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But I’m not. I can’t.
She just needs care.
And so I pick her up in my arms and carry her to bed. Her breath is hot against my shoulder as I bring her through the penthouse. She’s more peaceful now. In the bedroom, I make sure she’s comfortable. I slip her under the sheets. Her hair brushes my arm, her sweet scent cutting through the room and my resolve.
Her eyes flicker half-open.
“Fabien?”
“I’m here. Go back to sleep.”
She does.
I tuck her in, gently brush her hair from her face, and take a step back from the bed.
She trusted me today. When she was most vulnerable. She confided in me. I can’t reject that. It makes me feel needed.
Wanted.
She’s not a stranger to me, no matter how hard I’ve tried to make her one.
It would be so easy to walk away from all this.
I take a deep breath and look at myself in the mirror. Sometimes I’m shocked at how much I’ve changed. How angry I appear. How cold. I’ve hardened a lot in the last few years. I’ve had to rely on myself. No one else. I’m an orphan, remember? There’s no one waiting for me. No one to steady me when I lose my footing.
I should hate her. And yet, here I am, carrying her to bed. Making sure she’s okay.
And that’s what scares me.
I don’t know if I can last the week.
26
JOLIE
Fabien’s not beside me when I open my eyes. I don’t know how I ended up in bed after that long conversation and those tears and that heart-to-heart. One moment I was on the couch, closing my eyes, and then?
Oh.
I fell asleep.
So that means he must’ve carried me in here.
His side of the bed has been ruffled. It’s warm. Fabien must’ve just left.
I roll over and glance at my phone sitting on the bedside table. It’s two. In the morning.
A metallic clang echoes from the other side of the penthouse.
A burglar?
I silently slide out of bed and creak open the bedroom door.
It’s no burglar. It’s Fabien. He’s in the kitchen drinking a glass of water. Any evidence of my accident earlier on the floor tiles is gone.
Fabien notices me in the doorway.
“Hello,” I mutter through the dark penthouse.
