Liar Liar

And then she arrived, and I have not been the same since.

‘Well, whatever the reason,’ Rhett reasons, ‘all I can say is, I doubt I could ever get hard enough in Amélie’s presence to even hate-fuck her.’ My chuckling turns to a belly laugh because I can empathise completely. ‘I don’t know what you’re laughing about. You’re the one whose life is a mess. It’s a fucking joke, man.’

‘I don’t know. I think my life is pretty good.’ Or it will be once I win over Rose. Once I get her to understand that nothing matters beyond her.

‘Not from where I’m sitting. First, you get saddled with a business you never wanted or expected any part in. Then to get your hands on the reins, you ditch the image of the playboy son, an image you’d cultivated so very hard—’

‘I hardly promoted myself as a hedonist. I just lived the life I wanted.’

‘Those were some good times,’ he says, tipping his head back as though appealing to the midnight blue ceiling for a recreation of a time gone by. ‘And we cultivated hard, didn’t we?’

‘Partied hard.’ And Rhett was an unlikely companion, but one I’ll be forever grateful for finding.

‘Same thing,’ he replies with a sniff. ‘But then you go and spoil it all by saddling yourself with a business you don’t really need. The money would always have been yours.’

‘Precisely why I need to attend to it.’

‘You had no interest in the business and no interest in the woman you tied yourself to.’

‘A necessary evil,’ I interject, brushing the topic aside.

‘Those are her middle names, right?’ He sits straight, bulldozing on. ‘And next, you discover you might have a sister before finding out she’s probably some girl your dad has—’

‘Ta gueule,’ I reply in a thoroughly bored tone. Shut up. Delivered without a hint of malice and received by his mocking salute.

‘But then . . . instead of steering clear, you decide to fuck her. Then bring her here.’

‘The first was a mistake, yes. And the second . . . a case of mistaken identity. But I regret nothing.’

‘Je ne regrette rien?’

‘If you start singing, I will murder you and feed your corpse to the fish.’ I pick up my glass and bring it to my lips.

‘You don’t regret anything because you’re in the middle of winning her fucking back.’

‘You say that as though it were a bad thing.’

‘Isn’t it? You really don’t want to know who she is?’

‘I no longer care.’ And that’s the truth. But I will have her.

‘Lord deliver me from lovesick fools.’

‘You’ll manage,’ I murmur, turning my attention to my plate. ‘Besides, there won’t be much romance at the start.’ Battles, yes. Verbal combat. Stolen kisses and vicious skirmishes if last night was anything to go by.

And I look forward to it all because as every seasoned campaigner knows, to the victor go the spoils.

28

Remy

I need you to leave me alone.

It isn’t the first time she’d said these words to me, but never were words uttered with such meaning. Not that I’m deterred, though for the last few days, I haven’t sought her out. I haven’t turned up in her apartment, and not out of fear that she’ll start throwing things again, and I haven’t used the concierge app. Yet. At least, not since I’d requested her as my permanent contact, not that she’s aware, though engaged the services of one of her colleagues for a few days. Following, no one else will see to my concierge needs; no one but her.

But up until now, I’ve left her alone, as she asked. And quite frankly, it’s killing me. To know that she’s so close, yet out of reach is torturous. I can barely think, let alone run a business. Things can’t go on this way much longer. In fact, they won’t if things go to plan.

I want you to leave me alone.

And I want to take her words and twist them into something pretty.

I never want to you to leave me alone.

‘Mademoiselle Ryan pour toi.’ My assistant’s voice drifts from the intercom, bringing my musings to an instant halt. My stomach twists, and my heart thunders.

‘Ask her to wait, please.’ My response is terse, not because I mean it to be but because I need her here with me. Need but cannot yet have.

I switch the intercom to video mode. It’s a new system that was installed just last week, along with a new lock for my office door. Some mistakes you just don’t want to repeat. In the reception area, Rose frowns, hearing my response. Exactly what I was aiming for. She turns to the couch, she trips on the edge of the area rug, glaring back at it as though it had done so on purpose. She drops a multitude of wrapped packages and shopping bags to the cushions and, if I’m not wrong, suppresses a small growl before turning swiftly once again.