Read Chapter 9: The Lie to Mother

The call came at seven in the morning, when the London sky was still the colour of a bruise. Elise saw the name on her phone—Maman—and almost let it ring out. But her mother had never once called at an unreasonable hour without a reason, and guilt was already curling through Elise's chest before she pressed accept.

"Elise. I saw the photographs." No greeting. Her mother's voice was precise, the way it always was when she was withholding judgment. "The ones from the gala. You look beautiful, but more importantly, you look happy."

Elise sat up in bed, running a hand through her tangled hair. The hotel room was quiet. Theo was in the suite next door, and last night he might as well have been in another country. "I am happy, Maman."

A pause. "You never tell me about him. This Theo. Your father mentioned he met him."

Of course. Her father had called her mother. That was how they worked—separated for fifteen years, but still sharing intelligence about their only daughter like a pair of retired spies. Elise pressed her palm against her forehead and tried to summon warmth into her voice.

"He's wonderful," she said. The words felt like gravel in her throat. "Kind. Patient. He understands the work, the pressure. He's—” she paused, searching for the word that would satisfy her mother, the one that would end the conversation. "—he's everything I didn't know I needed."

The lie sat in her stomach like a stone. Nausea bloomed, familiar and cold.

"Your father said he seemed serious about you." Her mother's voice softened, almost imperceptibly. "That you seemed serious about him."

Elise closed her eyes. Her father had believed her. That was the worst part. She had lied to his face at that strained dinner, fed him the performance of a lifetime, and he had believed her because he wanted to believe her. Because she was his daughter and he loved her, despite everything.

"Yes," Elise said, because there was no other answer. "We're serious."

"Then I want to meet him."

The words hit like a slap. "Maman—"

"I'm not asking, Elise. I've given you space. I've watched you burn your career from a distance and said nothing. I've watched you disappear into yourself and said nothing." A breath, ragged and unlike her mother. "But this—if he makes you happy, truly happy, I need to see it with my own eyes. I need to know it's real."

Elise's fingers tightened on the phone. The lie was already spiralling, multiplying, growing limbs and teeth. Now it required a set piece. A stage. Her mother's apartment in Lyon, with its chipped porcelain and the smell of lavender soap. Theo sitting at the small kitchen table, Theo's hand on hers, Theo lying with the same perfect fluency she had just demonstrated.

"Next week," Elise heard herself say. "I'll bring him."

"Good." A pause, then, softer: "Your father said you've started wearing the earring again."

Elise's free hand went to her ear. The earring was there—Theo had returned it, and she had put it on without thinking, the way she always had when she needed armour. "It's just an earring, Maman."

"It was hers, Elise." Her mother's voice cracked, just barely. "Your grandmother's. I know you know what it meant to her. To me." A pause. "I'm glad you still have it."

The call ended with promises to text dates, with I love yous that felt like obligations. Elise sat in the hotel bed, the phone still pressed to her ear, the silence ringing around her.

---

She found Theo in the hotel's private dining room, nursing a coffee and scrolling through his phone. The morning light caught the sharp lines of his jaw, the careful composure of his posture. He looked like he hadn't slept either.

"My mother wants to meet you," Elise said without preamble, sliding into the chair across from him.

Theo looked up. For a moment, his mask slipped—something like surprise, or panic, or both—before settling back into familiar calm. "Your mother. The one who—"

"The one who hasn't spoken to me in months, yes." Elise picked up his coffee and took a sip, refusing to flinch at the bitterness. "I told her we're serious. I told her I'd bring you to Lyon."

Theo set his phone down slowly. "Elise, we have a schedule. The producer meeting is this morning, and then there's—"

"I know the schedule. I've always known the schedule. But this is the price of the narrative you wanted." She held his gaze, letting him see the steel beneath her exhaustion. "You wanted a perfect, believable couple. Perfect, believable couples meet each other's mothers."

Something flickered in his eyes. She couldn't name it—frustration, maybe, or calculation. But then he nodded. "Fine. Lyon. I'll make it work."

"Good."

She turned to leave, but his voice stopped her at the door.

"Elise." He was standing now, his coffee forgotten. "There's something you need to know before the meeting today."

She turned back. "What?"

His jaw tightened. He was choosing words, she realized—constructing another careful narrative, another version of events designed to make her complicit before she could object. The pattern was so familiar now it made her teeth ache.

"Marcus—the editor who approached you." He paused. "Vivienne told my team. The blackmail."

The world tilted. Elise gripped the doorframe. "She had no right—"

"She had every right." Theo's voice was firm, but not unkind. "He's threatening to publish photos of you from before. From Paris. The ones that—"

"I know what the photos show." Elise's voice was ice. "I was there. I lived them."

"I know. And I know you thought you were protecting me by keeping it quiet." He took a step toward her, and for a moment she thought he might reach for her hand. He didn't. "But my team is already handling it. Leaks to the editor's competitors, a counter-narrative about journalistic ethics, a few calls to his advertisers. He'll back down."

"You did that without asking me."

"I did it because if those photos surface, they don't just hurt you. They hurt the story. They hurt the contract." His eyes met hers. "They hurt me."

Elise stared at him. The nausea from her mother's call returned, sharper now. She had wanted to handle Marcus alone. She had wanted to protect the one thing she still controlled. And Vivienne—Vivienne, who had promised—had gone behind her back to a man Elise had known for three weeks.

"Your clean image," she said slowly. "That's what this is about. You're not protecting me. You're protecting your brand."

Theo's expression shuttered. "Both. It can be both."

"No. It can't." Elise shook her head. "Because if it was about me, you would have asked first. You would have treated me like a partner, not a liability."

The word hung between them. He didn't deny it.

The meeting was in three hours. The meeting that would decide if Elise got the role in La Mer Blanche or if her replacement would take it. The meeting Theo had already compromised by pitching Marchand behind her back.

"Make sure Marcus is handled," Elise said, her voice flat. "And make sure you're ready for Lyon."

She left him standing in the dining room, his coffee cold and his expression unreadable. In the hallway, her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.

*Some mothers should never know the truth. Others deserve to.*

*—M*

The blackmailer's message. Elise deleted it without responding. But the words stayed with her, sharp and knowing, as she walked toward the meeting that would decide her career, the earring at her lobe a small, cool weight of everything she was still trying to protect.