1.
At the dinner table, the returnee student Craig Henson had brought home suddenly spoke up in French:
"Craig, whatever you do, don't let anyone know I'm pregnant, or Vanessa Fox will probably kill me."
Craig set a piece of braised pork on her plate and gave a soft laugh.
"Relax, I won't tell her. If you start showing, I'll find an excuse and go with you to France on a business trip."
"We'll come back once the baby's born."
Lucille Pruitt grinned.
"Perfect. Then I'll stay here for now and watch our little one grow."
Then Craig switched to English and said to me:
"Vanessa, Lucy just joined the foreign trade department at the company. I think I'll have her stay with us for a while."
"She's been in France all this time and doesn't know her way around here. As the head of the foreign trade department, you should look after her."
Lucille lifted her glass to me with a smile.
"Vanessa, Craig says your English is excellent. From now on we'll be opening up new markets for his company together. A toast to you!"
Excellent English?
I supposed that was fair. I'd never once mentioned to Craig that I spoke six languages.
Since they were being this brazen, there was no reason for me to hold back either.
1.
If it weren't for the faint trace of mockery in Lucille's smile, I'd have wondered whether I'd misheard.
I kept my eyes fixed on her.
She hid it well.
Craig assumed I simply didn't want to drink with her.
His face went cold.
"Vanessa, could you show a little courtesy? Can't you see Lucy's toasting you?"
I let out a scornful little laugh.
"She toasts me, so I have to drink?"
"And you brought someone home to live here without asking me. Isn't that taking me for granted a bit much?"
Lucille suddenly looked wounded.
"Vanessa, I know you mind me staying here, and mind that Craig takes such good care of me."
"But I just finished studying abroad, my hometown is so far from here, and I don't know a soul."
"Don't worry. Craig only feels sorry for me. Once I get used to the area, I'll move out on my own for sure."
"Move out, nonsense!"
"You can stay as long as you like."
Craig shielded her and turned to snap at me.
"Vanessa, when will you stop being so petty!"
"Every time your name comes up out there, you embarrass me!"
I gripped my glass and stared coldly at him.
"Then tell me. What did the two of you just say?"
"We..."
Guilt flickered in Craig's eyes, but he found an explanation at once.
"Lucy's going to be handling the company's French communications from now on, so of course I was just practicing with her a little. I didn't want her getting rusty."
"Vanessa, are you letting your imagination run wild again? And here Lucy was just praising you."
Lucille smiled.
"That's right, Vanessa. I was just saying how experienced you are. I have so much to learn from you."
Listening to the lies, my eyes were ice cold.
But I didn't expose them on the spot.
The price for betraying me shouldn't be that cheap.
Craig had brought her home before, back when there was only something vaguely suggestive between them.
If I didn't understand French, I'd never have known things had already gone this far.
Six years ago.
Craig was still grinding through the hard early days of building his company.
Business at home was strained, and it was my flawless English that landed him several major overseas clients.
I also brought in an investment from Whitfield Group, the biggest company in the city.
But English is an international language, so even though I'm fluent in six, English was the only one I ever used in front of Craig.
And what he knew even less was that
the former chairman of Whitfield Group was my grandfather.
The year he passed, he left instructions that I couldn't take over until after I turned thirty.
And now, I'm already thirty-two.
To help Craig, I'd stayed away all this time.
Whitfield's investment in Craig's company was enormous.
It held forty percent of the shares.
So while I was, in name, the head of the foreign trade department at Craig's company,
in reality,
Craig was actually working for me.
Right now, I forced myself to stay calm.
I spoke evenly:
"If it's just practice, then feel free to go on."
At that, Lucille smiled at Craig.
"Craig, see, I told you Vanessa isn't that small-minded."
Then she switched back to French.
"Craig, has she always been this easy to fool?"
Craig glanced at me and gave a slight smile.
"You have no idea."
"Before you even graduated, when I brought you back for your internship, she'd throw fits at me all the time just because we got close."
"And a couple of sweet words was all it took to smooth her over."
"Do you remember that one time we got a hotel room, and we ran right into her coming out?"
"I told her I was booking a room for a client, and she believed it just like that."
"When it comes down to it, she just can't live without me."
Lucille listened, watching me with great interest, and went on in French:
"Craig, that time we were in bed at your place, I kept worrying she'd suddenly come home."
"But the way you tell it, if she really did find out, would she just take any excuse and believe it?"
"Probably."
"Then when our kid's a little older, I'm going to tell them the story of how pathetic she is, every single day."
The two of them exchanged a smile, looking at me like I was a clown.
After that they went on flirting for a good while longer.
I pretended I couldn't understand a word.
Eventually, maybe they'd lost interest.
Craig switched to English.
"Lucy, why don't I take you to see the company this afternoon? It's been a while since I've been in."
Then he said to me:
"Vanessa, this afternoon go to the supermarket and pick up some Western everyday things. Lucy's not used to what we have at home."
Then the two of them left.
I quietly pulled up the phone I'd kept under the table and stopped the recording.
Then I placed a call to a number I hadn't dialed in a long time.
"Nathan Whitney, I'm coming back to Whitfield."
