Chapter 57
Étienne
I'd been staring at the same page of Camus for the better part of twenty minutes, the words refusing to coalesce into meaning. The driver's afternoon report played on repeat in my mind: Maxime picked her up from training. They went to dinner with a third person—one of her teammates. He dropped her at the corner again at 8:47 PM—she walked the last three blocks alone.
The whisky in my glass had gone lukewarm. I'd poured it more as something to occupy my hands while I waited for the sound of the front door, for confirmation that she'd returned safely. A habit I'd developed without quite meaning to, this vigil I kept whenever she was out with him.
When I heard the front door open, my fingers tightened reflexively around the book. I forced myself to keep my eyes on the page, to maintain the appearance of casual reading. Her footsteps crossed the entrance hall, heading toward the stairs.
She was going to walk past. The realization brought both relief and disappointment.
Then the footsteps stopped.
"Uncle Étienne?"
I looked up—too quickly, revealing that I hadn't actually been absorbed in reading. She stood in the doorway, still in her street clothes from dinner, her hair pulled back from training. She looked tired, her cheeks flushed, but there was something in her expression—a mix of confusion and something else I couldn't quite identify.
"Elena." I kept my voice carefully neutral, even as I cataloged every detail of her appearance. "How was training?"
She stepped into the library, closing the door behind her. The soft click seemed to echo in the quiet room.
"Good," she said, moving toward the armchair across from mine. "Really good, actually. Coach Michel said my execution scores are improving, and I worked things out with Annabelle."
"Annabelle?" I set my book aside, genuinely pleased. "The teammate who was giving you trouble?"
"We talked." She settled into the chair, curling her legs under her in that unconscious way she had. "Cleared the air about some misunderstandings. She even came to dinner with us—with Maxime and me."
I noticed the slight hesitation before she mentioned Maxime's name, as if she wasn't quite sure how I'd react. "That sounds like a productive evening."
"It was," she said, but there was something in her tone—a hesitation that made me look at her more closely. "Mostly."
I reached for my whisky glass, using the moment to study her over the rim. Her cheeks were still flushed, and there was tension in her shoulders that hadn't been there when she'd left this morning. "But?"
"But nothing," she said quickly. Too quickly. "It was fine. Good. Maxime was very... charming with Annabelle. They got along well."
The pause before "charming" spoke volumes. I found myself leaning forward slightly. "Elena, if something happened—"
"He told his mother about us," she blurted out, then looked almost surprised that she'd said it. "Weeks ago, apparently. Without asking me first."
The words landed with unexpected force. Of course Maxime would have told Corinne. The question was why Elena seemed so distressed about it.
"And how do you feel about that?" I asked carefully.
She looked down at her hands, twisting them in her lap. "I don't know. He wants to make things official—tell everyone, stop 'hiding' as he puts it. He thinks I'm ashamed of him."
"Are you?"
"No," she said immediately, then hesitated. "I don't think so. I just... everything feels so complicated lately."
I should have encouraged her. Should have told her that Maxime was right, that she should embrace their relationship openly. But I couldn't force the words past my lips. Instead, I found myself saying, "Relationships often are complicated. That's not necessarily a bad thing."
She looked up at me then, and there was something in her eyes—a question, a hope, something that made my chest tighten. "Do you really think that? That complicated is okay?"
The conversation had shifted into dangerous territory. "I think you should do what feels right for you. Not what's easiest, or what others expect, but what you truly want."
"That's the problem," she said softly. "I don't know what I want."
The confession hung in the air between us, weighted with implications I couldn't afford to examine. Before I could formulate a response that wouldn't cross lines I'd been trying to maintain, she was reaching into her bag.
"I got something in the mail today," she said, her voice deliberately lighter now, as if she too sensed the need to retreat to safer ground. "An invitation from Aunt Katerina."
She pulled out an envelope and extended it toward me. I took it, our fingers brushing briefly in the exchange. That simple contact sent electricity through me, and I saw her breath catch slightly, confirming that she'd felt it too.
I forced myself to focus on the invitation instead. The calligraphy was elegant, the details embossed in gold. But what made my pulse spike was the way our names were listed: Monsieur Étienne Beaumont et Mademoiselle Elena Petrova.
Not separate invitations. Not a family grouping. Just the two of us, linked by that small conjunction that felt impossibly significant.
"She sent it to both of us," Elena observed, and I heard the question in her voice. "Together."
"She did." I kept my eyes on the invitation, not trusting myself to meet her gaze. My heart was beating too fast, my thoughts racing in directions they had no business going. "Your aunt has never been subtle about her opinions."
"What opinions?"
I looked up then, meeting her eyes, and saw genuine curiosity there mixed with something that looked dangerously like hope. The same hope I'd been trying to suppress in myself for months.
"She has certain ideas about people who belong together," I said carefully, each word measured.
"Oh." Elena's cheeks colored slightly. "You mean like matchmaking?"
"Something like that." I forced myself to look away, to break that connection before I said something I couldn't take back. "Though in this case, I think she's more interested in showing off her new house than playing Cupid."
But even as I said it, I knew it wasn't entirely true. Katerina had always been perceptive, had probably noticed things I'd been trying to hide. This invitation—pairing our names together, creating a situation where we'd attend as a unit—felt deliberate.
A small silence fell between us. I should have suggested she bring Maxime instead, should have used this as an opportunity to encourage their relationship. But the words wouldn't come.
"Do you want to go with someone else?" I heard myself ask instead, the question escaping before I could stop it. "Maxime, perhaps?"
Elena was quiet for a moment, her gaze still on the invitation in my hands. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. "Would that be better? If I went with Maxime?"
The question felt like a trap, or perhaps a test. "That's not what I asked."