“What happened to your sister? How did she…?”
“Judith Humphry?” A pudgy man in a wrinkly, mud-colored suit appeared in front of our table. Célian withdrew his hand from mine and straightened, standing to introduce both of us.
We all sat down, and I wiped my eyes quickly. For the next forty-five minutes, I watched Célian as he grilled the guy like he wasn’t the one doing us a huge favor, but vice versa. I asked a lot of questions, too, but in the end, it was Célian who coaxed him to come speak on air. He was relentless, charming, and extremely convincing. Finn Samson was worried for his job—and rightly so—but Célian spoke to his heart, reminding him of his morals and all the holocaust-surviving pensioners who had lost so much money.
“Speaking up will not get you fired. If anything, it will get you a fat promotion. Anyone touches your position, we’re going to make it such a shit show, the whole nation will back you up. Every network in New York will rally for you, and that’s a fact—and a promise.” Célian handed him his business card.
That was the scariest thing about my boss. He could talk you into donating your organs to science while you were still very much alive. He had the uncanny ability to make you want to please him, even though he didn’t do anything to earn such devotion.
When we left the deli, I was still disoriented from Célian’s dazzling show of authority. And I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to rock the boat. I hadn’t expected him to open up the way he had before Samson showed up, and I didn’t want to push him for more. Célian Laurent was like a flower. To enjoy his full bloom, I needed to bide my time. I was also embarrassed for taking his hand and crying a second before we’d met an interviewee. So much for keeping it cool and professional.
The cab ride was completely silent, and when we were about two blocks from LBC, the traffic got so bad Célian ordered the driver to pull to the curb and let us walk the rest of the way.
“Are you sure?”
“Do I look like a person who is unsure of anything he does?”
“Okay, man, okay.”
Guess we’d be walking the rest of the way. Célian’s eyes were set dead on the street ahead of us, and his face was murderous when he said, “She was upset and ran straight into traffic. Got hit by a bus in front of my own eyes.”
I coughed on a bitter lump of agony, choking back a sob I dared not release. Oh my God. His sister. Camille. He stopped. So did I. People brushed past us, muttering profanity, the lights and faces blurring into nothing. All I could see was him.
“We’d had a fight.”
“What were you fighting about?” Every single word I uttered was cocked and ready to create an explosion. I wasn’t normally like this with Célian, but I wasn’t scared of him. I was terrified for him. I hadn’t known he harbored so much pain.
We resumed our walk to the next traffic light. He stared at his huge hands. “Camille was my baby sister, talented as hell and seriously fucking beautiful, inside and out. You remind me of her in the way you’re passionate about a story. Only she had the same feeling for fashion.”
That curved my mouth in a smile. I believed him. Célian looked like a god among men. There was no reason to think Camille would be anything less than striking, not to mention ambitious and highly intelligent.
“Camille only had one problem, and that was her boyfriend.”
“What? Why?” I asked.
The light turned green, and he seemed in a hurry to get to the office. I had to practically jog to keep up with his pace.
“Because the bastard’s name was Phoenix Townley.”
I sucked in a breath. Phoenix represented a tragedy bigger than he could shoulder.
“Camille and Phoenix had a bit of an illicit affair at work. I didn’t particularly like it. Then again, I hardly gave a fuck about who she was fucking as long as she was safe. My father, on the other hand, lost his shit. Cam and Phoenix were young and volatile, not to mention they once did very unprofessional things against her office door that I will never be able to erase from my memory—and trust me, I’ve tried to forget those sounds.” He cringed visibly. “If there’s one thing my father and I were in agreement about—and it’s not a stretch when I say it was literally just one thing—it was that Camille and Phoenix weren’t a good match. Phoenix was reckless as hell, and she was a good apple he wanted to take a bite from and throw in the trash. He was a damn good reporter, despite the fact that his daddy got him the position, but he also liked crack and whores, two things that didn’t mix well with the fact that he was dating my baby sister.”
Jesus Christ. Phoenix had done a lot of growing up during the time he was away. I knew that, because there was no way the man I knew today was a drug addict.
“I’m not even sure why the fuck I’m telling you this.” Célian ran his hand through his hair, shaking his head, exasperated. “But I’m halfway through, so I better finish. My father decided to send Phoenix off to the Middle East. You can never run out of action there. I tried to convince him not to play God, because that shit is dangerous—doesn’t matter what the cause is. Camille was livid, even after Phoenix was gone and my father told her about the crack and the whores, trying to convince her to forget him. As he put it, Phoenix had clearly chosen his work over her, so there was nothing to lament. But she was lovesick. Or maybe she was just sick, but she loved Phoenix, and Mathias didn’t respect that.”
We now stood in front of LBC’s building, neither of us making a move to go inside. There was a finality about stepping back into the realm of the office, where we’d have to remain professional, that we didn’t seem to want to face.
My lower lip trembled, and I felt my nostrils moisten. I wanted to cry so badly, but I kept myself strong for him.
“What did you tell her?” I asked. “What made her run into the street?”
“After he’d been gone a few months, she decided to go visit him. They’d been secretly talking and were going to meet in Istanbul. She sold it to Mathias as a business trip. She’d write a piece about the thriving fashion industry in Turkey. She told me she wanted to marry Phoenix, that she couldn’t sleep or eat or shit without thinking about him. She’d lost so much weight. She said he’d been clean for a while, that they were going to give it another shot, that Mathias and I didn’t know the whole story. In that moment I felt so filthy about what my father had done that I decided to tell the truth. I told her Phoenix had never had any doubts about her, but that Mathias had kicked him out of her life, shipped him away, and I hadn’t tried hard enough to stop him—probably none of us could stop him.”
“But you didn’t have a hand in doing it,” I said softly.
He shrugged one shoulder. “I couldn’t stop Mathias. His hatred for the Townleys knows no bound. If you think I’m a hateful fucker, you’ve seen nothing yet.”
“Why is that?”
“Because Townley is actually loved and respected? Because his son didn’t ruin his marriage? The fuck should I know? To me, they’re just another champagne-and caviar-eating family LBC needs to feed.”
Célian bowed his head. His face was stoic, but his eyes bled pain. He looked like The Warrior, shredded into ribbons and tough as steel.
“The moment I confessed, she bolted. The hurt and rage I saw in her eyes… I ran after her when I saw her under the bus’s wheels. Dragged her out. At first I thought she was okay. There was no blood or anything. She died eight hours later of internal bleeding. My father can’t look me in the face anymore because I told her the truth, and I don’t exactly blame him. If it wasn’t for the other shit between us, I would actually understand.”
Silence hung in the air. I wanted to hug him, but knew better than to try. So I did the next best thing, the thing my mom used to do whenever I cried, which wasn’t that often. She’d kiss the tips of her fingers and press them against my heart.