THE ONE WHO RAN AWAY

Chapter 15 — New Toy

Raphaël's POV

Lyon, France — Maison Moreau

The machine stared at me.

I stared back.

It was — large. Grey. Covered in buttons that had clearly been designed by someone who believed that complexity was the same thing as functionality. A small screen on the front displayed a menu that offered approximately forty-seven options none of which were obviously labeled copy these documents for a meeting.

I looked at the files in my hand.

Looked at the machine.

Looked at the files again.

This, I thought, is genuinely undignified.

I owned a company. Three hundred employees. Fourteen countries. A laboratory in Bangkok that had produced twelve fragrances in the last fiscal year, two of which had entered the top five of the European luxury market within six weeks of launch.

And I was standing in a corridor in Lyon trying to understand a copying machine.

Grand-père.

I could feel him from wherever he was — probably sitting in that garden of his with his afternoon tea and his complete lack of remorse — laughing.

I pressed a button.

The machine made a sound.

Not a productive sound. Not the sound of something beginning a useful process. The sound of something that had been asked to do something and was considering whether it felt like it.

I pressed another button.

The screen changed to a different menu with different options that were equally unclear.

I run a company, I reminded myself. I have navigated board meetings in three languages. I have restructured a failing distribution network across Southeast Asia. I have—

The machine beeped.

A red light appeared.

I looked at it.

Seriously.

I thought about calling Marc. Decided against it. Marc was in Bangkok. Bangkok was eleven hours away. And even if he weren't — the image of calling my secretary to ask him how a copying machine worked was one I intended to take to my grave without ever allowing it to happen.

I looked at the buttons again.

Tried a different combination.

The machine — apparently deciding to cooperate on its own timeline rather than mine — hummed to life. Pages began sliding through. The particular mechanical rhythm of something finally doing what it was supposed to do filled the corridor with a sound that felt, under the circumstances, like a small personal victory.

I watched the pages come out.

Picked one up.

Looked at it.

Hm.

So that was how it worked.

I had operated with considerably more complex systems and considerably less satisfaction.

I leaned against the wall while the machine finished.

The corridor was quiet around me — the particular mid-morning quiet of a floor that was working rather than talking, the low hum of keyboards and climate control and the distant sound of a phone ringing somewhere being answered efficiently.

Lyon.

I had been here four days.

Four days of bus rides and briefing documents and a desk that was the same size as everyone else's desk on a floor where nobody knew my name beyond the one on the temporary badge Henri had arranged.

Raphaël. Intern.

I looked at the badge.

Intern.

Eight months ago I had been sitting in my Bangkok penthouse watching a product launch dismantle a competitor's market position in real time. Six months ago I had been in Singapore closing a distribution deal that had taken fourteen months to negotiate. Four months ago Marc had been forwarding me quarterly projections that showed Moreau Parfums had grown its European market share by eleven percent year on year.

And now I was waiting for a copying machine.

What are you thinking Grand-père, I thought. Not for the first time since landing in Lyon. What is the actual lesson here.

Because there was always a lesson. That was the thing about my grandfather — he never did anything without a reason and he never explained the reason until you had already lived through it and understood it yourself. It was his most infuriating quality and also, I had always suspected, the one that had made him as formidable as he was.

Let him learn what it feels like to be nobody for a while.

Nobody.

I looked at the corridor. At the copying machine. At the badge on my jacket.

Is that what this is.

And underneath that thought — quieter, less comfortable — the other one.

My father.

Grand-père had mentioned it last night. Casually. The way he mentioned things he wanted me to think about without appearing to want me to think about them. Your father will be joining us for dinner Sunday. I hope you'll come.

I hope you'll come.

As if I had a choice. As if I hope you'll come from Henri Moreau was anything other than a date and time and the clear expectation of attendance.

My father.

I hadn't seen him since the launch in Bangkok — his two declined calls and one ignored voicemail sitting between us like something neither of us had decided to address yet. He wanted Maison Moreau. Wanted me to take it. Had been wanting it with the specific persistent patience of someone who had decided the answer was eventually yes and was simply waiting for eventually to arrive.

I didn't dislike my father.

Dislike required a certain investment of feeling that I had never quite managed to sustain in his direction. What I felt toward him was closer to — distance. The particular distance that develops between two people who are connected by blood and separated by everything else. Who looked at the same company and saw completely different things. Who had never quite managed to occupy the same room without the air in it becoming slightly more complicated.

He gave me a bad feeling.

Not dramatically. Not in any way I could point to and name specifically.

Just — a feeling. The kind that arrived when he walked into a room and didn't leave until after he did. Like something in the atmosphere adjusted itself around him in a way that required monitoring.

I didn't like things that required monitoring without explanation.

The machine finished.

I collected the pages. Tapped them into order with the particular efficiency of someone who had handled documents in considerably higher-stakes environments than this one.

Looked at the stack in my hands.

Copy these files. Meeting in ten minutes. That's what interns do.

Flat voice. Not unkind. Not warm. Just — exactly as much as was necessary and not one word more.

My mentor.

I almost smiled.

That was the thing about Lyon that had turned out to be — not unpleasant. One specific thing. One person on a floor of people I had not yet found particularly interesting who had turned out to be considerably more interesting than anticipated.

Not because of the lift. Not because of the staring — which had been endearing in the specific way of someone who had absolutely no idea they were doing it and would have been genuinely mortified to be told.

Because of the walls.

Only what's necessary.

Said like armor. Meant as distance. Every answer exactly sufficient and nothing more — the conversational equivalent of a door that was technically open and practically closed.

I was very good at closed doors.

They had never once stopped me.

You're interesting, I had said. No one has ever talked to me like this.

And he had said — this isn't no one. This is an office.

Like the office was a shield. Like the rules of professional distance were a wall he could stand behind and be safe.

Safe from what, I wondered. From me specifically? Or from everything in general?

I picked up the files.

Walked back toward the finance floor.

Grand-père wanted me to learn what it felt like to be nobody, I thought. To understand how this company worked from the inside. To sit in meetings and copy documents and take instruction from people who didn't know my name.

Fine.

I could do that.

But I was going to need something to make the days interesting.

And as things stood —

I already had one.

My mentor. My new toy. The man with the walls and the one-word answers and the flat professional voice that had told me today was my first lesson on the copying machine like he was doing me a favour by not simply doing it himself.

Théo Laurent.

Three years. Only what's necessary.

I pushed open the door to the finance floor.

He was at his desk. Looking at his screen. Not looking up.

I crossed the floor.

Set the copied files on the edge of his desk without a word.

He looked up.

"Meeting's in eight minutes." I said pleasantly.

He looked at the files. Then at me.

"You figured it out." He said.

"Eventually." I said. "The machine and I reached an understanding."

Something moved across his face. Brief. Controlled. The ghost of something that might have been amusement if he had decided to let it be.

He looked back at his screen.

"Good." He said. "Next time will be faster."

Next time.

I looked at him for a moment.

At the careful line of his shoulders. The precise way he held himself. The particular quality of his attention — always slightly inward, like part of him was somewhere else and had been for a long time.

What are you carrying, I thought. That makes you this careful.

I didn't ask.

I went to my desk.

Sat down.

Opened the onboarding documents I had set aside on the first day and began actually reading them.

Grand-père, I thought. You wanted me to learn how a company works from the inside.

I'll learn.

But I'm also going to figure out why the man sitting three feet away from me feels like a door I've been standing outside before.

And I always find out what's on the other side.