TESS

His place is a house built on a cliff not far from the beach. A narrow cobblestone road leads to the entrance. We walk the path all the way there.

He holds the door open as I walk in.

The doors to the patio are wide open, ushering in the view. The sun hides behind the clouds, and it starts to rain as soon as we walk in, the sea and the sky turning gray.

He motions me to the sofa as he turns a couple of lamps on.

I take a seat and glance around. Another door opens on the side, leading to his bedroom. I notice a large bed, minimal furniture and long sheer curtains framing the windows.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asks.

“No, thank you.”

He leaves me alone for a moment as he walks out of the living room. Moments later, he comes back. I expect to see a glass of scotch in his hand.

Instead, he places something on the table.

My breath gets clipped, and my lips part in surprise as my eyes tear away from the object and fly up to him.

“I think this is yours,” he says as he takes a seat next to me.

My eyes start darting back and forth.

It’s not as if I’ve never suspected that he has it, but seeing it now with my very own eyes has an effect on me.

“Um... How...? How did you get it? Where you there that night?” I ask, pointing to the memory stick.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he says. “One of my men flagged your presence in the proximity of her apartment earlier in the afternoon. I suspected that you were heading over there, and he confirmed it.”

We lock eyes for a moment.

“But it wasn’t only that,” he says. “I was on my way to the club when I got an alert that something might have happened. None of my men had access to the apartment, so I had to go there and check it for myself. But I had to take my precautions first. All these months when we were seeing each other I was followed by Jacqueline’s private investigators. I always used decoy cars to make them lose my track. It was no different that night. For everyone, I was still in the club. I snuck out and went to that place. Jacqueline was always under the impression that because she owned it, she was safe. That’s how I got all the information about the men she slept with. That’s how I found out about your husband. She was open about the fact that she had people following me, and might’ve suspected that I was doing the same thing to her, but I never confirmed to her, and she never bothered to follow through with it and find out for sure. Stephan was outside when I arrived. He was distraught, waiting for the ambulance. I made sure he couldn’t see me. I used the back entrance. The building has cameras in place, but they mostly surveil the entrance. None of them were on the floors, or at the back exit. I took the stairs up and got into the apartment. The door was open when I walked in. She was already gone. He placed her on the bed, and she looked as if she was sleeping. I found the tablet on the table. The loop was still playing. I pulled the stick out, checked the tablet to see if it had been downloaded or saved in a different folder, wiped away my traces and seconds later I was out. The medical crew arrived seconds later.”

He looks down for a moment, musing over something.

“My initial plan was to confront Stephan,” he says. “I knew she was lying to him as much as she was lying to me. She wanted to keep him on the side and string him along while she would do everything in he power to bring me to the point where I’d give up on everything. It was her way of getting back at me for refusing to be her husband. The end was basically the same whether we reconciled or not. She wanted me out of the marriage and out of my money. There was no real reconciliation between us. She used him as much as she thought she was using me. She was very much like my father, and that’s why I think they got along so well. I set up the things in motion when I purposely offered her the proof that she needed.”

“Purposely?”

He looks at me again.

“The last time we were together... That night in your apartment.”

Blood rushes to my cheeks.

“I knew that her people were following me. I was perfectly aware that they’d see us. Someone took pictures of us with a long-range lens, and that’s how she got the proof that she always wanted. Predictably, she started to blackmail me the very next day. She fell right into my trap.”

He pauses again.

“You set a trap for me as well, and I fell right into it. That night at her party,” I rush to remind him.

A bitter smile curves his lips.

“Yeah... That night,” he mutters as if he recollects that moment.

“I needed you out of the story,” he says, raising his gaze again. “And I wanted her to believe me that our breakup was real. There was no better way to do that than you being genuinely angry,” he says, the ghost of a smile fleeting across his lips.

He turns serious again.

“I knew that once I started to mess with her plans, she’d make mistakes. I needed all that chaos to be able to challenge my father’s will. I had enough material to contest it on the grounds of lacking testamentary capacity, not understanding the consequences of his will. I knew it was going to be an uphill battle, but I was ready to fight her. Because I wanted to be free more than anything else.”

Silence falls over the room.

“Do you think I’m a monster?” he quietly asks after a while.

My eyes get washed with tears.

“I’m not so sure that I am the best person to judge.”

“Do you?” he asks again.

He looks at me, waiting for my answer.

I gather that my opinion is important to him.

It is important for me to know as well.

“I wouldn’t be here, would I?” I mutter.

He smiles at me.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say in one breath.

He laughs quietly.

“It doesn’t help that all the people who I have talked to about you were of the same opinion,” I say.

He’s still smiling but soon his grin withers away.

“I’m not as bad as you think I am. I haven’t been closed to anyone in a long while. I grew up like that, and for the longest time, I lived in a tense environment in which I was permanently at war. That’s why, in a sense, Jacqueline messed with the wrong man. I was used to the war of attrition. I pretty much invented it in my family. My father was good at it, and Jacqueline was pretty good herself, but to me, it was a way of living,” he adds, sadness lining his voice.

A few more moments pass by.

“Were you…?” I start.

He tips his gaze at me.

“Have you bought Stephan Leon’s art? Her nudes?”

He nods.

“Why?”

“They are part of their story and don’t belong to the public. I knew he needed the money, and they were greatly executed, so I decided to bid on them.”

“You also wanted to remove some of your guilt.”

A soft smile curls his lips.

“Perhaps.”

“Same goes for her estate.”

“Yes. I never wanted her money. She knew that.”

“So what do you intend to do from this point on?”

He tips his chin, motioning at the stack of books on the table.

“Read. Travel... Sail once in a while. I may need to reinvent myself,” he says, a soft smile lining his lips again.

“Why here?”

“I wanted a place where I’m a nobody.”

“A clean slate?”

“Yes. In a way...”

“And you want me to be part of the process?”

“Maybe,” he says, pushing back another smile.

“How do you imagine all this?”

He ponders for a moment.

“You have to let me show you a different part of mine.”

“What if I don’t like it?” I ask.

A sly grin beams on his face, lighting up her eyes.

“I’m willing to take the risk.”

“What if I still have reservations when it comes to you?”

“If you give me some time I’ll disperse them.”

“You are that confident, huh?”

“You gave me no reason not to be,” he says, a secret smile tilting his lips.

I stay quiet.

Our eyes locked.

“What holds you back?” he finally asks.

His upper lip almost imperceptibly quivers.

“Everything. The future...”

“What’s wrong with the future?”

He leans back into his seat, his arm propped on the sofa, his ankle resting on his knee.

He looks relaxed. I sense him tense.

“The future is built on the past. The past was woven with so many lies.”

His eyes darken.

He moves his eyes away from me and straightens, shifting his position as well. Now, he rests his elbows on his knees.

My eyes go to his beautiful hands as he laces his fingers together.

“I can’t change the past, Tess,” he says with a solemn voice, tilting his gaze to me.

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“What is it then?”

“It’s how you found me.”

His eyebrows lift in surprise.

A questioning look slides onto his face.

“We would’ve never met had you not caught Allan having an affair with your wife.”

“What difference does it make?”

“It could’ve been anyone else, Sebastien. And you would’ve probably done the same thing, had you had the slightest chemistry with that person. Despite all the words you said to me, it wasn’t only me that made you feel attracted to me. You had an ulterior motive.”

“You don’t know that,” he interferes, rather abruptly.

“But I do. You said it yourself that you came across my picture when you received the reports from your people.”

He shoots me a pointed look.

“And that changes everything how?”

I study his face for a few moments before I push to my feet.

“I think I need to leave now,” I say coldly.

He rises as well.

His eyes lock mine, brimming with questions.

“Can you at least let me change your mind?”

“There’s nothing to change,” I say, picking up the memory stick and slipping it into my purse.

He grabs my arm and spins me to him.

I stop inches away from him.

“You can’t be serious,” he says, grappling with disbelief.

I drink his face for a moment. His eyes, his lips… Then read his expression.

“Listen to me...” I start with a soft voice. “We both have our freedom now. And we both are new people, in a sense. The future needs to be built on who we are right now. Not on the past. There are so many things between us that we can’t undo. We are the guardians of each other secrets. We are tied in ways impossible to be severed. You were trapped once. And I was very close to that as well. That’s not what I want in our future. If in fact, we have one...”

The furrow of his brow flattens and then disappears.

“We need to be sure that we both want it. And we need to have an idea of what it would look like. I don’t want either of us to feel trapped. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want you to wake up one day and look at me and realize that freedom might have been a better choice. I’m a different person now, and I like my freedom.”

A soft smile threads through his gaze.

I freeze and search his eyes.

No.

But, of course…

I slide my hand to my neck.

“But you, um… You must know all that,” I say as he dips his gaze at my neck as well.

Slowly, I set my purse down on the table and under his baffled eyes, unfasten my necklace.

I let it crumple into a heap of outrageously expensive metal, cuff his wrist and flip his hand up.

“I no longer want any of this,” I say, dropping it in his palm. “If you want to mesmerize me from now and surprise me with your insightfulness Mr. Random Thoughts you need to do it without the help of electronic devices. You just have to guess what’s in my mind like everybody else.”

A grin creeps up his lips.

“Flowers allowed?” he asks, shifting his palm and closing his hand around my wrist.

He holds the necklace with the other hand.

“Flowers, music, pictures, messages... Anything that doesn’t have to do with spying on me. We’re going old school with this.”

“Sexy clips?” he murmurs in my ear as he snakes his arm around my waist and pulls me into him.

“Um...”

I get distracted for a moment as his hand slides up my back, tracing my spine before it settles at the back of my neck.

“New sexy clips...” he offers, his lips trailing along my jawline.

“This is called cheating, Mr. Rockford,” I say smiling.

“It’s the best kind that I can offer.”

He straightens and looks at me, his eyes already putting a spell on me.

“No tricks.”

“None,” he says, his smile telling me otherwise.

He tears his hands away from me and shifts his eyes to the necklace.

From the back of the pendant, he removes a tiny bead that looks like a stone. He slides it in his pocket.

“Is that it?” I ask, dumbfounded.

“Uh-huh.”

He wraps the jewelry around my neck and nudges me to turn around.

His fingers brush my skin as he clasps the ends of the necklace together.

“When do you plan on going back?” he asks as I pivot back to him.

“Monday.”

He tips his chin down, smiling as he gives me a smooth once-over.

“How about you let me show you around the island the next couple of days?”

He flicks his gaze up, waiting for my response.

“We can go sailing tomorrow, and then we can dance.”

“Dance?” I mutter, getting lost in his eyes.

“Mmm-hmm.”

His smile is so suggestive, and yet, I can’t help myself and stare.

He closes the space between us again and wraps his arms around me, his lips coming to my lips.

Slowly, they leave a kiss on mine.

A kiss that makes me shudder with pleasure. He moves his lips to my ear.

“Speaking about the future...” he murmurs. “You will not be able to live without me... I promise you that.”