Tangled

Chapter 2

The cab ride to Montmartre was a masterclass in silence. Julian sat with one foot tucked under the seat, trying to hide the blue Rorschach ink-blot on his left suede loafer. Beside him, Siena clutched a "peace offering" she had insisted on buying: a comically large box of artisanal macarons that she was carrying like a live landmine.

​They arrived at Le Consulat, a cafe so picturesque it looked like a film set. Julian led them to a tiny table across the cobblestone street, shielded by a striped awning.

​"Okay, the plan is simple," Julian whispered, donning a pair of dark sunglasses that made him look less like a grieving fiancé and more like a disgruntled hitman. "Elena meets her sister here every Tuesday at four. I will wait for her to order her espresso, then I will walk over—slowly, calmly—and deliver the letter. You stay here. Do not move. Do not breathe on anything fragile."

​"I can do that," Siena whispered back, already accidentally knocking a teaspoon off the table. "I am a shadow. I am the night."

​"You are a hazard," Julian corrected.

​At 4:10 PM, a sleek black town car pulled up. Elena stepped out, looking radiant in a trench coat and a silk scarf, her eyes shielded by oversized shades. She looked perfectly composed—the exact opposite of the woman who had been covered in floral foam forty-eight hours prior.

​"There she is," Julian breathed, his cool exterior cracking. He reached for the ink-stained letter in his pocket. "Siena, give me the macarons. I’ll lead with the sugar and follow with the 'overflowing love' note."

​Siena reached for the box. However, in her peripheral vision, she saw a waiter balancing a tray of red wine walking directly toward their table. Her "chaos-sense" tingled. She pivoted to make room, but her elbow struck the macaron box at a perfect 45-degree angle.

​The lid flew off. Like a colorful, almond-flour barrage, twenty-four expensive macarons took flight.

​Three landed in Julian’s lap.

​One hit the passing waiter’s tray, causing a glass of Bordeaux to wobble dangerously.

​The rest skittered across the cobblestones like sugary skipping stones.

​"My macarons!" Siena squeaked. She lunged forward to save a rogue pistachio-flavored one that was rolling toward a drainage grate.

​In her haste, she didn't see the cafe’s resident ginger cat darting between her legs. Siena tripped, her hands flying out to catch herself. Instead of the ground, she caught the edge of the waiter’s tray.

​The tray tipped. The glass of Bordeaux didn't just fall; it performed a graceful arc through the Parisian air, landing with pinpoint accuracy on the back of Elena’s pristine, tan trench coat just as she reached the cafe door.

​Elena spun around with a gasp, the red wine soaking into her designer fabric. She looked at the red stain, then looked across the street. Her eyes locked onto Julian, who was currently standing up with three macarons stuck to his trousers, and Siena, who was sprawled face-first on the cobblestones holding a single, dusty pistachio macaron like a trophy.

​"Julian?" Elena’s voice carried across the quiet street, trembling with disbelief. "Are you... are you stalking me with a wine-throwing assassin?"

​"Elena, wait!" Julian shouted, taking a step forward, only for his ink-stained shoe to slip on a stray raspberry macaron. He performed a brief, frantic dance to regain his balance, looking like a very expensive, very angry flamingo.

​Siena peered up from the ground, her face redder than the wine. "It was an accident! I have the letter! It says your love is overflowing!"

​Elena didn't stay to hear the rest. She flagged down the nearest taxi, hopped in, and vanished into the Parisian traffic, leaving Julian standing in the middle of Montmartre, covered in crumbs and defeated by a pastry.

~~~

The return to the Plaza Athénée was conducted in a silence so heavy it felt like it had its own weather system. Julian didn't even wait for the bellhop to open the door to the suite; he shoved it open himself, his movements jerky and sharp.

​Julian stood in the center of the room, slowly peeling a crushed, yellow lemon macaron off his thigh. He dropped it onto the pristine floor with a wet thwack.

​"A wine-throwing assassin," he said, his voice dangerously low. "That is how my future wife—my former future wife—sees me. Not as a man of stature. Not as a romantic. But as a man who hires a chaotic wood-nymph to pelt her with sugar and douse her in Bordeaux."

​"Julian, please," Siena started, standing by the door with her hands tucked into her sleeves to prevent them from touching anything else. "The cat was a variable I couldn't have—"

​"The cat?!" Julian finally snapped, spinning around. His eyes were wide, and for the first time, his perfectly coiffed hair was standing up in several unfortunate directions. "Forget the cat! Forget the wisteria! Forget the 'localized gravitational field'!"

​He began to pace, gesturing wildly with the hand that still held the ink-stained letter.

​"I have spent ten years building a reputation of absolute precision! I run a multi-national investment firm! I am a man who commands respect! And yet, in the last forty-eight hours, I have been buried in wet foam, stained with permanent ink, and made to look like a bumbling stalker in the most photographed neighborhood in France!"

​He stopped in front of Siena, who was trying very hard to shrink into the wallpaper.

​"You are not just clumsy, Siena. You are an elemental force of destruction. If I put you in a room with a rubber ball and a silk scarf, you would somehow find a way to start a localized earthquake."

​"I was only trying to help," she whispered, her lip trembling. "I wanted to make it right. I even saved the pistachio one for you."

​Julian looked at her hand, which she was unconsciously holding out. He stared at the dusty, cracked macaron for a long, silent beat. Then, he let out a laugh—a sharp, slightly hysterical sound that made Siena jump.

​"You saved the pistachio one," he repeated, shaking his head. "Well, that settles it. The relationship is dead, my shoes are ruined, I’m probably going to be sued by the waiter, but at least I have a dusty, floor-flavored pistachio macaron."

​He slumped into a velvet armchair, all the fire seemingly draining out of him, replaced by a grim, dark humor. He threw the ink-splattered letter onto the coffee table.

​"Get out," he said quietly.

​"Am I fired?" Siena asked, her voice small.

​"No," Julian sighed, rubbing his eyes. "If I fire you, you'll probably trip on the way out and pull the entire hotel down on top of us. Just... go to your room. Tomorrow is the L'Opéra Gala. Elena is the guest of honor for her charity work. It’s the last chance I have before she flies back to London and changes her locks."

​He looked up at her, his gaze intense. "I’m going to get us tickets. But from this moment on, you are not a 'coordinator.' You are a silent observer. You will be draped in bubble wrap if I have to. We are going to that gala, and you are going to help me get five minutes with her—without breaking a single piece of Ming porcelain. Do you understand?"

​Siena nodded vigorously. "I'll be a statue. A silent, non-moving statue."

​"Good," Julian muttered, reaching for the gin again. "Because if a chandelier falls at the Opera House, I'm just going to stay under it."

~~~

​Siena stood in her tiny hotel room, staring at the "Gala Checklist" Julian had texted her. It was less of a list and more of a legal warning.

​RULE 1: No heels over one inch.

RULE 2: No trailing fabric (tripping hazard).

RULE 3: Nothing with sequins (they shed and create a slip-risk).

RULE 4: You must blend into the shadows. Think "Gothic Housekeeper," not "Floral Disaster."

​With a budget of exactly fifty euros—the only cash she had left after the "Macaron m******e"—Siena headed to a dusty vintage shop in the Marais. She couldn't afford the Dior or Chanel that would be gracing the Palais Garnier, but she had an eye for structure. Or so she told herself.

​At the back of the shop, buried under a pile of moth-eaten furs, she found it: a floor-length, midnight-blue velvet gown. It was heavy, modest, and looked like it belonged to a 19th-century widow.

​"Perfect," Siena whispered. "I’ll look like a piece of furniture. It's very hard to notice furniture."

​However, there was a reason it was only forty euros. As she pulled it on in the cramped dressing room, she realized the side zipper was missing its teeth. To make matters worse, the hem was roughly three inches too long—a death sentence for a woman with her center of gravity.

​Back at the hotel, Siena went into crisis mode. She didn't have a sewing kit, but she did have her florist's tool belt, which Julian had forgotten to confiscate.

Instead of a needle and thread, she used heavy-duty floral wire. She threaded it through the velvet, creating a rigid, slightly metallic rim at the bottom of the dress. It held the fabric up, but it gave the gown the structural integrity of a hoop skirt made of rebar.

Since the zipper was dead, she used green florist’s tape to seal herself into the dress, covering the tape with a decorative sash she’d scavenged from a discarded bouquet in the lobby.

To truly "blend in," she decided she needed a headpiece. She took a few sprigs of dried eucalyptus from a vase and wired them into her hair.

​She looked less like a gala guest and more like a very determined, slightly metallic woodland spirit that had been taped into a sleeping bag.

​A knock at the door signaled Julian’s arrival. When she opened it, Julian was standing there in a tuxedo that probably cost more than Siena’s college tuition. He looked like a Bond villain; she looked like a craft project.

​He stared at her. His eyes traveled from the eucalyptus in her hair down to the rigid, wired hem of her dress, which made a faint clink sound as it hit the floor.

​"You’re wearing a shrub," he said flatly.

​"It’s 'Botanical Chic,' Julian. And look," she stepped forward, her dress swaying in a stiff, mechanical arc. "The wire in the hem keeps me upright. I’m basically a human tripod. It’s physically impossible for me to trip."

​Julian leaned in, sniffing the air. "Is that... floral tape? Are you taped into that dress?"

​"It’s industrial grade," she said proudly. "I’m not going anywhere."

​"God help the French Republic," Julian muttered, checking his watch. "The car is downstairs. Just... try to walk without clanging. And whatever you do, do not go near any magnets."