“She doesn’t get out much,” I say, my voice bland because I don’t wish to share the details of her personal struggle with this man, even if the information might be worth something to him.

  “Because of her guardian? That’s what I always assumed.”

  My curiosity is piqued despite myself. Her guardian. The missing link between when she lived in a mansion in California and when she was planted in a penthouse in Tanglewood. The person who must have raised her after her parents were killed.

  Someone who must know the owner of L’Etoile.

  “Who is she?” I ask, but it’s impossible not to appear interested. Not when I’ve been searching for this for so long. I’m leaning forward in my chair, any pretense of being casual long gone. There is a burn in my body, like acid. It fills every inch of my skin, singeing me from the inside out. The fire is revenge.

  Damon doesn’t look surprised, as if he knew I would want to know. Perhaps he did know. He’s that kind of man. Dangerous to someone who would cross him. “Her parents were both isolated. Both only children. There was no extended family to take her in.”

  “Her name.” I’m gritting my teeth against demanding more, now, faster.

  “It’s a man, actually. I’ve met him a few times.”

  A man. Why does that make me uncomfortable?

  Perhaps because he has her locked up in a damned tower, so afraid of men she had to pay one to take her virginity. Or perhaps because he let her hide herself from the time she was a child instead of helping her recover from her parents’ death.

  “Is he a member here?”

  “Yes, although he does not come frequently. I could introduce you.”

  That would be… exceptional, considering I would no longer need to use Bea for that purpose. Would she find out? That depends on how much this guardian, this man, has done. “What would it cost me?”

  Damon only smiles. He does not refute the claim that he will charge me something, because we both know that this is a place of business. “I’m not certain it’s a price you’re willing to pay.”

  “Ah, money. How crude.”

  “It is how I’m accustomed to doing business. I’m sure you know that.”

  “It’s not the cost I was referring to, however. What if you had to choose between Beatrix and finding this person? What if you had to choose between Beatrix and revenge?”

  I sit up straight. It’s one thing for him to guess at my curiosity; another thing for him to know the source. Hearing her name makes a strange possessiveness rise in me. Possessiveness and pain, at the idea of losing her. “How the fuck do you know what I want with the owner of L’Etoile?”

  “Do you know what I sell, Hugo?”

  “People,” I say, because Damon is known to own strip clubs in the city. Many of them. High-end ones. And he held a virginity auction in the Den once.

  “And how would I sell people without information? That’s the leverage I truly need to run my business. Which is how I know about the discreet inquiries you’ve made.”

  “Not discreet enough.”

  “I’m rather a special case, if you don’t mind me saying so. Most people won’t know.”

  “Well, I hope you don’t plan on selling me to the highest bidder. I’m afraid my virginity is long lost.”

  “Lost early, if I had to guess.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. Guess, that is.” I was fifteen when I lost my virginity, though it didn’t feel like a loss at the time. It felt like I had won something—a beautiful, glamorous woman. “If you have information to sell me, then sell it. But don’t think that you will leverage me, because I have enough people doing that.”

  “The beautiful Melissande.”

  Of course he would know her.

  Perhaps I had been too young. At fifteen I had felt like a man. Had been built like one after working summers in the field. Mama had been gone two years before then. Breast cancer, caught far too late, and with far too little money to do anything about it. There had only been enough to buy Valium to ease her pain toward the end.

  I had been young but I'd grown up early.

  “Beautiful, indeed,” I say grimly.

  “I want her out of business,” Damon says, his voice flat and final.

  That’s his price, I realize. It really won’t be a sum of money I can pull from my investment accounts. It will be a person that I must sell in order to achieve my revenge. “Why?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Would it make you feel better if I said there was a noble reason? That she is a danger to Tanglewood and the people inside it? That I care about this city more than money?”

  “You are not a noble man.”

  He smiles. “No matter what Penny thinks, you are right. And so the real reason is much more simple than that. She’s competition. And here is a way to get rid of her.”

  “I see.” Melissande has done me no favors in this life, despite what she may think. I was too young to have sex with a woman in her late twenties, someone sophisticated and with an ulterior motive in bringing me to the states. She encouraged me to fall in love with her knowing I would be nothing but a pretty little commodity for her business.

  But I also do not wish to harm her. There’s a connection between us. She’s the woman who took my virginity. And gave me a future in the process.

  Damon’s mouth twists in bitter understanding. “It’s not so easy, is it?”

  Hurting a person to further my own gains? Not easy.

  Then again it was not easy for my mother to work eleven hours a day cleaning soiled sheets and toilets for rich gamblers in Tangier. It was not easy for her to trudge two blocks before dawn only to return after nightfall, her muscles trembling with exhaustion.

  It was not easy when one of those gamblers followed her home.

  “A name would not be enough,” I say.

  Damon nods, as if he expected that. “The means to ruin him.”

  I would only wish to ruin him if he’s the man who pushed in the door when I was seven years old. The man who shoved me into the closet while my mother shrieked, blocked me in with a chair. The man who raped my mother on the floor while I watched from the crack in the door.

  Once I meet the man, I’ll know if he is the one. I would recognize him anywhere.

  From the look on Damon’s face, he knows what my answer will be. Which proves my deal with the devil is inevitable. I will trade anything for revenge.

  Even Beatrix Cartwright.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The nice thing about only working one day a week means that I have most of the week for leisure. Walking the park that winds behind my loft. Painting. Reading. I thought that it was a fulfilling life. A sign of success that my bank account continues to grow through solid investments. And the Saturday nights have always been more about pleasure than work.

  Today nothing seems to hold my interest. My books look empty and cold. The outside is a lonely place. This is Bea’s fault. The world only looks colorful when she’s near me, which is hardly any time at all.

  Suddenly one day a week seems like not enough.

  I’m looking through my phone, listless, before finally giving in. I pull up the video app so that I can view her page. There are so many videos here. So many days of her. It feels like a feast for someone who’s been starving, even though I know it isn’t real. Is this what her fans feel like? I scroll down to the comments.

  There are many of only a few words: Beautiful. Queen. Perfect soul.

  Many emojis as well. Hearts and music notes and faces that are crying, with happiness I think.

  Other comments are more in-depth. I love you so much, Bea. I’m your biggest fan and you’re beautiful in every way. Follow me back PLS.

  And, When are you going to go on tour?? I would love to hear you LIVE. #frontrow

  There are also some rather inappropriate ones that have me raising my eyebrows. If they are willing to say this in a public forum, I wonder what kind of private messages she gets. There was no reason for her to hire someone to take her virginity. There’s no shortage of volunteers in the comments section.

  But I know more than anyone that women don’t hire me because there’s no one else. They hire me because they want me to be the empty man, the one who can fuck them the way they want, not the way I want, the one who can act like I love them without feeling a thing.

  And I’m good at being that man. Empty.

  I scroll back to the top, where a new video has been uploaded since I looked at the page yesterday. This one is titled Over the Rainbow. I press the PLAY button and settle in to watch.

  Most of the videos start with music. Only rarely does she say a brief piece before she begins. This time she begins speaking. “I met someone recently, someone who made me think that maybe there’s more to life than what I knew before. Someone who makes me think there’s somewhere else worth going.”

  My heart squeezes, because she must be talking about me. I can hear it in the husky bent of her voice, the way she speaks when my mouth is on her clit. Hungry and low.

  “Most people would think he’s happy. It feels like he’s full of joy, but there’s sadness, too. A part of him that longs for a world more colorful than this one.”

  How does she see inside me, like my skin is made of glass?

  “And when I’m around him I long for that world, too. Have you ever met a person like that? A person who made you dream of more?”

  There’s a silence in which my mind fills in the answer. You make me dream, Bea. Because it’s not as simple as one direction. It’s what happens when we’re together, the possibilities like sparks in the air, giving us a glimpse of what could be.

  “I love doing the new songs for you, but I have this one on my mind. It’s a classic song. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but maybe today it will sound new to you like it does to me.”

  And then she plays the song in a slow, sultry, beautiful tune. It makes goose bumps rise on my arms, the deep sound of her breath coming through the small speakers. How does she do this?

  By the time she gets to the end, there are tears in my eyes. I do not have the worry that other men have in Tanglewood. That other men had in Tangier, also. That I will not be properly masculine if I cry, but there is very little that can move me. A beautiful painting. A poem. I can enjoy them without being moved, but this is different. It’s like she’s singing to me, and my body responds as if she’s touching me. I want to clench my hand in her wild hair. I want to press my lips against the rapid pulse at the base of her throat. God, she’s perfect.

  The notes end in a weighted silence. And then the video ends.

  I feel the loss of her, acute and painful.

  The video app gives me only a small pause before spinning into another one of her videos. And another, while I sit there, cold as a statue on top of a building, watching the city stream by. Eventually the app moves to play other musicians who share their work. And then pop music published by the major labels.

  Still, I cannot bring myself to move.

  The notes she played have embedded themselves in my head. It’s all I can hear.

  Until the phone buzzes in my hand. An incoming text. I glance down, detached from this ordinary world, disinterested, until I see Melissande’s name. I try to ignore how much anticipation rises within me at the thought of seeing Bea again.

  She booked the next three weeks.

  A deep breath makes me realize I had been holding it, but for how long? Since I saw Bea perform that haunting melody? Or longer, since I left her bed? I text back, Okay, glad Melissande isn’t here to see me. She would sense that something was wrong, no matter how well I try to hide it.

  Your other clients will lose their minds.

  My other clients will go back to their regular lives. They will find a nice man in a bar. Or finally approach someone they’ve had a crush on. There’s nothing for them with me.

  It’s Melissande who’s in danger of losing her mind. I’m not giving you any more nights, I type.

  Three dots hover on the screen for a long time. Either Melissande is typing out something very long or she’s doing a lot of erasing and starting over. In the end her message is brief: I made you.

  That makes me laugh out loud, the sound echoing in the large loft. Do you want me to thank you? I type back, before adding, Thank you, Melissande. For making me a whore.

  She’ll read the sarcasm fine, because it’s been a very long time since we were friends. A very long time since we were lovers. There must be fondness there, to make me reluctant to ruin her. I’m not in the business of ruining women. Usually I prefer to pleasure them. Could I make an exception for Damon Scott? Would I make an exception for revenge?

  It is perhaps ominous that I don’t know the answer myself.

  Chapter Fourteen

  In my loft I prepare a gourmet picnic with sliced meats and creamy cheeses. There are plump grapes and ripe strawberries. A baguette from the French bakery so fresh it crackles when I place it in the bag. Most of these items are easy to prepare. The only thing I make from scratch is a moist brioche with hints of orange and white chocolate, soft on the inside, the sugar caramelized on the outside. My mother taught me to make this.

  She worked twelve hours a day in a hotel that cost more per night than she earned in a month. She did not have money for luxury or time for hobbies. But in the few minutes she had between waking and work, she loved to cook. Recipes handed down from her mother but spiced with what was available in the open-air markets of Tangier. There was ratatouille made with tomatoes and zucchini and bay leaf, but also couscous and ginger. French lentils with fava beans and cumin. She loved to try new things, both of us tasting from the pot while the meal simmered, heating the small room we shared.

  I don’t have her level of curiosity or wonder about cooking, but every meal I prepare is an homage to her. If you would have asked me if I loved my mother, I would have said yes. But I spent too much time fighting in the streets to be what you’d call a good son.

  She was the one who let me out of the closet, limping and bleeding and crying too hard to speak. Even then I knew that the police would not help us against a rich American tourist. I cooked every day for her for a week, before she was well enough to return to work.

  We did not speak of what happened that night. She didn’t wish to, and I was too angry. Too selfish. Too busy fighting in the streets, thinking I would make something of myself in a city that hardly recognized me as human. But somewhere in my chest was the certainty that I would find that man.

  After the cancer took her, it became my only purpose.

  So when I met beautiful Melissande, when I found out where she came from—I knew she would be the way to revenge. She offered me the chance to come with her. It seemed almost miraculous, that I had fallen in love with a woman and could achieve my goal at the same time.

  She kept me in a state of ignorant bliss in her bed for a year before revealing my purpose in Tanglewood. I would be a prostitute, catering to the wealthy men and women of society who wanted a dark-haired fallen angel in their beds. Someone with an exotic accent and very little inhibition.

  That’s when I learned that I could not have love and revenge.

  There could only be one or the other.

  My mind is in turmoil as the brioche cools on the oven, but I move with determination as I pack them with the rest of the picnic. We won’t need Bea’s tiny kitchen tonight, though I still hope to dine with her. The drive to the hotel is done in silence, without the usual joy I feel when driving the Bugatti.

  I feel only a small amount of guilt for using my key card without being invited. It only takes me to the entrance. Once inside I knock on the wall and wait, a strange fluttering of nerves.

  What if Bea isn’t here? What if she is here but she doesn’t want to see me? She isn’t paying for tonight. There’s nothing on the books with Melissande until tomorrow—our standing Saturday appointment.

  From the elevator car I can see the empty living room. Soft voices filter through the closed bedroom door. “Hello? Is anyone home?”

  The door opens, revealing a young woman with blonde hair with pink streaks. “Uh. Hi?”

  Not Bea. For a moment I’m so thrown I wonder if I somehow found the wrong building. A different gaudy hotel established by the ex-owner of a French brothel. A different penthouse with an agoraphobic little ex-virgin. “Is Beatrix here?”

  “Bea,” the blonde says in a singsong voice. “Have you been holding out on me?”

  Her voice comes from deep within the penthouse. “What?”

  “There’s a young Cary Grant at your door, so either L’Etoile has seriously upped their staffing game or you have been keeping very big, very sexy secrets.” The young woman winks at me.

  “Is there a baguette in that basket or are you just happy to see me?”

  I laugh, as comfortable with flirting as she is. “Both, naturellement.”

  “A man to please all appetites,” she says as Bea peeks around the corner, hair even more wild and dangerous than usual. It’s untamable, that hair. Like the woman.

  “Oh,” she says, though it’s more like a squeak. “Did we have an…”

  Appointment, she means to say. “A date? But no, I wished to surprise you.”

  “You did surprise me.” Her gaze slides to her friend, who’s watching us with undisguised pleasure and interest. “Harper, this is… Hugo. And, Hugo…”

  “Harper,” I say with my best smile, which produces a blush. I recognize her faintly from the society papers, this girl who is related to Christopher from the Thieves Club. The stepsister that makes him scowl every time he says something about her.

  “Ohhh my,” Harper says. “Do you just go around smiling on the street, making people fall over and having cars crash around you? It’s dangerous.”

  “Non, this one I reserve for private company.” I turn to Bea, who looks torn. She’s biting her lip, leaving indents in the plump flesh. Everything about her calls to me, but it’s almost a relief that she’s turning me away. I shouldn’t be using her for information, shouldn’t be trying to get close to her to find out more about the man who owns this hotel. “I can come back another time. You are clearly having a girls’ night, and I’m the intruder.”