Ménage Material [La Belle sans la Bete Ménages] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (36 page)

“I don’t know. That’s the only way they can infer something’s going on. They’ve made a big deal out of the fact my wife was visiting your mother. And that the two of you are holding hands.”

Devvy snorted. “I didn’t realize because I’m married, I wasn’t allowed to go into other people’s mother’s homes! For all they know, we could be friends!”

“The images are hardly damaging, Devvy,” Alex told her. “It’s all fabricated anyway. The only reason it’s in some of the more conservative papers and not just the gossip rags is because of Bastien’s position. Plus, the fact I’m a recluse. This will all blow over, especially when Bastien sues them for damages.”

“As long as my mother can’t handle the shame, that’s all that matters.” She rubbed her hands together again, suddenly looking very bloodthirsty. “I was rather looking forward to being banished.”

When he and Alex shook their heads, she just grinned. “Liberation,
mes
chers
. Crossing the Atlantic didn’t do it. It just took you two to corrupt me.”

With that, she bounced over, presenting them both with a delicious image of her jiggling tits, pressed kisses to both their mouths, and then leapt off the bed.

Her direction, the bathroom.

Her intention, to start her day.

Her mood, jubilant.

Bastien realized no matter how long he lived, he would never understand women. More importantly, Devvy would never cease to stop surprising him.

“Hmm?” Devvy muttered into the phone as she looked down at her notes and highlighted a formulaic error in the recipe for her anti-acne soap.

She’d finally settled on a reason why the tea tree oil and witch-hazel combination was drying out the skin and wanted to test out the concoction with reduced levels of tea tree oil but with an added extra—salicylic acid, which would help with acne breakouts. She was also interested in a recent study that indicated thyme, the herb, could also help treat acne, and one of her new tweaked recipes included the herb oil.

With Alex working at her back, the mood in his salon was studious. Her mind was focused on her formulae, this morning’s headline drama well-forgotten.

“Devvy?”

Bastien’s voice had her smiling as she added another note to the margin of her recipe. “Hey, sweetie. You don’t usually call so early.”

“No.”

The one word answer finally got her full attention. She frowned, her eyes flickering over to Alex as he worked on his huge-ass whiteboard in the lounge of his penthouse. As soon as they’d breakfasted this morning at
Les Fenêtres
, Bastien had gone out to face the world, and shoving two fingers up at society and the potential photographers following them, Devvy and Alex had returned to the penthouse. With a lot less drama than yesterday’s excursion, too.

It had taken Alex only five minutes to work up the courage to cross the threshold. Twice, he’d tried to turn back, but she’d persevered and walked him to the car. Shutting him in before he could jump out and rush into the house again.

She wanted him there on a full-time basis, but not because he was stuck. She wanted him to
want
to be there.

That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

Snorting at the thought, she murmured, “Is everything okay, honey?”

For a second, Devvy thought her husband was crying. Considering she’d never seen or heard him being anything less than strident,
strong,
in control of himself and the others around him, Devvy found it hard to imagine. Not that she would have judged him for showing his emotions. Hell, she’d have inwardly celebrated, seeing it as being a step forward in their relationship.

What with the blackmail and Sebastien finally telling them the news that he was interested in pulling out of
La Belle sans la Bête
, it was safe to say he wasn’t a natural
sharer
.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, starting to get concerned at the prolonged silence, and the faint muffled sounds of what she thought was him crying.

Sebastien wasn’t the sort to just call and then say nothing. Everything had a purpose. He was too busy to waste time on meaningless phone calls.

Alex’s back was to her, his study on the whiteboard fierce as he glared at the mumble-jumbled mass of letters, words, and numbers.

She managed to stand and make it out of the room without disturbing him or attracting his attention.

The instant she made it into the kitchen, she grabbed the kettle, turned on the tap, and filled it. Using the sound of running water to cover her, she asked, “It’s something to do with the blackmailer, isn’t it?”

A harsh breath was her only reply and then, her earlier suspicions were confirmed as Bastien finally retorted, his words thick with tears, “Yes.”

“I didn’t think he’d get in touch so soon.” She shook her head at her naiveté, because when else would there be a better time? With all of them having to deal with the repercussions of today’s headlines, when better to remind them of what the fucker was capable of doing. “What is it? Another threat? Or a demand? What?”

More silence.

Knowing that whatever the sick fuck who was intent on playing with their lives for monetary gain wanted was bad enough to drive her stalwart husband to tears had Devvy feeling sick.

At the same time, she knew if Sebastien was weak, she had to be strong. Just like he was strong, when she was the frail one.

She couldn’t afford to snap at him, demand he talk to her. She had to be patient.

This was the first time he’d come to her with a real problem. It was the first time he’d needed her. She didn’t want to let him down.

“Talk to me, sweetheart,” she told him, her voice low. With the kettle overflowing, she turned off the faucet and switched it on. The sounds of the machine working replaced the water.

Whatever it was, she felt sure it had to do with Alexei. For Sebastien to call her and not come to the apartment to speak with them both, the threat had to revolve around their absentminded genius. She needed Alexei’s attention to remain fixed on his work, while she dealt with the repercussions of whatever Bastien had to say.

“I didn’t know,” he muttered eventually. “Nineteen years together, nearly twenty, and he never told me.”

Rather than ask what Alexei had never shared, she murmured, “Whatever’s been sent through might be lies. You can’t automatically trust in the words of a blackmailer.”

Bastien released a shuddering breath. “I hope to God it’s not true. But they were right about Alex and me.”

She scoffed, “A friend of my parents over in the US was spreading gossip about the two of you. You might have managed to keep your relationship on the down-low for a long time, but word still spread. You know what they say, there’s no smoke without fire.”

“Exactly. That’s what frightens me the most,” he rasped. “Threatening to out the pair of us…it was something I might pay blackmail money for, just so I could protect my marriage, my good name.

“This is different. This is…it has to be the truth. Asking Alexei would immediately provide me with the answer.”

“Not if the blackmailer worded it in such a way as to tug at your heartstrings, make you want to protect him,” she pointed out. “And what have you done? You called me, not him. If it was as easy as asking him, you’d have done it already.”

“I don’t dispute that, but think about what you just said. Our relationship, Alex and I, that was slander. The threat had no real base. Outside of my wanting to protect my name and my marriage.

“This is…you’re right, it’s worded to make me want to protect him. Why, if I weren’t in a relationship with him, would I want to protect him? Why would I care enough to pay off this fucker?”

Devvy’s stomach started to churn at his reasoning. “You’re saying that he wasn’t guessing, when he made the original threat. He
knew
you were together.”

“Exactly. If he knew that, then why shouldn’t this be true?”

She nibbled her lip. “Can you tell me what
this
is?”

“
Dieu,
Devvy. The threat…it says Alex was abused as a child. Raped by his mother’s partner. For years,” he breathed, sounding on the verge of sobbing. “Years!”

For a second, the words didn’t penetrate. She stood, in Alexei’s kitchen, another expanse of space filled only with the basic requirements to make the room a cooking space.

More minimalism.

As the words sank in, Devvy thought back to that first time they’d slept together. When, out of nowhere, Alex had had a panic attack. When he’d curled on the floor, as naive and as frightened as a child. The next morning, vowing to share his
secret
with her someday. She looked back to her own reaction to his mother’s odd behavior…

She thought of the open, empty spaces of his penthouse. His need for freedom. Yet, his inability to leave the penthouse. His safe zone. Where no one could touch him. Where he was perpetually safe.

Devvy was no psychologist, but she was pretty damned certain child abuse could explain a lot of this away.

“Devvy?” Bastien asked, smashing through her thoughts like a hammer slammed through the icy covering of a lake in winter. “
Mignonne?
”

“What do they want?” was all she said, not sure if she could even talk about this until she’d processed what it meant.

What the ramifications were.

Alexei’s obsession with finding a third, someone he considered untarnished and capable of loving Bastien the right way.

This morning wasn’t the first time she’d heard mentions of Alexei breaking the two of them up in the past. Bastien had said he’d been heading out on business, when Alexei had called wanting a break…

The way he distanced himself from them. Hiding in his lab, when he ought to have been with them.

His relationship with his mother…her obsessive ways and his veiled scorn of who and what she was as a person.

A ragged sob tore through the kitchen. It was timed perfectly with the climactic whistle of the kettle. It covered the sound and enabled her to sag against the kitchen counter, before slowly sliding down to the floor.

In her gut, deep down, she knew this was true.

She prayed to God she was wrong. She’d pay off the blackmailer, pay him millions to keep something like this hidden, and wouldn’t care if it was all lies. She hoped it was. But she knew it wasn’t.

Alex thought the two of them were similar, because they shared similar backgrounds educationally. They’d both been raised in classes where their so-called peers were a good two, three, or four years older than they. They’d both had to survive in an adult world at too young an age. They’d both mastered their sciences, and were at the top of their game.

And while Devvy had her little quirks, like hating the mornings and never wanting to get out of bed, they were nothing in comparison to the systematic routines Alex had.

“You believe the threat, don’t you?” Sebastien whispered down the line, his voice strangled.

“You do, too,” she retorted, knowing Sebastien had followed the same reasoning as she herself had. Reasoning that made it very easy to believe Alexei had been sexually abused as a child.

“I do, God help me. I keep thinking, if it were true, then he’d have told me. But he wouldn’t. I know him. This explains so much and leaves me with nothing but questions.”

She sucked in a breath. “You never told me what the bastard wants.”

“For us to stew. He or she will contact me in five days’ time.”

“The only thing he can do is threaten to release the news to the press. It’s all well and good dealing with the aftermath of today’s headlines. But I’m not having him go through it all again. He’s kept it a secret for so damned long. He obviously doesn’t want it to define him.

“On top of that, the invasion of privacy…we’ll be lucky if we ever get him out of the penthouse again! This time, we’ll pay. Whatever it takes. “

“I agree, but what if this time the blackmailer doesn’t want money?”

Frowning, Devvy asked, “Why should that have changed? That’s what all blackmailers want, right? Money!”

“This is different, Devvy.”

“How can you say that?” she snapped.

“Stop thinking with your heart, dammit,” he griped. “Think logically. You’re right. Alex has kept this a secret. So secret even I don’t know about it. So, who does know? Who could know?”

“The abuser. It has to be him. Or, maybe somebody in Child Protection Services. The abuse must have been reported. I mean, surely his mother…?” Devvy hesitated. “She would have found out, right?”

A long, shuddery sigh blew down the phone. “I have a small file here. If it is someone in Child Protection Services, then they would have access to this information. But why sit on this info for so long? Alex made his money a long time ago. Why not go to the source? Why come to me?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s too much about all of this we don’t know. According to this file, the abuser’s dead. Saves me going after him and castrating him, I suppose.” He hissed as though the idea of missing out irritated him.