Chapter 4 Chapitre 4

She had never believed in rumors. However, that morning, Camille found herself listening to whispers which, little by little, took shape in a truth that she had never wanted to hear. The day had barely started, the fresh air from the outside sliding through the ajar windows, but something unreal floated around it, like a heavy atmosphere ready to break. She had not tried to listen to. Cooking discussions between servants have so far been underground noises. But this time, a word, a phrase slipped between two bursts of laughter, captured his attention.

"He has changed, you know. He was not like that before. »»

Camille turned discreetly, her gaze lingering on the silhouette of one of the servants, visibly embarrassed by her own confession. The young woman's face closed quickly when she realized that Camille listened to her, but it was too late. The words were released. Camille got closer subtly, pretending indifference. Each gesture, each breathing seemed to be heavier, as if too heavy a secret had just been touched. She knew it, she felt deep inside that there was much more behind Bastien's wall of indifference than what he wanted to let believe.

She hadn't intended to seek. But when she met the eyes of one of the other employees, a slight tremor in her voice made her understand that she could get more information. She approached, decided.

"What do you mean by that? Asked Camille, her calm voice but tinged with an insistence that she had not tried to make obvious.

The young woman stopped, a visible hesitation crossing her features. She turned furtively, verifying that no one listened to them, before whispering in a barely audible voice.

"He was ... different before the incident. Before all that. He was someone more alive. He was not that cold man. »»

Camille leaned slightly forward, suspended from the lips of the servant, but she tut herself immediately, her eyes seeking to avoid contact. She shook her head as if she realized that she had just said too much. Camille, however, could not stop at this simple snap. She had to know. She had to understand what had made Bastien this distant man, almost inaccessible.

"What happened? Camille insisted, her more direct tone, but without breaking the sweetness that emerged from her words.

"I shouldn't talk about this," replied the servant, but there was a glimmer of hidden curiosity in her voice, as if she herself could no longer contain the desire to reveal what was buried. She lowered her head, taking a deep inspiration before blowing: "She was a woman. Another woman. A story that has changed everything. »»

These words, seemingly simple, struck Camille hard. A woman. Bastien had loved another woman, and all of this had been broken in a way that apparently never repaired. But something in the tone of the servant told her that it was not a simple separation, a simple sorrow of love. No, there was something darker, something that was still scoring it today.

"He never recovered, you know," added the servant, looking down. "He has changed since ... tonight. »»

Camille felt invaded by a mixture of understanding and concern. There was more there. There was a depth in the story that she did not yet understand. One night. Something inexpressible seemed to hover around this simple mention. But before she could ask any more questions, the servant turned her heels, taking her silence with her.

Nothing in the house no longer seemed so familiar, more sure. Each piece, each whisper seemed to be a new weight, an acquaintance that touched the edges of the truth without ever diving into it. Camille found herself alone, distraught, with this new information. But she now knew that her own role in this story could no longer be as simple as she imagined it. The secrets were worsened around Bastien, like invisible walls that stood between them, and she had to understand what was hidden behind all this.

She went to one of the pieces she had not yet explored, her mind still plagued by the revelations she had just heard. By opening the door, she stopped. The pale light of an unloved afternoon flooded the room, but it was the smell of an old fragrance, of a perfume that she did not know, which made her frown. She put forward, and on the table, an object drew her attention. A book. A notebook, maybe. An object carefully left outside the view of any visitor, like a locked door that he was not supposed to open.

She seized it, her hands trembling slightly as she leafed through the pages. It was not a simple diary. It was more than that. Sketches. Hummer -scribbled words, drawings that seemed as fleeting as the thoughts of a man in the grip of his own demons. As she turned the pages, she distinguished a drawing that made her stop net. It was him. Bastien. But he was not alone. A silhouette was held near him, a female silhouette, blurred, almost invisible, but present. A woman's shadow. A silhouette he had loved above all that.

And suddenly, everything was clearer. It was not just a break. It was something deeper, something that had marked his soul in a way that no word could have made. It was not a simple betrayal. It was a loss that had defined him.

Camille closed the notebook, her mind now besieged by a truth that she was not ready to face. Bastien was not only a man broken by a love story. He was a man haunted by something much more complex, something that only asked to burst out. But she knew it, she had to face it. She couldn't flee. Not now. Bastien had insisted. Camille had not had a choice. An unforeseen evening with longtime knowledge, people that Bastien knew too well, had forced him to take a role that she was not ready to play. However, that evening, when Limousine was moving away from the property, Camille knew that there was no longer possible going back. She had never thought that a simple exit could propel her into such a tense, so artificial situation.

Bastien, relentless, said the rules of the game from the start. "Stay close to me. No distance. No faults. There was no room for hesitation. Nor for error. Camille hosted her head, her stomach tied. This role, this mask they had to wear, would only accentuate the distance it already felt between them. But the circumstances were there, relentless, like all that surrounded by this mysterious man that she was barely beginning to know.

Arrived instead of the meeting, a sumptuous setting where guests flocked like elegant shadows, she quickly realized that Bastien was not there to go unnoticed. He moved among the guests with the assurance of a wolf in familiar ground. Camille, on the other hand, was a foreigner in this world that she did not yet understand, but that she felt deeply anchored in the identity of the man she accompanied. The gaze of others quickly landed on them, and without the slightest word, she felt the shadow of curiosity and judgment falling on her.

"Camille, here are my old friends. You must be delighted to meet them, "says Bastien, his measured tone, almost detached. He presented it with the same cold indifference which he displayed when he talked about his business. A couple they had known in a distant past, names that, although familiar in the shadow of rumors, made no impression on them.

The exchanges were polite, almost empty of meaning. Camille felt like a spectator of her own life, plagued by forced smiles and frozen gestures. Bastien was a master of concealment, and he seemed to have established an invisible border between him and the rest of the world, the one she struggled to cross, like a door whose key escaped him. She guessed that this meeting was not trivial for him. Maybe these people held pieces of the puzzle that he had decided to keep hidden.

Suddenly, a question from one of the guests made Camille jump, breaking the apparent tranquility of the evening. A stealthy look exchanged between Bastien and a man with severe air enough for the conversation to take an unexpected turn.

"So, Camille," said the man, a smile a little too forced to be natural, "how did you meet? »»

The insistence in the question, the way man analyzed every detail of his appearance, disturbed her immediately. Bastien, still as impassive, just looked at her, silently inviting her to answer. Camille had a moment of panic, but she tried to master her nervousness, as an act of survival. That was what he was waiting for. She understood it.

"An unexpected meeting," she replied, her weighed words, carefully chosen. No matter how much she replied with a certain grace, the tension was palpable. There was something heavy, of not said, in this meeting which still escaped its understanding.

Bastien took his hand without a word, a attention that could seem to be tender, but which, for her, only added a weight to the situation. A simple gesture, almost calculated, but it was not the tenderness that emerged from his gesture, but the grip he exercised over her at every moment. The evening continued thus, full of forced smiles and insistent looks, but all that Camille could perceive, beyond the shadow of the words exchanged, was the deep discomfort that was insinuated between them. The role they played, both, was that of a couple who loved each other, but the reality was quite different. And she knew it. Bastien also knew it.

At one point, a laugh a little too lively, a slightly too scrutinizing look, made the tension of a notch. She noticed that Bastien, often calm and reserved, hardened with each sentence. A shine in her eyes, a coldness that was becoming more and more obvious, had it realized that what seemed to be a simple social encounter concealed much more.

She had never seen Bastien so tense, so distant. He answered every question in a dry way, his gaze sometimes fleeing, as if the words he pronounced escaped him. But Camille now knew that he was not only acting for them, but also to protect something even deeper. His invisible scars, those he never talked about, manifested themselves in the tension of his jaw, in the coldness of his gestures.

She walked away from him for a moment, trying to find some personal space in this stifling universe. But heavy looks, stealthy whispers, followed it like shadows. She wondered if this role of couple they played was not the only way for Bastien to protect herself, to keep her demons at a distance, to hide this part of himself which made him vulnerable. A man with a marked heart, a wolf in hostile terrain.

But as the evening advanced, she started to understand. Maybe that was that. Maybe behind this coldness, this facade, there was something else. A man who needed this facade, who needed this role they played to survive. And if Camille was ready to cross this line, she should first understand why he wore this ruthless mask.

The evening was finally coming to an end, but she left behind a feeling of discomfort. The facade had held, but rightly. Bastien had led him to the exit, without a word, his gaze turned towards the horizon. She knew that that evening, their relationship was no longer just a couple story. It was a story of armor and demons, a dangerous game, and all of this was just the beginning.

As the days passed, Camille began to perceive the extent of the expectations that Bastien and her entourage placed on her. Everything she had imagined about her relationship with him seemed to be more complex, more restrictive. The evening with her knowledge had only been a prelude, a silent test of her ability to adapt to a world that she did not yet understand. But this world, now, had a grip on it, stronger than it would have believed it.

Bastien, so attentive to his appearance, to his role in society, left little room for uncertainty. Each word he pronounced, every gesture he made, seemed calculated, controlled. Camille, who felt already vulnerable in this rigid universe, understood that she had become a play of the game he directed with relentless precision. What he expected from her went far beyond appearances, beyond the simple social gestures. She was no longer just the initiate in this strange world; It was now a central element, a key figure in a puzzle whose parts remained to be assembled.

There was the constant pressure to maintain an image, to play a role. A role which, little by little, was beginning to encroach on his own identity. Camille felt, every day a little more, the overwhelming responsibility for her behavior. His actions were no longer just his; They were now scrutinized, analyzed by those who observed the least of his gestures, seeking at all costs to detect the slightest flaw.

And Bastien, in this silent dance of power and control, was the one who guided her, but without ever really offering her the freedom to act in his own way. He was sometimes protective, but behind this facade hid a silent expectation that she could not ignore. He made him understand, by his supported looks, his silences heavy with meaning, that his role was crucial, that each error or false step was likely to tip everything. Camille was only a puppet, with invisible threads that she didn't even know how to cut.

Conversations with house servants, who sometimes let out of information on the past of Bastien, had become moments of reflection and confusion. Camille began to grasp the contours of a man marked by a past he refused to evoke. The murmurs were sometimes heavy, carrying secrets that she did not dare to unearthed, but who haunted her more and more.

The expectations, invisible but palpable, seemed to be woven around it like a spider web. Camille could not escape this increasing pressure. It was not just the image she had to maintain, but a silent promise that she had to respect. Promise to play its role, to comply with the tacit requirements of a world where appearances counted more than anything.

Bastien, moreover, never seemed to depart from this burden. Her face, always closed, masked an intensity that she had trouble grasping, as if each smile, each word, each movement was carefully weighed. He was not the man he seemed to be, and every moment spent by his side suggested a little more of the depth of his wounds. But these injuries, although palpable, were secrets that he was not ready to share.

For Camille, the pressure was becoming more and more difficult to bear. She felt taken in a macabre dance, a ballet where each movement could betray her. The fear of disappointing, of not being up to the task, of breaking this facade which it had built, gradually stifled it. She was trapped, in a role she had not chosen, but which now seemed inseparable from her own existence.

She did not yet know how far it would lead her, nor if she would be able to meet the expectations that we had placed on her. But one thing was certain: it was not a simple game of power. There was something deeper, more dangerous, in this relationship with Bastien. A link that was woven in the shadows, between the expectations he nourished and his own. A link that, the more she thought, the more she felt that he could destroy it slowly.