Page 20

By the time Laurent returned to collect me from Le Rêve, the sun was high in the sky, bouncing off the white yachts that sailed silently on the deep blue sea below.

No one was around when I emerged from my room with my sandals in hand to find Laurent waiting for me in the kitchen, wiping down the spotless countertops.

His lips parted slightly as his eyes met mine, and I completely forgot for a split second why I was there.

What was it about the way he looked at me?

It wasn’t flirtatious or seductive, nothing that obvious.

It was more…open? Unguarded. Like he saw me.

Which was ridiculous. I didn’t even know his last name.

But that didn’t change the fact that his slight smile felt like an invitation intended only for me.

“Ready?” he asked. “It’s just us.”

Just us. I liked the sound of that entirely too much.

He led me to the front door, his shoulder brushing mine as he reached past me to open it.

Outside, I stepped into my wedge sandals before continuing to the car.

He clicked the key fob and the side door slid open.

I hesitated. “I’ll sit up front with you, if that’s okay,” I said, my heart beating like I’d just propositioned him.

“Of course,” he said.

I came around the back of the van to the passenger side as he came around the front, both of us reaching to open the car door at the same time. I laughed. “I’m used to opening my own doors.”

He stepped back and gestured for me to open the door. “It’s heavy,” he warned.

I dragged my gaze away from his to locate the door handle and pull. The door was in fact surprisingly heavy, the driveway slightly slanted, and I wobbled backward on the uneven pavement in my wedges, my back landing against his chest. “Sorry,” I said automatically, mortified.

That made three times since I’d arrived here. I was beginning to think gravity was conspiring to push me into his arms.

“Will you let me help you into the car?” I could feel his voice reverberating in his chest.

“That would be lovely.”

He placed one hand on my back, taking my other hand in his to lift me into the van.

“Thank you,” I said, allowing myself to meet his amused gaze before he closed the door.

I took a breath, busying myself with my phone as he walked around to the driver’s side and swung himself up into the van. He extracted a pair of sunglasses from the visor before expertly executing a three-point turn in the small space to point us in the right direction.

“You are a diver, Audrey?” he asked as we pulled out of the driveway.

I nodded. “I grew up diving. My mom loved to dive.”

“So, it is in your blood.”

“Yeah.” I could picture my mom clear as day, grinning and tan, her dive mask pushed up on her forehead, her braid dripping seawater as she spouted off the Latin names of the fish we’d seen down below. In her element. The image made my heart both sing and bleed. “What about you?”

“I have been obsessed with the sea since I was a boy. My brothers and I spent summers with my grandparents on the west coast of France, near Biarritz. But I did not start diving until I moved here.”

“Because you were always surfing?” I guessed.

He nodded. “Biarritz has very good surfing.”

“What’s the biggest waves you ever surfed?”

“Nazaré, in Portugal,” he answered immediately. “The waves are so tall they tow you out on a Jet Ski.”

“That’s terrifying.”

“Yes.” A glimmer of a smile flashed across his face. “But it is nice to be terrified sometimes, no? Makes you feel alive.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Totally.”

He glanced over at me, and I was glad for the sunglasses covering his bright eyes. “Last night was fun.”

I nodded, flushing. “Oh, I meant to tell you Gisèle saw us.”

“At Le Ti?”

“She recognized you but not me. She didn’t suspect anything.” I held my tongue about the part about our looking like we were going to fuck right there in the club. “I overheard her telling Samira when she got in. Did you know they’re involved? Romantically.”

“C’est un secret de Polichinelle.”

An open secret. “So everyone knows?”

“But no one talks about it.” He slowed to let a pale pink Moke full of beautiful girls roar past on the narrow road, their hair whipping in the wind. “I think Tyson imagines it is for his benefit.”

I snickered. “Blinded by his own ego.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know anything about Samira’s first marriage?” I asked.

He glanced at me. “Another thing we do not talk about.”

“Encore un secret de Polichinelle?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

“But you know what happened?”

“I do not think anyone knows what happened.”

Right. “Do people think she did it?”

“Some people.”

“Do you?” I pressed.

He shrugged. “It is not for me to say.”

I bit back my frustration with his discretion, staring out my window as we came to a halt at a stop sign. “Do you want to see the site of the De-Sal center?” he asked.

“If we have time,” I answered more tartly than I intended.

But he didn’t seem to notice, calmly checking his watch before turning onto the one-way road, so steep my stomach leaped to my throat as we plunged downward.

Branches scraped along the roof of the van, and a black-and-white cat sauntered along the top of a stone retaining wall so close I could have reached out and petted her if the window had been open.

Past a cluster of small green-roofed houses whose doors opened directly onto the street, the road curved to the right, but he made a sharp left turn onto a patch of dirt and cut the engine.

“We go through those rocks there.” He indicated a path that cut through two boulders between the dry bushes and scraggly trees.

I looked down at my wedge sandals, wishing I’d worn flats as he came around the front of the van to offer me a hand down, which I accepted, then consciously released to close the door behind me before he could do it. He watched, amused, but didn’t comment.

“The path is not so bad,” he promised, noting my shoes as we made our way along the sandy shale toward the rocks.

He went ahead, turning back as he navigated a rock garden to again take my hand. I reluctantly let him, hating how aware I was of his smooth calluses against my palm.

The passageway opened onto a promontory that was perhaps ten by twenty meters, overlooking an inlet where turquoise water crashed against the cliffs below.

To our left, the path continued along the rocky ridge; to our right, a sloping hillside tumbled down to a small beach. The view was breathtaking.

The sleeve of his fitted white T-shirt rode up, revealing his tattoo as he pointed at the bay. “The De-Sal center goes there,” he said. “And the developers have plans to build here.” He indicated the hillside.

“I can see why they’re upset,” I said.

“The land is…” He searched for the word, then switched to French.

“Devalued.” I nodded to let him know I understood, and he continued, “But he won’t win.

St. Barth’s has no natural source of water.

We’ve been using desalination for over fifty years, but Tyson’s system is far better. It is good for the whole island.”

“What will they do, the developers?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, no?” His phone dinged in his pocket, and he checked it, his face darkening as he read whatever message was there. He tapped out a reply and pocketed the phone. “We should go.”

He offered his arm to steady me on the way back, and I took it, holding the inside of his bent elbow. But he was preoccupied by whatever message he’d received, and all business, his movements efficient, no lingering glances or light touches, as he ushered me into the van.

The sudden shift reminded me of the secrets Tyson had mentioned. Laurent was helping me not because he wanted to, but because Tyson was holding something over his head, as he was with me. I wondered if Laurent’s secrets were as dark as mine.

He turned on the radio as we pulled onto the narrow road and the sound of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar wailed from the speakers as he answered a call, telling whoever was on the other end in French that he was dropping a guest in Gustavia and would have only thirty minutes.

We came around a bend and Gustavia appeared at the bottom of the hill, green mountains sloping down to the red-roofed buildings that circled the port.

Sailboats and catamarans were moored in the center, a variety of pleasure boats docked along the promenade, with larger yachts closer to the mouth of the harbor.

When we reached the town, we turned onto a one-way street, immaculately clean and paved with gray cobblestones, lined with well-maintained palms and benches where shoppers rested in the shade, licking cones of gelato.

It felt like a perfect blend of European and Caribbean culture, sophisticated yet laid back, the architecture colonial, the brands luxury.

The usual suspects were there: Louis Vuitton, Chopard, Dior, Bulgari, Prada, Cartier, Hermès, their storefronts featuring selections from their resort collections, nestled among restaurants and upscale boutiques.

Laurent stopped at a corner and pointed to a shaded alleyway that ran between two buildings. “This is the nearest I can go in the van,” he said. “At the end you will see the white building with two balconies. Text me when you’re ready for pickup.”

I nodded, opening the door. He didn’t move to help me down. I wanted to read into it, but I didn’t let myself. “Where is the council meeting being held?”

“At the pink civic center building a block east of Gary’s. But they won’t let you in without an appointment.”

I nodded. If I wanted to find a way in, I would, but I didn’t think it would be necessary today. “You’re driving them home after?”

He nodded.

“I’d like to be in the car.”

“Then be outside the civic center at one.”

—

After trying on a number of suits in the sunlit changing room of Gary’s, I selected a black-and-green zippered shorty with long sleeves, a black mask, and the cheapest dive watch they carried, which was still far more expensive than any I’d ever owned.

It had been years since I’d updated my gear and I was grudgingly thrilled by my new duds, regardless of who was paying for them.

Shopping bag in hand, I stepped into the warm day, contemplating the nearly empty street from beneath the brim of my sun hat. It was twenty ’til one.

I located the civic center in my maps app and set off toward it in the shade of the palm trees, stopping in front of shop windows to gaze at mannequins wearing crocheted bikinis and designer sunglasses, jewel-encrusted sandals and four-thousand-euro Missoni cover-ups.

I looked into a real estate office whose windows advertised newly built villas not unlike the one we were staying in for the low, low price of eighteen million.

The cheapest one I could find was a one-bedroom apartment with no view for one point six million.

Where did the people who worked here live? Surely Laurent wasn’t paid enough to afford a two-million-euro apartment? Or maybe he was. Maybe I was the only asshole around here who couldn’t afford twenty euros for a minuscule lemonade in the shop next door.

I was about to continue up the sidewalk when I recognized a picture of the developers’ land overlooking the site of the De-Sal center Laurent had just shown me, paired with renderings of the houses they planned to build there.

There were ten of them, ranging in price from fifteen to twenty-five million.

Roughly two hundred million gross for the developers.

I wasn’t sure what they’d paid for the land, but it couldn’t have been cheap, and with the cost of building on an island, their margins likely weren’t wide.

It made sense that they were angry about the placement of the De-Sal center.

I would be too, if I were them, regardless of what it would do for the island.

It’s one thing to be civic-minded when you’re not the one being asked to sacrifice your livelihood for the good of the community; it’s quite another when you’re the sacrificial lamb.

Across from the civic center, the Sprinter van was at the curb right where it should be, engine running. Laurent waited outside the open back door, typing on his phone. He looked up as I approached, reaching out to take my bag. “You found what you needed?”

“I did.”

The front door of the civic center flew open and Tyson stormed out, his face a mask of fury.

Allison and Cody were on his heels, looking none too pleased themselves, followed by the two guys I’d met at the house when I arrived yesterday and a handful of other worried-looking people I guessed were their assistants.

“Sit in front,” Laurent murmured.

I accepted his hand into the front of the van as Tyson, Cody, and Allison piled into the back.

“Go,” Tyson barked before Laurent had even closed his door.

Laurent fired up the engine and pulled away from the curb as the side door slid shut.

“What the fuck was that?” Tyson spat. “They should never have had that information. Someone on our team leaked it to them.”

“We’ll hire someone to dispute it,” Cody said calmly. “It’s only a delay.”

“A delay? What planet are you living on?” Tyson demanded. “This could tank us. Now every center is going to want to do their own environmental report—”

“And when they do, they’ll find everything is fine,” Allison said. “Won’t they?”

“I don’t need this right now,” Tyson growled.

“Is there something you’re not telling us?” Cody asked.

“Nothing you need to know,” Tyson snapped. “You don’t have the balls to make the decisions that need to be made.”

“This sounds like a conversation we should have in private,” Cody said pointedly.

I didn’t have to turn around to know he was shooting a glance at Laurent and me in the front seat.

“I trust them more than I trust either of you,” Tyson retorted.

“Would you like me to raise the privacy partition?” Laurent asked.

“Yes, please,” Allison said.

Laurent pressed the button, and the screen began to rise.

Once it was in place, we exchanged a glance as the voices in the back intensified, their content muted by the partition.

Whatever it was they were so upset about, Laurent and I both knew it was Allison who’d leaked it to those two men from the city council last night.

The question was what I should do with that information.