Diana in Love (Dirty Diana #2)

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

I gently crack open the door to our suite and creep inside, relieved to find it quiet, aside from some light snoring coming from L’Wren and Alicia’s room. I sink onto the edge of my bed and kick off L’Wren’s heels. It’s dangerous to sit too long—I need to get in the shower before I fall asleep. My feet ache and even my skin feels sensitive and tight. I take a deep breath but before I can push myself up and into the bathroom, my phone vibrates beside me. Oliver is FaceTiming. My mind races—it’s almost midnight in Dallas. Emmy. Something must be wrong.

“Hello?”

Oliver asks, “How’s Paris?”

“Amazing.”

“Did I wake you up?”

“No…I…Jet lag.”

“And L’Wren?”

“In her element. And fast asleep.”

“Well.” Oliver leans deeper into the couch, one arm folded beneath his head. I remember the feeling of being nestled in the crook of that arm, warm and safe, my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “I miss you.”

I see myself in the tiny FaceTime square, my eyes puffy from champagne and with the last of yesterday’s makeup. “Thank you for getting Emmy off to camp. How did it go?”

“Fine. Easy.” Oliver runs his hand across his face, suddenly looking very tired. “I told you once you were there we would slip away and you would enjoy every second.”

“I am. It’s hard to think about Emmy so far away. But I do love it here.”

Oliver’s smile is small and sad. “Diana…”

“Yeah…”

“You sent me a picture earlier. And I don’t think it was for me.”

Oh god. “What?”

“Check your phone.”

No. No. No. Please god no. I couldn’t have. I couldn’t have been so careless. Did I send a picture to Oliver?

Oh. My. God. There it is. Me on Gabriel’s couch, underwear pulled aside.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“So it wasn’t for me?”

“I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be. Really. It’s fine. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

My entire face is hot and red. A long moment passes. Neither of us is brave enough to speak. Until finally Oliver asks, in a quiet voice, “You want to know what I kept thinking about? After I got the picture?”

No. Not really. I’d rather bury myself under these pillows. Is that an option?

“We never sent pictures like this to each other.”

I race for something to say—but my mind is still stuck on the photos—how did I make such a stupid mistake?

“Right. Anyway. It’s late here. I should go to bed. Sleep well.”

We never sent pictures like this to each other. It was the last thing I expected him to say.

“You too.”

—

I lie down in my clothes, on top of the sheets, until I hear L’Wren and Alicia stir, padding through the suite getting ready. L’Wren had insisted she’d only do the Louvre if we go bright and early, before the major crowds. They are both up and showered by eight a.m. , and I do my best to join them, but then they take one look at me—still in last night’s clothes with heavy shadows under my eyes—and they tell me to go right back to bed. They head out on their own, and I shower finally and fall asleep, hard and fast. I don’t wake up until one in the afternoon and only then because Alicia is standing over me with a cup of coffee.

“I’m waking you now so you don’t mess up your biorhythm entirely,” she says.

“Where’s L’Wren?” I ask, groggily.

“L’Wren has declared me a ‘delight’ if a little ‘unfiltered.’ And she’s decided I walk too slow, so we’re not a good fit for shopping. We were a couple blocks from the hotel and she mumbled something about Hermès and then disappeared into a taxi.” Alicia flops onto the Louis XVI–style settee at the end of the bed. “She is really a trip.”

I pull a pale blue sundress over my head. “I’m just relieved you’re getting along.”

“I get along with everyone, eventually.”

Alicia takes me to La Grande Mosquée de Paris. We pass through a courtyard, shaded in foliage where the last of the season’s wisteria blooms cling to the archways, and into the Turkish baths. Inside it’s busy, crowded with naked women all in different states of repose. A group of older women sit by the edge of the Jacuzzi, sweating and dipping their feet in and out of the water, none of them self-conscious. I drop my towel and join Alicia on the soft green mats. She takes the bar of black soap we’ve each been given and motions for me to turn around. She gently scrubs between my shoulders where she knows I can’t reach. Then she turns so I can do the same to her.

Afterward, we sit in the café drinking sweet mint tea and eating pistachio pastries. I sketch the place on the back of one of my postcards so I won’t forget it. Alicia tilts her head up to the late-afternoon sun and closes her eyes. Her voice is soft and dreamy. “I’m never going back, Diana. Never.”

“Should I let your husband know?”

“I’m serious. Do I have to go back?”

“You can’t fool me. I know how much you miss Nico and Elvis.”

“It’s crazy though, isn’t it? That when you’re in it, you’re so in it. You can’t imagine leaving even for a day, you’ll miss your family too much. But then you do leave and you can be so out of it. Instantly. I thought being away from Elvis would feel like missing a limb. Instead I feel like I’m completely in my body. Like it’s all mine again.”

I clasp my hand over hers and give her fingers a light squeeze. “Everyone needs a break.”

“Last night, I sat on the couch in the hotel room and no one asked me for a single thing. Not a glass of water. Or a snack. Not help wiping a butt or turning on an iPad. No one asked me if I knew where their fill-in-the-blank-with-literally-anything was. I miss being totally selfish and only thinking about satisfying the exact craving I’m having and at the exact moment I’m craving it. If I feel like working, I work. If I’m hungry, I eat.” She stretches her arms over her head and closes her eyes again. “I love that L’Wren has a massive crush on someone. But that’s my nightmare right now. Can you imagine taking on one more person’s feelings right now? Good for her and also no thank you. ”

She lets out a long sigh and we pay the bill, wandering to the nearby park and finding two chairs in a shady spot under a tree. Alicia closes her eyes and dozes off, and I stay still, reading and not wanting to wake her.

My phone chimes as I turn the page. Jasper.

So, Diana’s in Paris. What does she do next?

I don’t hesitate:

What doesn’t she do?

For a few moments, there is no response from him, and then:

Hmm …

I watch the three dots linger, then disappear.