He tricked me. Maxime tricked me once again.
I’m done. I’m going to beat him at his own game.
It’s as if a devious spirit invades my body. I’m not myself when I walk to the closet and throw it open. It’s a different woman who pulls open the drawer with my old needlework tools and takes out the scissors.
With a cry of fury, I attack the dress, ripping into the layers of silk and lace with the scissors. I tear and snip the beautiful dress, a dress with an exclusive label that must’ve cost a fortune. I destroy what it means, cutting into what it stands for until nothing but a bed of white ribbons is left at my feet.
This is my lesson to teach.
This time, it’s Maxime who will learn.
Chapter 10
Maxime
I give Zoe enough time to cool down and get ready. She’ll have a bath and make herself pretty like she did on the night I took her virginity in Venice. She’ll resist me at first, but I seduced her into wanting me once. I’ll do it again.
On my way down to the parking, I send a text to Damian Hart to let him know we landed safely. It’s what any good boyfriend would do. Hart would expect nothing less. I’m still to give Zoe back her phone, but I leave her number in case he’d like to get hold of her. He replies back promptly with a cryptic note of thanks, saying he’d give us a couple of days to settle in before bothering her with calls.
Today has to be perfect. I go to a lot of effort. A rare flower deserves nothing less. After booking out the quaint restaurant on the hill, I have dozens of pink roses delivered there. The flowers will be everywhere, on every surface and cascading from every wall. I make sure our table has a view and that the others will be moved away to create our own private dance floor. Tonight will be ours alone. I’m too possessive to share this moment with witnesses.
Organizing the singer takes pulling some strings, but Zoe will like her voice and sweet, romantic love songs. I book a room in a hotel like newlyweds do. I order champagne, chocolate-coated strawberries, and sugar-glazed fresh fruit. I have more roses delivered to the room and order the staff to scatter some of the petals over the bed. I tell them to put rose-scented candles in the bedroom too.
On the way back, I stop at the church. The priest is a family friend. He doesn’t dare to argue or pose questions. My face is enough to make him gather a choir in a hurry and promise the bells will toll at three o’clock to announce the happy occasion.
I’m elated when I finally pick up the formal suit from my regular tailor. He’s worked on it for two days straight since I called him from South Africa. It’s a three-piece with a tailcoat jacket, fitted waistcoat, and cravat. My face may not be pretty, but I want to look good for Zoe. I want her to hold fond memories when she looks back at the photos a few years down the line. Fuck, the photos. I almost forgot. I dial a popular photographer in town who immediately clears his schedule.
Zoe will build a new nest, and this time she may even fill it with babies. I know she wants children. I know I hurt her when I said we couldn’t bring a child into the world, but it was a different world then. I’m a cruel man, but I’ll never be cruel to a child, certainly not cruel enough to spawn bastards and curse them with no recognition, protection, or respect. The more I think about it, the more excited I become about the idea of planting a child in Zoe’s belly, of seeing it grow and knowing I’ve bound her to me by blood.
My mood is so great I stop at the bakery on the way to get Zoe something sweet, something like a box of delicate choux and macaroons. Double fuck. I never ordered a wedding cake. Slamming a roll of bills on the counter, I tell the petrified owner to make sure he gets a pièce montée to the restaurant by five. I give him the name and address before taking my box of patisserie and making my way whistling back to the apartment.
All is quiet when I unlock the door. It’s a good sign. Smiling to myself, I serve the pastries in a plate. Never mind that it’s lunchtime and pastries are dessert. Today is a special day, after all.
Impatient to surprise Zoe, I unlock the bedroom door and push it open. What greets me punches the excitement out of my chest. She sits on the floor, her knees drawn up and her back against the window. Her hair stands in every direction and mascara runs black under her eyes. Next to her lies a pair of scissors, and in front of her the dregs that are left of her wedding dress.
“What have you done?” I exclaim, my vocal cords refusing to rise above a whisper.
“Pay attention, Maxime.” Her lip curls up. “This is my lesson to you. I’m done with your games.”
I’ve never experienced greater rage, neither when I punished Alexis, nor when I revenged Gautier’s death. Not even when I killed the man who took a shot at Zoe. The fury mounts in my body until I shake with it. It’s not the destruction of the dress. It’s what the act stands for.
Uttering a howl loud enough to shake the roof, I throw the plate at the wall. The pastries splatter against the stone, and pink porcelain falls into pieces on the floor. Zoe doesn’t react. Not even a flinch. The old Maxime would’ve been better equipped to handle this. That Maxime would’ve been able to navigate the situation calmly, to find a way to bend his bride to his will. He would’ve been able to do that because it’s hard to get upset when you feel nothing. However, the new me, the feeling me, has too many emotions clogging up my chest. My ribcage shrinks around my heart until all I feel is suffocating anger and incontrollable madness.
She thinks this is a lesson? I advance on my unwilling bride with big steps. Zoe shrinks away from me, but even that isn’t enough to stop me. Grabbing a fistful of her blond hair in one hand and her arm in the other, I pull her to her feet.
She takes the punishment without complaint, hobbling on one foot ahead of me as I march her to the bathroom. Shoving her into the Louis Vuitton chair that stands next to the bath, I keep her there with my hand on her shoulder. I pull the belt of her robe that hangs next to the bath from the loops. I use the belt to tie her hands behind her back, and then drag the chair to the edge of the bath.
“What are you doing?” she cries.
“It’s a little late for questions, don’t you think?”
Pulling the plug in the bath, I let the rose-scented water Francine prepared drain. I had this all worked out to the finest detail. The timing was perfect. I made sure everything was just right before our arrival. I’d handed Francine a set of keys before I left for South Africa so she could come in and set everything up once I’d found Zoe. All of this, Zoe spoiled by making a destructive choice.
I rip open the box of hair dye I left on the vanity counter and grab her long hair to pull her head back. I’m rough. She yelps. I pull the plastic gloves on before squirting the dye onto her hair and using the comb that came in the box to spread the dark color. After working the black dye through to the ends, I set the timer on my phone.
My next task is fetching the cold quiche on the nightstand.
“Open,” I say, stabbing the fork into the quiche and pointing a piece at her mouth like a weapon.
“I don’t want it.”
“At this stage, ma belle, I don’t give a damn about what you want. Open the fuck up, or I’ll force your mouth open with clamps.”