REJOIN | ✔️

Chapter Twenty

I didn't remember falling asleep, but there was a hushed conversation going on around me as I came to. I focussed on keeping my eyes closed to listen. I didn't recognise either of the voices — they both sounded husky and wrong, so much so that my brain couldn't work out the words. Or maybe it was a different language... were they speaking French?

My breathing hitched and I went rigid. The voices stopped abruptly and I knew I'd been found out before I felt someone looming over me.

Opening my eyes with caution, I noticed someone had opened all of the curtains — no, all of the curtains were... gone? Blinking against the sudden brightness in confusion, I sat up, meeting the gaze of two unfamiliar faces that were uncomfortably close to mine.

The one was a man in his late thirties. He looked at me with interest for a short moment before he went back to arguing on his phone in heavily accented French. He sported a dark olive tan, neat black hair, impossibly blue eyes behind expensive-looking glasses and teeth that looked blindingly white against his dark skin. Despite being stood ramrod straight in an almost military fashion, he seemed a bit on the short side, but that may have been because he was standing next to what could only be described as the tallest man I'd ever seen in my life.

My eyes scraped over to the taller man — I was surprised that I'd saved him for last when he was so physically imposing and not easily overlooked, but the shorter man's aura commanded respect. He was the polar opposite of the first man, sporting white blond hair shorn into a buzz cut so severe that it looked vaguely threatening. Whereas the older man had softer features, this guy's face was all angles and edges: straight eyebrows; vaguely up-tilted ice blue eyes and the sharpest jawline I've ever seen.

He surprised me by smiling goofily in my direction, the model face not quite matching the juxtaposition that was his expression.

It was the eyes that sealed it for me, I knew instantly these had to be relatives of Remy and Beatrice.

"Where did the curtains go?" I mouthed and the blond breathed a laugh, waiting patiently for his elder to finish up on the phone, the conversation clearly coming to a close as the sentences grew shorter.

The older gentleman hung up his phone with a rushed apology. "I'm so sorry, ma petite. I was on the phone to my wife, she's having issues with the florist. She doesn't speak English too well, so there appears to be a bit of a language barrier. I may have to pop out in a little while."

I stared at him without speaking. I tried to, but no words would come out. I wanted to ask who on Earth they were and where on Earth the curtains had gone, two of life's greatest mysteries, but instead I sat there, mouth bobbing open and closed like a fish.

He stared back expectantly for a moment, before shaking his head with a laugh. "Pardonnez-moi, I am Olivier Martin, Remy's uncle. I presume you are his Jane, non? My mother told me all about you." He offered his hand with a smile that I found surprising; his appearance was deceivingly intimidating and standoffish.

Shaking my head to clear it, I took his hand in my own, giving the weakest handshake, and therefore first impression, of my life. "Yes, that's right. Jane Wilson, it's lovely to meet you. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep. I didn't realise anyone else would come here."

"Ah yes, well. I called down to the police station earlier this afternoon for my older nephew's belongings, but they said his 'sister' had already picked them up. It's interesting... I never knew my brother had a daughter." Olivier smiled conspiratorially.

Looking down at my feet, a sheepish smile spread across my face. "Surprise!"

With a roll of his eyes, he threw open the conservatory doors, taking a seat at the dining set. He didn't seem a man of many words, engaging himself in mountains of paperwork that hadn't been there earlier.