I open my eyes. “Let’s go.”
We exit the hall and head upstairs. The corridors stretch long and quiet, lined with stones older than most nations. Fort Vauclairt was built to repel attacks, and it still feels like it’s holding its breath.
Everything echoes.
Fortunately, the Persian rugs layered over flagstone keep my heels quiet. Their rich, deep reds and golds warm a place designed for war. Heavy French tapestries depict royal hunts; together with faded coats of arms, they break up the chill of the gray walls. But the castle still looms. I’ve always loved that about this fortified château, but today it unsettles me.
My hands are frigid even though I’m sweating inside my black wool dress as we climb another flight of stairs.
Pauline doesn’t say anything. She just walks beside me, brisk and purposeful, like this is any other legal appointment. From the third floor, the staircase shrinks and curves up, tight and narrow. My palm presses against the oak railing, smooth from centuries of people gripping it firmly.
We reach the top landing and turn left. The door to the library stands open.
I hesitate for a second.
Pauline glances back at me from the doorway. We step inside.
Even after sixteen years of calling Fort Vauclairt my home, I’m struck by the charm of its library. It has a vaulted ceiling, hand-carved beams, and wall-to-wall shelves stuffed with old leather-bound volumes no one’s read in decades. The scent of aged paper and beeswax polish wraps around me, briefly drowning out theother scent.The one I don’t want to acknowledge.
I keep my gaze tight.
A fire crackles in the hearth. Candles flicker along the sideboard. A tray of untouched mineral water and sparkling glasses sits on a low table. My gaze slides to the rug underneath, to Millie’s black patent leather shoes beside a wingback chair, to the carved legs of a massive desk, and to a stack of documents on it.
I don’t look at anyone. I don’t want to see Brigitte drowning her grief in wine, or Millie trying to sit still or?—
That scent.
Woodsy, clean, masculine, subtle. Suddenly, it hits me hard. There’s no more hiding from reality even if I clench my jaw and pretend I didn’t breathe Alex’s cologne in like oxygen underwater.
He’s here.
His lawyer is here, too. Derek something. Albrighi, I think. A shark in polished shoes, all perfect posture and predatory gaze. I can feel him watching Pauline and me.
Finally, I let my eyes lift.
Alex, dressed in a tailored coat and charcoal shirt, sits near the window. He looks right at me. No smile. No emotion. Just those sharp, intelligent eyes.
I hate him.
If there was one thing Geoffroy and I agreed on in the last years of our unholy matrimony, it was our dislike for his younger half brother. The old duke, Rodolphe, had been married to Alex’s mother for only three years. Unfortunately, that didn’t prevent the couple from having a son.
But Alex has barely lived here at Fort Vauclairt, or in Rohinn. Ornella, his mom, took him to Pombrio after Rodolphe dumped her, which, I am told, was a much uglier divorce than his amiable breakup with Geoffroy’s mom, Brigitte.
There’s no doubt in my mind Geoffroy bequeathed next to nothing to Alex.
I hope it’s nothing.
3
EVA
Maître Duret stands behind the desk, hands folded like he’s about to perform a baptism.
“My sincere condolences to you all,” he begins after Pauline and I sit. “The duke and his son were pillars of this duchy. Their sudden loss is not just a tragedy for the Castellane family, but for all Rohinn!”
Brigitte, her inseparable glass in one hand, dabs a linen handkerchief at the corner of her eye with the other hand. Beside me, Millie’s lips quiver. She clasps her hands tightly in her lap and stares at the bookshelves across the room, no doubt wishing she could disappear into them.
I fight the urge to gather her in my arms.
