I incline my head. “Yes.”
“Right. Well… You vacationed in America, Italy and Switzerland. You also went to boarding school in America for a few years, right? At Belmont Academy. I googled it. It’s an all-boys school in Vermont.” Her smile widens. “Were you sent away for being terribly naughty?”
“Something like that,” I say. If Etienne’s death can be classified asnaughty.
After the avalanche, I wasn’t myself. I didn’t listen, and I didn’t behave. My parents sent me away to knock some sense back into me.
“You returned to Europe and completed an undergraduate in London and a masters in Paris. You interned at Maison Valmont every chance you got. At twenty-one you started as a junior, and you worked your way up through the company after that. He died unexpectedly a few years ago.” She looks down at her glass, and the long recital of my résumé stops. “I’m sorry about that. It’s tough to lose a parent.”
“Thanks,” I say.
The silence between us stretches on. I take another sip of my wine.
“What happened to him?” she asks, and for the first time, there’s a note of uncertainty to her voice.
“He was in his late seventies,” I say. “He waited a while to have children and, well, he’d always had a bad heart. It came suddenly. My mom is doing well. She’ll be at the wedding.”
“Right. And so will your sister. Nora. She’s a model and a fashion designer. And then you had a brother, I believe, but according to the internet…”
“He died.”
She digs her teeth into her lower lip. “I’m so sorry about that, too.”
“Mhm.” I shrug, and the movement feels like a lie. “It was a long time ago. In an accident.”
“I saw that online. It wasn’t mentioned in detail or anything,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” I’ve heard that so many times, and there’s no good response to it.I’m sorrysuggests that I’ve been wronged somehow, when I was the one who wronged.
This is the last conversation I want to have with her.
“What was his name?” she asks.
“Etienne.” My voice is clipped, and I take another long sip of wine. My silence dares her to ask more questions down this path. And I wonder now, having invoked his name out here, if he’ll haunt me tonight.
Paige reaches for her flashcards. “Well, I think that’s all I know about you. Just the basic life story, I guess.” She takes a deep breath. “I’ll give you my abbreviated story, because I’m assuming you don’t know anything about me, really. So?—”
“Not true,” I interrupt. “I do extensive research on all women I marry.”
“Oh?” she asks. “I’m nowhere near as public as you are. If you search me on the internet, I think you’ll find an old article I wrote in high school and maybe a few tennis results.”
I lean back in the chair. “Your name is Paige Sarah Wilde. You’re twenty-eight years old. You’re an only child. Your great-grandfather built a shipyard out on Cape Ann almost a hundred years ago. He merged with a small-scale business that made sails. The Mathers, although they’ve long since been bought out. Your grandfather grew it into a company that also made leather loafers and bags out of old sails. Your father and uncle inherited it and split the shares fifty-fifty. Your parents both worked in the business, but they died in a car crash when you were—” I pause. “What was it? Nineteen?”
“Yes,” she says.
Her eyes have narrowed during my story.
“I’m sorry about that,” I say, like she did with me. “Youwere an honor roll student in high school. You were also on the debate team and you played tennis competitively. You got a tennis scholarship to a college nearby so you could intern at Mather & Wilde on the weekends and during the summers. A brief stint in New York at a PR firm—you lived in Brooklyn for six months, if I’m not mistaken.”
Her lips have thinned. “You know a lot.”
“I know more,” I say. “For the last four years, you have lived back in Gloucester and worked with the PR team. Despite living near a tennis court, you almost never play, which makes me think something at college killed your love of the game. You mostly eat lunch with the other employees. You’re well-liked in the company. If I remember correctly, you drive a Nissan.”
She looks uncomfortable, and it’s perfection. I’ve thrown off her usual chaos-loving ease.
“I’m guessing you thought about adopting an animal at some point?” I ask. “Because you used to volunteer at an animal shelter in Rockport, so you clearly like animals. It doesn’t seem like you date much. Your last serious relationship was?—”
“Okay!” she interrupts. “I get it. You know more about me than I know about you. Did you hire a private investigator?”
