immediately answer her question. “Why wouldn’t I like the village? It looks lovely.”
“Because there are no fancy shoe shops or boutiques or beauty parlors.”
“That’s a bit harsh,” Sophia said. “I’m sure Clarissa would love to get to know the people, especially if she intends to live here.”
I caught the grimace on Clarissa’s face. No, she didn’t have any intention of getting to know the people. Oh, she wanted them to get to know her and she would love it if they fawned all over her like some celebrity. But actually getting to know them? Learning their stories and being interested in the way they lived and loved? No, Clarissa had no desire to know any of that. Not like Frankie.
I sighed. “Fine. I’ll take you into the village this afternoon.”
Clarissa laid her hand over mine. “Thank you,” she replied breathily.
I moved my hand away from hers and resumed eating. I didn’t taste any of the food I put in my mouth, but I knew I had to eat.
“Is it always so hot here?” Clarissa asked, fanning herself with her napkin.
“It gets hotter,” Meredith replied. “This is only spring.”
“And you always eat outside?”
“When the weather suits. There is no better view than this one,” Meredith said with a tight, and entirely fake, smile.
“But the palace is air-conditioned, right? I mean you couldn’t make it through those hotter months without it, right?”
“No air conditioning,” Sophia answered gleefully, or what sounded gleeful to me. As if she relished disappointing Clarissa.
“They built the palace to take every advantage of the cool sea breeze,” Elena said. “There’s no need for air conditioning.”
“Plus, it’s made of stone,” Dorian said, sipping his coffee. “The walls are thick and good at insulating against the heat.”
“So does that mean it gets cold in winter?” Clarissa asked.
Dorian shrugged. “It doesn’t get all that cold here.”
“But that’s not to say it doesn’t get cold,” Meredith said with a suspicious sparkle in her eye.
If I didn’t know better, I would think these people were deliberately trying to make Clarissa uncomfortable. They weren’t doing that, were they? I looked at each person seated around the breakfast table and they returned my look blandly and yet…something felt off. Didn’t they like Clarissa? I knew Frankie didn’t like her, but then Clarissa had never been friendly toward Frankie because she’d been jealous of my best friend. I almost snorted out loud. Like there had been anything to be jealous of. But this was different. Clarissa was trying to make these people like her. She wanted them to like her and they were…snubbing her. Maybe not outrightly snubbing her, but they were definitely circling the wagons. They were loyal to Frankie, which gave me a soft gooey feeling in my chest. It shouldn’t, but it did.
“I have an appointment with Callie this morning,” Meredith said to Sophia and Elena. “To go over some details for the state visit.”
“State visit?” Clarissa asked. “The president is coming here?”
Meredith looked at Clarissa for a beat and I could almost see the words she wanted to say, but dismissed, cross her features before she finally spoke. “Not your president, no. The queen.”
“The queen of England?” The hopeful note in Clarissa’s voice was awkward to hear.
Meredith slowly shook her head. “No, the queen of Merveille.”
“Mermaid?”
Sophia bit her lip to stop herself from laughing and Elena hid her smile behind her coffee. Dorian choked on a laugh beside me and disguised it as a cough.
Meredith slowly shook her head again, her eyes wide as she looked at Clarissa. “Merveille,” she repeated. “A small European country. The same country where I’m from.”
“Oh, right, of course,” Clarissa said, her cheeks turning pink with embarrassment.
I felt bad for her and I was a little ashamed of the way these people were treating her.
“How would you like to go into the village this morning?” I said to her, and she smiled at me gratefully.
“That would be lovely.”
This was the worst idea in the world.
I’d brought Clarissa to the tiny village where Frankie and I used to always come. I needed to speak to George, and I didn’t know if the others knew Frankie had left. I thought I was doing the right thing, but they took one look at Clarissa and turned their backs. It might have been the way Clarissa screwed up her nose at the state of the bar, it wasn’t exactly the kind of place she was used to, but I thought she would have been a little more accepting…and I thought the