Twenty-One Nights in Paris: Chapter 38

The hairs on the back of Ren’s neck rose to hear that fierce tone from Sacha, the anger in his voice on her behalf. He knew about the kidnapping. Why was he throwing it back at Grandmama? And why did the indomitable matriarch look as though she could keel over at any moment?

‘Get him of here!’ her grandmother roared, when she recovered her composure. ‘Now!’

‘Do you know how much she has already sacrificed for this company that you love more than life? She’s not like you. You can’t force her to be without hurting her.’

‘I am the only family she has, and she is to me!’

One police officer gave Sacha a shove and he stumbled in the direction of the door, but he turned back to Livia, his brow low. ‘When did you discover that? After two days? Or three? How long did it take before you decided to find the money after all?’

Sacha’s ferocious words were like nothing Ren had ever heard from him but then she realised what he meant and a wave of nausea swept through her. Her recollections swam before her eyes, jumbled as always. But what he said made sense – horrible, unbelievable sense. Even twenty years ago, why would it have taken so long to raise the money for her ransom? The company might not have been financially fit, but someone would have loaned Grandmama the money to pay it immediately – if that’s what she’d wanted to do.

But of course it was so very like Grandmama to refuse to deal with criminals. Ren groped for the table to steady herself. Her eyes wouldn’t focus.

Livia had let her down at her darkest moment and had never had the courage to admit it. Ren had assumed the disappointment and overprotectiveness had been a result of Ren’s weakness, but had they come from her grandmother’s own feelings of guilt, instead? Ren had been held back and constantly scared because of failings, and not her own.

‘Ren, I’m sorry. I knew this would hurt you and… maybe I shouldn’t have said a fucking thing.’ Sacha’s face came into focus, a few feet away, his expression grim.

‘At least you thought I deserved the truth.’

‘You deserve more than the truth. You deserve .’

‘Better? You think you’re better for her than her own family?’ Livia asked hoarsely.

‘No,’ he said. ‘But need to do better. Stop making her pay for your mistakes and appreciate the person she is, despite everything you’ve done to her. She was hurt and upset and she still reached out to my family, to a class of strange school kids. She is .’ His voice broke and it felt like her heart. He stumbled another few feet, herded roughly in the opposite direction by two of the officers. ‘Learn how to love her properly!’

Her breath short, Ren stared at him, at the fire in his eyes. He didn’t shy away from difficult truths, and he thought she was strong enough to face them, too. She hoped he was right. And she couldn’t help wondering if his feelings were the same as what she felt for him.

With a terse sentence in French to the police officers, Sacha allowed them to escort him out, leaving Ren alone, the foundations of her existence pitching. But, like that Friday night nearly three weeks ago, landing in a situation that was worse than anything she’d imagined gave her an unexpected sense of freedom. She was still breathing. Perhaps Sacha loved her.

She stared at the familiar face of her grandmother, and for the first time, she recognised the reserve in her tight expression, the hints that Ren had always interpreted as disappointment.

‘Grandmama,’ she choked, belatedly realising there were tears streaming down her cheeks. She waited for the harsh words, the admonition that she shouldn’t cry in public, but even Grandmama couldn’t shy away from the truth, now it was out in the open.

‘Perhaps we should discuss this somewhere else,’ Ziggy said with a gentleness that was all pretence.

‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ Ren declared through her tears. ‘Ever again!’

‘Because of ?’ Ziggy gasped.

‘Yes,’ she said steadily. ‘And no. There are some things I’m no longer willing to do for the business.’ She waited for the expected stab of guilt, for the reminder of everything Grandmama had sacrificed for her and their legacy, but instead, it was a stab of pain. Had Grandmama really valued money over Ren’s wellbeing? What did that say about their illustrious family?

Ren stalked from the room with just a look to compel her subdued grandmother to follow. She dialled Bilel in the foyer. The presence of paparazzi outside the Ritz was a very bad sign. Once they were safely in the car, Bilel phoned the Préfecture de Police and turned the car in the direction of the Commissariat in the eighth arrondissement, where Sacha had been taken.

Ren turned to her grandmother. ‘Phone the head of PR and tell them to deny Sacha’s involvement in the theft. Did Ziggy tip the press off?’

Livia nodded, looking terribly frail. It wasn’t exactly that frailty that made Ren’s anger slowly ebb, it was the growing pity and the power it gave her to see past her own misguided sense of duty.

‘There’s no one in the office on Christmas Day.’

‘Then phone them at home!’

‘It’s true, then. He didn’t steal the panel? You weren’t just… protecting him?’

‘I was with him. All night. And that’s what I’m about to tell the detective.’

‘Then who did steal it? Ziggy was so certain it was him.’

‘If you ask me, the first place you should look is the heir of Pierre Leclerq, since he stands to lose the most if the piece is seized by the state. You’ll have to ask Ziggy later, but you both made a terrible mistake – a mistake we need to rectify right now.’

‘But Charlie said that you’d never… have an affair… with a stranger. And we knew you were staying with Malou.’

‘I didn’t have an affair with a stranger.’ Ren paused, wondering if she was strong enough to utter the truth now it couldn’t hurt him. ‘I fell in love.’

‘But – it’s –

? He’s—’

‘Please don’t finish that sentence,’ Ren said with a sigh. ‘I’m already getting far too many vibes here.’

‘Lady and the what?’

‘Never mind,’ she murmured. ‘How did you know I was staying with Malou?’

‘Ziggy suspected your story was at least partially just bravado and had you tailed back to Malou’s.’

‘You had your own granddaughter tailed?’

‘I was worried about you!’

‘But Ziggy was only worried about me getting in the way of her plans! She manipulated you. She manipulated all of us. It’s to her advantage that I have no interest in the business, you know.’

Livia stared ahead. They skirted the Opéra Garnier, its gold statues dull in the grey weather. The snow refused to fall on Paris on Christmas Day, but rain was threatening, as though the weather echoed Ren’s feelings and bolstered the sensation of déjà vu.

‘You should have told me the truth about what happened twenty years ago.’ Livia baulked, but Ren couldn’t stop now. ‘We should have talked about it. Those few days were… a hollowness that never left me. I felt guilty that I couldn’t wish the feelings away, like you did.’

‘What would you have gained to know what a selfish, weak woman your grandmother is?’ Livia snapped.

‘It would have been better than not knowing you at all,’ Ren replied sadly. ‘I never understood why you were so distant with me. I couldn’t work out what I’d done wrong, except to survive my parents. After the kidnapping, I had no friends, no interests of my own. Sometimes I felt like I didn’t exist, like I died in that garage.’

Tears flooded her eyes afresh, but she didn’t swipe at them. She didn’t resist them at all, not when they were giving her strength.

‘And you are saying this now… to hurt me?’

Ren’s instinct was to interpret that sentence as disapproval, but she realised now it was more of Grandmama’s feelings of her own inadequacy. ‘I never meant to hurt you. I never to hurt you. All I wanted was a grandmother – nothing else.’

‘Which is why you were never cut out to take over the company.’ The bald words should have felt like a slap on the face, but Ren was oddly proud to agree with her. ‘I did the right thing, steering you into the role Ziggy made for you. The company is our past and our future – our identity and our lives. If you don’t have the stomach to take over the leadership, then where do you fit? I don’t know and I’m afraid for you.’

Ren stared at her grandmother, marvelling that could be so fearful. ‘That’s one thing I’m afraid of, Grandmama. I would like the company to be stable and do well and I do appreciate that its part of my history, but I can’t dedicate my life to it like you did. I’ll always have other priorities. Couldn’t I… couldn’t I find somewhere else where I fit?’ Had she just asked the matriarch if she could quit? Where had the courage come from?

‘You are an Asquith-Lewis!’ Livia exclaimed, her voice shaking.

The old Ren would have backpedalled and worried that Grandmama had drawn even further away. It had felt pathetic to want nothing more than the woman’s love but now, Ren realised how courageous it was to keep hoping that Livia was capable of love.

She clutched her grandmother’s hand, smooth from a rigorous skincare regime, but the arthritic knuckles a symptom of age that money couldn’t combat. ‘I will always be an Asquith-Lewis, and your only living relative. And I love you.’

Silence fell. As soon as the words emerged from her lips, Ren understood the power of them. She gave an inward salute to the spirit of Karim Mourad, who she felt certain would have understood the resolve that merely thinking those words had lent her over the past few days.

‘I – those are not the words I expected from you,’ Livia whispered.

‘I know. But… it’s my antidote. You should try it.’

‘You want me to tell you I love you?’ Livia said with a sniff. ‘What will that change?’

‘My outlook,’ Ren suggested. ‘The way I feel about who I am.’

‘You put a lot of faith in words,’ Livia said, her tone clipped.

‘Someone once told me that there is power in words,’ she said softly. There was a power in the words, as well as saying them.

Even her preference for happy endings wasn’t out of weakness, she realised. To believe that problems could be overcome and fairness and love could prevail, that required faith. She’d lost it, for a few days. She’d tried to rationalise the consequences of her feelings and accept an outcome she hadn’t wanted. But her strengths didn’t lie in the ability to understand and contextualise life. Those were Sacha’s strengths.

Hers was faith, an area where he was sorely lacking. Could she make Sacha see it? Could she show him she didn’t need to choose between her family and love? Would he take a step of faith for her if she asked?

The car came to a stop outside a police station with a stately stone façade and Ren’s hope plummeted back to her shoes. From the moment she’d met him, she’d hurt him. He was being questioned by the police because of her, and this final humiliation was enough to test the faith of the most steadfast soul.

‘I have to fix things with Sacha, Grandmama.’

She heard only an inarticulate sound from her grandmother and turned to her in confusion. What she saw made her shout in alarm.

‘Grandmama! What’s happening? Bilel!

Get me the defibrillator and then go! To the hospital, right now!’