Maison Plaisir (12 page)

“I drew some conclusions based on what you told me.” Del Rio leafed through his legal pad before he continued. “You won’t like what you’re going to hear, Ms Beaumont. It appears Trent Curtis has been blackmailed by your sisters.” Del Rio paused and looked at his notes. “And your mother.”

Armand and Hervé traded gazes. Belle looked utterly shocked.

“My mother?” she echoed.

“According to Curtis, Maggie Beaumont isn’t your biological mother. And Clara and Sarah Beaumont aren’t your biological siblings, either.”

Belle gaped. “What?”

“You were adopted into the Beaumont family when you were three years old. Do you know Vivienne Beaumont?”

“Aunty Viv?” Belle shook her head. “Just from the photographs. I didn’t know her personally. She died when I was just a baby.”

“Do you know you’re the sole heir of Vivienne Beaumont’s estate?”

Armand crossed his arms over his chest. He started to get a good idea of what was going on here. Belle, however, remained oblivious.

“I…I don’t understand,” Belle said.

“Well, your family fortune didn’t belong to your father. The mansion and the summer home in Florida were actually deeded to your biological mother, Joan Clement.”

“Joan Clement?”

“She was Vivienne Beaumont’s caretaker. Do you remember her?”

Belle shook her head weakly. “I’ve seen some photos.”

“When Vivienne Beaumont died, Joan Clement inherited your aunt’s wealth. And not even your father had a little slice of the family fortune. Your aunt’s decision, of course, angered the family. Especially Maggie Beaumont, who strongly felt her husband, your father, should be the sole heir of Vivienne’s estate.”

“Why would Aunt Viv do that?”

Del Rio smiled wanly. “Isn’t it obvious? Vivienne Beaumont disliked Maggie so much she would rather give her estate to a person who took care of her during her difficult illness. When Vivienne found out your father had an affair with Joan Clement, which resulted in you, your aunt changed her will and named Joan as the sole heir of her estate.”

Belle gulped. “I find this hard to believe…”

“It’s the truth, Ms Beaumont,” Del Rio confirmed. “Shortly after Vivienne Beaumont’s death, Maggie contested the will in the courts and practically bullied Joan Clement to her early death. Do you know your biological mother committed suicide?”

“No.” Her answer was barely a husk of a whisper.

“With your mother’s death, naturally, the Beaumont estate became yours. Maggie then schemed to have you legally adopted into the family so they all could stay in the mansion and continue to receive allowance from Vivienne Beaumont’s trust fund. However, it seems your father couldn’t take the guilt and committed suicide in the same manner as your mother, which I find highly suspicious.”

“Do you think Mother…Maggie had something to do with it?” Belle asked.

“This is another matter I’d like to pursue after this. Now, about Trent…” Del Rio tapped his pen on the legal pad. “As is my understanding, he was your boyfriend?”

“We dated briefly.”

“According to Vivienne Beaumont’s will, should anything happen to Joan Clement, you will fully receive the inheritance when you reach the age of twenty-seven. Which is next year, yes?”

Belle nodded.

“And when that time comes, your father, if he were still alive, along with Maggie Beaumont and her daughters, would lose their privilege to live in the Beaumont mansion and no longer receive their allowance. And according to Trent, Maggie and the twins blackmailed him into marrying you, so that when the time comes, he’d be able to persuade you to amend Vivienne Beaumont’s will.”

Belle slowly covered her face with her hands and shook her head. “I can’t believe this. It’s all about money…”

Armand couldn’t contain his curiosity. “What did the twins blackmail Trent Curtis with?”

A grin flashed across Del Rio’s face. “Curtis has an infantile fetish. Clara Beaumont videotaped him while he was engaged in a session with a professional domme. Curtis said Clara threatened to send the tape to his family and his employer, Senator Burke. Imagine the embarrassment on his part.”

Armand wanted to laugh but he suppressed it. It wouldn’t be polite. Hervé didn’t seem to care. He roared heartily and had to excuse himself from the room so he wouldn’t disrupt the meeting.

“Infantile fetish?” Belle asked innocently.

Armand placed his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll explain it later, babe.” He turned to Del Rio. “Are you going to open an investigation about Arthur and Joan Clement’s deaths?”

Del Rio nodded. “As soon as I hand my report to my boss. And, Ms Beaumont, may I suggest you obtain a lawyer to look into your inheritance.”

“Lawyer?”

“I’ll get that covered,” Armand said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Good.” Del Rio pocketed his pen. “I’ll start my report right away, and I’ll contact you tomorrow with the latest developments.”

* * * *

“Do you want wine?” Hervé asked her. “Sorry, I forgot you don’t drink.”

“Just water for me, please.” Belle put down her fork and held up her glass as Hervé’s servant poured some water from a crystal decanter. “Thank you.”

Hervé’s servant inclined his head and silently withdrew.

“Tired?” Armand noticed she was a bit worn out.

“A little. All of this is a bit overwhelming,” she confessed. The three of them were having dinner at Hervé’s place. After the incident with Trent, Armand and Hervé insisted she shouldn’t return to her apartment until everything was sorted out. Besides, it was easier to commute to work if she stayed at Hervé’s for a while.

Belle found dealing with lawyers, the police, and the hysterical Maggie and the twins, the people she thought were her flesh and blood, was utterly exhausting. Maggie, Clara and Sarah had threatened, cursed, and pleaded for her to change her mind about allowing them to stay in the Beaumont’s mansion like nothing had happened. Originally, Belle had thought of letting Maggie and the twins stay and continue their life as if nothing had happened until she knew what to do about them. But when the police exhumed her father and her biological mother’s bodies for autopsies, and the medical examiner changed their deaths from suicide to homicide, Belle simply couldn’t forgive Maggie that easily. Because of that woman’s greed, Belle had been deprived of her parents when she grew up, and was forced to endure Maggie and the twins’ verbal and mental abuse to the point of it affecting her emotionally and crushing her self-confidence.

With the help of Armand’s lawyer explaining her rights and the terms of her inheritance, Belle decided to cut off Maggie and the twins’ allowances and give them thirty days to clear out from the Beaumont mansion. And when the time came, she had also decided to give everything to several charity organisations. On her twenty-seventh birthday, she stood to inherit a ridiculous amount of money that she personally didn’t know what to do with. She’d thought long before she made her decision. A jet-set lifestyle wasn’t her thing. In fact, she kind of hated it, being a pretentious rich girl like the twins. Belle liked her simple life. And she thought it would be a grand punishment for the three of them when they knew the inheritance would be given away to those in need, the wealth that compelled them to conspire and murder her father and her mother in the first place.

“Don’t worry, everything should be over soon and we can all go back to normal,” Armand said.

But that was what she was dreading. As much as she hated to admit it, she was enjoying this arrangement. The three of them living together under one roof, and Hervé and Armand weren’t trying to kill each other. When they weren’t thinking about their competition, Hervé and Armand were actually getting along really well. Belle enjoyed their company and their undivided attention. Hervé drove her to work every morning and Armand popped out at lunchtimes to take her to get something to eat. When she had an appointment with the lawyers or the police matters, the two men were there for her. She’d always been independent her whole life, but she found having people she could depend on was actually nice. Armand and Hervé hadn’t tried to touch her since that incident. They seemed to want to give her some space. Belle was grateful for that, but mourned it in secret at the same time. Ever since she’d visited Maison Plaisir that night, she’d been getting her cookies almost on a regular basis. Now, she’d been cut off it from it for more than three weeks and her body was now demanding its due.

Belle bit the inside of her lip, feeling ashamed of herself.
Damn, I’m turning into a pervert
. She shook away any lingering thoughts, hoping neither man had noticed what she was thinking. She knew both of them had a knack for reading people. “Yeah,” she said, forcing the words out. “I can’t wait for all of this to be over.”

The air around them changed after she spoke. Hervé stiffened. Armand tensed. She drained her glass of water, thinking of an excuse so they wouldn’t have to have the conversation she was dreading.

But Armand beat her first. He wiped his mouth with the napkin. “I know this isn’t an appropriate time to discuss it, but I can’t wait any longer.”

Oh no. Belle fought an urge to groan.
Why can’t we discuss this next week? Next month? Next year? I’m happy with the way we are right now
.

“Me too,” added Hervé. His face was as stern as his voice.

Belle took a deep breath. “About?”

“About you.” Armand watched her, fingers tapping on the surface of the table. “I want you to decide which one of us you’ll take as your husband.”

Belle gripped the edge of her chair. What they demanded was a pretty tall order. She liked them both. Loved them both. And to choose one of them would be impossible. Silence blanketed them until she finally worked up the courage to speak her mind. “I can’t…”

Armand’s lips thinned into a grim line. He traded gazes with Hervé before he returned his attention to her. “Do you need more time?”

She wanted to, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. She knew in the end she wouldn’t be able to choose. She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry.”

“So, this is it?” Hervé sounded outraged. “No, I can’t accept this.”

“None of this would have happened if you’d just backed off,” Armand snapped at his cousin.

“Back off? I let you win, once. Now it’s my turn!”

Belle jumped from her seat. “Would you two cut it out?”

That got their attention. Armand and Hervé stopped arguing.

“This is why I don’t want to choose either of you. I couldn’t stand seeing you fighting. If I chose one of you, are you two still going to talk to one another? Are you going to continue fighting forever? You’re family. Nothing should come between the two of you. Not even me.”

Hervé was taken aback. “Belle…”

“I’ve made up my mind. Please honour it. It would be better for all of us if we just go our separate ways.”

Armand clenched his fist. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, too bad! The world doesn’t revolve around you two, you know? You…” She pointed at Armand. “Sometimes women get tired of your macho shit attitude, and you…” She turned to Hervé. “Just because you’re handsome, don’t get your head stuck in the clouds and assume all women will fall for you. I’ve had just about enough of you two bickering. Goodbye.” She felt both men’s gazes burn her back as she made her way to her room. She planned to go back to her own apartment tonight and put this whole thing behind her.

It’s for the best
.

* * * *

Belle tried to focus her mind on her work, but she just couldn’t. A week had passed and not a day went by where she hadn’t regretted what she’d said to Armand and Hervé. She wondered if she’d been too harsh on them. Neither Armand nor Hervé had tried to contact her after she left Hervé’s mansion that night. Were they mad? Should she apologise? At the time, she thought it was the best way to keep them from jumping at each other’s throats. But now, she rued what she’d done. She missed them. Something was missing for not having them around. If they could stay friends, she wouldn’t feel this miserable. At least she would see them from time to time.

She furiously scribbled on her Wacom pad, erasing the vector figures she’d just drawn on the InDesign. Her supervisor had given her an assignment to design a client’s website and she was supposed to create a whimsical commerce layout for a children’s clothing boutique. But since she couldn’t concentrate, her sketch looked more like a pre-schooler’s doodles.

Frustrated, Belle deleted her current digital sketch and started with a blank workspace. She stared at her computer screen for five minutes, waiting for inspiration to kick in. Her mind remained blank. She caught sight of her phone and a terrible urge to call Hervé or Armand pestered her relentlessly.

“Belle.”

She jumped. Her friend Lisa poked her head around the cubicle partition. “You startled me.”

Lisa cringed. “You okay? You’re spacing out.”

“I’m fine. You want something?”

Lisa handed her a folder containing the tear sheets of the project Belle had just recently handed over to her boss.

“Something wrong with it?” Belle asked.

“Hell yeah.” Lisa rolled her eyes. “Marcus said this is the second time this week you did a sloppy airbrush work on the models’ shoots. He wants to see you now in his office.”

“Oh crap.”

“You okay, Belle? I’m worried about you. Lately you seem different.”

Belle waved her hand dismissively. “I’m fine. Just tired and all.”

“Uh huh.” Lisa didn’t seem to buy her excuses. “Well. You don’t want to keep Marcus waiting, do you?”

Belle sighed. “I guess.” She rose from her seat half-heartedly. “I’ll go see him now.”

“Don’t forget I need those shoots fixed before the end of the day. We’re running on a tight schedule since the ad is going to be live next week.”

“I’ll get it done. Don’t worry.”

“Thanks, doll.”

Belle dragged herself out of her cubicle and padded to the second floor to Marcus’ office. Her supervisor rarely called her in person regarding the quality of her work unless she did a very poor job. This past week had been hard on her. Usually, Armand and Hervé would help her get through the day, especially when she had to deal with Maggie’s crap and the twins, and the whole business with the police and the lawyers. With them not around, Belle felt lost.