The bathroom tiles press cold against my bare feet, grounding me in the present moment while Christopher's silence stretches across the phone line like a rope about to snap.
The faint smell of hotel soap lingers in the air, mixing with the humidity still clinging to the shower glass from last night, and my skin prickles with goosebumps despite the warmth.
"You could challenge the marital contract on grounds of coercion." Christopher's words finally come measured. "Your father pressured you into that marriage when you were twenty-two, barely out of university. Any competent judge would see the imbalance of power in that arrangement."
Hope flickers in my chest, fragile and dangerous. "And if I pursued that route?"
"Frank has lawyers who will bury you in litigation for years." The flicker dies as quickly as it ignited. "He can afford to drag this through every court in France while you exhaust your resources."
I press my palm flat against the cool tile wall, steadying myself against the weight of his words. The grout lines dig into my skin, rough and real, and I focus on that small discomfort to keep from drowning in the larger one. "What else?"
"You could try to prove financial misconduct and force a board intervention." Christopher's tone shifts, becoming even more cautious. "The Shanghai partnership has documentation gaps that suggest funds were diverted into personal accounts."
My stomach drops through the floor.
The Shanghai partnership.
I built that deal from the ground up. I tracked every invoice, every wire transfer, every signature that crossed my desk.
How did he do it? How did Frank manage to siphon money from a partnership I monitored?
The answer arrives with sickening clarity, and I have to grip the edge of the sink to keep from doubling over. The porcelain bites cold into my palms, and I taste bile rising in the back of my throat.
He waited. He watched me work myself to exhaustion covering his incompetence, and then he struck when I was too broken to see straight.
The weeks after he broke my nose—I remember signing reports through a haze of painkillers and fear, numbers swimming across pages I could barely focus on.
The phantom ache returns now, a dull throb behind my eyes where the cartilage never healed quite right.
He didn't outsmart me. He simply waited until I was too damaged to catch him.
"If you could demonstrate that Frank has been embezzling from the company," Christopher continues, "the board would have grounds to remove him."
"But Frank controls the board." The words taste bitter on my tongue.
"Precisely." Christopher sighs. "He appointed every member who currently holds a seat. They answer to him, not to the company's interests, and certainly not to the wishes of a wife he has already begun painting as mentally unstable."
My grip tightens on the phone until my knuckles ache. The plastic casing creaks under the pressure, and I can feel my pulse throbbing in my fingertips. "Then I go public with the abuse. I show them what he really is."
"Without documentation, it becomes your word against his." Christopher's voice drops lower, heavy with regret. "And he has spent years cultivating his reputation while keeping you invisible. When you step forward with accusations, the press will ask why you never spoke before, why you have no medical records or police reports."
Each option lands like a door slamming shut, the sound echoing through the small bathroom until I feel trapped in a corridor with no exits.
"There has to be another way." My voice comes out raw. "You would not have called these possibilities if you did not have something else to offer me, Christopher. I have known you my entire life, and I can hear what you are not saying."
The silence on the line stretches until I wonder if the connection has failed. I hold my breath, listening to the faint hiss of dead air, my lungs burning with the effort of stillness.
Then Christopher speaks again, his voice barely above a whisper, as though he fears someone might be listening.
"There is one other possibility." He pauses, and I can hear him choosing his words with surgical precision. "The original will—the one your father claimed Léonard wrote, the one that made François the heir instead of you. I have never seen it."
My heart begins pounding against my ribs with a rhythm that feels almost violent. "What do you mean you have never seen it?"
"I mean exactly what I said." Christopher's tone carries an edge I have never heard from him before—something close to righteous fury held in check for too long. "When your grandfather died, your father produced a document that supposedly named him as sole heir to the Pasquier estate. He claimed Léonard changed the will in the final weeks of his life, after the stroke that left him unable to speak clearly."
"Grand-père would never have done that." The certainty in my voice surprises me, rising from a place deeper than memory. "He loved my father, but he knew what François was."
"I know." Christopher's agreement carries the weight of shared conviction. "I told your father as much when he showed me the document. I demanded to examine it, to verify its authenticity, to compare it against Léonard's known signatures and the previous versions of his estate planning. Your father and Frank refused to produce it whenever I asked."
The bathroom suddenly feels too small, the walls pressing inward. The air grows thick in my lungs, and I have to force myself to exhale.
"If that will is somehow invalid or fraudulent," Christopher continues, his voice gaining strength, "the entire chain of inheritance collapses. Your father's claim to the estate would be voided. His authority to arrange your marriage contract would be nullified. And Frank's position as owner through that contract would dissolve like fog."
"Find it." The words leave my mouth before I have fully processed what I am asking. "Find that will and send me everything related to company ownership. I do not care what it takes, Christopher."
"Renée, you have to understand the danger involved in—"
"If you cannot do this," I interrupt, and my voice carries a hardness that would have terrified me a week ago, "you betray everything my grandfather trusted you to protect. He gave you his confidence because he believed you would safeguard his legacy. His legacy is me."
The line falls silent, and I can hear Christopher breathing on the other end, can almost feel him wrestling with the implications of what I am demanding.
Somewhere outside the bathroom window, a car horn blares, distant and muffled, a reminder that the world continues spinning while mine hangs suspended on this single moment.
"I'll find it," he says quietly. "It may take time, and I cannot guarantee what I will discover, but I will find it. For Léonard, and for you."
"Thank you." My voice cracks on the second word, and I end the call before the emotion can spill over into tears.
The phone sits in my palm like a weapon I have just learned to wield, its weight both terrifying and exhilarating.
Then I hear movement from the bedroom—the creak of mattress springs, the rustle of sheets being pushed aside, the soft pad of feet against carpet.
Estienne is waking up.
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