Maxence looked around the casino and, in his mind, across Monaco and Europe. “After we get out of the casino, they’ll wait for you at the airport in Nice. We’ll have to go farther.”
She nodded. “He’ll be so mad.”
Yes, abusers get angry when their victims leave. “I’ll get you out. Do you have your passport?”
“It’s the one thing I have in this ridiculous purse, and I hid it so he couldn’t find it. I’m so stupid. I can’t believe I let him do this to me.”
“No.” Maxence ducked to look her directly in the eyes. At six-four, he was always ducking and stooping to look at people. His hand slipped around the back of her neck, under the scarf. Her skin was satin under his fingers, and her wiry hair brushed the top of his hand. “No, you’re not stupid. You got out. You saved yourself. That’s the first step, and it’s the hardest one.Trust me on this.The first step of escaping, when you have to break away and get out, isalwaysthe hardest. He had you on his yacht anchored offshore, right?”
She nodded and blinked, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
“You did it. You tricked him, and you got out. You’re brilliant. Now, let’s finish the job, okay?”
She nodded, holding the red scarf tightly around her face, and her dark eyes brimmed with tears.
Oh, no.
Maxence cradled her jaw and face with his oversized hands. “Look at me.Simone, look at me.”
She looked up, her eyes huge with fear. One tear hung, diamond-like, on her thick eyelashes.
Maxence inhaled, pulling comfort and stillness inside of him, and he let it shine in his eyes and waves of it overflow and wash over Simone.
That’s how he thought about it. It was just a thing. It wasn’t magic. It certainly wasn’t a science.
He wasn’t a saint, as he’d feared.
He’d been assured of that.
Sometimes, with laughter.
More often, with sarcasm.
It wasn’t hypnosis because he’d never learned how to do it, and he didn’t swing a pocket watch in front of people or use a hypnotic cadence when he spoke.
It was just a thing he did, that he’d always been able to do, ever since he could remember.
He could talk to people.
He could reach them on a different level than normal.
He could make people feel what he did, if the subject was important enough, if he loved it enough.
Maxence held the world in his mind and told her, “You’re safe with me. I’ll take care of you, and I’ll take care of everything. No crying. People look at you when you’re crying. We don’t want that. I’m helping you now, so you don’t need to cry. No more crying. We smile, and we walk through this crowd like it’s nothing, like we’re all alone, just you and me.”
She nodded and blinked hard, but she was looking at him.
He had her full attention.
Shebelieved.
Maxence whispered to her, “Good. Shoulders back. Chin up. We’ll go out through the Buddha Bar at the end of the building.”
“It’s not connected to the casino,” Simone said.
“I know a way through. Here we go.”
They emerged from the smaller casino rooms painted in gaudy bright blues and golds toward the more exclusive rooms in the back. Maxence shuffled her down a hall toward the very private gambling rooms in the back, but her husband and his staff might be in one of those. Estebe was a high roller. He was almost certainly back there.
