The Beautiful (The Beautiful #1)(62)

“Of course he didn’t. I’m certain it hasn’t escaped your notice how much he hates you.”

“The feeling is most assuredly mutual.” His grin reeked of arrogance.

“May I ask why?”

“You may. But I may not answer. Since I promised not to lie.”

Celine’s lips were caught between silence and speech for an instant. “Very well,” she grumbled. “For what it’s worth, Arjun is a wretched spy.”

He snorted. “As well as an excellent attorney.”

“For fiends and scoundrels alike.” She paused. “But in all seriousness . . . what happened to your family?” This, at least, she wished to know in this moment.

A look of blank apathy settled onto his beautiful face. “My mother died six months after my sister. Following their deaths, my father took me from New Orleans to Saint Domingue. He fell ill soon thereafter, so we moved to his home in San Juan.”

“And . . . how did your sister die?”

“She was killed in an accident, at the age of fifteen.” Though Bastien’s reply sounded indifferent, his features hardened for an instant, anger flashing behind his eyes before his artful mask slipped back into place. There was a story there. A source of immense pain. But Celine did not wish to press Bastien on the matter. Not yet. “My father succumbed to his illness a short while later, after which I returned to New Orleans,” he finished.

An invisible hand gripped Celine’s heart in a vise. It troubled her how Bastien spoke about loss in such a matter-of-fact tone. Perhaps that was how he talked about things that truly mattered to him, in cold, detached fashion.

“I’ve heard many people say tragedy shapes us,” Bastien continued. “But I am not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, nor am I the worst thing I’ve ever done. Nothing in life is that simple.” He looked across the darkened streets of New Orleans, his gaze steady. Determined.

His words were like a blow to Celine. Every day she denied parts of herself. Tried to hide the worst thing that had happened to her, the worst thing she’d ever done. Her entire life, she’d denied who her mother was, as if it were some kind of great shame. Because of this, she knew nothing about half her past. Half of her own story.

Since the age of four, she’d been told this was the only way.

“Do you ever wish you could be someone else?” Celine asked, her tone solemn.

“Often. Especially when I was a boy.” Bastien turned toward her. “And you?”

Celine blanched.

“Don’t lie to me.” Bastien repeated her earlier words: “Tonight we deal only in truths.”

“Which is . . . difficult, since my whole life is built on a lie.”

It was honest. More honest than Celine had ever been with anyone in her life.

She breathed in deeply through her nose. “My mother was from a Far Eastern country. I was never told which one. But . . . I am of mixed heritage, from a marriage of East and West,” Celine blurted, almost as if her own admission startled her. “I’ve never said that to a soul,” she finished in a rush.

And yet the words fell from her lips with surprising ease.

Bastien studied her while they walked. Whatever his thoughts were, he concealed them well.

Her head remarkably cool, Celine trained her eyes on the grey pavestones ahead. “When my father and I came to Paris, I was very young. He told me to keep who my mother was a secret. He said if the world knew, I would live with derision for the rest of my life. So I listened, and I lied. And . . . I feel ashamed for it. It’s as if this lie has become an essential part of my truth, like a kind of twisted keystone. So much so, that I don’t know how to”—she struggled for a moment—“how to think or behave any differently, lest the whole thing crumble to pieces.”

There. Several painful truths unmasked. Truths she’d been incapable of admitting even to herself. It surprised her that—of all the people she’d encountered thus far—she’d decided to share these truths with Bastien.

Celine waited in silence for a time, pondering this realization. Wishing she could ignore the meaning behind it.

“I’m sorry for your pain, Celine,” Bastien said in a subdued tone. “Thank you for trusting me with your truth.”

A sharp twinge cut through her chest, making it difficult to respond at first.

Finally Celine spoke, her voice a soft brush of sound. “And I’m sorry for your pain, Bastien. I think trust is a precious thing. Know that I will always treat yours as such.”

He looked at her, his eyes a liquid silver. “Merci, mon coeur. From my heart to yours.”



    They walked the rest of the way toward the Ursuline convent with nothing accompanying them but the chirruping of insects and the whispering of palm fronds. Once they rounded the final bend—the convent looming tall in the darkness—Celine tilted her head toward the lace of stars around the sickle moon, their cool light surging through her veins. Bastien stopped beside her, though he did not follow her gaze.

“Are the stars that captivating?” he teased in a gentle tone.

“Of course they are,” she said without looking away. “They’re infinite. They see all and know all. These same stars hung in the sky during the times of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. Isn’t that fascinating?”