My fingers curl around the stall door.
“He took my cards. My phone. My work. My friends. For two months, my world was the length of our house and whatever events he decided I was ‘presentable’ enough to attend. No shouting. Just nothing. A polite little prison.”
She laughs again, a shaky sound.
“So, when I say I am putting a lot at risk by being here,” she finishes, “I am not being dramatic.”
She says it like she is trying to scare me off, like this is the part where I remember who she belongs to, how dangerous her life is. Like, this is the warning supposed to make me back off.
I do not.
I frown, not at her, but at the story sitting crooked in my head.
“And yet,” I say slowly, “you are here.”
She blinks. “Yes, Nico. Very perceptive.”
“You ran,” I say, ignoring that. “He tried to shut you down. You are still here. That is not exactly a success story for him, is it?”
Her jaw tightens. “He got what he wanted. I came back.”
“On your feet,” I say. “Not in pieces.”
She rolls her eyes. “This is not a movie. There does not have to be blood for something to be destructive.”
“I know that,” I say. “But listen to yourself. You did the one thing he did not plan for. You left. You made him chase you. He punished you, yes, but you did not disappear. You did not break. You are still telling him no by standing in my friend’s barn right now instead of smiling at a gala.”
Her mouth opens, then closes.
“Feels to me like the scary part is not your father,” I say. “It is what you might do if he does not pull your strings.”
She goes very still.
“That is not it,” she says finally. “I am scared of scandal. Of blowing up your career. Of being the reason this whole thing ends with you on your ass.”
“That is not it either,” I say quietly. “You are not scared of him. What are you scared of?”
She sucks in a breath. The donkey snorts, shifting in his stall.
“Élise, what are you scared of?”
“Nico, do not…”
“Élise…”
“I am scared you will find out I am fake.” She answers before she can stop herself, raising her voice. The startled donkey actually snaps at her hand.
The stall goes quiet. The animals look up, then resume chewing, and in the silence, she goes on.
“You wanted me as a trophy, and that felt safe. Now you seem to think there is more to me than glitter and jewels. What happens if you find out the gilded surface is all there is?”
I do not have an answer for that. She looks at me, eyes intent, tears glistening.
“I love the way you look at me, like I am real. I could not stand your eyes when you realized I was just an empty trophy to be put on a shelf.”
“But Élise,” I say, reaching out to her face, wiping the tear, “you are so much more than that.”
“I am not sure I am,” she says, shaking her head, squeezing my hand.
