Although Gaspard looks shocked, I can’t help a huge smile from spreading across my face. Of course she gave him a telling off. I can only imagine JB giving her attitude, and her giving it right back. That’s my Kate! I think with pride, and then do a quick auto-correct. She’s not mine. She loves Vincent. And remembering that makes me feel like someone dumped cold water over me. I have to stop thinking about her.
But that’s kind of hard when Vincent enlists me to come along with him that night on his daily lights-out-in-Kate’s-room routine. “You’re my best friend,” he pleads. “I need your support.”
“Vincent, I support you. I just don’t feel like going out and standing around in the pouring rain.” But one look at his drawn face and the dark circles under his eyes, and I grab my coat. “Let’s go.”
It never seems to really pour when it rains in Paris. You usually get a light sprinkle with an occasional shower. But tonight it’s coming down in buckets. We stand outside Kate’s building, Vincent staring up at her window, taking the rain full in the face, and me fitting as much of myself as possible inside the doorway, but still getting soaked.
“Oh my God, Jules,” Vincent calls. His voice is barely audible in the downpour. “She’s at the window. She’s looking at the sky—out at the storm.” And then he’s struck silent. He stares intently up for a full ten seconds, and then slowly lowers his face until our eyes meet. “Jules, she looked my way,” he says.
“That’s great. Can we go now?” I say, wrapping my arms around myself. Unless I’m swimming or in the shower, I hate getting wet.
“No, I mean she really saw me. And I think she’s coming down!” he says.
“Which is my cue to leave. Good luck, mon ami,” I say, dashing out into the rain and clapping my hand to his shoulder before turning to go. But something inside of me does this little leap, and instead of leaving, I walk to the corner and wait to see if she actually comes.
And then there she is, face radiant as she runs out the door, drops her umbrella, and throws herself into Vincent’s arms. He picks her up off the ground and clasps her so tightly I’m surprised she can breathe.
Suddenly I’m imagining myself in Vincent’s place, holding her warm body to me, nuzzling my face in her hair. And a jolt of emotion knocks me back a step. One look at their joy and my heart feels like it’s being pulled apart. Why am I so conflicted? I love Vincent like a brother. Being without the girl he loves has made him physically ill. So why does their reunion hurt so much?
That night, Kate stays at La Maison. Spends the night in Vincent’s room. Sleeps in his arms.
And something happens to me that has never happened before. I feel the acid burn of jealousy and it overwhelms me. I leave the house, jog the half-hour trek to my studio, and lose myself in my painting.
She wants to be with him, not with me. She thinks I’m a joke. A flirt. Of course—that’s what I’ve led her to believe. But she doesn’t see through it, like something in me hoped she would.
My feelings for her are laughable. Ineffectual. Never meant to be. So why am I cursed with them? Why can’t I forget about her? I have sacrificed my very existence to the whims and desires of fate. I am fate’s slave, and yet it is mocking me.
I look in despair at the mess I’ve made on the canvas, and sit on the ground, my head in my hands. I must get control of myself. If things continue as they have started, this girl is going to be a part of my life. A part of our clan’s life. And I have to learn to deal with it without showing my feelings. I have to get over her. I take my phone out of my pocket and call the first number that comes up: Evelynn.
“Hello, bella. I know it’s been a long time, but would you happen to have a pot of tea for a poor, lonely artist?”
I go to the only thing that I know will make me feel better. Another woman’s embrace.
ELEVEN
“CHARLES WAS WITH LUCIEN!” VINCENT SAYS AS he bursts into the kitchen, where JB and Gaspard are having a rare dinner with the rest of us instead of eating alone. Jeanne laid out the good china for the occasion, and left us with a feast of cochon de lait, an entire roasted suckling pig that would normally feed a dozen people, but with Ambrose eating for six, will only last the night.
Everyone stops eating and stares at Vincent. “What did you say?” JB asks in a strained voice. “I just came from dinner with Kate’s family. And she saw Charles with Lucien the other night. They were talking outside of the nightclub.”
Charlotte raises her hands to her mouth, and moans, “Oh no.” I scoot over and put my arm around her. But I know what she’s thinking: Charles has finally done it. He’s asked the numa to destroy him. I’m overwhelmed both by sadness that Charles’s depression has led him this far, and anger at the thought of a numa blade severing his neck.
“But there’s not only that,” Vincent says. “Kate’s sister is apparently seeing Lucien. As in, romantically.”
“What?” Ambrose roars, banging his knife handle on the table.
“Of course, she doesn’t know who he is. Or what he is,” Vincent says. “And he has obviously discovered our link with Kate’s family.”