To: Aurore Bardot
From: Eric Wén
Subject: MEETING
Dear Miss Bardot,
Thank you for sending over the signed NDA. Spectre will meet you in his studio. He believes you’ll be able to evaluate his work in order to make the decision to be his muse and that knowing his place of work will reassure you. You will find the address attached at the end of this email. A car will pick you up and take you to your destination at our expense (and back home, rest assured).
As agreed, our driver will be waiting for you in front of your apartment at 3:00 p.m.
Do not hesitate to contact me if you have any difficulties.
Cordially,
Eric.
I had three reasons to freak out.
One. I had taken the modern carriage sent by Eric, or, more precisely, a luxurious black car, which took me to my destination.
Two. The destination in question was a picturesque seventeenth-century harbor ringed with buildings from the Middle Ages, timbered houses, and impressionist artists. I was in Honfleur, a two-hour ride from Paris. The bastard was living in a fairy-tale town. Which brought me to my third but not the least reason.
I was on my way to meet Spectre.
Spectre, in his natural habitat, and I was the willing prey coming to him armed with my jeans, crop top, and black platform shoes with reinforcement on the heel. Here I thought I had everything under control coming here, but truly, only a non-mentally sane human would have accepted.
After passing the small streets of the town center and a large number of galleries, most headlining this odious artist, we arrived along the white sand beaches. The car began to slow, and I calmed my nerves by pressing my palms together. Now was not the time to get anxious and remorseful.
After gaining height on the cliffs at the edge of the beach, we turned down a small alley. An elegant iron gate opened, and we drove inside a typical neat French garden. The property was a little over-elevated, resembling a mansion. The brick walls were beige, with white terraces giving a sumptuous panoramic view of the ocean. The neighboring mansions stood a bit further away, giving some privacy.
Don’t be fooled.
This three-floor house was the lair of an arrogant jerk, not a fairy-tale house, and no pretty sight would make me change my mind.
“Miss, we’re here.” Spectre’s driver peered through his visor at me as if it was the third time he was informing me of this.
“O-Okay, thank you,” I mumbled and left the car, unsure of what to do next.
Several hundred images swirled through my mind as I tried to imagine Spectre, terrified of unmasking the man who had exposed my pain. He was definitely an old man rich enough to afford this kind of house. With the little bravery remaining in me, I decided it was now or never. If I started to think and not act impulsively, I’d crawl back to my blanket and drown myself in cookie dough ice cream and binge TV shows.
I made my way up the marble stairs and went around the house to follow the small cobblestone path that led to the backyard garden overlooking the beach. At the very end, surrounded by foliage, there was a white balcony giving a seafront view, with a man standing erect in the middle from behind.
I stepped forward, the salty oceanic air calming me, despite the fact my nemesis had never been so close. He was here, wearing a black shirt rolled up on his forearms, and seemed somehow tall and well-built—nothing like the image I had made of him.
“So, we finally meet.” My voice was quivering, and that wasn’t the moment. “I can say all that I have in my heart. How you—”
Spectre turned around to show his face, and my world collapsed.
I felt like a knife had poisoned my heart, and I screamed, “You!”
My lips turned into an expression of disgust as I eyed the man in front of me. “It’s you! I can’t believe this!”
This was a nightmare.
Spectre was the man I had shared the most beautiful night with.
The one I had made a fool of myself by confessing to him the tales of my heart.
Ajax was the most despicable man on Earth.
“I can explain,” Ajax—I mean Spectre—said, walking casually in my direction.
I shook my head. “You’re a fucking liar! I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you! What a jerk you are.”
“I never lied to you.” He thought he was smarter, a muscle in his jaw clenching. “I never lied, Aurore. All I told you was the truth.”
Maybe he didn’t lie, but he had omitted the truth that changed everything. “You were playing with me! You’re a maniac. Did you have fun watching me make a fool of myself and confiding in you? I can’t believe this.”
I wanted to smash everything. Ajax was the same man who’d painted me. He’d been the one watching me on the bridge that night. He’d witnessed and immortalized everything. And on top of that, Spectre was the stranger I’d deliberately told my most shameful confessions and fears to.
I was ridiculous, and the spark of hope he had created that night turned into gunpowder.
“Aurore.” He tried to hold out his hand to reach mine, but I stepped back. “I couldn’t tell you who I was. I’m sure you’re aware of the risks. I’m taking one at this moment, with you.”
“So you decided to play with me? Bringing me to one of those art events to test me? Make fun of me?” Betrayal burnt my throat. “And what about coming across the bridge? Another joke of yours? You’re a sick psychopath! Was it all a scheme because I reached out to you?”
“No, I wanted you here with me. Meeting you was a coincidence, and—” He swallowed harshly. “It was to show you that not everything will end up the same way. That it can look alike but be completely different. It was to help you to—”
“Don’t say another word to me!” I gritted out, accusing him with my finger. “You lied. You and your money can live in peace. You won’t buy me.” I searched my surroundings, on the verge of throwing the nearest object at him, but all I could find were those fucking blooms. “Why me? You want to paint me again because I’m such a mess to you?”
“No,” he said simply in the midst of the few seconds of silence I gave him. “That night, you had known me for me, not for…” He lowered his voice. “Spectre. Am I such a bad guy to show you who I am behind the mask so you’d give me a fair chance before hating me?”
“You don’t deserve a chance, Aja—Spectre.”
“Let’s go inside so we can talk and—”
“The great Spectre is used to having everything he wants, right?” I hissed.
He dragged his eyes to the old grandmother taking a sun bath on her rooftop balcony very far away. I had to squint to notice her. No doubt she couldn’t see us.
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t shout my name for everyone to hear,” Spectre gritted between clenched teeth.
He meant everyone, but the beach facing his house was private, and the neighbors were almost vacant. That jerk had probably never lived in an apartment, where you hear what your neighbors are watching and their daily fighting.
“Right, because you protect your privacy with an NDA but not the privacy of others. How selfish of you.” I narrowed my stare at him and walked back to the gardens to get the hell out of there.
“Aurore, I know that you’re mad, but you have to stop insulting me.”
Spectre followed after me, and in the middle of the garden, I turned around and waved my hands sharply, on the verge of knocking a bee on the way to forage the flowers. “Why, Spectre? Because it hurts your feelings? Oh, wait, you probably don’t have any, judging by—”
Crap.
Water washed over us, splashing us, and in a moment, we were soaked from head to toe. The automatic watering had started. With my hands, I removed the water obscuring my view and couldn’t be more thankful my black liner was waterproof.
“This is just my luck.” Did I forget to add that my crop top was white and my bra blue? At this point, I might as well hand myself over to the white sharks.
“Let’s go inside to dry,” he offered in his aloof tone, keeping his composure as if we weren’t still standing like two idiots in the middle of the water jets. He should have been as ridiculous as me, but his attitude didn’t scream embarrassment like mine.
“No, I’ll dry by the sun.” Or the lack of it. Either way, I didn’t want to give him nor the water the right to wash away my fire.
“Aurore.” And here was my name escaping from his lips like a hot, desperate moan. “I know you like getting wet.”
Damn it, he remembered our awkward talk.
“But I’m offering you a chance to get dry and to dirty up my neat house all you want, and something tells me you’d like that very much. There is free food.”
He had a point. Two points. The driver was gone, and I was trapped in this hell with him for probably an hour meeting or so.
I jutted my chin up and, out of solutions, admitted, “Fine, but you let the devil enter your home, don’t be surprised by the result. That does not mean, in any case, that I accept the contract. I need answers.”
Once his front door was open, I detected white stone statues by the long corridor of the entrance. The inside of his house was empty, with a few boxes on the side as if he was either moving in or out. The huge white walls and large bay windows let the sunlight enter. It was stripped down to a minimum with only the necessary furniture.
The marble floor was covered with a glossy varnish, and I stared at my muddy shoes. “Do you have a cleaning lady?”
“No.” Spectre delivered from behind me the answer I was waiting for.
“Good.” I entered his mansion with my shoes on, making a mess—a thing I would usually never, ever do, but my nerves were pissed.
Spectre’s curious gaze fell on me. “You’d have to do way more than that if you want to spark my temper. If nothing else, this is nothing but amusing to me.”
I thinned my lips, and to that, he scowled.
