Stakes & Stilettos - Michelle Rowen [103]
I shook my head. “I don’t want to wield any power. Seriously. Not exactly a hobby of mine.”
She took a breath in and let it out, and then a smile replaced her serious expression. She took a twenty-dollar bill out of her wallet and placed it on the table. “It has been a pleasant conversation, my dear. We must do this again while I’m in town. Now, I shall retire to my suite for the remainder of the evening.”
“But you didn’t even eat your croissant.”
She smiled. “I don’t eat, Sarah. But there is no reason why it shouldn’t appear as if I can.”
I stood up at the same time she did and was about to say something else when she leaned toward me to air kiss both of my cheeks.
“Bon soir, mon amie.”
I followed her out onto the sidewalk where she was able to summon a taxi with an elegant wave of her hand.
“So what does this mean?” I asked, now smiling at how well our conversation had turned out. “Are you going to sign the annulment?”
She turned to face me. “Of course not.”
My smile dropped away. “You’re not? But I thought you understood. I thought you believed that Thierry and I are in love and want to be together.”
She patted my face as one might do with a slow child who didn’t understand why she couldn’t sit on the family dog. “I told you before, my dear, love has very little to do with a successful marriage. It is much more than that.”
“But—”
“No, no. Listen to me. I understand your feelings. You and Thierry should be together as much as you like. You have my blessing to be as happy as is possible. But my marriage shall not end over such a small thing as a ten-week relationship. It simply cannot be.”
I frowned. “Look, if this is about money, I’m sure Thierry can arrange some sort of alimony to keep you in the style you are accustomed to, or however that works.”
She opened the back door of the taxi that now idled at the curb and looked over her shoulder. The amusement in her eyes was vast. “My dear, I am the one with all the money in our marriage. Thierry’s finances have dwindled of late because of the fortune he has lost from losing so many nightclubs in town. His holdings in other cities have also burned to the ground. Due to the secret nature of owning vampire-related establishments, none of that property was properly insured. To my knowledge, all he has left of his personal fortune is what he will make from the sale of Haven. It is a good thing that it sold; otherwise it would have soon gone out of business anyhow.”
I felt stunned by that. “I don’t believe it.”
She smiled. “If anyone would be getting money from our marriage ending, it would be him. But since that is not an option, all is well with the world. You see? This is the way it must be. Good night, my dear.”
She got into the cab and closed the door. It drove away from the curb. I watched it fade into the distance until I couldn’t see it anymore.
Well, that went really well.
Thierry was almost broke? When the hell did that happen? And why hadn’t he said anything to me?
She was probably wrong. I mean, didn’t he have a ton of cash in his pocket just the other night? Besides, how could a nearly seven-hundred-year-old vampire not have a huge nest egg just waiting for any potential financial difficulties?
Yeah, she was wrong. Had to be.
I felt deflated about the annulment, but I guess it didn’t really matter. It would have been nice. I’d actually had a vision of myself wearing a long white gown and walking down an aisle to meet a tuxedo-clad Thierry with rose petals being thrown at my feet. I’d always wanted a fairy-tale wedding.
Unfortunately, I was more than a half a millennium too late to get to my Prince Charming before he was already snapped up by a woman who didn’t believe that love was an important element in a successful marriage. Sure. Just my luck.
It didn’t matter.
What mattered was that my trauma of the week had been fixed thanks to the gold chain. Maybe it wasn’t the cure, but it