Chapter 66
Étienne
The first glass of whisky went down smooth, barely touching the pain. The second started to blur things slightly. By the fourth, my hands had finally stopped shaking.
I sat in my leather chair, jacket discarded, tie unknotted and hanging loose, staring at nothing while my mind replayed the evening. Elena in that dress. Elena laughing with those children. Elena looking up at me when I'd told her I'd changed the menu for her.
"You didn't have to do that."
"I know. I wanted to."
God, what had I been thinking? That level of attention—no guardian behaved that way. Rémi was right. They'd all been right. I'd been lying to myself so long I'd almost believed it.
I reached for the bottom drawer, the locked one, and pulled out the wooden box I hadn't opened in years. The racing gloves inside were exactly as I'd left them—black leather scarred with burn marks from that last race.
I didn't take them out. Just rested my hand on the closed lid and let myself remember what it had been like to want something with pure, uncomplicated intensity. To see a gap and take it without hesitation. To push to the absolute limit because I knew I could handle whatever came next.
When had I lost that? When had I become this person who calculated every move three steps ahead, who prioritized responsibility over desire, who watched the thing he wanted most drive away with someone else because it was the "right" thing?
The truth was, I knew exactly when. Thirteen years ago, waking up in a hospital bed with a shattered leg and the knowledge that my recklessness had nearly gotten a child killed. That Elena had survived was pure luck. And I'd sworn then that I would never again let my desires override my judgment, never again risk someone's wellbeing for my own gratification.
But this—watching her with Maxime, forcing myself to smile and play the supportive guardian—this wasn't protection. This was cowardice dressed as nobility.
A soft sound from the hallway made me freeze. Footsteps, light and familiar, moving past my study toward the stairs. Elena, going to the kitchen for water—a habit I knew as well as my own.
I listened as she descended, heard the distant tap running, then footsteps returning. They paused outside my study door—just for a moment, barely a heartbeat—before continuing toward her room.
Had she been about to knock? Or was I projecting my own desperate desires onto innocent sounds?
The whisky bottle sat three-quarters empty. I should stop. Should force myself to sleep, face tomorrow with whatever dignity I could muster. But my hand reached for it anyway.
I'd been so careful. Five years of perfect control, of maintaining appropriate boundaries, of never letting her see how thoroughly she'd invaded every corner of my thoughts. Five years of telling myself I was being a good guardian, that my attention was purely professional, that the way my pulse quickened when she entered a room was just normal concern.
What a joke. What a spectacular, pathetic joke.
My fingers found my face, pressed against closed eyes, and came away wet. I stared at the moisture with dull surprise—tears, though I couldn't remember when I'd started crying. The whisky, probably. Alcohol dissolved the last defenses, left you raw in ways daylight wouldn't forgive.
I thought about Elena five years ago, fifteen and wearing that cherry-red dress slightly too large, asking in careful, formal French if winters here were very cold. I'd thought I was doing my duty to my late brother, providing a stable home while she pursued her dreams.
When had it changed? When had "duty" become something else?
Maybe that first panic attack, finding her curled on the bathroom floor, overwhelmed. The way she'd clung to me when I'd broken down the door, the absolute trust in her eyes when I'd held her and counted her through breathing.
Or maybe those countless nights when she'd appear at my study door, unable to sleep, asking if I'd sit with her. The way she'd curl up in the chair across from my desk, wrapping herself in the throw blanket I kept there specifically for those moments, and just exist in my presence until whatever nightmare faded.
Or maybe—and this was the thought that made my chest ache—maybe I'd been fooling myself from the very beginning.
The sound of her door closing drifted down the hallway, soft and final. She was in bed now, probably asleep, while I sat here drowning in whisky and self-recrimination.
I knew too much about her. That was the problem. I knew she drank water before bed because she got dehydrated easily. I knew she checked her phone one last time before setting it on her nightstand face-down. I knew she slept on her left side curled around a pillow, and that she'd kick off the covers by morning no matter how cold the room.
I knew the sound of her footsteps so well I could track her movements with my eyes closed. I knew the exact pitch of her voice when she was truly happy versus performing happiness. I knew how she bit her lower lip when thinking hard, how she twisted her hair when anxious, how her whole face softened when she looked at me and thought I wasn't paying attention.
God, I knew everything. Every habit, every preference, every tiny detail. And she knew me too—knew my routines, my moods, could read my silences better than most people read explicit statements.
We'd built this over five years. This intricate, intimate knowledge that went far beyond guardian and ward, beyond any relationship that had a name in polite society.
And I'd been too much of a coward to acknowledge what it meant.
The whisky was gone. I stared at the empty bottle, then at the racing gloves, and made a decision that probably wouldn't survive morning sobriety but felt like the only true thing I'd thought in years:
I couldn't do this anymore. Couldn't be the good guardian, the appropriate authority figure, the man who watched her fall in love with someone else because it was the "right" thing. I'd already lost racing. I'd already sacrificed that part of myself on the altar of responsibility.
But this—losing Elena—would finish what that crash started. Would complete the transformation from the man who'd taken corners at 200 kilometers per hour without hesitation into this hollow shell who calculated every move and still somehow always chose wrong.
Tomorrow I would probably regret this clarity. Tomorrow I would probably reconstruct all the careful rationalizations about why I needed distance, why her happiness with Maxime was more important, why being a good guardian meant letting her go.
But tonight, with whisky burning through my veins and tears drying on my face, I could admit the truth:
I loved her. I was in love with her. And I had absolutely no idea what to do about it.