Chapter 21 The Confession
Felix's confession hangs in the air like poison fuel.
Kairo stands suddenly. His chair scrapes towards the ground. The sound makes absolutely everyone in the café turn.
"We're done right here." His voice is deadly. Controlled rage slightly contained.
"Wait." Felix stands too. Determined. "Please. Just hear me out."
"Here you out?" Kairo's snicker is sour. Sharp. "You simply requested my wife to leave me. What else is there to hear?"
Zephyra sits frozen. Her thoughts can't fathom what simply befell her. Felix loves her. Still. After five years. After the whole thing.
And he wants her to come back.
"Take a seat." Her voice cuts through their standoff. "Both of you."
Kairo looks at her like she's lost her mind. "Zephyra—"
"Sit down. Down." She repeats. Firmer this time. "I need to hear this. All of it. Then we go away."
Kairo sits. Reluctantly. His hand finds hers below the desk. Grips it like a lifeline.
Felix sank back into his chair. Hope flickering in his eyes.
"Speak," Zephyra's voice is ice. "Quickly."
Felix takes a shaky breath. "Jean-Marc Laurent. The investor. He saw us together at the spring exhibit. Became obsessed about me. Started showing up everywhere I went."
"And you failed to think to say this?" Zephyra asks.
"I thought it was harmless at first. simply an older guy with too much interest for younger designers." Felix's arms shake. "Then he cornered me after the graduation practice session. Made his intentions clear."
The memory plays throughout his face. Disgust. Fear.
"He said he'd been looking for me for months. That he would make my profession. Or wreck it. And wreck yours too if I do not cooperate."
"How do you cooperate?" Kairo's voice is deadly quiet.
Felix won't meet his eyes. "He wanted me to be his... companion. Publicly. His associates in enterprise and in private. He said if I refused, he'd make sure neither of us ever worked in European fashion again."
Zephyra's stomach churns. "So you just believed him?"
"He had proof." Felix pulls out his phone. Scrolls. Shows her screenshots of emails. Messages. Threats are specified and unique. "He had connections to each essential house. Each customer. Each magazine editor. He will only blacklist us with one smartphone call."
The proof is damning. Detailed. Real.
"I was twenty-five years old." Felix's voice cracks. "Terrified. I didn't know what to do. I could not permit him to smash your destiny. Not when you'd labored so hard. Not whilst you had so many skills."
"So you decided for me." Zephyra's voice is hollow. Empty. "You selected my profession over letting me make my very own preference."
"I have no idea why I used to be protective of you."
"You had been protecting yourself." Kairo cuts in. His commentary is brutal. accurate. "You took the clean way out. Disappeared instead of combat. Rather than believe her to handle the reality."
Felix flinches. However, he doesn't deny it.
"You're correct." His admission is quiet and damaged. "I was a coward. I convinced myself I used to be noble. Sacrificing our love for your future. However, the reality is I used to be scared. Of Laurent. Of fighting. Of failing you."
Tears move down his face now. No hiding. No pretense.
"I have regretted it each single day seeing that." He looked at Zephyra. clearly looks at her. "Each morning I wake without you. On every occasion I saw your name in the information. every fulfillment you finished that I should have been there to celebrate."
Something in Zephyra breaks. Not love. However, the wall she'd built round that pain. The armor she'd worn for five years.
Tears spill down her cheeks. hot. suddenly.
"You should have informed me." Her voice trembles. "You need to have relied on me. We ought to have left Paris together. Start somewhere else. Build something new."
"I know." Felix reaches across the desk. Stops when Kairo's glare freezes him again. "I realize that now. However, I was twenty-five and terrified and convinced I was doing the proper thing."
"You were not." The phrases pop out broken. "You destroyed me. Do you remember that fact? I spent years wondering if I wasn't enough. That I did something wrong. That I was too ambitious or too hard or too much."
"You had been by no means done anything." Felix's voice is fierce. "You were the best. Are the best. It's why I needed to see you once more. Why I had to tell you the reality."
He pulls an envelope from his jacket. Slide it across the table.
"Jean-Marc Laurent died six months ago. Heart attack. The danger died with him." Felix's eyes are intense. Pleading. "I am free now. We are free. We can now have what we deliberate. The fashion house. The partnership, Everything we dreamed about."
Zephyra stares at the envelope. Doesn't touch it.
"What is this?"
"Business proposal. Partnership agreement. For a design house in Paris." Felix's phrases tumble out fast. Desperate. "Your designs. My connections. Equal possession. The whole thing we talked about building together."
"You cannot be serious." Kairo's voice is dangerous. Low.
"I'm completely serious." Felix appears most effective at Zephyra. "I in no way stopped loving you. When I heard you got married, I had a notion it was too late. However, seeing you now. Seeing that you came all this way for answers. Maybe it's not too late. Perhaps we still have a chance."
The café is silent. Absolutely everyone pretends not to listen whilst striking on each phrase.
Zephyra seems to be on the envelope. Then at Felix. Then at Kairo.
Her husband's face is a mask. Controlled. But his hand grips hers so tight it almost hurts.
Felix is offering her awhole lot , everything she once wanted. Her past love. Her dream partnership. Paris.
However, that was five years in the past. Before she built an existence. Before she built herself. Before Kairo.
"I need time." Her voice is barely a whisper. "To think. To process. This is... it is too much."
"Of course." Felix nods eagerly. "Take all of the time you need. I am staying at the hotel Plaza Athénée. Room 412. When you're ready to talk—really talk—I will be waiting."
He stands. Touches her shoulder shortly before Kairo's glare makes him pull back.
"I meant what I stated, Zephyra. I really like you. I've always cherished you. And I am ready to wait as long as it takes."
He leaves. The envelope sits on the desk among them like a bomb.
Kairo's voice is cautiously controlled. Too controlled. "Are you truly thinking about this?"
Zephyra looks at him. Sees the concern in his eyes. The ache. The slightly
contained panic.
"I do not know." The honesty looks like betrayal. "I don't know what I am feeling right now."
"Do you still love him?"
The question she's been avoiding. The one she's terrified to answer.
Does she?