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Emilie leaves just enough rope for Nathalie to hang herself with.
It's the way Emilie touches her, fingers skating up Nathalie's wrist during meetings, lingering just shy enough to leave the ghost of heat behind; or the way she laughs when Nathalie's breath hitches, too bright-eyed and honeyed, like it's all some sort of delightful game to her.
"You're too easy," Emilie whispers one evening, her lips brushing against the shell of Nathalie's ear. A phantom kiss. A taunt. The wineglass she reaches for glints under the low light. Nathalie could have handed it to her, would have, if Emilie had simply asked.
But asking would spoil the game.
Emilie's fingers catch hers as she takes it, deliberate, and Nathalie's pulse stutters sharp and skittish.
Emilie whispers, "I barely have to tug," and the words wrap, lazily, smoke-light, into the hollow of Nathalie's throat. She wonders, distantly, if Emilie can taste her surrender in the air.
Nathalie's jaw locks. She doesn't move. She can't move, not when Emilie's perfume is all salt and citrus, flooding her lungs; not when the heat of her lingers like the edge of a fever.
(The overhead light flickers once. Somewhere behind them, the fridge hums, loud and mundane. Nathalie stares straight ahead.)
She tried to resist, once.
A lifetime ago. A single no, whispered like a heresy. Emilie had pouted for a week, softly, strategically, lips trembling in the mornings, laughter a half-beat too late in the afternoons.
Nathalie had choked on the silence.
And then, the necklace: emerald teardrops strung on gold, cold and heavy against Nathalie's palm.
"To match your eyes," Emilie had said, even though Nathalie's eyes were slate, not jewel-bright. A lie, then. A brand.
When Nathalie fastened the clasp with trembling fingers, Emilie's reflection had smiled back at her in the mirror, victorious.
See? that smile had said then.
That was the lesson: disobedience earns rewards. Obedience is expected.
Now, Nathalie follows her like a shadow. Like a starving thing. Like a woman who has long since forgotten the shape of her own spine, bent as it is under the weight of Emilie's gaze.
Emilie crooks a finger; Nathalie steps closer. Emilie sighs; Nathalie fetches her shawl before she can ask.
"Good girl," Emilie purrs, the words syrup-thick. Nathalie's stomach knots.
The paperwork in her hands is pristine, the right forms pulled without a single misstep. How did she know? No one told her what Emilie needed but Emilie had glanced at the clock this morning with a certain tilt of her chin, and Nathalie had understood.
Now, Emilie's thumb brushes her knuckles, gentle, a mockery of praise, and Nathalie flushes with something between shame and hunger.
(Gabriel watches them sometimes, his gaze flat and unreadable.
He says nothing.
He doesn't need to. They all know the rules of the manor: Emilie loves like a landslide: beautiful, consuming, a burial. And Nathalie? Nathalie digs her own grave with every yes, Emilie and right away, Emilie and please, Emilie—)
The worst part?
Emilie does love her.
It's in the way she tucks Nathalie's hair behind her ear after a long day, fingers tender. The way she presses ice to Nathalie's temples when she overworks, whispering, "You'll ruin yourself for me, won't you?", like it's a love song worth putting on indefinite repeat.
Nathalie aches with it.
Emilie never asks for more than Nathalie is willing to lose, which is, of course, the problem.
(Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice whispers: This isn't love.
She lets Emilie kiss it quiet.)