Chapter 5
clementine arrives
LEXI
“Lexi!” A woman’s imperious voice trilled through the suite as I huddled behind the couch. “Lexi, where are you? I need your input, at once.”
“Clear,” Ueli announced, his voice flat.
The lawyers around me rose to their knees, prairie-dogged to look over the back of the couch, and then stood, straightening their suit pants and jackets without comment or chagrin.
I followed suit, staggering to my feet amid everyone leaning over the back of the couch, still twitchy.
Our reaction wasn’t funny. Diving for cover from an active shooter was ingrained, and I refused to look sheepish. Too many school shooting drills had knocked any amusement at ducking and covering right the heck out of me, out of all of us.
Clementine swished through the living room, holding her phone near her face but out and to the side like she might be surreptitiously video-streaming what was going on behind her back, and shimmied past the security guys still holstering their weapons.
A duffel-like luggage bag hung from one shoulder, while a latte-toned purse dangled from her elbow.
She surveyed the cadre of lawyers, the bodyguards, and the other guy, and huffed. “Seriously? You two will do anything to avoid telling me about it, won’t you? Fine. Lexi, make haste. We need to leave in minutes.”
Nicolai scowled at his cousin as she passed him. “What are you doing here?”
Clementine crossed in front of Dusha like a swooping white bird fluttering its plumage.
“I brought some of my things for Lexi, and my Hermès rep is on the phone. We’re starting you with a nice little Birkin 25.
Anything more exclusive wouldn’t be credible.
” She flapped her fingers of her other hand like she was grasping the air. “Nico, give me your credit card.”
The lady I was now relying on as my lawyer, Victoria, sucked a little gasp and whimpered like she’d kicked back a shot of very astringent whiskey.
“What’s a Birkin 25?” I muttered to her.
“Purse,” Victoria whispered back. “A very nice purse.”
Confessing to Clementine that Nicolai and I were breaking it off felt scummy. “I’m so sorry. There’s been a complication. I don’t think I’m going to need a new purse or the other stuff.”
Victoria whispered to me, “If you don’t want the Birkin, I do. Just get it and I’ll pay you. Plus ten percent. I just made partner, and those snobby office bitches are killing me.”
Clementine halted her sail across the room with a hip-twist like she was ice skating and made one of those little zip chirps as she covered the bottom part of her phone, as if that would mute our voices.
“I said, I have my Hermès rep, on the phone, right now. One does not waste a Hermès rep’s time.
Nico, your card, now. We need to put down a deposit.
” She flapped her fingers again. “I’m not putting your peccadillos on my accounts. ”
My lawyer whispered near my shoulder, “Plus twenty percent. Twenty-five.”
Nicolai strolled back from the door, talking at Clementine. “Why are you buying her a Birkin? What other things?”
“Things Lexi needs,” Clementine told him. “Because you didn’t think to get them for her before dropping her into the middle of the barracuda-infested river that is our friend group. Honestly, Nico. I thought you were better than most men. I stand corrected.”
“How did you get up here?” Nicolai asked, his brows still lowered. “This is a secure floor. You’re not staying at the Sanctuary.”
Her bossy hand flip dismissed Nicolai’s objection.
“I can go anywhere I want. Ryan asked me to join his little club before he offered membership to you and Magnus because my opinion matters. I just don’t stay at the Vegas branch because I’m not boring.
” Her gaze swiveled back to me. “Lexi, the Birkin. Taupe or oxblood?”
“Oxblood,” my lawyer whispered while staring at our shoes. “I’ll take either, if you don’t want it. Either is fine. But oh my God, oxblood. I’ll buy a whole new capsule wardrobe around it.”
“Oxblood, please,” I told Clementine without looking sideways.
Clementine scanned me from my head to my socks again and stared into my eyes long enough to plumb the depths of my soul.
“One of each, then. Either will harmonize with your bright autumn color palette. I could never carry off an oxblood purse. It would wash me out.” She turned her attention to her phone.
“We can pick them up this afternoon, right, Lynvidia? One of each?”
My attorney inhaled deeply. “Oh, baby, I got you. We will fight this man and take all his money.”
“I don’t want his money,” I whispered back.
“Why the hell not?” Victoria demanded, too loudly.
I turned away from Clementine, who was bantering with her rep, and lowered my head. “Because there’s no reason to do that. I’ll fill you in on the particulars, but we’ll get you the purse if you want it.”
“Baby, you need to tell me everything. You’ve cried at least twice this morning. As much as I don’t care for white women’s tears, I need to know what is going on.”
“It’s complicated,” I told her, in my defense. I was usually tougher than this. Crying really wasn’t my style, either.
She peered at me. “Did he lay hands on you?”
“No,” I told her. Not even when I’d been playing keep-away with his phone, really. “He wouldn’t. He’s not like that.”
Victoria retrieved her phone from what seemed to be a perfectly nice little black purse, but I wasn’t a good judge of such things. She swiped the screen, and a QR code showed up. “Here. Scan. So that you’re officially my client.”
I scanned the dot-matrix square with my phone’s camera. The following pop-up dialogue asked me to accept a bunch of terms and conditions before her contact information inserted into my phone. “Okay.”
“Good, now we’re covered by attorney-client privilege. No matter who ultimately ends up paying or whether that purse takes care of your bill, we’re covered.”
“It’s just a purse. You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, we do. The office bitches are getting to me, and I need to shut them up. We’ll talk later.” She leaned, looking past me, and pointed. “I think they’re arguing.”
I spun.
Nicolai was staring down at his cousin, his hands in his pockets, his expression stoic. He didn’t seem to blink as he very slowly, very clearly, enunciated something in a language I didn’t understand.
Clementine bobbed, alternately like a hissy cat slapping a larger dog or a King Cobra menacing its prey.
While I was walking over, Clementine turned and glared at me. “No. No, you will not. Do you hear me? You will not.”
“You’re absolutely right. I won’t.”
I had no frickin’ clue what she was talking about.
Clementine turned back to Nicolai. “You married her in your weird medieval church, so it’s permanent.”
“It can be annulled,” he said. “I have three strikes before the patriarch casts me out.”
“Aren’t you Russian Orthodox, too?” I asked Clementine. She was his cousin. Their family probably attended the same church.
Clementine’s light blue eyes fractionally increased in size, and she swiveled back and forth between Nicolai and me, her long blond hair swinging behind her thin shoulders like a beaded curtain. “Nico, what did she say to me?”
“Clemmy is a member of the Church of Sweden, which is Evangelical Lutheran,” Nicolai told me. “She is not Russian Orthodox.”
“I think I’m insulted,” Clementine huffed.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.” My mouth was too full of words to speak. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I’m sorry.”
“She’s not insulted,” Nicolai said. “Clemmy, reassure her.”
Clementine rolled her eyes, though the rest of her face still didn’t move.
“You’re forgiven. I’m his cousin on his mother’s side.
We’re Protestants, as one should be, not whatever this barbarian thing is.
” She glared at him and fluttered her hand at Nicolai like his DNA vexed her.
“And you are a barbarian, changing your mind about Lexi for no apparent reason.”
“It’s a personal matter,” he said.
“Yeah, personal,” I agreed.
“Nope,” she piped at me. “I can see you’ve been crying. Of course, you’re devastated. He’s a catch, my idiot cousin, but you are, too. You two fit.”
“Clemmy, I don’t need you to interfere in my love life. Interference is what started this mess.”
“Yes, yes, Lexi told me last night about Volkov’s intentions. Nevertheless, you somehow managed to trip and fall into the correct solution, meaning Lexi.”
“It won’t work, Clemmy,” he warned.
“It will if I say it will.”
Their banter was like watching a flock of birds darting between trees, too much chaotic motion to single out any one meaning.
“This is beyond even your influence,” Nico told her.
“Lexi is not like us, Nico. You’re finally with someone who’s not either using you for your stupid defunct title that is more bother than it is worth or because they’re dickmatized, and this is what you do? You can’t just—just—bump and dump her like she’s a penny stock! Now, stop it. Stop.”
Nicolai sighed and ran his hand over the side of his head, his fingers threading through his hair, but he might have been covering his nearer ear. “Clemmy, please.”
Rage had overtaken Clementine so thoroughly that she’d stopped speaking in words. She chirped like an increasingly incensed creamy-pale parakeet, hopping on its perch and ready to attack with its tiny needle-claws. “Nope. Stop. Zip it. Nope.”
“It’s okay. We’ll work it out,” I assured her.
“I should hope so.” She rounded on me. “It’s imperative you do. And Lexi, I have a few things for you for John’s reception tonight.”
Trepidation at making the situation worse made my voice shake. “I’m not sure we’re going anywhere tonight?” Nicolai was ruefully shaking his head beyond Clementine’s shoulder. “I mean, maybe, I guess?”
“You are going tonight. You’re both going, and you will behave like brainless besotted lovey-doves, or I swear to God, Nicolai, I will drown you in the punch bowl,” she announced, then glared at him until he shrugged and turned away.