Page 128 of Saint Céline
No. Not people. Someone. The thought came so quickly it felt almost paranoid. Vincent’s name rose in my mind like a blade. Then I pushed it away because even he would not do this. Not this.
Daniel continued, his voice turning casual in the way I remembered too well. “I don’t need much. Just enough to get back on my feet.”
I nearly laughed. Back on his feet. Men like Daniel Martin were always getting back on their feet. That was what they called reaching into someone else’s pocket from the floor.
“I said I don’t have anything.”
“Then ask one of your rich friends.”
“No.”
“Ask your boyfriend.”
“No.”
“Ask your mother.”
My hand went numb. The room seemed to sharpen around me. The lamp on my desk. The open laptop. Katherine’s proposal glowing quietly on the screen. Miss Astoria standing by the door, tail low now, watching me with wide blue eyes.
“You stay away from my mother,” I said.
“There she is.”
The phrase made bile rise in my throat. Vincent had said it too. Not like this. Not with the same ugly satisfaction. But closeenough that something inside me recoiled from both of them at once.
“I’m serious,” I whispered.
“So am I.”
The line crackled faintly. Then his voice lowered. “You’ve done real good for yourself, Selena. Fancy school. Fancy name. Fancy people. Would be a shame if everyone found out where you came from.”
My chest tightened. For one wild second, I thought of Katherine at the Harbour Club, telling Sophia and Anya the truth while I danced with Thad, convinced revelation would make them leave me. It hadn’t. But Daniel was not Katherine. Daniel would not stop at truth. Men like him did not reveal secrets because they believed in honesty. They revealed them to make the room smell like smoke and then charged you for water.
“Do not call me again,” I said.
“You’ll call me.”
“No.”
“You will.” His voice turned almost gentle. “You were always a smart girl.”
Then the call ended.
I stood in the middle of my room with the phone still pressed to my ear long after the line went dead. For several seconds, I could not move. Then my body remembered itself all at once. I locked my door. Then checked it. Then checked it again. I walked to the window and looked down at the wet courtyard below. Students crossed beneath umbrellas, heads lowered against the rain, ordinary and faceless in the dark. No one looked up. No one stood still too long. No one waited beneath the dorm lights with a cigarette and an old grudge.
My hands were shaking badly now. I set the phone on my desk because I no longer trusted myself to hold it. Miss Astoria cried softly near my feet. That sound broke something.I crouched and reached for her, and she came immediately, climbing into my lap with none of her usual arrogance, pressing her warm body against my chest as if she understood the danger.
“It’s fine,” I whispered into her fur. The lie sounded exactly like Katherine.
My phone buzzed on the desk. I flinched so hard Miss Astoria had been startled. For one second, I thought it was him again. It was Vincent.
Vincent:Did you get home?
I stared at the message. Of course, he would appear at the exact moment my life tilted. Of course, the man who had spent weeks making himself unavoidable would now sit inside my phone like an answer.
I picked it up with cold fingers.
Céline:Did you give my father my number?
