Chapter 184

Chapter 184
Étienne

I started with deadlifts, pushing the weight higher than I normally would, feeling the burn in my thighs and lower back. Good. I needed the pain, needed something to focus on besides the phantom warmth of Elena's lips against my skin.

"Monsieur Beaumont," Kai said carefully after my third set, "perhaps we should move to something that puts less strain on your—"

"Again."

He hesitated, then reset the bar. I gripped it and lifted. My right leg protested immediately, that old injury making its presence known, but I pushed through it.

I want you to take up all the space in my life.

Another rep. The weight felt heavier now.

I don't want you to do it halfway.

Another. My leg was screaming now.

For driving me.

I dropped the bar with a crash that echoed through the empty gym. Kai was looking at me with open concern.

"Monsieur—"

"Bench press," I said. "One-fifty."

"That's too much. Your shoulder—"

"One-fifty."

---

I emerged from the gym at four-fifteen, showered and changed back into my suit, my right leg throbbing with every step but my mind clearer. My phone showed three missed calls from Rémi and two from Sébastien, plus a text from the latter: Where are you? We're at the usual place.

The "usual place" was Sébastien's tea house in the Marais. Under normal circumstances, I would have made an excuse, pleaded work commitments. Instead, I found myself typing: On my way.

I arrived twenty minutes later to find them at our corner table, a pot of tea already steeping. Rémi looked up as I approached, his sharp eyes immediately cataloging my still-damp hair, the slight hitch in my gait.

"You went to the gym," he said flatly.

I lowered myself into my chair with more care than usual, my right knee screaming. "How did you know?"

"Because you only work out like that when you're trying to outrun something you can't escape." Sébastien poured me tea. "Last time was three years ago, after Elena's ankle injury. Before that, it was when 001 officially retired."

The mention of my racing days made something twist in my chest. "I'm fine."

"You're limping," Rémi said. "And you look like hell."

"I overdid it on squats. It's nothing."

"It's not nothing." Sébastien leaned back, studying me. "What happened?"

I should have deflected. Should have changed the subject. Instead, I found myself saying, "She kissed me this morning."

The words fell into the silence like stones into still water. Rémi and Sébastien exchanged a look.

"Where?" Sébastien asked, and there was no judgment in his voice, only curiosity.

"The corner of my mouth. Right before she went into training." I wrapped my hands around the tea cup. "She said it was for driving her."

"But it wasn't," Rémi said quietly.

"No." I took a sip of tea. "It was a statement. A claim."

"And how did you respond?"

"I sat in my car for five minutes trying to remember how to breathe. Then I went to a board meeting where I nearly fired the head of Asset Management because I couldn't focus. Then I spent an hour in the gym trying to work off energy that has nowhere to go because what I want—what I need—is completely inappropriate."

"Is it?" Sébastien asked. "Inappropriate, I mean."

I stared at him. "She's my ward. She's twenty years old. I'm supposed to be protecting her, not—"

"Not falling in love with her?" Rémi finished. "Too late for that. You've been in love with her for years. The only person you've been fooling is yourself."

The blunt assessment should have stung, but instead I felt oddly relieved. "It doesn't matter how I feel. The power dynamic—"

"Is complicated, yes," Rémi interrupted. "But she's not a child. She's an adult who's capable of making her own choices. And from what you've told us, she's already made hers."

"She doesn't understand what she's choosing," I argued, even as I heard the weakness in my own logic. "She's been dependent on me for five years. How can she separate genuine feeling from gratitude or—"

"Stop." Sébastien's voice had gone hard. "You're doing that thing you always do when you're afraid. You're intellectualizing it, turning it into a problem to be analyzed rather than a feeling to be experienced. This isn't a corporate acquisition. This is a woman who's been in love with you for God knows how long, finally gathering the courage to show you."

"You don't know that she's—"

"We know," Rémi said flatly. "Everyone knows except you. The way she looks at you when you're not watching. The way she lights up when you walk into a room. The way she's been testing boundaries for months."

I couldn't deny what they were saying. I'd seen all those signs, had cataloged every look and touch and moment of lingering contact.

"She told me this morning that she sleeps better knowing I'm in the next room," I said quietly. "That she moved out not because she didn't need me, but because she needed to know if what she felt was real."

"And was it?" Sébastien asked.

"She said it was worse. That not seeing me every day made her realize how much space I take up in her life. How much she wants me to take up that space."

Rémi let out a breath. "And you told her?"

"That once we start, I won't be able to stop. That I'll take up all the space in her life, every corner, every moment. That I don't know how to do this halfway." I met his gaze. "And she said she didn't want me to do it halfway."

"Then what are you doing here?" Sébastien demanded. "What are you doing beating yourself up in a gym? She's told you what she wants. You've told her what you want. The only thing standing between you is your own fear."

"It's not just fear." I could hear the edge in my own voice. "It's reality. Her mother will be furious. My mother will have opinions. The board will question my judgment. Society will—"

"Fuck society," Sébastien said bluntly. "When has society ever understood what it's like to love someone so completely that the thought of losing them makes you physically ill?"

"He's right," Rémi said, more gently. "You've spent your entire adult life doing what's expected of you. You gave up racing to take over the family business. You've built an empire while maintaining perfect control. You've been exactly what everyone needed you to be." He paused. "Maybe it's time to be what you need to be."