Chapter 199
Chapter 199
Elena
I pulled my knees up tighter, phone in both hands now. "You only send texts," I said, my voice shifting from panicked to annoyed the way it did when I was coming down from a scare and needed somewhere to put the leftover adrenaline. "I haven't seen your face in three days. Three days. You're acting like someone's grandfather. Normal people do video calls with their partners. Everyone does."
Pause—the kind I'd learned to read, the one where he was adjusting his expression before responding. "I thought you'd be celebrating with the team. Didn't want to interrupt."
"I am celebrating." I flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. "By being extremely annoyed at you from another country."
"That does sound like your preferred celebration," he said, and I could hear the dry humor in it, the slight edge that passed for teasing in his emotional vocabulary. "I'll call back in two minutes. Video."
"Good." I sat up again, suddenly nervous. Ran my fingers through my damp hair. "And when you call, say something specific."
Another pause. "What specifically."
"That you love me very much. That you want to see me immediately." I heard him start something measured, something with of course and naturally, and cut him off before he could finish the diplomatic non-answer. My heart was hammering again. "Not like that. Say it properly."
Long silence. Long enough I almost thought the call had dropped. Then: "Elena." His voice changed—the careful, managed quality gone, replaced by something raw and unguarded. "I love you very much. I want to see you immediately. Every second of waiting is—" He stopped. I heard him breathe. Start over. "Every second is its own kind of torture."
I pressed my lips together hard and stared at the ceiling, my eyes suddenly hot.
"That was good," I said when I trusted my voice. My throat felt tight. "Very good."
"I'm gratified."
"Also," I added, needing to lighten this before I started crying, "I haven't opened your birthday present yet. Saving it." Beat. I let myself smile. "Going to unwrap you when I get back."
Different quality of silence.
"Elena," he said, in the tone that meant simultaneously appalled and pleased.
"Just something to think about," I said sweetly, and curled onto my side, phone pressed to my ear.
---
The call went another hour. He told me what he'd seen—every element, the third toss correction he'd caught that I thought no one noticed, how the step sequence moved. He said I've never seen anyone as beautiful as you in the same tone he used for quarterly projections, which somehow made it worse, made it lodge behind my ribs where I couldn't dislodge it. He said watching me was the one thing that made him forget to breathe.
I fell asleep eventually with the phone still in my hand, then woke at three AM with that specific ache of dreaming about someone and waking to find them gone. My chest hurt. The room was too quiet.
The bathroom had cedar-and-sandalwood shower gel, and I stood under the water too long, breathing it in, cataloging how it was and wasn't the same as the woodsmoke and cologne combination my nervous system had coded as safe. I pressed my face into my hands. The water ran cold.
I sent him a voice message, sitting on the bathroom floor in my towel, knees pulled up. "Étienne. Can't sleep. The shower gel smells like you—not exactly, but close enough that I keep—" Stop. My voice cracked. Start over. "I miss you. Just wanted to say it."
Fifteen minutes later: a voice message, fifteen minutes forty-seven seconds long. I played it immediately, still sitting on the floor. His voice came through low and steady, reading French—Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal, something about correspondence and perfume and how certain sensations carry entire worlds. No performance, no ornament. Just the steady cadence of someone offering something that might actually help.
I crawled back into bed, phone on the pillow next to my ear. Played it again. Then again. Asleep before the third loop, his voice the last thing I heard.
Morning: the trending thread was gone. Comments calm. I sat up in bed, blinking at my phone, and messaged asking what happened. Response in thirty seconds: Beaumont Group holds shares in several platforms. One phone call.
I stared at it. Put the phone down. Picked it up again. Typed: Thank you.
His response: Always.
---
Seven and a half hours of sleep on the plane—first real sleep in four days. Woke over the Alps with my cheek on the window and that blank feeling after genuine exhaustion, drool on my chin that I wiped away quickly. Found Michel two rows up, told him I wouldn't return to base with the group. My voice was still rough from sleep.
"The Maxime situation," he said. Not a question.
"Resolved. A while ago." I shifted my weight, suddenly self-conscious.
Slow nod. "And the other situation."
I didn't answer. He turned back to his paper. "Monday morning at base. Work to do before Olympic qualifier."
Found Annabelle across the aisle, earphones in. Tapped her shoulder, waited for her to pull one out.
"I'm going with my—" Pause. No clean word for what Étienne was. I tucked my hair behind my ear. "My uncle. The one with all the rules."
She gave me the look of someone assembling a puzzle from pieces they'd been noticing. "The one who got you the corner practice floor whenever you needed it? Who had the lighting adjusted before warmup?"
"He has a lot of rules." I felt my face warm. "Mostly for himself."
She put her earphone back in without further comment. I took that as acceptance.
---
Arrivals hall: the usual chaos. Rolling luggage, reunion hugs, acoustics designed for throughput not comfort. I'd been here a hundred times, always met by a driver with a sign or airport staff, ushered through the exit where photographers didn't gather.
Today I came through the main doors, pulling my carry-on behind me, my other hand gripping the strap of my duffel. My palms were sweating.
He was near the barrier. No sign, no phone. Dark navy three-piece, that economy of movement when he was trying not to be noticed—which didn't work because he was Étienne Beaumont and stillness on him read like a statement. Hands at his sides. Watching the doors.
He saw me at twenty meters. Something in his posture changed.
I wanted to run. Wanted to drop everything and cross that distance in three seconds, put my arms around him, press my face to his collar, breathe in cedar and vetiver and that thing underneath I had no name for except him. My hands tightened on my luggage. Wanted it immediately, photographers and phone cameras and plausible deniability be damned.
I walked. Normal speed. Normal face. Each step felt like it took an hour. My heart was doing something complicated in my chest.
He took my luggage handle without asking, fingers brushing mine for exactly as long as necessary—but I felt the contact like electricity, felt my breath catch. He leaned down—not to kiss, not to hug, just to speak low enough that only I could hear.
"Bien rentré," he said. Made it back safe. Ordinary words. Not ordinary delivery. His voice was rough at the edges.
"I missed you," I said, equally quiet. My voice came out breathier than I intended.
His throat moved. His eyes did that thing I'd learned to read—the shift in focus, the set of his jaw when he was holding something in place by force. For a second he looked dangerous in that specific way when his control was working hard. His gaze dropped to my mouth, then back up.
"On monte en voiture," he said, voice lower now. Car. Now.
He turned toward the exit, one hand on my luggage. I fell into step close enough our shoulders nearly touched, close enough I could smell his cologne, and my entire body relaxed for the first time in three days. Thought about the restaurant—proper French duck, he'd mentioned it three days ago, somewhere that's ours, somewhere quiet—and felt the exhaustion and triumph and three days of missing him settle into something approaching peace.
We walked out into the pale, cool Paris afternoon together, and I let myself brush my hand against his once, briefly, where no one could see.