‘He’s a man. He’s made mistakes, but you mean something to him, I can tell.’
‘Why are you telling me this? Here.’ I pick up the knife from my abandoned sandwich, offering it to him handle first. ‘If you want to hurt me, go ahead. Just start poking holes.’
‘And I thought the French women were dramatique.’
I spin the knife in my hand, pointing it at him this time. ‘Want to say that again?’
‘I think he might even love you.’
‘Sure,’ I scoff. ‘That’s why I was the one who left his office. That’s why he came running after me. Oh, wait. He didn’t.’ Not that time, at least.
‘In his own way. As much as he is capable, I suppose. But the more I think about it, the more I am convinced he was protecting you by reacting as he did.’
‘What reaction? There was none.’ He didn’t even respond to her kiss. He didn’t turn his head, his hands staying straight by his sides. I look down at my own hand as it begins to smart and see tiny half-moon indentations from my nails. ‘Go home, Benny.’ I bring my coffee to my mouth. ‘You’re drunk.’ And then I burn my tongue.
‘Let me tell you about ma cousin.’
‘I think I’d rather have a pap smear,’ I murmur, beginning to doctor my molten beverage as a thought hits me. A similar procedure might not be too far away in my future because Remy and I didn’t use condoms.
I want to feel you skin to skin.
The last woman I slept with was you.
Lies again.
Tears prick my eyes like glass. I trusted him with my heart and my sexual health. So help me, if anything is wrong . . .
‘Rose?’ Ben’s concerned expression hovers in the periphery of my vision.
‘I don’t want to talk about him anymore,’ I say, dashing away an escaped tear. ‘Let’s talk about someone more fun. Like Genghis Khan.’ My words are more brittle than bright even as my greedy heart wills him to go on.
‘It’s not a love match.’
‘It sure looked lovey-dovey to me.’ I make a tiny whirlpool in my cup as I stir in the sugar, wondering if that’s really true. He looked dumbstruck, sure. Then emotionless. He didn’t reciprocate her greeting, her kiss, none of it.
Or maybe I’m just seeing what I want.
‘How often have you seen him?’ Ben’s prodding brings me back from someplace painful to somewhere equally as agonising. ‘How many times each week?’
‘We’ve seen each other quite a bit,’ I concede. Just call me Rose, the side ho.
‘He’s obsessed with work. Obsessed in making Loup Industries bigger and better than it was under his father. But I’ve noticed he’s been available less since you arrived. No working dinners, no weekend meetings. And I heard he moved into the Tower.’
‘You mean he didn’t live there before? Oh, my God. They were living together!’ My entire body burns with indignation.
‘Bedrooms as separate as their lives, I’m sure. The only thing that keeps them together is a mutual love of money, as I understand it.’
‘Well, I don’t understand it.’ Do I believe it? He seems pretty calm about the whole thing. Besides, what reason would Ben have to lie to me? He might have seemed interested on Saturday night—not to mention creepy—but right now, he seems genuine. If he wanted me, wouldn’t this conversation be different? Wouldn’t he keep all this information to himself?
My head aches with the weight of it all, but I know at the very essence, the possibility that this relationship isn’t real means nothing. It changes nothing. Remy has had a hundred opportunities to tell me. To explain. He hasn’t, and I’m not sure what that says about me.
Was I not worth it?
‘Remy wasn’t supposed to inherit his role, you know. Money, yes. Control, no. He didn’t even live in Monaco. When the details of his father’s will were made public, shares nosedived. The board tried to block his appointment. There was almost a corporate coup.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he was a playboy. Inexperienced in the world of work, let alone a billion-dollar business. He knew what to do to court a headline or a girl, but not to inspire the confidence of investors.’
‘I still don’t see what this has to do with his . . . with her.’ Something inside me curls up and dies. My self-worth, maybe.
‘He didn’t follow you out of the office as Amélie need only complain to her father and you would be deported. He’s very high in the principality government, you see. The family has influence but not billions. Remy has billions, but at that time, he had no influence. So he proposed to her.’ His head tilts, his expression twisting a little. ‘Perhaps “propose” is a little too evocative. He brokered a deal. Her father’s support for his cash.’
‘And the hand of his daughter in marriage.’