Sunday lunch at the Laurent residence was an exercise in high-strung performance art—one of the few family obligations Marceline couldn’t escape without a minor diplomatic crisis.
The dining room of the estate was suffocatingly formal.
Soft afternoon sunlight filtered through floor-to-ceiling French doors, catching the fine dust motes hovering over polished mahogany, silver cutlery, and heavy crystal.
The air smelled of roasted lemon, sea salt, and her mother’s floral perfume.
Her mother, Céleste, insisted on absolute attendance whenever schedules permitted, while her father, Victor, treated every course as an unofficial board meeting—even when no one had anything left to discuss.
Normally, Marceline could navigate the dinner table with effortless charm.
Today, she had been staring rigidly at the exact same piece of pan-seared salmon for nearly two minutes, her mind a thousand miles away.
Céleste noticed first.
“Marcie?”
Marceline blinked, snapping out of her daze as the silver fork hovered aimlessly over her plate.
“Hm?”
“You’ve barely touched your lunch,” Céleste said softly, her delicate brow furrowing with maternal scrutiny.
“I’m just not very hungry, Maman.”
Her mother frowned, setting down her linen napkin.
“Are you feeling unwell?
You look pale.”
“No.
I’m fine.”
Across the long table, Vivienne set her crystal water glass down with a quiet clink.
She didn’t say a word.
She simply watched her sister, her dark eyes sharp, calculating, and far too perceptive.
Marceline immediately picked up her fork again, forcing a casual smile.
“Really, Maman.
I’m fine.”
Céleste still looked unconvinced, but Victor lowered his folded section of Le Figaro with a rustle of heavy paper, his sharp gray eyes landing on his youngest daughter.
“You were out late last night,” he noted, his voice carrying its usual dry, unyielding weight.
“I was at a private event with André and Kate.”
“Until what time?”
“I don’t know.”
Victor gave her a cool, unimpressed look over the rim of his reading glasses.
“You don’t know?”
“I wasn’t keeping a detailed log of the hours, Papa.”
Vivienne hid a small, knowing smile behind her hand, taking a deliberate sip of her wine.
Céleste reached across the table, her thin fingers lightly touching Marceline’s wrist.
“You’re distracted, darling.”
Marceline’s entire body stiffened at the physical contact, her spine turning to steel.
“I’m just tired.”
That, at least, wasn’t entirely a lie.
She had barely slept three hours.
Unfortunately, her exhaustion had nothing to do with partying.
Her traitorous mind had spent the entire morning—and most of the previous night—replaying hyper-vivid flashes of one particular man’s face.
His broad, steady hands on her waist.
His mouth against her skin.
The sheer weight of his body pressing her into the mattress.
His low, ruined voice growling commandingly against her throat—Let go, Marceline.
The memory of the dark, terrifying thrill of feeling him deep inside her, utterly unravelling her pride.
And then, to cap off the nightmare, those irritatingly clear blue eyes casually ignoring her across a crowded rooftop bar, acting as if she were a complete stranger.
Marceline stabbed the piece of salmon with unnecessary violence, the silver tines scraping sharply against the fine porcelain.
Ridiculous.
Absolute, insufferable madness.
Later, after the painful ordeal of lunch had finally drawn to a close, Vivienne found Marceline alone in the estate’s sun-drenched conservatory.
The room was a humid glass sanctuary, filled with the heavy scent of blooming jasmine, damp earth, and potted citrus trees.
Outside, the afternoon sun beat down on the manicured lawns, but inside, a quiet, suffocating stillness hung in the air.
Marceline was sitting on a wrought-iron bench, staring blankly at her phone screen, when the quiet rustle of silk announced her sister’s presence.
“What happened?” Vivienne asked softly, stepping over the terracotta tiles.
Marceline didn’t look up.
“Nothing.”
“You were entirely somewhere else during lunch.
Papa noticed, even if he didn’t press.”
“I told you.
I’m just tired.”
Vivienne sat down beside her on the bench, the cool iron creaking slightly under their weight.
“You don’t get distracted, Marcie.
Not like that.”
Marceline finally tilted her head, giving her sister a dry, unamused look.
“Apparently, I do.”
Vivienne studied her face, her eyes sharp and terrifyingly observant.
“Did someone upset you?”
A tiny, fatal pause stretched between them.
“No.”
“Did something happen last night?”
Marceline’s manicured fingers tightened around the edges of her phone—just a fraction of a millimeter, but enough to give her away.
“No.”
Vivienne seized on the slip instantly.
“That was a suspiciously fast answer.”
“Nothing happened, Viv,” Marceline insisted, her voice tightening into its defensive edge.
“Marcie…”
Marceline let out a sharp sigh, rubbing her temple where a headache was quietly blooming.
“It’s truly nothing important.
Just…
noise.”
Vivienne didn’t press further, knowing when to pull back before her sister completely retreated behind her walls.
In the brief silence that followed, a sudden, heavy memory surfaced in Marceline’s mind, cutting straight through the lingering fog of Claude Auclair.
“Actually…” Marceline started quietly.
Vivienne waited, her posture shifting into quiet attention.
“Have you heard anything from Louise?”
Vivienne’s expression softened, a subtle flicker of guarded reserve passing over her features.
Louise Paget.
The woman who had raised Marceline during the dark years after her childhood disappearance.
Her adoptive mother.
The woman Marceline still loved deeply and fiercely, despite the toxic web of history tying their families together.
The Laurent family had never given Marceline the full, unvarnished truth regarding Louise’s exact role in that nightmare.
They had wrapped the story in clean, careful diplomacy, Louise is working abroad, darling.
She simply needs distance after everything that happened.
Marceline had accepted the explanation out of necessity, though a cold, persistent doubt had always lingered beneath the surface.
“No,” Vivienne said carefully, her voice measured.
“Not recently.”
Marceline dropped her gaze back to her lap, her thumb tracing the glass screen.
“She’s still abroad?”
“As far as I know.”
“Do you know when she’s coming back to Paris?”
Vivienne hesitated for a beat too long before answering.
“I’m not sure, Marcie.”
Marceline frowned, a small crease appearing between her brows.
“I haven’t heard a word from her in years.
No calls.
No emails.
Nothing.”
Vivienne reached across the iron bench and gently squeezed Marceline’s hand.
“I’ll ask Papa’s office tomorrow.
See if there’s an updated contact number.”
Marceline gave a quiet nod, though the knot in her stomach refused to untie.
“I just…” She paused, her throat feeling suddenly dry.
“I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
Vivienne looked at her younger sister with a mixture of affection and quiet pity.
That was the undeniable truth about Marceline Laurent.
No matter how guarded, sharp, or cold she had become to protect herself from the world, Louise was still the woman who had wiped her tears and kept her safe for years.
And deep down, Marceline still couldn’t bring herself to believe that Louise had ever deliberately played a part in harming her.
Vivienne offered a gentle, reassuring smile.
“We’ll find out.
I promise.”
“Thank you.”
After Vivienne stood up and quietly left the conservatory, Marceline remained on the bench alone.
The hum of the estate’s fountains trickled faintly in the distance.
Slowly, she unlocked her phone and opened her old message thread with Louise.
She scrolled all the way to the top, past years of mundane check-ins, until she reached the very last entry—a message sent years ago.
Take care of yourself, Liline.
I’ll call when I can.
I love you.
Marceline stared at those dark letters for a long, agonizing minute before locking the screen, the display fading to black.
She didn’t know it yet, but Louise Paget was not simply working abroad.
And her family wasn’t merely shielding her from unnecessary worry.
They were keeping her buried in the dark—protecting the Laurent name by preventing her from asking the one lethal question that could tear the entire story of her past apart:
What had Louise Paget really known about the night Marceline was stolen?