cannibal; kendall roy

2

Marguerite had forgotten how much she loathed New York City, until she had begun to settle down into the city. It had been cooed to her that it would be best for her to get out of Paris, and then they said France when she'd argued that she could work from Archamps. They then told her that Anna loved her, that she'd eventually climb right back up and might even land American Vogue.

Yeah, right.

It was all bullshit. But she wasn't so open to the concept of being forced out so easily. So she'd taken the New York job, even if it meant returning to the city she actively loathed. After all, she had practically been kicked out of the damn city before. Anyone she considered a friend—anyone she considered a partner—fucking gone.

She could remember how much she'd hated it the first time she'd come. She'd been a little girl. Around eight years old, in the company of her mother and father.

She remembered how her mother flitted around Saks, practically waving her card around, or bending over to tell her daughter who she'd once worn on the runway. Occasionally chattering her plump mouth off to whichever salesperson managed to recognize her. Marguerite had been young then, and she'd idolized her mother—wanting to be just like her.

Pretty, idilic and a model. Supposedly a good one too.

Until she'd settled for a billionaire and had a child.

A process her mother had once told her was "disappointing" which had in turn disappointed Marguerite.

It wasn't until she was about eleven that she'd realized the vanity of her mother in actuality. That her charity events and her face had been pumped and cut open so many times to make her more appealing. Her mother craved the attention her father hated. Looking back, Marguerite wished she'd told her mother how awful she was to her face.

Or not. It would've upset her father.

A man who was actually desperately in love with his wife, despite how awful she truly was, and how she slept with practically anyone.

Marguerite had known that—as a child, especially when her mother began to regularly disappear for weeks, maybe months on end. She could read magazines and gossip columns. She understood the hushed tones of staff in her home. Or the arguments when she did come home, and how she'd leave—usually with a new card, or a new nose.

Then there had been her death.

Blood pooling in a pool.

Ironic.

And despite all of this—Louis's diaries had revealed that he had been beyond aware of these affairs, but he loved her. Marguerite, her mother Marguerite.

Yes, she was named after her mother. In fact, her whole name had been created by her mother.

An ode to both of her parents.

The model— Marguerite, stayed with Louis for the money and luxury he provided her.

Louis stayed because he had no time to leave, and he loved her—or loved how she was part of his old life. Part of the few months he got to spend cramped in New York City, before being shoved back into France.

His daughter, the second Marguerite, had doubted that she'd ever loved him to begin with. But rather his heirloom engagement ring.But the second Marguerite felt torn as she sat in New York, wondering what her father would've said to her about any of this. About her moving to New York and leaving France. She liked to picture him just telling her he'd pay for it all, and transfer her more money. Despite the millions sitting in her account, courtesy of her dead mother.