have offered up his daughter like a suckling pig, but he expected her to turn our contract into wedding vows.
‘For your information, I had my own apartment before I moved in with you.’
A rental, the size of a postage stamp, and subsidised by the government as her family is Monégasque; native to Monaco.
‘Regardless, you can’t stay here.’ My tone is one of abrupt finality, feelings, thoughts, and sentiments riot through me, and not one gram of them centred on her. I was wrong. I’ll do better. Her anger will burn away, and I’ll make it up to her. ‘I’m selling the place.’ And with that, I grab my jacket, leaving her to both her tantrum and her unpacking.
‘That’s fucking classic!’
‘I’m pleased you’re amused. I can’t say I felt the same sentiment,’ I murmur, initialling plans for the land reclamation project for a hotel and residential complex.
‘You can’t be surprised. Two women on the go at the same time?’ Everett asserts gleefully. ‘You were bound to get caught with your trousers down at some point.’
‘I hardly, as you so eloquently put it, had two women on the go. I had one.’ One I don’t intend on letting go. ‘The other was a decoy for the board.’
‘And kept around far too long.’
I shrug. He’s right.
‘Avoir les yeux plus gros que le ventre.’ His accent somewhat butchers the words but not so much as I can’t understand.
‘My eyes are bigger than my belly? Really?’
‘I don’t know how to say you’re a glutton for punishment. Man, I wish I’d been here to see the bitch’s face when she walked in on you with Rose.’
‘You were too busy eating trans fats and chemicals, pretending to be a potato.’
‘Give me a girl who’ll bring me a burger anytime.’
I frown before my gaze cuts to him. He’s certainly singing another tune, and I don’t think it’s purely the result of yesterday morning’s greasy offering. ‘It didn’t happen like that.’ I decide not to mention that Ben was in the office, or how I mishandled Amélie’s arrival because I’ve fucked up enough. ‘You know you just said something nice about Rose. What’s going on? I don’t think you’ve said anything complimentary about her since she arrived.’
‘I haven’t said anything bad about her, either. Well, not much. But I’m team Rose if I’ve got to be team anyone. I’ll even get the T-shirt and the hat.’ His smile is despicably cheery as he adds, ‘Because I’m not the one that has to worry about her hiding things.’
‘I’m not worried. In fact, I no longer care.’
‘Your fucking funeral, mate.’
‘I don’t think so. The PI has come back with nothing. There is absolutely nothing to tie her to Emile.’ Nothing that interests me. ‘He has examined her work history, her family, her relationships all the way back to high school. Also, she says she has never met him, and I believe her.’
‘Oh, well. That’s it then.’ There isn’t so much a hint of sarcasm as a deluge.
‘Oui.’
‘So she’ll get part of your inheritance? When you choose. The inheritance she knows nothing about. That’ll be a fun conversation. If it comes.’
‘I’ll tell her,’ I grate out. ‘Why would I not?’
‘The small fact that she might take her money and piss off.’
‘Non. That will not happen.’ Though I’ve considered it myself. I’ll make sure of it. I know she loves me. I just have to make her admit it. And then? Then I’ll spend my days making her happy. The end—a happy ending.
‘She’s not gonna make it easy for you. You know that, right?’
‘And that is why you are team, Rose? You want to watch from the sidelines.’
‘Nah. If I want to watch you get battered and bloodied I’d get you into the boxing ring again. ‘I’m team Rose because I never liked Amélie.’
‘That, my friend, makes two of us.’
‘Ah, but she didn’t try to make you trot behind her like a fucking dog. Or carry her shopping.’
I put down my pen. ‘So that is relief I detect in your tone? The wicked witch is gone?’
‘What, me?’ He spreads his hands out on the arms of his chair as he leans back, making it bounce. ‘I don’t have an opinion. You pay me not to have one.’
‘I couldn’t pay you enough for you to keep your mouth closed. But I have a thought.’ I link my fingers at the back of my head. ‘If you’d fucked Amélie, she might not hate you so much. She might not have tried to belittle you at