For the second time in half an hour, Kingsley was rendered speechless.

By the expression on her face, Madame was in seventh heaven. Or one of the circles of hell. “He told me his real name because he knew you would need proof I was telling you the truth,” she said.

“How?” he asked.

“I called your old school,” she said simply, like it was the easiest, most obvious thing in the world to do. “I left a message for him. A priest at the school passed it onto him. He called me two months ago. We had a lovely talk.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“He’s quite an arrogant bastard,” she said.

Kingsley swallowed a hard lump in his throat. “All right. Maybe I do believe you. What’s in the letter?”

“Things he wants you to know. And that’s all I’ll tell you. Now…what is your choice? If you don’t answer in…” She glanced over her shoulder at the mantel clock. “…thirty seconds, I’ll burn them both.”

“I could kill you and take them from you.”

“What if the envelopes contain nothing?” she asked. “What if the letter from your Søren is hidden in my house? You kill me, you kill the answer.”

“Colette will tell me if it’s mine.”

“If you harm me, she won’t tell you anything except to go to hell. And she certainly won’t tell you where Søren’s lovely long letter to you is hidden.”

“Don’t say his name. You don’t deserve to say his name.”

“The clock is counting. Twenty-three seconds, Kingsley. Decide.”

“What did I do to deserve this?” he asked, half-sick with rage.

“You were warned.”

“It’s a child, not a game.”

“Everything is a game,” she said crisply, briskly, coldly.

“This isn’t sadism,” he said. “This is sick.”

“Then why are you playing along?”

“What choice do I have?”

“You have two choices—his letter to you or the answer to your question about Colette’s pregnancy. It’s very interesting that you haven’t decided yet.”

“I’ve already decided. I’m just not telling you yet.”

“Or you’re stalling because you don’t know who you love more—your possible unborn child or him.”

“I would always choose a child over him. Always.”

“You were very quick to tell Colette you were already planning a future with children for you and her. Is that why you left him all those years ago?”

As soon as she said it, a locked door in his heart popped open. That was it. Of course that was it.

“Ten seconds left. By the way, your Søren gave me a message to give to you.”

“What is it?”

“He says he still plays Ravel for you,” she said, and shook the envelope marked with the S.

“You bitch,” he said shaking his head.

“Three…two…”

Kingsley reached out and snatched from Madame’s hand the envelope marked with the C.

In a flash, Madame turned and threw the other envelope into the fire. In seconds it had been consumed, consumed before Kingsley could even rip the envelope in his shaking hands open.

He did, at last, finally tear it open. He pulled the folded sheet of paper out and looked at the page. There were no words on it. Only a small white feather stuck inside the fold.

He stared at it, then at Madame.

“A feather?” he asked, looking at her. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Madame smiled slowly. “All the pillows in this house are feather pillows, Kingsley.”

He understood at once, and the shock was strong enough to send him falling to his knees. Disappointment? Relief? Grief?

“She’s not pregnant,” Madame said. “It was only a pillow under her gown.”

Kingsley fell further, collapsing onto his elbows. He was bereft, utterly bereft.

“Why?” he said, his voice barely more than a low moan. “Do you hate me?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not at all,” she said. “Quite the opposite.”

He looked up and saw the last of the envelope, the last of Søren’s letter, turn to ashes and die.

“Was the letter in there?” he asked. “Really?”

“What letter?” she asked.

“The one from Søren.”

“There was no letter, you fool. We’ve never even spoken.”

“You know his name. You know he’s arrogant…”

“I know he’s arrogant because you told me so yourself. And I know his name and that he played Ravel on the piano the day you met because you talked about him when I’d drugged you. Oh, you told me so much about him I feel like I know the boy. We’d have a lot to talk about if we ever talked. Too bad we haven’t.”

She took a step forward so that he could have kissed the top of her foot again. Or he could have reached out and grabbed her ankle, yanked her to the floor and strangled the life out of her. He did neither.

He breathed through his nausea, his head on the floor, his stomach lurching.

At first it started as a low chuckle. Then a soft laugh. Then a loud laugh. On his hands and knees, he laughed until his back hurt from laughing. He bruised his bruises. He looked up and saw Madame staring at him with wide eyes. Clearly of all the things she thought he might do, laughing like a maniac was not even in the top ten.

“Kingsley?”

“You did warn me,” he said.

Slowly, a smile spread across her face. She curtsied.

“I warn everyone. Everyone,” she said, waving her hand to indicate the whole wide world. “No one ever believes me. I say, ‘I’m going to destroy you if you let me.’ They say, ‘Ha, do you worst, Madame, you daft old lady.’ Then a few days later, they’re vomiting on my rug and seeing a psychologist for the next decade. I’m impressed with you, Kingsley. The last time I played with a man so viciously, he pulled a gun on me. He didn’t laugh. Not once. I made him think his daughter had killed herself, so…maybe I deserved it. But I did warn him. As I warned you.”

“It crossed my mind to snap your neck,” he said, sitting up and back on his knees. He wiped sweat off his forehead with his shirt. Sweat and tears.

“But you didn’t.”

He rubbed his forehead. “I will call you a piss cold whore.”

“Ah, that goes without saying,” she said with a careless toss of her head as if his insults were nothing more than a buzzing fly.

She stepped closer to him, and he collapsed against her thigh.

Now that he’d stopped laughing he was nearly on the verge of tears again. Why? Catharsis? Disappointment? Relief?

“I’m not sorry,” she said.

“I’m going to throw up,” he said.

“Not the rug, please. On the hardwood only.” She stroked his hair like he was a puppy. He didn’t throw up, but it was close. His stomach cramped again, and his mouthed tasted like copper. Yet he managed to breathe through it. Although he almost wanted to vomit if only to stain Madame’s rug.

“I fucking hate you,” he said. He felt like he’d just run a marathon, he was so spent and rung out.

“Would it help if I told you I had a reason?”

“I don’t know if there’s a good enough reason in the world for you to do that to someone. Other than demonic possession.”

A fresh wave of fury washed over him at the thought of being played so brutally. He closed his eyes tight and let loose with a flurry of insults. Putain. Salope. When he ran out of French insults, he switched to English. Madame kept petting his hair and saying over and over, “That’s fine. Let it all out. It doesn’t hurt me. Nothing hurts me.” When he finished verbally excoriating her, he lay on his stomach on the floor in utter defeat, exhaustion, and misery.

“You know now,” she said, putting her foot on the small of his back. “Yes?”

“Maybe,” he said. The floor was cold on his face. It soothed him.

“You picked your unborn child over him,” she said, toeing his hip to turn him onto his back. She gazed down at him, pointed. “You said it was impossible to want someone more than you wanted him. Not impossible at all, you see.”

“Someone who doesn’t exist.”

“But someday,” she said. “If you stay.”

Kingsley rolled up to a seated position but stayed on the floor. Seemed safer.

“If I stay?” he asked.

“If you stay,” she said again. “I want you to stay.”

Kingsley was shocked into silence.

“Do you think I would play my best games with someone I cared nothing for?” she asked. “I beat you. I let you in my bedroom. I let you kiss me. Do you think I do that with simply any man? I haven’t let a man kiss me on the lips since…”

“Your husband?”

She nodded.

Kingsley couldn’t believe it. “You really want me to stay?”

“Not only me,” Madame said. “Polly, too. And Colette. And Jacques, he told me so.”

God, Jacques. Kingsley had missed the little boy almost as much as he’d missed Madame…

“Look at me, child,” she said. Kingsley met her eyes. “I’m asking you to stay with us. Inviting you. I don’t extend this invitation often, but I am now, to you. If you stay, you can sleep in Polly’s bed with her any night she asks for you, and I promise that will be many, many nights. If you stay, you can sleep on my floor. I’ll give you two blankets and a pillow. And I will beat you often—for my pleasure and yours. And if you stay, you can have a child with Colette. In a year from now you could be a father. And…” Madame did something he never expected her to do. She knelt on the floor right in front of him so that they faced each other eye to eye.

“Madame?”

“Listen to me. Kingsley…if you fall asleep anywhere in this house, anywhere at all, wherever you wake, you’ll know you’re home,” she said as she took his face into her hands. “You’ll have a home and a family. You won’t be lost again. You won’t be cold again. You won’t be alone again. You’ll be mine, you beautiful lovely wonderful horrible wicked little boy…”

She kissed him on the mouth. He kissed her in return, passionately. She pulled away from the kiss quickly and touched her lips as if he’d burned her. Slowly she smiled.

Home.

Family.

Children.

Everything he ever wanted. Everything. Every last thing. Except for one thing.

There had to be a catch.

There was always a catch.

“But what about—”

“No,” she said, her tone sharp as a razor. “If you choose to stay with us, you must choose us and us alone. It’s us or him.”

“What do you mean, you or him? I haven’t seen him in years.”

“If he calls this house asking for you, I will not let you talk to him. Nor will you be allowed to call him if you find out where he is. If he writes you a letter, you’ll burn it unread. If he comes here and knocks on that door looking for you, I’ll send him away without you ever knowing.” She shook her head. “I can’t let you be a part of this family if you’re only going to run off the moment he crooks his little finger at you.”

“I wouldn’t abandon my child for him.”

“But you don’t have a child yet. What if he comes tomorrow? Would you leave us for him tomorrow? A week from now? If he came and asked you to leave with him, would you take Colette and the child with you? Would you tear up my family for him? I can’t allow that. I’m offering you everything you want. But there is a price. Is it really too much to ask? When a man out there in the old world gets married, he promises to forsake all others. That’s the vow. Can you make that vow to us?”

A terrible question, but a fair one. More than fair. He wasn’t being asked to commit to one woman, but to an entire house of them. Madame wasn’t asking for monogamy. He could have ten women, a beautiful sumptuous château to call his home. He could have safety, security, and children of his own.

All for the seemingly low price of turning his back on a boy he hadn’t even laid eyes on in over seven years.

Kingsley leaned forward and rested his head against Madame’s shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him, held him close, and lightly caressed the back of his neck.

“My mother used to do that,” he said, “when I was sick or had trouble sleeping.”

“Rub your neck?”

“Yes.”

“You like it?”

“Love it.”

She kissed his forehead.

“Madame…” he said.

“Yes?”

“You never told me your real name.”

She laughed softly.

“Will you ever tell me your name?” he asked.

“Never, no,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“He told me his real name,” Kingsley said. “The first time we were together.”

She stopped laughing.

It hurt worse than the beating she’d given him, but Kingsley pulled away from Madame’s arms and her tender motherly caresses.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She exhaled heavily and nodded. “Don’t be.”

“I should be. I am.”

“You know he may never find you,” she said.

“I know,” Kingsley said.

“You’re making the wrong choice.”

“Ah, I’ve done it before and survived.”

“This is it, you know,” she said. “No second chances. Next time you call me, I won’t call back.”

“I understand.”

“Colette will be heartbroken,” Madame said.

“Tell her…tell her something that won’t hurt her,” Kingsley said. “Tell her I can’t leave my job or they’ll storm the house.”

Madame nodded. “Of course. You’re kind to want to protect her feelings.”

“I shouldn’t after the trick she pulled on me.”

“It was all my doing,” Madame said. “They take orders from me. Everyone in this house obeys me. Even you.”

“Order me to do something then,” Kingsley said.

Madame rose to her feet with indescribable grace, rolling back onto her toes and standing straight up. For a split second he saw the young girl who’d once served a powerful man who thought he’d put a puppy on a leash only to find later it was a wolf. Kingsley had always loved wolves.

She placed her fingers under his chin and lifted his face to meet her gaze.

“Leave,” she ordered.

Kingsley reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the gold band, his “wedding band,” and placed it on Madame’s ring finger, next to her own wedding band.

Then he kissed the back of her hand.

“Adieu,” he said. “You unbelievable bitch.”