Primrose
“The baby goat was so very cute.”
“Kid,” I say, pulling the sheet straight on Sylvie’s bed.
“I am not!” Her head lifts from the pillow. “I am Sylvie!”
“A kid is what a baby goat is called.”
“That is silly.”
“It is a bit,” I murmur, only half listening because I can barely concentrate on the here and now, my mind seemingly stuck at the dinner table.
I don’t know if the baby goat was cute, whether it had three legs or four, or whether its fur was white or sky blue pink because what the hell is going on right now?
Where did the boss man’s ice-cold moods go? Was it my near-death experience that made him all politeness and consideration? Talk about breakneck because the man went from Darcy to Bingley in the blink of a few seconds.
How was your day?
Did you find your way around the property?
And my least favorite, thanks to my embarrassing reaction, Do you ride?
Did I imagine the innuendo, because something made my face go beet red?
And then there was What can you smell as he’d poured my rosé.
I babbled something about fruit, my senses addled as his eyes locked with mine. His gaze seemed soft, almost inviting. But there was something more intense lurking there. It’s hard to explain, but it felt like he was trying to see into my head. To decode me, to unlock all my secrets.
God, how disappointed he’d be.
I suppose he treated me like a guest tonight. Like I was someone he enjoyed—someone he enjoyed the company of, I mean. He was all, Relax, Primrose. Have some wine. Let me show you a different side to me. Did you know I can be erudite and fun? Even charming when I put my mind to it.
Is that what he was doing, trying to charm me?
Because, dammit, he did. The way he is with his kids didn’t exactly help. Help me, I mean. I can see he’s a good dad. That he’s patient and fair. That he makes them his priority. Maybe he’s really not all that bad.
Staap brain!
“I think baby animals are wonderful,” Sylvie says, snuggling into her pillow. “And also baby people.”
“Baby people are very special.” A smile tugs at my lips. Sylvie looks so angelic, all silky hair and rosy cheeked, snuggled under her baby blue duvet. She really is such a tender little thing. Except where her brother is concerned. And boy, do I know how that works.
“I would like a baby sister of my own, but Papa says—” She gives a jaw-breaking yawn, and her lids flutter closed.
One beat passes, then two, and something queer twists inside my stomach. An ache or longing is what it feels like. “What did your father say?” I prompt softly.
“That our family is already perfect,” she murmurs, sliding into sleep. Or so I thought as her eyes blink suddenly open. “But I said I would ask Pere Noel.” Her forehead creases in a tiny frown. “But Papa just laughed and said he does not swing that way.”
“Oh.” I fight a smile because I can’t imagine seeing her daddy kissing Santa Claus.
“But Pere Noel doesn’t use a swing. He has a sleigh. And reindeers. So will ask him anyway.”
“Good for you.” I pull the duvet a little higher. “Night-night,” I whisper. As I straighten, my gaze catches on the frame on Sylvie’s nightstand.
“Maman is very beautiful, no?”
My eyes slide back to the frame. Summer in the Paris garden, I’d guess, a profusion of roses as a backdrop. A silver-blond-haired woman seated in a wicker chair, her smile so serene as she watches the tiny baby in her arms. “Yes, very beautiful.”
Sylvie has her mother’s hair, and Felix her dark, soulful eyes.
And her husband? I wonder fleetingly what she left him.
A sudden sadness blooms in my chest, not for Sylvie’s father and not for the woman I’ll never know.
I’m sad for the daughter she left behind.
The child who insisted on packing the silver frame in her monogrammed suitcase because “Maman might get lonely left in Paris all alone.”
“Get some rest, little love.” I turn from the bed, hoping she gets her wish someday. “Sweet dreams,” I whisper as I pull the door almost closed behind me.
Out in the hallway, I pause in the cool silence. Felix’s room is to the right of Sylvie’s and mine to the left. Their father’s bedroom door is on the opposite side of the hallway. A little too close confines, but hey-ho. There will be no sleepwalking and rug tripping here.
Now, what to do with Felix. I duck into my room, give the walls and ceiling a quick gecko scan before reaching for my phone. I flick to the text Emmy sent that first day. The dos and don’ts of the du Beaumont children.
Felix is mostly self-directed during school vacation time and can generally be trusted to do what he ought to.
You just need remind him that he isn’t allowed to game through the night, and that the cut off is midnight.
No junk food after ten, so no Uber Eats when everyone has gone to sleep.
Security will tell you the next day if he has.
And then what? I suppose I tattle to his dad.
For children who travel by private jet and live in the lap of luxury, these rules seem remarkably normal. Maybe when the kid is older, the parameters will change. No blow and ho’s on a school night. Given where I first met their father—
I drop the thought like it’s a hot potato as I give a straightening tug to the front of my shirt.
A quick glance at my phone tells me it’s nearly ten, so I guess I’d best check on him.
Shoving the handset into my back pocket, I knock softly on his door and call out his name as I very slowly swing it open. “All good in—”
“Don’t come in!” shouts a panicked Felix—so panicked that he speaks in French. But it’s not his reply which freaks me out but that of a woman rapidly and very enthusiastically reaching orgasm. In stereo.
“Oh God! Oh God! Yes! Yes! Fuck me, baby. Fuck me hard! Fill my dirty hole with your hot, juicy—”
The voice cuts off mid encouragement as I vacillate, half in and half out the door. I almost reach for my phone, but something tells me the protocol for this isn’t documented in Emmy’s text.
My first thought is: not my circus, not my monkeys.
Also, not my twelve-year-old son watching porn.
But if I back into the hallway now, we’re not going to be able to look at each other for the rest of the month.
And, either way, I’ll still have to tell his father.
Awkward to the power 10! He already seems to be lamenting the fact that his son is growing up and, hello—he doesn’t even like me!
Urgh. That is not a conversation I want to have—ever.
It’s not my Hippocratic oath that makes me step fully into the room, but my morals. Sometimes it’s tough being a person who always feels the need to do the right thing.
I close the door behind me as, from the nest of his bed, Felix makes a noise of pain. I so don’t want to know what’s been going on under those covers as he tips his head to his bent knees with an air of defeat.
There’s never a sinkhole about when you need one, eh? I think with a sympathetic smile.
“I said not to come in.” His muffled voice breaks on the last word.
“A bit too late, friend. And, in my defense, I did knock.” I loosen my hand from the handle and, as I glance away from the mortified preteen, I startle. “Oh, f-fudge!”
“Please don’t tell him.” He doesn’t look up, though I’m sure he can guess what caught my attention. What I’m still looking at. To be fair, it’s hard to tear my eyes away from the image frozen on the huge TV screen.
“Those cannot be real.” My eyes appeared to be glued to the porn star’s rather ridiculous boobs. Maybe I should take a photo and send it to Lavender. It might make her appreciate what she’s got because those boobs are a recipe for a lifetime of lumbago.
The… actress is on all fours, naturally, and pulling the most ludicrous face. Which is probably something to do with the hand her, ahem, paramour (work mate? Fellow thespian?) has twisted in her hair. Ouchies. He’s also wearing the kind of expression that makes me think he’s in pain.
“That does not look fun.”
“Pardon?”
My gaze slides Felix’s way, and I suffer a moment of pity for his discomfort.
Rookie error, kid. This is something you’re supposed to watch on your phone, air pods in, according to my brothers.
I forget how many times I’ve heard the “busted by Mum” stories.
Usually, and inexplicably, recounted during a family dinner.
“Primrose?”
“What?” I come back to the moment, staring at the screen again. “Oh. Boobs.” I throw a thumb in the direction of the TV as my gaze flicks to him. “Each to their own, I suppose, but I don’t understand why some women choose to have boobs that look so obviously fake.”
He says nothing. But he blinks. Maybe I shouldn’t use the B word.
“I mean, it’s like carrying around a handbag labelled Cucci while trying to persuade everyone it’s designer.”
The kid stares back, nonplussed. I did say designer, not vagina, right? “Cucci instead of Gucci?” Maybe I shouldn’t say coochie either. “Frendi instead of Fendi? Anway, those are a recipe for debilitating lower back pain.”
“If you’re going to tell me off, please get it over with.”
It takes my brain a moment to work out he’s not asking me. That he’s prepping for taking his lumps, so to speak. But this is way above my paygrade, not to mention my experience.
“I think… I think this is something you should talk to your father about.” My hand flounders for the door handle behind me as I paste on a jolly expression.
Nothing to see here—nothing at all to comment on!
“I mean, he’s your dad and, I’m sure he’ll understand.
” The man I met at an orgy will probably be as chill as furk about the situation.
“Non—please. You cannot tell him.”