Chapter 20: Dinner with the Devil
The air inside Bâtard was thick with the scent of reduced wine, roasting meat, and expensive perfume. It was a soft, seductive hum of money and privacy, a place where conversations stayed at their tables, swallowed by velvet drapes and the low, throaty jazz pouring from hidden speakers. Their booth was a plush crescent in the back, shadowed and intimate. It felt less like a dinner and more like a tribunal.
Ryiel Moreau de Fonteneau sat opposite them, a glass of Burgundy looking like a prop in his hand. He was handsome in a way that was all sharp angles and controlled expressions, his ice-blue eyes missing nothing. He had already taken in Veronica’s towering frame, her defiant afro, the snake coiled around her left forearm visible where her blazer sleeve had ridden up. His gaze had flicked over Jacqueline with mild, analytical curiosity, and finally, and longest, rested on his sister.
Stephanie looked like a sepia photograph beside Veronica’s vibrant oil painting. She wore a simple cream-colored dress, her hair a waterfall down her back. She was playing with the stem of her water glass, her eyes on the tablecloth.
“So,” Ryiel began, his English precise. “You are the friends.”
“We are,” Veronica said, her voice a low, calm counterpoint to the jazz. She didn’t smile.
“My sister has a habit of collecting… interesting people.” He took a slow sip of wine. “Alice was interesting.”
“Alice was a predator,” Jacqueline stated, not looking up from the menu. She said it as casually as commenting on the soup du jour.
Ryiel’s glass halted halfway back to the table. His eyes snapped to Jacqueline. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Jacqueline finally looked at him, a playful, challenging glint in her eye. She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. “So, Monsieur Ryiel, when was the last time you actually trusted your sister to make her own decisions?”
The table went silent. Even the jazz seemed to fade for a beat. Stephanie’s head shot up, her eyes wide.
Ryiel studied Jacqueline for a long moment, a flicker of surprise breaking through his icy composure. He gave a short, dry laugh. “Trust is not the absence of concern. It is a luxury granted when one is confident in the judgment of the person they care for.” His gaze slid back to Stephanie. “My sister has a heart that she gives too easily. It makes her an excellent person. And a terrible judge of character.”
Jacqueline leaned back, a slow smile spreading across her face. She nudged Veronica under the table. “I like him.”
Veronica didn’t react. She kept her eyes on Ryiel. “Judgment improves with experience. And with better examples.” She reached under the table and found Stephanie’s hand, lacing their fingers together. Stephanie’s grip was immediate and tight.
Ryiel watched the movement, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly. “You are very physical. For a friend.”
“I’m a very physical friend,” Veronica replied, her tone even. “Especially when the people I care about have been hurt.”
“Hurt.” Ryiel set his glass down with a soft clink. “That is a vague word, Stephanie. You said it was finished. How did it finish?”
Stephanie took a breath that shuddered slightly on the way in. She looked from her brother’s expectant face to Veronica’s steady, green-eyed gaze. Veronica gave a slight, encouraging nod.
“She… it was not good, Ryiel,” Stephanie started, her accent thickening with emotion. “For a long time, it was not good. The words she used. The way she looked at me. It was like I was… a thing she owned. A doll that was not behaving.”
Ryiel’s face was a mask, but a vein pulsed in his temple.
“The night before last,” Stephanie continued, her voice dropping. “I found out that she was cheating on me. With another woman and they’ve been together since I was in Paris. She told me that it was nothing serious and that I was overreacting. But I wasn’t. My heart was truly hurting!” A single tear escaped, tracing a path down her cheek. Veronica’s thumb stroked the back of her hand. “I dropped the phone and it broke. It shattered on the floor. Then she… she grabbed my arm. Very hard. And tried to make me leave with her.”
Ryiel’s knuckles were white around his wine glass.
“Veronica came out and she and Jacqueline tried to keep her away from me. I broke down and Veronica held me while Jacqueline kicked her out.” She trailed off, the memory too sharp.
“She cried in my arms,” Veronica finished, her voice cutting through the thick air. “In the living room. She was hysterical. Terrified. I brought her to the couch and we sat there for atleast an hour.”
Ryiel was staring at his sister as if seeing her for the first time. The polished narrative of his little sister on a New York adventure had cracked, revealing the ugly truth beneath.
“And where is Alice now?” he asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
“Gone,” Veronica said. “I handled it.”
“You ‘handled it.’” His gaze, glacial and assessing, locked onto Veronica. “You are a lawyer. What does that mean?”
“It means she was presented with several compelling legal and personal reasons to vacate the apartment she shared with Stephanie and to cease all contact. Permanently.” Veronica’s tone left no room for doubt about what those reasons might have been. “She complied.”
“And you did not think to call me?” The question was directed at Stephanie, but it held a note of genuine pain.
“I was ashamed,” Stephanie whispered. “And I was scared you would say ‘I told you so’ and make me come home.”
Ryiel flinched as if struck. He looked down at his plate, the untouched coq au vin congealing in its rich sauce. The noisy reality of the restaurant swirled around their silent pocket of stillness.
When he looked up, the anger was still there, but it had been redirected, refocused. “This… protection you offer,” he said to Veronica. “It is convenient. My sister is vulnerable, heartbroken, and incredibly wealthy. And now she is living with you?”
Stephanie stiffened. “Ryiel—”
“It’s a fair question,” Veronica interrupted, her voice cool. She felt Stephanie tense beside her and squeezed her hand again, a silent command to let her speak. “You’re a businessman. You think in terms of transactions. So let me be transparent. My interest in your sister’s wellbeing is not a line item on a balance sheet. It is not a retainer. There is no invoice. I have more money than I know what to do with. What I didn’t have, before she showed up crying in my lobby, was someone who looks at the world with that much hope left in them.”
She leaned forward, her green eyes holding his across the table. “She is not a client. She is not a mark. She is a person who was breaking. And I will not let her break. Whether you like it or not.”
Ryiel held her stare for a long, tense moment. The air between them crackled with a silent, fierce language of protection and possession. He was the first to look away, his eyes returning to Stephanie.
“Is this what you want?” he asked her, his voice softer now, stripped of its lawyerly edge. “To stay here? With them?”
Stephanie nodded, her chin rising with a determination he hadn’t seen in years. “Oui. It is what I want. For now. I am not a child, Ryiel. I was… lost. But I am not lost now.”
He sighed, a long, weary exhalation that seemed to deflate his rigid posture. He rubbed a hand over his face. “The apartment. Your things?”
“Veronica went with the police yesterday,” Jacqueline chimed in, cheerful again now that the knives were mostly sheathed. “Got all her stuff. Alice was long gone. Place was a mess, but we got the important things. Her clothes are currently taking over my closet, but I’ll allow it.”
A faint, genuine smile touched Ryiel’s lips. It was brief, but it was there. He looked at his sister, really looked at her—the faint shadows under her eyes, but also the new, fragile set of her shoulders, the way her hand was anchored in Veronica’s. Not clinging, but anchored.
“Alright,” he said finally. He signaled the waiter. “We will need the check.” He turned back to the table. “And a bottle of your best Champagne.”
Stephanie blinked. “Champagne?”
“To celebrate,” Ryiel said, a wry twist to his mouth. “My sister is finally showing some spine. And it seems she has found… formidable allies.” His eyes met Veronica’s again, and this time the look was not one of challenge, but of grim, reluctant respect. “Do not make me regret this.”
Verericka allowed herself a small, sharp smile. “I never make regrets. I just create precedents.”
The Champagne arrived, the pop of the cork sounding like a shot in the hushed restaurant. As the pale gold liquid fizzed into the flutes, Ryiel raised his glass, his eyes on Stephanie.
“To new beginnings,” he said. “And to better judges of character.”
As Stephanie smiled, her dimples finally appearing deep and true in the candlelight, Veronica knew the dinner was over, but the real negotiation had just begun. The brother was back in the picture. And she had just made it clear, in a room that smelled of money and secrets, exactly what her position was. She took a sip of the Champagne, its bubbles sharp and bright on her tongue, and kept Stephanie’s hand firmly in her own.