50. Primrose #2
There is no way I’m bringing up what happened in Nice. I’ll die first.
“Cold feet,” she mutters. “But he came to the hospital to apologize. To throw himself on his sword.” She stares at me. “And I’m not going to ask any other questions about his sword, though I’m guessing he knows how to use it, or why else would you be—”
“Lavender!”
“Did he at least try to explain what turned him into a fuckhead and beg forgiveness?”
“I didn’t need an explanation. It was stupidity.”
“Like pretending you don’t speak French?”
“He said he was afraid.” My gaze dips to the linen napkin on my lap. “And yes, I suppose he did try to say sorry. Not that sorry is enough.”
“A man who admits to being afraid? Well.” She lets the word sit in the air between us. “And now he’s sending you flowers. Because he wants you back.”
I say nothing.
“Would you move to Paris?”
“He hasn’t asked me.”
“But would you?”
It seems academic now. I did think about it back in Mallorca, but the topic never came up. He had no intention of asking me.
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. My job is here. My family. But there’s no way Luc could live anywhere else. Not with his business and the kids. Maybe we were just doomed from the start. Urgh, so melodramatic.
“Do you want to tell me what he did? What heinous act he committed to make you so sad?”
“I’m not sad.” I help myself to more garlic bread, and she doesn’t complain this time.
“Primrose,” she says. “I know you’re hurting. You haven’t been yourself. We’ve barely seen you because you’ve been hiding away, and now I know why.”
“I’ve just been busy settling into my new job.”
“Busy moping, more like.” She clasps her hands together and presses them to her cheek. “This whole conversation is giving ‘But daddy, I love him’ vibes. And you do.”
“I can’t turn the feelings off,” I mumble.
“That’s shit, Prim,” she says reaching over to clasp my hand. “Shall I tell Raif?”
“Thanks, but I don’t think I’d feel any better knowing Luc is sleeping with the fishes.”
“We could just frighten him a little?” She scrunches her nose and gives a tiny shrug.
“How?”
“I could tell him this beauty is his,” she says, caressing her bump with both hands.
“Evil wench.” I give a smile and feel it dim as I think about how much Sylvie would love that. “Not so sure Raif would be pleased with that plan.”
“He knows revenge isn’t just a pastime to me. It’s half my personality.”
I chuckle, and at the sound of my name I turn, just in time as something small and fast collides with my chest. The impact knocks a startled breath from me as wiry arms lock around my neck.
“Primrose, tu m’as tellement manqué!”
“Sylvie.” Astonished, I set her back a little. My heart, I’ve missed her so much too. The thought feels like a slap to the head. Like, how did I not realize? I miss them and their silly arguments that remind me so much of my own siblings.
“Yes, it is me!” she announces, beaming, pink-cheeked, her pale hair escaping its untidy braids.
“So it is.” My voice catches. “Look at you. What are you doing in London, sweets?”
“I live here now.”
“In London?” I reason her father has many houses… even if that sounded a bit biblical. He has heaps of property. But he never mentioned…
Her father. If Sylvie is here, M. LDH won’t be far behind.
I don’t look up. I can’t. I can’t even look at my sister.
The restaurant continues around us—cutlery chiming, glasses clinking, the soft hum of lunchtime conversation—but all I can hear is my own heart, frantic and hopeful and fucking terrified.
“This is my sister, Sylvie. Lavender, this is Sylvie.”
“Bonjour,” the little girl offers. “Zut!” she adds immediately. “I mean, hello. I am pleased to meet you.”
My sister’s lips twitch. “Hello.”
“If I am in London, I should speak only English,” she says, looking my way again. “I have missed you. You went away,” she only half accuses. “Papa said you would be in the house when we returned, but you were not.”
“I know.” I smooth the hair from her forehead. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye properly.”
“Papa said it was his fault.”
“Well, sometimes,” I begin, ignoring the prickle in my eyes.
“Sometimes even fathers get scared.”
My heart gives an arrhythmic flutter as I look up and find his blue staring down at me.
Fork in the toaster time as my mind just…
empties. Everything goes “pouf!” at the sight of Luc standing behind his daughter.
Every thought, every sensible notion, every reason I have for keeping him out of my life.
Gone. My body doesn’t suffer likewise, amplifying instead.
My heart swells and my tongue twists. My insides pulse and… well, you get the picture.
“Mon c?ur.”
My sister sighs loudly, all eyes turning her way. “What can I say? I love a pet name,” she says with a shrug.
“Papa calls Primrose his little flower.”
What now? My head swings comically to Luc, mouth open in a kind of ‘oh-no-he-di-dent’. Tell me you did not tell your child what you call me during sexytimes.
“It’s a perfectly innocent name.” But there’s some guilt in that tone of his.
“Well, I think this baby would like an ice cream,” Lavender announces. “Would you like to come and help me choose one, Sylvie?” Her attention flicks to Luc. “Maybe you might like to have an ice cream too, if your dad says that’s okay?”
“Oui!” Sylvie looks to Luc, and he nods.
“I’m sure Sylvie would like that very much, thank you.” I pretend not to hear the relief in his tone.
Sylvie’s eyes go wide as my sister pulls herself up from her chair. “You are having a baby!”
“So they tell me.” Lavender smiles sweetly and holds out her hand, then ducks her head toward the chair.
Luc slides into it with a quiet, “Merci.”
As they walk away, I hear Sylvie ask if anyone else in the family has a flower name. “That’s going to keep them busy,” I murmur to no one in particular.
“Good.” He reaches across the table, and I let him. How can tenderness feel so sharp? So sharp it almost hurts. My hand aches to turn beneath his, my fingers to slide into the spaces by his, anchoring him to me. But pride is a powerful thing.
“What are you doing here?”
“Well, I was trying to give you space. It hasn’t worked very well so far.”
“So you thought you’d try stalking me instead? Using your children?”
He gives a low chuckle, and it echoes inside me. “Neither of those. We’re here for ice cream, Sylvie and I. It’s a coincidence we’re here, in this café together.”
“Let me get this straight. In a city of nine million people, we just happen to be in the same—”
“Yes.” He turns my hand. Fits our fingers together. “Think the fates are trying to tell us something?”
“What’s next on the agenda?” I ask instead. I glance over at my sister and Sylvie, then the door. “Can I expect Felix to wander by next?”
“I shouldn’t imagine so. He’s at school in Switzerland, having a whale of a time, by all reports. We’re here buying school supplies. Sylvie is very particular and didn’t want to chance ordering online.”
“It’s a long way to come.”
“Not really. Sylvie’s new school is in Kensington.” He stares at our hands as he says this. Though not for long as I pull my hand from his.
“Please don’t say you’ve done this for me.”
A tiny crease forms between his eyes. “I would do anything to win you back, but no. I wouldn’t harm my children.”
“Then why?”
“I told Emmy what happened between us.”
Shock blooms through me immediately.
“Why—why would you do that?” Tears prickle against my lids. I close my eyes as I try to compose myself. To get a grip on my emotions.
“I told her I manipulated you into coming to Mallorca. That I made you stay and used her job as an axe over your head.”
“What?”
“I told her I made very improper advances toward you. But that you would have nothing to do with me. Until you did. I also told her we fell in love. That I broke your heart. And that I wouldn’t blame her if she never set foot again in any house of mine.”
“She never said,” I whisper.
“She’s respecting your privacy. Meanwhile, I…” He inhales deeply. “I am mad with want of you.”
I say nothing, though my heart aches like a bruise.
“As for her job, she loves the children, but she doesn’t want to leave her father.”
Things I should know if I hadn’t been so self-absorbed.
“So we’re here in London. Not for you, not for Emmy, but for Sylvie. She doesn’t want to lose the women in her life who mean the world to her. You and Emmy both. And a dog, but that’s a tale for another time.”
“What about her aunt?”
“Amélie has the soul of a Romany princess. Apparently. And too much money not to indulge in that fantasy. She’s a wonderful aunt but not the most…
suitable role model. Primrose,” he says quite suddenly and very passionately.
“I didn’t tell you any of that to make Sylvie’s happiness your responsibility.
You owe my children nothing. You owe me even less. ”
I say nothing.
“But I need you to understand that we aren’t here to visit.
I’m not going to appear with flowers, make beautiful promises, and then carry you back into my life as if you are the one that must bend.
” His eyes hold mine. “I’ve brought our life here, to be with you, with my children’s full blessing.
Felix is in Switzerland and Sylvie is looking forward to starting school.
She’s already made friends. And in London, Sylvie gets to keep both the women she loves.
And you get to keep everything you worked so hard for. ”
My throat tightens. “You make it sound very simple.”
“I am not asking you to forget,” he says, his voice roughening.
“I am asking for the chance to become a man you can trust again. If there is even the smallest part of you that still loves me, my heart, don’t send me away because you think it is the right or the safest thing to do.
Choose what you want. For once, choose the thing that makes you happy.
” His eyes suddenly shine. “And if that thing is me, I swear to you, I will spend the rest of my days making certain you never regret it.”