to gain from feeding his wife false translations of his letters? She could easily get them verified by someone else. Although if Monsieur Michel was right… then these letters were “scandalous.”
Valeska asked for hot tea to be delivered to her room. She checked in with the temporary nanny taking care of Thomas before sequestering herself in her room long enough to change and receive the tea she requested.
Only then did she read through the translation. She picked the armchair by the window to enjoy herself.
Yes. That was the word. Enjoy.
Who wrote this? Are they really André’s words? Or are these the translator’s?
Because scandalous didn’t begin to cover it!
“My dearest wife,
It pains me to be this far from you so soon after I’ve made you my wife. The fact I’ll be home before you realize I’m gone does not bring me any comfort.
This place reminds me so much of where we honeymooned, that I spend every night in mourning when I notice that you do not sleep by my side. How could so little time pass and make me already acclimated to your presence? It makes me think that we are somehow made for one another. A thought I had every day of our honeymoon when we made love and got to know each other in ways we couldn’t have hoped before the wedding.
Can I tell you a secret? It’s something I’ve wanted to tell you since the moment we met in the restaurant, but I was afraid that it would frighten you away from me. Now that we’re married, though, I suppose it’s as good a time as any to let you know how I’ve always felt about you.
I’ve known quite a bit about you for a while now, Valeska. The first time I saw you was at a party two or three years ago. You wore a white gown reminiscent of your wedding dress, and from the moment I saw you, I knew you were meant to be mine. I didn’t think twice about it. I saw a beautiful woman who hit me so hard in the heart that I swore to God that you would be my wife sooner rather than later.
But before I could approach you, your mother whisked you away and you were gone. I asked the host of the party who you were, and when he said the name Reiter, I thought it was too good to be true. Because everyone knows that the Reiters are inclined to arranged marriages, and I thought that might be the perfect way for us to meet.
Sounds silly when I write it down, but it made perfect sense in my head. So, I guess my great confession is that I’ve wanted you from the moment I first saw you. I didn’t care that you already had a boyfriend. As soon as I heard you two had broken up, I approached my parents about arranging a marriage with you. It took a few months for your mother to agree. I daresay she was shocked to hear some affluent French family wanted to adopt you. Once we convinced her, however, you were as good as mine.
I greatly enjoyed our courtship in the year leading up to our marriage. Now that I know your real feelings the whole time, I curse myself for not being more forward with you. Trust me, I wanted to be. I wanted to ask you out that day we met. I wanted to take you to dinner, dancing, and woo you into my bedroom. I can’t say why I decided to hold off until the wedding night. Perhaps I wanted to give you the opportunity to walk away before my heart could be too broken. If we made love and my heart became too attached… ah, I sound like a weak man when I say it.
Valeska, you are without a doubt the most remarkable woman I have ever met, and I know that we can have a blessed marriage full of romance and a never-ending need for one another. I hope that you are waiting for me. When I get home, I will take you to bed and make up for my absence. Know that I think of you every night. My memory of you shall be my constant companion on every trip I take.
Yours, André”
“My dearest wife,
I am a slave for you. Whatever whim you have, I will see it through at a moment’s notice. I would rip out my heart and give it to you to feast upon if you were famished for nourishment. I would pull my entrails from my body and offer to save you from the cliff’s edge. I would travel through sleet and snow with only my bare feet to carry me if it meant I could see you for another day. Every day I think of you and how much I cannot wait to be with you once more.
When we build a home together, I will think of it as the Palace of Versailles. You and I will be the King and Queen of our own land. You will have a garden as beautiful as the aura you carry, with flowers as tender as your heart, and enough sunlight to bring out the smile on your face. If we have children, they will be princesses and princes of our kingdom. I can only hope to God that they will be as beautiful as their mother.
Four days away from you is too much. Instead of preparing for my meeting tomorrow, I am staying up to write you this letter. If I try to focus on anything else or force myself into bed, the only thing I will think about is your supple body and how sweet you taste. How does a man suffer like I do? All I can think about is kissing your radiant skin from head to toe. I will worship your body like the pagans worshiped their goddesses. When my kisses are not enough to sate our needs, I will make love to you until the world ceases to spin. I will not stop until your nails are in my skin and I have spent every last ounce of myself. We will not rest until you beg me to let you rest. I won’t be able to hold myself back until you utter those sacred words.
I want so badly for you to love me as much as I have always adored you. Now that I am your husband, I will strive to be the only man you need. Every day we will share something new with one another. I want to learn everything there is to know about the woman I call my wife.
Until then, I will torture myself with those recent memories. I will also promise myself that you and I will make more memories as soon as I return home.
I hope that this letter reaches you when you are well… and that you are able to understand my intentions.
Yours, André.”
Valeska had finished drinking her tea by the time the letter reached its conclusion. Her cheeks were flushed and her thighs hot as if it really were the week after their honeymoon and she was able to understand this love letter. He really thought all those things about me? She put her empty mug down and regretted those self-doubts in the beginning of their marriage.
Still, none of that excused what he had recently done.
What he might still be doing…
Valeska wouldn’t let this bit of sentimentality get to her. Instead, she dug through her stack of letters, picking out the longest ones and others that had kept her attention throughout the years. When she had some time after dinner, she scanned them into her laptop and fired a few off to Monsieur Michel to translate.
***
“Your birthday is coming up… I wonder, should I gift you my body or my brain?”
“If Heaven welcomed me but not you, I would tell St. Peter that he could keep the halo and let me descend into the netherworld with my beloved. A life in Hell with you is worth more than a life in Heaven without you.”
“I don’t yet know what our daughter will look like, but if she’s half as beautiful as you are, then the world will weep from such an excess of beauty.”
“Today I visited an ancient Cathedral that is said to be the home of the most pious monks and nuns. All I could think about was fucking you.”
“In the depths of my heart there is a seed. It was planted the day you agreed to marry me. For the past six years I have nourished it with your love and the hopes I have for the future. Since then, it has bloomed within my chest and threatens to burst if you nourish it any more. I will lay in my grave with a rose garden sprouting from my body.”
“When you came into my office and offered me such wonders, I had the sinking feeling that another baby would soon be born to us. How delighted I was to hear it was happening.”
“You have withdrawn from me since the birth of our precious son. I wonder if it is me, but everyone assures me that you are still recovering from such a trying ordeal. Every day I ask Lena what I can do to make you feel better and want me again. She suggests patience and an endless supply of favors.”
“I wish you were here in Madrid with me. The sunset reminds me of your face when you scream your love for me. It’s the raw anarchy of the sun’s rays that make me think of that wordless cry the moment before you enjoy your little death.”
“I have a surprise awaiting us in Monaco. I hope that Lena has not spoiled the surprise.”
Valeska was inundated with these snippets of a life she lived with André without realizing it. For years he had been sending her these love-filled letters that made him sound more like a lovesick fool than the hardworking businessman his wife assumed him to be. How could I have never known this about my own husband? How could Valeska’s French remain so pathetic that she relied on a professional translator ten years later to find out how much her husband really loved her?
No wonder André was so offended.
Valeska packed one suitcase and informed the interim nanny that the children were in her hands until further notice. As soon as travel arrangements to Monaco were arranged, Valeska hopped into the back of a taxi and took off.
Five hours later, she touched down in Monaco in a helicopter she grabbed across the water. Not the most cost efficient way to get to Monaco, but it was a last minute arrangement. It was more important to meet up with her husband than to save a few extra euros.
The only reason she knew what hotel he stayed in was because she hired the same private investigator her mother used. The man was based out of Monaco and had no issue tracking down André’s hotel by the end of the first day. Valeska likewise had no issue getting the suite number out of the front desk. They were still married, after all, and nobody saw any reason to keep a husband’s location away from his worried wife.
André was a mixture of shocked and relieved to find Valeska on the other side of his door. Valeska half-fretted that she would find another woman in her husband’s room, but it looked like he had been alone for a few days. Or at least that’s what his stubble and casual clothing suggested.
The man had not come here for business or pleasure. He had come here to retreat into himself and hope he was sobered up enough to face their impending divorce with at least some modicum of dignity.
“Leska.” He leaned against the doorway, keeping his wife out of his abode. “You’re a sight for these sore eyes. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Valeska reached into her bag and pulled out a small stack of curated letters. “I went to that man you suggested and had some of your letters translated. I… honestly had no idea.”
His pale face only grew whiter. Even looking his worst, André was one of the handsomest men Valeska had ever laid her eyes on. Is this really my husband? The father of my children? The man I’ve shared a bed with for the past eight years? A man she had wanted far longer than that?
She could still remember their first kiss. The first time he touched her. The first time they made love, and the first time he said he loved her.
To think… she had shaken off his admission because she thought it was his stereotypically French nature making him say that. She was his wife. Of course he would say that he loved her. It was the law.
“Do you love me, André?”
His stature relaxed. “If you could not feel my love in those letters, then there is no chance of you hearing it in my voice.”
“I know… I know.” Valeska held the papers to her chest. “Can I please come in? We need to talk.”
“I suppose I should entertain you since you came all this way. Would be uncouth of me to turn you away at such a crucial time.” He said that, yet took his time moving out of the way so his wife could enter with her one bag.
The suite wasn’t anything special. It looked more like (an upscale, of course) bachelor pad used more for efficiency than relaxing. Valeska doubted that her husband was trying to save money. More likely, he either spent most of his time in here sleeping and the rest of his day going out and taking care of business. His family had a satellite office here in Monaco. It wasn’t beyond comprehension that he would ride out his wife’s storm by hanging out in the only other Francophone office his family employed. Hell, tax wise, the suite could be a write off.
“Sorry about the mess.” André stacked some magazines on a table and kicked his dirty laundry into a corner. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
“I’m your wife. It’s hardly the worst I’ve seen.”
He scratched his head. “Are you? My wife, that is.”
Right in the heart, André. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. I think we’ve had a big, massive miscommunication over these past few years.”
André sighed. “It’s my fault. I should have told you these things in ways you better understood. I thought I was being romantic while helping you with your French by writing those letters like that. I think I got too carried away. You couldn’t understand.”
“When my French did get better, I have to admit that your metaphors still went over my head. I don’t think I could have interpreted passages about the leaning tower of Pisa as anything but you talking about sightseeing.”
He still blushed. “I thought of it as like a game. Whatever I wrote, I wasn’t sure if you would understand it. So I could really tell you about my feelings and not be too embarrassed. Yet I didn’t think you would misunderstand so much, and I never thought to tell you these things when we were together. I was too busy talking about other things.”
“You really love me so much, André?”
“I didn’t know what love truly was until I first saw you, Leska. I told you on our wedding night that I wanted to treat things with you differently. I wanted to build up a relationship before making love for the first time. I wanted to make sure there was something to be felt besides physical pleasure. Ah, I’m such a fool…”
“I want to know what was really going on with Lena. Because those photos were damning, André.”
“Yes. I suppose so, but I was so shocked by your accusation that I couldn’t think of how to explain myself. Because everything I had to say spoiled the surprise.”
“You mean the one you mentioned in your letter?”
“Of course. Lena was the only other one who knew about it, because I consulted her on how best to go about it. Besides maybe your mother, she was the only one who knew you as well as I did, but I did not trust my instincts like I should have.”
“What was the surprise?”
André sat on the edge of the bed. “I was going to buy us a small apartment here in Monaco. Not just for me to use when I had to come here for business, but for us to use as a getaway from Paris. No kids or nannies allowed. It was going to be our present to ourselves for enjoying almost ten years of knowing one another. All I could think about was coming home to finding you here relaxing and ready for me to kiss you.”
“Like you practiced kissing on Lena?”
“That was not a kiss! I only ever gave her the kiss of greeting. Since meeting you, Leska, you are the only woman I feel anything sexual toward. I rarely think of my past lovers. They are nothing compared to you.”
“You’re still not explaining yourself well. Cut the dramatics and be straightforward.”
André sighed. “I admit that I overstepped my bounds with the nanny many times. But not like that. I mean I was not professional enough. I saw how friendly you were with her and decided that I should be too. She was my employee, though. I remember we decided that the payments would come from my side so you would feel freer to be her friend and she could be your confidant. It was important to me that you felt comfortable around the woman helping you with our children.”
“But?”
“But I lost track of that! I swear upon my soul, Valeska, I never put her in a position like the one you’re thinking. She has never been anything but loyal to you and our family. Yet I can see how you might have thought otherwise. Because I was too friendly with her and then tried to do a secret project… it looked like we were having an affair.”
“She’s not the only one I worried about,” Valeska confided. “There were many instances of you being intimate with coworkers and your professional contacts.”
“Intimate? You mean la bise? Because it is only me being polite. I never kiss another person like I kiss you.”
I dunno, those photos of you with that woman in Copenhagen are pretty damning. Yet it could’ve been the angle. The lighting. It could’ve been a friendly kiss to the cheek like this French idiot was famous for. Valeska was more than knowledgeable enough about French culture to know that exchanging those kisses was as common as waving hello or goodbye.
But it was a bit different when her husband did it.
“I never thought of myself as a paranoid person,” Valeska said, “until these past couple of years.”
“Perhaps it’s common with a woman in your position.”
“How do you mean?”
He shrugged. “You have been a stay at home wife with my children for several years. Things have happened.” André glanced at her midsection. It was neither judgment nor adoration in his eyes. “It leaves much time for the imagination to blossom and for me to send the wrong signals. That’s one reason I wanted to gift you a getaway apartment. I remember when we briefly lived here in Monaco. To me, it was a happy time. Our daughter was bright and young, and you were still your old self. Ever since our son was born…”
Valeska sucked in her breath.
“Ever since there were complications with Thomas, I feel like things have changed. I worried that you had depression postpartum. You wouldn’t let me touch you like you were my wife.”
“I thought I might have driven you away.”
“You didn’t. I spent the whole year worried about you. I wanted to be closer to you than ever.” André stood. “I wished that I had a magic wand to wave and fix your soul. I couldn’t stand the thought of you never looking so lively again. Yet I was a fool to think that the way I communicated with you still sufficed.”
Valeska chuckled. “Isn’t it funny? Our English isn’t good enough, after all. It’s my fault. I’m no good at French after all these years.”
“I should have been learning German.” André backed this with a nod. “Although I am also no good with languages. Only the language of love… which is not good enough.”
She came closer to him, careful to keep a little distance while also opening herself up to his affections. “I thought you spoke it well.”
“I was an idiot to think it was the only language we needed. I thought you could feel my love when we were together. Because I always felt it with you.”
Don’t cry. You still don’t know if he’s genuine…
“Leska, please.” He snatched her hand in his, the tightness of his grip shocking her to the core of her heart. “I cannot bear to be divorced from you. The day we married was one of the best of my life. To know that it was all a faraway memory and you were no longer by my side or waiting for me on the other side of the world… I would die. I… I…” He expressed himself in the only language he was truly fluent in.
Not in French, but in love.
The bubble encompassing their bodies could not be penetrated by any outside force. The strength of André’s kiss erected more than a barrier meant to protect him and his wife from any paranoia or desire to run from their marriage. It throbbed in Valeska’s veins and filled her heart with such pardoned joy that she completely lost herself in his embrace. For the briefest second, she was once again a bride on her wedding night – a woman realizing she really was in love with her husband.
There were times over the course of their marriage when Valeska still experienced that jolt of novelty with her husband. It wasn’t always when they did something for the first time, either. It happened when she caught a possessive glint in his eye or he made the right kind of sound in her ear. Sometimes a grunt was a grunt. Other times, however, a grunt was the end of the world.
This was renewed passion. A renewed sense of purpose in their marriage. Renewed desires for one another.
“Je’taime,” André whispered on her lips. “Ich liebe Dich.”
Valeska couldn’t help but smile. “Your German remains worse than my French.”
“I should change that.”
“After I kiss you again.”
Because she hadn’t felt the full brunt of his love, she supposed. Not like the past decade had meant nothing. Yet when André kissed his wife as if he truly had something to prove, Valeska accepted that their marriage really hadn’t been a lie. Not a single second.
“We go to bed.” Before his wife could protest, André lifted her up into his arms, eliciting a yelp of girlish excitement. “We make love. I have much to prove.”
Valeska clasped her hands around his neck. Her hair tumbled toward the floor, but her husband was so deft in carrying her that the tips of her hair never once scraped the carpet.
She wanted to believe him. Eight years ago, she realized she felt something for this man. Now, one wedding and two children later, she had to decide if her love for him was worth harboring – or if it only served to drive them apart.
She didn’t necessarily disbelieve him. Not about loving her, anyway. It was his fidelity that had come into question. She almost would have rather heard him say that he no longer loved her than feel the sting of his cheating.
He wanted to prove how devoted he was to her? He was welcomed to try. If nothing else, this could be their farewell tour.
The thing about André, however, was that he was always center stage. Until he decided to share the stage with the only person he deemed worthy.
Supposedly, that was Valeska.
“How could I betray someone like you?” Valeska had never seen her husband like this before. Not only was the stubble a new thing, but the primal way he got on top of her already and thrust his clothed hips against hers turned her into a happy puddle of mush. “You are the woman who stole my breath when you glanced at me so many years ago. I wanted you so badly that I decided to marry you before I even exchanged words with you.”
He held her hands above her head. His hips held her down, his cock already hard in his trousers. Valeska almost hated how readily her body responded to him. Fuck me. They were supposed to be hashing out whether or not to get divorced, not having sex! Too late. We’re doing it. Valeska was addicted to one man. Her husband.
“I have never doubted you for one second. Every time I look at you, I still think of you as my bride. You could have ten children and you would be my bride.”
Valeska accepted his heavy kiss with a groan. “I can’t have ten children.” She changed the tone before he could berate her for being hard on herself. “I’m not my sister.”
“I think you got all the best parts in your family, oui?”
She sighed. “I love it when you talk dirty in French.”
“Oui is not dirty.” His next kiss carried a smile. Valeska almost didn’t notice how hard he now thrusted through her skirt. “Dirty is saying something like je me branle souvent quand je pense à toi.”
Valeska only vaguely understood that. The context was in his tone, which sent an array of shivers through her body and opened her legs. He no longer had her skirt to contend with. “What does that mean?”
“It means on the long, lonely nights when we are apart, I comfort myself with thoughts of you.”
“It was dirtier than that!”
“What do you think I am doing when I think of you?”
“Vilain garçon!”
“Your accent still needs work.” André nipped her ear. “But I feel like one when I am with you.”
Valeska wanted to tell herself that this was a part of his game. Yet wasn’t it good that he felt comfortable talking to his wife like this? Many men stopped seeing their wives as the subjects of their fantasies long before they even had children. He never made me feel like I was anything less than sexy. At least when we were in bed. Any way Valeska brought herself down was completely in her head. That much she could admit.
“Ah, Leska…” He lifted her blouse and bit the peaked part of her bra. “I need you. Let me have you. Let me give you me.”
“Yes…” She rose to meet his next kiss, her nails clawing at his T-shirt. “I need you too.”
Even if they divorced, Valeska knew they would never be able to live without each other. They would be the sorriest tale in all of Europe. A sad couple who loved each other enough to keep hooking up until they were too tired to fuck, but were too toxic to stay married. No matter how many times I swear him off, I would keep coming back for more. Valeska knew this much about herself. André was the only man she wanted or needed for the rest of her life. He knew every inch of her body and constantly explored the parts of her mind they could mutually understand. Nothing was better than experiencing him inside of her. At least in that moment, she could rest assured that her husband truly thought of no one else but her.
She had seen him naked countless times. He had beheld her natural body – both before and after the birth of their son – until he knew every scar, every mole, and every stretchmark to cover her skin. So how could he be so enamored with her to this day? Does he really want me that much? Valeska gasped when her husband pushed his fingers between her thighs and searched for the one place welcoming him the most. She clutched his shoulders and braced herself for more.
“You wear too many clothes.” André reiterated his point by ripping off her blouse and the bra beneath. “Then again, so do I.” He joined her in being half naked. Soon, they would be completely naked.
It was the only way to be with him.
Sometimes Valeska couldn’t help but think of their wedding night. Was it really so long ago? She knew that enough time had passed for them to have two children, but it didn’t feel real. How could eight years go by so quickly? How could she only have one man for so long? How could she imagine having more?
Easily, apparently.
“You know I worship you, yes?” He kissed her so hard that it knocked her response back down her throat. Valeska didn’t realize that her husband was only an inch away from taking her until she felt him nearly enter her. “The day I had to leave our own home to give you space was the hardest of my life. I prayed every day that you would reach out to me.”
“I’m sorry.” Valeska only lost her mind for a single second when he slipped into her. “I’m so sorry, André. Please forgive me.”
“No, I will apologize.” With his arms wrapped around her shoulders and her legs around his waist, André rocked into her with the gentle force of a wave crashing against shore. “I caused you so much doubt. I am not worthy to be your husband, but I will try.”
“You’re off to a good start!”
Valeska didn’t want to talk anymore. She planted her lips against his and urged him to fuck her until they truly knew one another again.
André was right. English wasn’t the way they truly communicated to one another. The language of love, in all its sweetest and raunchiest forms, was how they kept coming back to each other. It was how Valeska realized he would be a perfectly good husband and father. It was how André wanted to share his world with hers.
Besides, the man still knew how to fuck her after eight years together. He did it like he would never have the chance to again – every time.
Valeska thought all these nice things about him… then the bastard had the balls to stop and pull away from her, leaving her all alone on her maddening ascent to orgasm, quickly cut short.
“Mein Gott,” she cursed, slamming both fists against the bed in frustration.
“I want to see you.” André tugged her up into his lap. Even in her haze, Valeska quickly understood that she was meant to mount his lap and ride herself to the end of her sanity. “Look at you. So beautiful.”
He gingerly wiped something from her cheek. Her hands laxed against his shoulders. Their eyes met when she loomed above him, her hair enshrouding them in ticklish shadows. When their breaths were in sync, Valeska slowly lowered herself into his lap.
She might as well have impaled herself upon fate.
“Do you love me, André Dubois?” she muttered onto his lips.
He clutched her ass and pushed himself deeper into her with the kind of grunt that made her heart stop beating. “Is the sunset still beautiful even when behind the gray clouds? Of course I love you, Valeska Reiter.”
She hadn’t been Valeska Reiter in years. She had been his wife longer than she had ever known of his name.
“Promise to love me until the end of our lives.” Valeska slowly rode him, each thrust easier to bear as her body became greedier for his. “Promise me, my husband.”
“I will love you until the end of time, my wife. A lifetime is not long enough.”
“How dare you be so poetic when your cock is inside me.”
André didn’t respond with anything but a grin and an invitation to kiss him.
***
Twilight befell the room. Valeska had no idea so much time passed between coming to André’s suite and falling in exhaustion alongside him.
His arm twitched around her torso. She lifted her head and threaded her fingers through cluttered curls. The room was dark enough for her to open her eyes to the window and behold the sunset, as beautiful in the golden sky was behind dreary clouds. Like André’s love for her.
“Will you still write me letters when you’re gone?”
It was the first thing she had said since pulling him back down onto the bed. Her final climax had been strong enough to knock the air from her lungs and send her into a half-sleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. André didn’t fare much better. The fact made Valeska smile.
“That is what you want to know?” André patted her hip in disbelief. “You are a silly girl sometimes.”
“Well?” Valeska couldn’t take her sleepy eyes off the Monegasque sunset. “Will you?”
“If you wish. I like to write them. But…” He sighed. “I should write them in English, non?”
“You can write the naughty parts in French. Now that I know they’re there, I will work harder to translate them myself.”
“Anything you can’t translate I will tell you when I return. It will be a romantic evening, me telling you every dirty thing I write in letters.”
“If you stayed still long enough, I could write you back.”
“Leave me your notes in my suitcase, and I will read them.”
“I’m going to write them in German.”
“Dirty German would be interesting.”
“Just don’t say it out loud.”
André held her closer to him. “I want to hear you say them out loud, mon cherie.”
They cuddled until it was too dark to see the noses on each other’s faces. Only then did André pull away from his wife and suggest they have a relaxing shower before dinner. He took her to a restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean and held her hand until their dinners were served. Then he moved his chair closer to hers, so he could whisper more dirty French into her ear. By the time they returned to his suite, Valeska was more than ready for that amour her husband offered on a silver platter.
They returned to Paris together. Their daughter hugged her mother first and cried against her father’s chest. Someone had told her that her parents were divorcing. Valeska assured her it was not true. André kissed his wife in such a scandalizing way that Daniela almost cried – but she got the point. Her parents were not separating again anytime soon.
Or ever, for that matter.