A foxy tale: Episode 11

A collaborative serial by Jessica Perini and Catherin J Pascal Dunk

Wait up—did you miss Episode 1 / Episode 2 / Episode 3 / Episode 4 / Episode 5 / Episode 6 / Episode 7 / Episode 8 / Episode 9 / Episode 10 ? Like to catch up first?

Episode 11

Brandon de Bras, powerful media magnate though he may be, poked his head around Margerite’s boudoir door with, it must be said, not a little trepidation. 

He badly wanted things to go well, but the circumstances … they were far from ideal.

Thankfully, de Bras had only breathed in some Solomon, avoiding the coke his old pal’s ashes were cut with. Thus he’d been able to carry that dear daisy, Marguerite, to her apartment. 

Mx Bagué had never been Brandon’s most ardent fan, to put things mildly. It was what she might imagine had happened that worried him the most.

His past was chequered, it was true. He had bedded more than a few ladies who probably detested him, even at the time, and certainly since. 

It was hard not to use one’s power to get what one wanted, at least occasionally — but it was never fulfilling.

This thing he dared to dream with Marguerite … it would be something else entirely.

*

Finally safe inside Bella Vista, Javier Belarte fell to his knees on the plush doormat. 

Placing the beanie baby carefully down in front of him, he slowly unclenched his jaw.

It was too soon to relax, but he realised that too late. 

He could hear sirens below, and the hollow sound of the street door being smacked with a heavy thwack downstairs.

Terrorists. That was his immediate thought. Trauma rippled through his muscles.

Javier’s grandfather had narrowly survived the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, way back in 2015. It had become folklore in his family. The trauma, tangled up in his grandfather’s DNA, plagued all who followed.     

Javier had been a strange and difficult child. His unhealthy boyhood love of yoyos … well it had morphed into something very much darker. The family had no choice but to cut ties.

Thwack. Another thunderous clap at the front door startled Belarte out of his reverie.

… TO BE CONTINUED …

Image from Pexels Free Photos.