Primrose
Lord, give me the strength to survive this…
For the past few days, M. LDH hasn’t left the estate.
There have been no helicopter trips, no business deals, and no hanging out in his office.
Zoe says the man is smiling more, and that the break from the pressures of running an empire must be doing him some good.
But I can’t say I’ve noticed him smile more, mostly because I’ve tried to avoid looking at him.
I’ve also tried to avoid eating all meals with the du Beaumont clan, citing headaches and allergies and other ailments.
My attention has been needed for (fictitious) phone calls home, and paperwork I ‘need’ to file online.
Anything and everything to get a little reprieve from that man’s laser beam blues.
And not only do I stay out of the kitchen late at night, but I confine myself to my room whenever I’m not required by my little charges.
It’s not that I don’t trust him and more that I don’t trust myself should I run into him. Alone, in the dark, where everything is amplified.
But I still see him all the time. At breakfast, by the pool, at the stables. Then I’m invited (required?) to spend a day on the boat with the family, swimming and fishing and watching as his children dangle from him like earrings.
It’s a good thing I already decided he was off limits because here’s something especially attractive about a man whose children adore him. It was an inconvenient discovery, and not one I’d ever had reason to consider before.
Two weeks. I have two weeks left from the original four, and the days feel like a molasses spill.
I find myself wondering if this is what it’s like being in prison (a prison with amazing food, tennis courts and pools, a movie theatre, a helicopter pad, and a yacht floating from a pontoon at the edge of a private beach) and how long it’ll be before I’m carving the days into my bedroom wall with a shiv.
And the days roll on, so Lord send me all the strength.
After dinner that evening—can’t avoid them all, not without making the children think I’ve taken the hump with them—I join the family in a game of cards. The four of us sit on the terrace, and I try to concentrate on gecko watch rather than give in to the effect their father’s proximity has on me.
“Your turn.” Felix looks his sisters way expectantly.
I take a decorous sip of my rosé, courtesy of one of the estate’s previous delicious yields. Beyond the terrace, olive and almond trees turn silver in the fading light as the sun dissolves into the horizon, setting the ocean ablaze in hues of molten copper and rose gold.
Felix makes a noise of frustration.
“I’m thinking,” she complains before putting down her card.
Felix places his own card with an entirely self-satisfied, “Uno.”
Nope, that didn’t sound like he was crowing at all.
Luc plays his card immediately, and I shift my disintegrating hand, matching color to color before staring it for a beat.
“We’re not playing poker,” Felix grumbles.
“What do you know of poker?” his father demands.
I take another sip of my wine before sliding my card into the pile with a sly wink Sylvie’s way. This is a little pocket of unexpected bliss, I think. It’s little wonder this place is Sylvie’s favorite slice of paradise.
I slip off my sandals and press the soles of my feet to the sun-warmed stone.
Can’t do this in London. But I’m not going to think about London right now.
Not about work or family or what’s in store for me when this strange little interlude ends.
My tummy is full, I have a tiny wine buzz on, and the view is heavenly.
Oh, and the view is looking right back at me.
Okay, so I confess, I wasn’t looking at the landscape anymore. I was looking at my boss man, and now he’s looking at me. His eyes are bold and kind of possessive as they sweep over me. Dark and full of… naughty things.
I duck my head and adjust my strapless sundress, confused why that thought feels like a tongue licking my belly from the inside. Lord, my nipples would put an eye out.
I blame the wine. Drink in, wits out.
Or as Lavender says, drink in, tits out. And that wouldn’t be too difficult to co-ordinate in this dress.
“My turn.” Sylvie lays down her card and, before her hand has the chance to retract, Felix slaps his last one down with a shout.
“I win!” He leans back in his chair as though he’s just conquered a country, not a card game.
Sylvie scowls and folds her arms. “I hate Uno!”
“No, you hate losing,” he replies.
“Who likes to lose?” she demands, seemingly to the tune of are you stupid?”
“You should be used to it,” he responds, his tone one of superiority. “After all, you are a loser.”
“Felix,” Luc warns.
“Well, she is compared to me.” He gives a belligerent-looking shrug. “I’m bigger and faster, and not a girl.”
“Thems fighting words,” I say, giving him a dose of the old stink eye.
Felix glances disdainfully at his sister. “She loses in the pool, at cards, tennis—everything.”
Sylvie’s little face melts.
“Felix,” Luc says much more sharply this time. “Apologize to your sister.”
“Why? It is true.”
Sylvie pushes back from the table so quickly her chair scrapes across the stone. “I am not a loser, and you are horrible!” Her voice breaks on the last word, and her sandal slap-slaps against the stone as she dashes inside.
For a second, nobody moves. And for once, I can’t feign ignorance because their argument was in English.
And while I sort of feel like leaning across the table to slap him upside the head, I also remember enough developmental psychology to know empathy is a work in progress at his age.
In other words, twelve-year-old boys can be self-absorbed little shits.
Which is probably why he looks more confused than sorry, I note, as my gaze moves his way.
Small addendum here: I’m aware you can’t slap other people’s children, not even if you think they might deserve it.
Or even if they remind you of your own brothers.
Brothers who, despite being grown men, are still prone to the occasional bout of tactlessness.
Needless to say, I don’t keep my violence from them.
Anyhoo, Luc mutters something low and sweary and makes a pre-emptive motion in his chair.
“I’ll go,” I say, already on my feet. I don’t wait for his permission; I might not be an actual nanny, but I was born for this.
“Can I come in, sweetie?” I ask, pushing the door a little wider.
“Y-yes,” comes her tiny, tear-tremulous answer. She’s lying like a shrimp, curled on her bed, shoulders shaking as she looks toward the image of her beautiful mother.
Someone replaced the glass in the frame. Maybe even the whole frame. Looks like Luc was right. Sylvie didn’t even notice.
“He is so mean.” She gives a small, wet sniff as I perch my bum on the edge of her bed. “And he hates me.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” I smooth a hand over her soft hair. “He doesn’t, not really. Brothers are just very good at making you think that.”
She turns her head over her shoulder, then swipes the back of her hand under her nose. I grab a tissue from her dressing table made to look like a starlet’s and pass it to her.
“Do you have a brother also?” she asks, swiping it under her nose.
“Worse.” I give a little twist of my mouth. “I have four of them.”
Her eyes widen with horror. “I would run away.”
“I did once.”
Keen to hear my tale of woe, she turns to face me. “What happened?”
“No one noticed.”
Her little mouth falls open.
“It’s not as bad as all that,” I add with a laugh. “I only ran away to the tree house at the bottom of the garden. It was the summer, and everyone was home from school, and some of my brother’s and sister’s had friends over.”
“You also have sisters?”
“Three.”
I watch her do that calculation in her head. “Six children?” she says, dismayed.
“Seven if you count me. But that summer, the house was like Gare du Norde.”
“Is that a very busy place?”
I give a wry-feeling smile. Why would I have possibly imagined using a train station as a point of reference would be useful to a child who travels by private jet?
“It is. Very,” I add, sliding her blonde locks away from her face. “Anyway, my mum called me in for lunch, and I was hungry, so…”
“You returned.”
“I did, and I was very miffed no one had noticed.”
“Miffed. I like this word. It means anger, yes?”
“Most displeased,” I say in my best posh voice. When she smiles, my insides feel a little like sunshine. “You know, one of my brothers told me I was adopted.”
“And that is not true?”
I shake my head. “Another time, he said if I didn’t stop being annoying, he’d put me in a box and post me to Scotland.”
She gives a tiny giggle.
“They’ve teased me, refused to let me play their games, made me cry, said things they didn’t mean— and things they probably did mean for five horrible minutes—and they’ve called me terrible names.”
“Like Felix?”
“Just like Felix. The annoying thing about brothers is they can be absolute pains and still love you very much. Mine do.” I pat her knee. “If I called any one of them tonight and said I needed them, they’d come. Oh, they’d complain when they got here, they’d still come.”
“From England?”
“They’d come from Timbuctoo. And probably fight over who got to rescue me.”
“Really?”
I nod. No need to explain they’re fiercely competitive. The same as me, apparently. While it pains me to admit it, Lavender might not be wrong. But more importantly, the Whittington brood are fiercely loyal.
“Felix wouldn’t do that for me,” she says, her voice small.
“I wouldn’t be so sure. He might pick on you, but I’ll bet he wouldn’t allow anyone else to.”
Her little mouth twists thoughtfully. “Felix frightened a boy at school who was horrible to me.”
“What did he do?”
“He grabbed him by the collar and told him he’d knock out his teeth if he did it again.”
I bite back a smile. “There you go.”
“He got detention.”
“Quite rightly so. You can’t go threatening people. Unless absolutely necessary. Which he obviously felt it was.”
“He said it was worth it and he put his arm around my shoulder.”
And there it is. No one hurts my sister but me. I tuck her hair behind her ear. “He might be a pain in the bum, but he’s your pain in the bum.”
A reluctant smile grows on her face.
“He still shouldn’t call me a loser.”
“Well, I think that’s something your dad will be making sure he understands as we speak.”
Her smile grows.
“Think there will be consequences?”
She nods. “I hope he has to clean out the llama stalls.”
“Double punishment!” I hold out my hand for a high-five. “Lola is bound to spit at him on your behalf.”
“Oui!” Her hand meets mine before I hold out my arms.
“Come here.” She almost throws herself against me, and I close my eyes as I pull her in tight. “Brothers, eh?” I press my lips to her silver-blond hair. “Can’t live with them and can’t adopt them out.”
“He is a crétin, but I will miss him when he goes to boarding school next month.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” I say as her words turn watery, and she tightens her grip.
My goodness, love is such a paradox.