Never Say Forever

“Yes, the couple with the vineyard and twins.” Plus a baby, I seem to recall.

“That’s her. Well, she made me eat this spread called Vegemite when I visited.”

“The stuff like Marmite?” I ask, wondering where she’s going with this.

“You mean there are two versions of that travesty of taste?”

“Marmite is definitely an acquired taste.”

“Well, she told me it tasted like chocolate. It did not. But what I’m trying to say, in a very roundabout way is Carson, like Vegemite, is what you might call an acquired taste.”

Or is he a taste I seem to have acquired? “No idea what you’re talking about,” I say instead.

“He’s not the kind of man a girl would have no opinion of.”

“I have eyes in my head,” I retort. “I did realise he’s good-looking.”

“That’s not what I mean. You don’t have to protect my feelings. I know his manner can be cold. Superior, even. It goes with the territory of his background being all stuffy wasp and urgh!”

But his mother was French . . . Luckily, I manage to keep that tidbit to myself along with my next thought. Carson Hayes is so not stuck up. Maybe he should be strung up for disappearing off the face of the earth but—

“I guess what I’m trying to say is his bark is worse than his bite,” Rose says, her words interrupting my ruminations.

I swallow back the assertion balanced on the tip of my tongue because this is a version of the man I can’t contemplate. Being on the end of his bite is nothing short of delicious. But his bark? It’s hard to imagine he’d manage to remain serious long enough to be in a snit. Unless she means he goes around taunting everyone in his path, which would surely be exhausting.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Rose. Other than I didn’t get that version of him. He was friendly.” How much so, I’ll never tell. “Hospitable, even.”

“Oh. Well, I guess that’s good.” But she sounds unconvinced.

“Besides, he was barely here twelve hours,” I hedge, swirling my finger over a whorl in the marble counter. “How does a person get to know another in that amount of time?”

“I can think of a couple of ways,” she says, using that annoying sing-song tone again.

“You would.” And I nearly did. Pressing my hands to my stinging cheeks, I wonder how I can extricate myself from this conversation. “You know, I’m really unhappy about not paying any rent. I ought to, even just as a show of thanks.”

A diversion!

“Give it up, girl.” We’ve already had this conversation. “It’s how you got along with Carson that I want to talk about.”

A short-lived diversion.

“I’ve been too busy to even wash my hair, never mind give thought to the arrival of your friend. I’d forgotten he’d been here at all what with work and settling in, finding an apartment—”

“And talking to his plants.” Deadpan doesn’t even touch on her tone.

“That’s Lulu’s job, not mine.”

“Yeah, because you’re too busy kissing him.” I know she’s not being serious and that she’s only teasing, but that doesn’t stop me from being flustered.

“You know how wild her imagination is. Plus, she’s suddenly going through a hardcore Disney phase. She’s obsessed with Prince Charming and the whole ‘true love’s first kiss’ nonsense.”

Someone throw me a shovel because it seems I’m digging a hole for myself. But I’m not lying this time, at least, because since we walked back into the apartment last Monday to find the maid’s room had been cordoned off like a crime scene and an envelope with Lulu’s name embossed on the front. Or rather, Princess Eloise Rose. The contents of the envelope proved to be an invitation to view a room on the other side of the apartment, a room fit for a princess. I’d barely gotten to the end of the message when she’d taken off like a rocket, her squeal of delight echoing through the place.

I found myself standing on the threshold of a room that, in the space of eight hours, had been completely transformed. I won’t pretend to know why a man we barely know took it upon himself to arrange a complete redecoration of one of the bedrooms of his home, or even hazard how much it cost. Because it’s truly beautiful. Decorated in hues of lilacs and blues—no gaudy pink for this room—a gold coronet sits above an antique-style bed with swathes of gauzy fabric falling from it. The whole room has a French feel to it, from the chandelier that sparkles like diamonds to the walls panelled to look like Versailles. It’s beautiful, and Lulu loves it so very much. And I’ve no idea how I’m going to make it up to her when I take it away.

“I hope you told my homegirl she has to wait until she’s older to find her one true love?”