Page 22 of The Expat Affair

“Fake stones are not the answer,” Fleur says, her voice rising in a common refrain. “Lab diamonds are poisoning the mineddiamond supply. By capitulating, we are essentially shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Thomas gives an emphatic shake of his head. “They’re not fake, and we’re not capitulating, we’re being smart. Income from lab-growns has grown more than four hundred percent in the past year alone across the board, in every country including the Netherlands. How is it capitulating for us to benefit from that trend?”

“Income is not the same as profit, Thomas. Surely your precious Nyenrode taught you that.”

Nyenrode, one of the best business schools in Holland, but a constant source of tension between Thomas and Fleur. Thomas was expected to follow in Willem and Fleur’s footsteps at Erasmus, but he chose Nyenrode. His last little protest before falling in line for the Prins baton.

“Children, please,” Anna huffs, holding up a perfectly manicured hand, her nails painted the exact same shade of dusty pink as her lipstick. “Can we not do this again? Think of your father’s heart.”

At that, all eyes go to Willem, who since retirement has gained a few extra kilos around his middle, sure, but is otherwise perfectly healthy. He brushes off her words with an animated grunt.

“Whatever happens, Xander’s death must not reflect badly on the House,” Willem says, picking a nonexistent piece of lint from the chair’s armrest. “I need you to make sure our hands stay clean. And if Xander’s death has anything to do with Prins or the lab-grown line...”

Willem doesn’t finish, but the message is clear.

Fix it, Thomas. Fix what you broke.

“Dinner is served,” the chef says, appearing like magic in the doorway to save us from ourselves. Next to her, a hyped-up Sem bounces on his toes. There’s a streak of blue icing on his ear, a blob of something yellow and shiny in his hair. He clings to her with a sticky hand.

Silently, we file into the dining room and to our regular seats, Anna and Willem at the heads, Thomas and Fleur each at their father’s elbows, their spouses on the other side. I help Sem onto his chair before sinking into mine across from Roland and the girls, and it occurs to me I should probably be appalled at my in-laws’ callous response to a man’s brutal death, but I’m not.

For a Prins, diamonds always come first.

Rayna

On Monday afternoon, I step out of the PrimeFone store into a horde of tourists, a whole five hundred euros lighter thanks to my brand-new replacement debit card, still smoking in my pocket. Five hundred euros I don’t have and can’t really afford for a dinky, refurbished iPhone, which I’ll need to call the police if someone’s chasing me.

Last night after the detective and I hung up, I lay in bed, staring at the clouds trailing past my little window while his ominous words drew tight around my neck like a noose—or a zip tie. Every time I closed my eyes, it wasn’t Xander I saw lying sprawled on the shower floor, not his neck or his finger... but mine. The detective thinks someone is coming after me, and now, so do I.

At least the Leidsestraat is bustling, a wall-to-wall sea of people crowding the pavement. I find a quiet-ish spot by a corner and scroll through the messages on my new cell. The second the salesman helped me connect it to my iCloud, the notifications started rolling in, a series of missives that got progressively longer and more urgent in tone. I pause on one from my sister—better watch out mom saw the nip-pic—followed by one from my mother:CALL ME OR ELSE!

I haul a breath, pull up FaceTime, and hit Call. The line connects, and the screen goes in and out of focus on something white and fuzzy.

“Mom. This is FaceTime. Take the phone off your ear. Look at the screen.”

More jumbling. More images from a camera lens that can’t quite get a grip on anything solid. And then, there it is: my mother’s face.

And she doesn’t look happy. “Well,finally. I’ve only been calling you all weekend. I was starting to get worried.”

She uses her librarian voice, terse and highly annoyed, mostly because my mother is always worried about something. The way my dad works too hard and eats too much red meat. My sister’s daughter still not walking at thirteen months and how it’s a sign of something awful. Fentanyl finding its way into the Halloween candy supply and China listening in on her calls. The state of the world in general.

And me. These days, most of her worries seem to center aroundme.

“Everything’s fine. I just lost my phone, that’s all.”

If the news of Xander hasn’t made it across the Atlantic yet, I’m not going to be the one who brings it up. Maybe I deleted the picture before someone could connect it with his death, or maybe it’s just that a dead Dutchman doesn’t make a big enough wave to make a splash on American news sites, I don’t know. What I do know is that for my mother, the nip-pic will be the real story.

I slip back into the crowd of tourists and follow the tram line south. “Before you start, yes, I know that picture was ill-advised, but it was only up for a couple of hours. I took it down as soon as I realized.”

“Realized what, that the entire world had seen your lady parts?”

I wince. “You don’t have to fuss. I’ve already gotten an earful from all sorts of people I was really hoping never to hear from again. Also, while we’re at it, how did everybody in St. Francisville jump on that post so quickly? It was only up a couple of hours and it was the middle of the night. What are they, vampires?”

“You know how people here love to talk.”

Why, yes. Yes, Mom, Idoknow. It’s a big part of why I left. The other part is Barry.

“Did he see, you think?” I ask.

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