Liar Liar

Care to rephrase that?

Fine. You’re the most demanding of my patrons.

And you’re trying to make me angry. Why would she phrase it this way? I’m not her patron—that’s not the kind of relationship we have. I can barely get her to take a thing from me. She didn’t want the membership to Papaya Beach on Saturday, preferring to slum it at the public beach.

How would I explain that to Lea? she’d asked. Or was it Tee? I can’t remember, but I do remember a pinch of annoyance that she was happy to keep things between us secret still. Which is ridiculous, considering the secrets I’m keeping myself.

Can it be she has changed her mind about us in this short time? I push the thought away in favour of another. I’d offered to buy her a watch she was admiring online last week when she went a little crazy, insisting she was looking at it for a client.

Why won’t she let me look after her?

See? Demanding, she retorts.

Says the woman who begged me for my cock on Friday when I’d scarcely cleared the front door.

REMY! This is a work app. Do you want to get me fired?

What I want is to see you this afternoon. Why is she fighting this?

Give me until about twenty-five o’clock, and I should be through.

I think I take precedence.

Think? To hell with that. I know I take precedence.

Because you have friends in low places?

Ma Rose, you have that the wrong way around. You are a highly esteemed friend who I happen to like to take low places on occasion.

Again. Work app!

She’s certainly making me work for it.

Remy, I’m swamped, comes her response this time. Try Deliveroo or UberEats. Or whatever the Daddy Warbucks Monaco equivalent is.

I stare at the phone in my hand, wondering where the resistance is coming from. I haven’t seen her since Saturday morning when we parted with plans to catch up on Sunday, plans that didn’t come to fruition because she said she wasn’t feeling up to it. Was she lying then? Now? Is she too much of a coward to say we’re through?

Through? Fuck through. We haven’t even started.

My stomach twists, but I push away all analysis, typing out my reply. If she won’t accept an invitation, I can always issue a command.

I’m not sure who Daddy Warbucks is, but if he lives in Wolf Tower, he’d use the concierge service, which I believe is you today.

You know, none of the other residents has their lunch delivered to them by us.

Good. As the owner of Wolf Tower, I think I should be the only one. An abuse of power? Who gives a fuck.

Fine, I’ll deliver your lunch, but I can’t stay. As I’ve said, I’m super, super busy today.

I’m sure I can persuade her otherwise once she’s here, even if sex is off the table.

And if it is off the table, then I’ll just have to make sure it’s on the desk, conscientiousness be damned.

Resisting the urge to adjust the flicker of interests in my pants, I put down my phone and return to the mound of documents to be signed and begin skimming through them. We’ve recently broken ground on a development that will become a boutique hotel just outside of Menton Old Town on the edge of the Côte, the first of its kind in decades. Pen poised over the contracts, I consider taking Rose on a trip down there sometime. Nestled between the mountains and the Mediterranean, the little town has a charming old-world feel and is full of buildings from the Belle Époque period that almost seem to turn rose gold at sunset.

Maybe she’d like to go to the lemon festival next spring?

The thought is like a dart to the psyche because spring is months away—next year, in fact. I’d be a fool to think this thing between us could carry on as it is now. The secrets between us can only fester and gnaw, and when the truths eventually surface, could I forgive her if our positions were reversed? Forgive her for hiding the truth from me, for intruding on my past by paying for an investigation. For keeping the balance of power in her favour and forcing me to continue to work for her when I’d already be rich in my own right.

At least this I know the answer to.

‘I wouldn’t—couldn’t—forgive her,’ I recount quietly, pen still in hand, my gaze unseeing. In the same breath, I know I’m not prepared to let her go. The past three weeks have been unlike any other time in my life and Rose unlike any other woman. She requires nothing but my attention for the time we’re together, yet she invades my mind continually.

‘Fuck,’ I exhale, dropping my head into my hands.

‘What’s wrong with you?’

My head jerks up, swinging sharply to Rhett. What I’d prefer to be swinging is my fists.