PRIMROSE #3
My Spidey senses immediately begin to tingle.
Just like Amsterdam is known for its canals, hashish, and the red-light district, Berlin is famous for its fetish nightlife.
Along with sausages and Christmas markets, but I digress.
Surely not. Lavender and Raif can’t be part of the lifestyle. Oh God… Lavender and Raif and Luc?
“At Art Basel,” my sister adds.
I release a taut breath. That makes much more sense, stupid runaway brain. “Cool,” I answer, all smooth. Or maybe prickly, because that’s how I feel. Like tiny ants are running up and down my body.
“I don’t suppose the reason you’re there has anything to do with Monsieur du Beaumont.”
“They are his children.”
“You know that’s not what I’m asking.”
I’m here for Emmy. Because she’s my best friend.”
“Right,” she says, all knowing and insufferable and just urgh! “Oh, Primrose.” She sighs. “You are a terrible liar. You’re not there to do Emmy’s job at all. You’re doing La Billionaire Bleu.”
“Doing who?”
“Don’t tell me how haven’t googled him.” She makes a noise of frustration. “It’s what the tabloids call him, on account of his arresting blue eyes.” She gives a mad flutter of her lashes. “And don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
“I barely look at him.”
“Then why are your cheeks so red?”
“Frankly, because I’m embarrassed for you.”
“Primrose’s-got-a-cr-ush! Primrose’s-got-a-cr-ush!”
“How old are you?” But she just keeps singing her stupid tune over the top of me. “Even if I did have a crush, as you so childishly put it, as you said, you’ve seen him.”
My sister narrows her eyes. “Bullshit!” she explodes. “Aside from your questionable taste in clothes—and it’s currently way too hot in France for tweed pants and cardis—you’re a total baddie. I’d kill for your hip-to-waist ratio, never mind your tits.”
“Knock it off, Lav,” I say, uncomfortable.
“Unless he’s blind, old Mr Bleu will’ve noticed those big… eyes of yours. Not to mention your blow job gob.”
“Ew!”
“It’s just genetics,” she says, waving my distaste away. “No lip filler needed in this family.”
“Honestly, Lavender, I’m here because Emmy asked for my help.”
Her expression twists. “A weekend? Yeah. Outside of that, there has got to be another reason.”
“There are several reasons. Friendship and decency. How about my integrity? I always do the right thing.”
Lavender gives me the look; narrowed eyes and her mouth hooked in one corner. “Says who?”
“What’s wrong with doing the right thing?”
“Nothing,” Lavender says. “If you’re a Jesuit monk. Which you’re not. You’re a person. You’re you. Good, yes. But selfless?” She shakes her head.
“I didn’t say I was selfless.”
“You’re also argumentative, you love to be right, you’re a touch competitive, and as stubborn as a box of fucking rocks.”
“Rude!”
“Most people don’t realize what’s going on behind that calm facade, but I do.
You’re like Mum. A steel fist in a silver glove.
But unlike her, you’re a very, very bad liar.
You said it was meant to be for a weekend, but shit got complicated.
Complicated like the sexytimes is my guess.
” She makes a rude and very juvenile gesture—her forefinger and thumb making a circle that she pokes vigorously.
“You must have your elastic crazy pants on because I haven’t…we’re not. Luc is way too old for me.”
“Luc?” she says with a mile-long vowel sound. “Is that what we’re calling him?”
“That’s his name,” I bluff. Along with Monsieur Le Dick Head, Boss Man, La Billionaire Bleu, apparently, and most recently, sir.
“What does Emmy call him?”
“Stop it, Lavender,” I explode. “You can’t tell anybody!”
“Ah-ha! I knew it.”
“I just meant—”
“Oh, keep your hair on. I’m much happier to hear you’re having a good time over the summer than I am to hear you’re wasting your hard-earned free time babysitting.
And for the record, there’s nothing wrong with an older man.
With age, comes experience.” Her eyes dip as she rests her hand on her round belly, her expression very much: ask me how I know.
But Lavender and Raif are in love. Luc and I, we’re not destined for any kind of permanence. I live in London, and he lives in Paris. He has the children to think of and a business and—
We’re not even in a casual relationship. What’s between us is nothing between us but a bad idea. We’re friction and fire, and we don’t even like each other. But put us in a room alone together, and those elements seem to become their own kind of chemistry. Their own gravitational pull.
“You’re wrong. Luc du Beaumont isn’t the reason I’m here.” Excluding his silly blackmail attempts, I think darkly. “I have no intentions of having a holiday romance with the man.”
“Oh, Primrose.” Her eyes hold mine, a small smile toying with her mouth.
“A girl doesn’t always need romance. She doesn’t always need to be on the lookout for the one.
Sometimes all she needs is just to be folded like yesterday’s laundry by a man with a little life experience and a few tricks up his sleeves. ”