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The bar stopped serving anyone under eighteen after ten, but Séverine stayed behind anyway and no one asked any questions. All it took was the right dress and a skilled hand that knew its way around make-up, and people would believe you were old enough; all it took was looking sexy enough that the alternative became unthinkable, and no one would question your age.
Séverine ordered another drink on Raoul’s tab, thanking the bartender and slipping twenty euros across the table as a tip. He thanked her kindly. “You’ve been here alone for a while,” he said. “You aren’t waiting for someone, are you?”
“It’s nothing like that,” she said, and chided herself for speaking so quickly; she should be better than this. A bartender flirting with her should be simple stuff. Why did it make her heart race?
“I didn’t think it was,” he said. “I can’t imagine someone standing you up.”
There was no one else at the bar. A few tables and booths were occupied. Most of the excitement came from outside, on the balcony. During the day it was filled with tables and chairs and umbrellas, and people would eat their lunches and dinners while looking out across the beach. Now, the moonlight reflected off the marble floor and a few couples lingered by the railing, holding each other and looking across the darkness. Séverine heard music, softly, and wondered if she’d be able to hear the ocean from outside. She could show herself outside, but her back felt stiff in her seat. Weren’t nerves supposed to be off-putting? Shouldn’t it make everyone want to avoid her? She’d been told that often enough, and warmed against making herself so unwelcome in her severity.
Raoul couldn’t have known about that, but she wondered all the same if he’d seen something similar, when he’d renamed her.
“Is something wrong?” the bartender asked.
“Nothing’s wrong?” Séverine said.
“You look bored.”
“I’m fine.” She sipped at her cocktail. It was her fifth; they were beginning to taste awful, but she’d just paid for it with Raoul’s money.
“It’s a beautiful view out there, isn’t it?”
Séverine quickly pulled her head away from the large French doors and looked back to the man. He was now looking outside, at the same beautiful balcony Séverine had admired not a moment ago. When she looked back, it felt tainted.
“It’s lovely.”
She looked down at her drink, and then across the dimly lit room towards the foyer, with its crisp light. The chandeliers in there, she remembered, were gorgeous. The longer she looked, the more everything seemed to blur.
“I get off soon,” he said. “If you want – if you aren’t doing anything else, that is – I can bring you out there. Maybe I’ll ask you to dance.”
Séverine’s throat’s tightened. When she looked back at him, he was smiling brightly. Brightly.
He can’t afford to dance with you, she told herself, although it came to her in Raoul’s voice.
“I’m fine,” Séverine said again. Another sip of her drink. “Really.” Setting her drink down. Studying how he studies her, what hunger she sees in his face. Her vision blurred; she should have gone easy on those last few drinks, she knew it.
Séverine pushed the drink across the bar. It really was starting to taste awful. “I should go. You’ll forgive me.” Said in the voice Raoul uses when he’s being delicately cruel.
She could stay longer, if she wanted to, and no one would ask questions – but did she want to? What did she even like about it, apart from that she had the freedom to stay for as long as she wanted, safe in the knowledge that no one would say otherwise? She was no longer having fun looking in at the lives of those standing around her.
Séverine surprised herself by making her way to the balcony rather than to the foyer, and her hotel room. The air was chilly, although she hardly felt it through the haze of alcohol that she thought should really be doing more to calm her nerves. Séverine leaned her palms on the railing and leaned over the darkness, closing her eyes. She listened to the sea. The sensation gave her a sense of vertigo, but the music hugged her like an embrace, steadying her.
For a moment it felt that there was no one else with her, that she was alone. It was almost a comfort, but her heart refused to settle. Her skin still felt too tight, like she’d been zipped into it but couldn’t reach the pull tab, and was too ashamed to ask someone to give her a hand, for fear they’d see her naked.
“I was told I’d find you here.”
Séverine forced herself not to move, and to keep her eyes closed. Nonetheless she felt her shoulders tense.
“Who told you such a thing?” she asked.
“The bartender, who’s trying desperately not to look your way,” Raoul said. “He thinks you’re the most beautiful woman here.”
His voice was low, his words murmured to her softly. Somehow it didn’t feel too intimate; it simply exhausted her. Séverine turned around to face him. He was standing only a foot or so beside her, just to her left. A warm presence in the cool night. It was a conscious effort to stop herself from leaning near him, for protection.
“I’m sure others would agree,” she said, remembering Raoul’s arrogance. He stood for nothing but the best, and he’d wanted her. That had to be worth something.
He laughed. “I’d be inclined to, but I suppose I’m biased. What does my opinion matter, anyway?”
Séverine nodded. “Right. You’re right.”
“Are you cold out here?”
Her dress plunged dangerously low, and the shawl she wore over her shoulders served no purpose except to add some shine to her skin, with the glistening diamonds sewn into it.
“I don’t feel it,” she said.
“You aren’t shivering.”
“What do you think?” Séverine asked. “How do you find the Spanish nights?”
“Very different from the day.”
“Quite.”
“Look at me.”
An order Séverine was relieved to follow, until she looked into Raoul’s startlingly blue eyes. In them she saw compassion, and something like warmth – it would be a comfort, if not for the fact that she suspected she might be burned. She pulled herself away, turning to press her hip against the railing for balance. “Is this your way to tell me to go back inside?”
“What?” Raoul asked. He looked surprised, as though the thought had never occurred to him.
Séverine wrapped an arm around herself. “I thought you might want me to go back.”
“I wondered why you were out here,” he said. “That is, until I saw the view. I can’t blame you for coming out here.” He looked around. Then added, “You aren’t the only person with that idea.”
One couple stood nearby, giggling. An elderly woman was dancing with her son, his wife standing nearby with a martini in her hand. She noticed Séverine’s eyes on her and glanced her way, before looking back to her husband and his mother.
“Do you know this song?” Raoul asked.
“I’ve heard it before,” Séverine said. It was soft, and thin against the sound of the ocean pawing at the sand.
“I have, too,” he said. “Do you want to dance?”
He can’t afford to dance with you, Séverine found herself thinking, but she knew it wasn’t the truth. Raoul could afford to do anything he wanted to; he owned the world, and could do what he wanted with her. She stayed silent, and willed herself not to look at Raoul as he studied her.
“You don’t know how to dance?” he guessed – if it counted as guessing when he knew the answer; he was far too perceptive, even more so than she was.
“I’m afraid not,” Séverine said. “I have two left feet, and tonight I’ve had too many cocktails.”
Raoul made a quiet tsk sound to himself as he shook his head. “Come on. I’ll teach you.”
“You don’t have to,” Séverine said quickly. “Please. It will be embarrassing.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” he said, and touched the bottom of her chin, turning her face up to look at his. Despite herself, she did, and despite not wanting to look she caught sight of his eyes. Sharp blue points in the dark night; a warmth she felt eat at her like how the sea that ate at the boundary of the sand.
Séverine’s hand fell into his, and her body fell against his. One hand landed on her waist and carefully, she felt him guide her out towards the middle of the balcony. Still, her vision blurred, and so she closed her eyes. She felt tension drain from her back as she sagged against him, moving in time with him as he whispered gentle encouragements to her as they moved together.