Page 80 of Reverence

Francesca pulled out a bottle of wine from her immense canvas purse and lit a cigarette. Helena rolled her eyes and placed an ashtray in front of her before pulling the cork out and pouring three glasses.

“Why do I always turn into your maid, Cesca?”

“Because you cannot stand mess and I am chaos personified. Your tendency to fix things is propelled into action every time I am around. Or she is, for that matter.” Francesca pointed with the lit cigarette in the direction of Juliette.

“Are you after my job, Bianchi?” Helena handed them their glasses.

“God, this fucking day. I think you could fit a decade into this fucking day.” Francesca’s voice sounded tired.

“I’ll drink to that.” Helena tipped her glass, and they sipped in silence, the wine settling heavy in Juliette’s empty stomach.

She set the glass down and finally allowed herself to breathe, clambering on the counter next to the sink, the farthest she could from both women in the small space. For some reason, she couldn’t stand the thought of being touched. Not when the only hands she wanted on herself were the ones that had been tangled in her hair just two hours ago.

“This fucking year. Maybe even these fucking seven.” If Francesca’s voice had sounded tired earlier, her own was downright wrung dry by exhaustion.

“For you more so than for others, Juliette. I take it tonight went lousy?” Helena did not come closer as she spoke, and Juliette appreciated it.

“Was there any way to keep my affairs private, Cesca?” Juliette was sick of being the permanent subject of conversation between her friends. They meant well, but being the “wounded” one was getting tedious.

“Ah, so now there’s an affair?” Francesca lifted her glass and gave Helena a knowing look.

Juliette rolled her eyes.

“There has always been an affair, no matter how much you hated her, Cesca.”

Francesca’s eyes widened. “I never did! What are you talking about?”

Juliette shrugged. “It always seemed that way. And you were constantly cautioning me back in Paris that she was after my job?—”

“And she was. I didn’t even do a half-assed jig when I turned out to be right.”

Helena’s laughter was quiet. “You can’t do a jig, Cesca, half- or full-assed. And I was just as convinced that she would betray you, Juliette. And just as sorry when she did.”

“She did. Granted, the more I allow myself to think, to see, to listen, the more I understand that she had to. But sleeping with me still was a rather extreme way to get my parts.” Juliette took another sip of her wine and her stomach roiled.

In her misery, Juliette almost missed the long look Francesca and Helena exchanged. Almost missed, as she turned back to them just in time to catch the former drop her gaze and the latter purse her lips.

“What?” She gripped the edge of the counter, her knuckles whitening with the force of her hold. There was some kind of weight in the air, one that could only be a secret unexposed for years and about to be revealed. Juliette braced herself even as she knew her heart was about to be ripped out of her near-mended chest. God, she had so painstakingly placed every stitch back in those ribs, desperate to be able to breathe again.

“Juliette, what really happened the night ofThe Nutcrackeropening?”

Helena’s tone was cautious, but Juliette was thankful to her friend for not reverting to her clinical professional voice. She couldn’t stomach being psychoanalyzed tonight.

“I thought you knew.” She wiped her suddenly damp and cold palms on her slacks and looked from Helena to Francesca. “I was in the wings waiting for my cue, and some kid told me Foltin expected me. Which was so unusual I almost sent her away, but she seemed so scared of what he’d do to her if she didn’t fetch me…”

She ran her fingers through her hair, the knots and tangles Katarina had put there catching on her knuckles, and for some reason this small reminder of where she had been and what she had done made these memories even harder to recount. What she’d had, what she’d lost…

“So I went, the door was open?—”

Francesca’s curse was loud, filling the kitchen with ire so palpable Juliette felt as if she could reach out her hand and catch the rage like a flaming butterfly in her fingers.

“Foltin had his hands on her face, caressing her, I guess.” Bile rose to her throat, and she sped up her account, desperate to get through this part. All the parts, really. Not a single memory about that night was palatable, if Juliette was honest with herself. The wine was making her nauseous. Or the recollectionwas. She swallowed hard to tamp down the urge to purge herself of both.

“And he was reminding her how the reason she defected in Paris was because it was the one main company in Europe where the prima was vulnerable. And that she had already laid the groundwork, albeit sloppy, of getting rid of me with the glass and the ice.”

Francesca blanched and looked at Helena. Juliette ignored them and took a deep, deep breath, trying to calm her racing thoughts. Some of the threads of that conversation, of what she had overheard, sounded different in the light of what had happened in the Four Seasons’s elevator.

“He also accused her of doing the same to Tatyana Belova in Moscow, but I know now that was a lie.” She needed time and space to process it all. Things were happening too quickly, and she had been too crowded to even begin to unravel the mess in her head.

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