Icy Pretty Love (14 page)

"Is Claude home?" I ask hesitantly, taking a step in and sinking at least a foot into the softest, creamiest carpet I've ever seen. It feels like the fur of some prehistoric beast.

"He's out to a dinner with some business friends. You know men and their dinners." She tinkle-laughs, then injects seriousness into her voice. "Do sit on the couch, darling. It's Italian leather."

Nothing like Italian leather as a platform to talk about alleged domestic abuse. "Annabelle, I need to be honest with you."

She leans forward, her eyes strangely on fire. "Of course, darling. Have you already started the separation process? If you need a place to stay, I can recommend some fabulous hotels."

And here I thought she was going to offer to let me stay with her. "No. I don't, actually. I'm not leaving Cohen."

Her smile freezes. "No?"

"No," I confirm.

"But darling..." She rearranges her features into tragedy. It's not a natural look for her. The forcedness is almost palpable. "I told you what he's like—"

"Yes, except I don't think that's true." I swallow. "Normally I'd believe you, Annabelle. I really would. But my heart is telling me that you're lying. I can't ignore it when it's being that loud. But I want you to know that I'm not angry with you, if you were lying. I'd like us to be friends. I don't have many. And I understand about lying, I know sometimes that you need to, that there's no other choice..."

I trail off.

She stares at me for a minute. I brace myself for whatever comes next. Tears? Stories so raw that I'll have no choice to believe her? What do I do if that happens? I already told Cohen I'm siding with him. But if I have to take it back…I will.

Finally, she sighs and stretches out across her sofa.

"It was worth a try, after all."

My heart leaps and plummets at the same time. "What do you mean?"

"Darling, darling. You know, I thought you were an idiot when I first saw you. One of those mousy people-pleasing types. I thought even just the hint of physical violence would be enough to send you running for the hills. But either you're braver than I thought, or you're too much of a coward to leave him."

The facts of the situation settle into cold hard clarity, and anger bubbles up in my gut. "So you were lying."

"Acting never was my strong suit." She folds her arms and regards me coolly. "I thought about trying to keep up the game, but it just seemed like so much dratted effort."

"You lied to me about something that important?" I'm furious now, steaming, but I have to remember to be Georgette. I channel the anger into hurt instead. "Why? Why would you do that?"

"I was trying to help you," she says. "Does it really matter if he hit me or not? The main point is, he's an awful person and you oughtn’t be engaged to him. That part is still true."

"I think I'll decide that for myself, thanks."

"Decide it for yourself?" She laughs. "What'd there to decide? You've known him for some time now, you know what he's like. Everyone knows what he's like. I meant it when I advised you not to be dazzled by the money and the looks, darling. I was there once myself. And I came to the same realization you ought to. I just thought a little flashy detail might spur you into quicker action."

"A little flashy detail? You told me he abused you!"

"If he hasn't hit anyone yet, I'm sure he will. He's a ticking time bomb of destruction, that one—"

"He's not like that!" I shout.

"Isn't he? How well do you really know him? You're not married yet, darling."

I open my mouth and shut it. Though she can't know it, she's hit on a good point. I know very little about him.

"You're so loyal," she says, "so quickly."

"I'm not loyal, I just..."

"This isn't loyalty? Sticking up for him like that? He's got you wrapped around his finger and I'm quite interested in how that happened. No one else has been able to tolerate him before."

No one else. That should make me dislike him, more, I guess, but all it does is worry me. He must have been lonely, all that time.

But I shake off those thoughts. Her motives are getting less blurry by the second. I remember what Cohen said to me.

"You want Mr. LeCrue's company," I say slowly.

"Not at all! More than anything, I want your happiness and safety. Us girls need to stick together." She winks at me, and that charisma, that sense that we're in on a special secret that the rest of the world knows nothing about, climbs into me for a second. Then she leans back and tosses her arm over her head carelessly. "Cohen would burn that company to the ground in half an instant. He's a wreck, darling. It's only a matter of time until he self-destructs and brings everything—and everyone—nearby him down with it. He's done it before. He's notoriously unstable—"

"You don't even know him," I snarl.

Why am I so defensive?

"I've known him a lot longer than you have, darling. Besides, I deserve control of that company more than he does. What has he done for it? I married that little weasel of a man because I thought he’d have it before long, and now the father's talking of selling. It's nonsense, pure nonsense."

"You mean Claude?" I guess that explains how a woman so beautiful ended up with a man severely lacking in the chin department.

"Of course I mean Claude. Am I married to any other little weasels? If I am, do let me know and I'll call an exterminator." Her laugh tinkles out again.

I gaze at her, baffled. Does she really think I'll just sit down and say, you're right, I'll leave him? And then I realize. She does think I'll say that. She's used to getting everything she's ever wanted with minimum effort. She sees me as the type of girl she easily intimidated in high school, in college…

"No." I stand up. "I'm engaged to Cohen and it's staying that way. But thank you for being honest with me."

Her genial expression drops, revealing something ugly. "You're not serious. You have to be fed up with him by now."

"I'm not," I say. "See, I've realized something. People aren't always what they appear to be on the surface. Cohen's bad on top but there's something better underneath, I can feel it. And you. You're a swan to look at and a snake underneath."

"And what are you?" Her lip curls. "A little mouse? Do you know what snakes just happen to eat whole?"

"If you look at me and see a mouse, maybe you should look a little deeper too," I say coolly.

"Maybe I should." And then she's looking at me in a way I don't like at all. "Georgette Montgomery, appears out of nowhere, no one in my circle's ever heard of her, and suddenly she's bagged the son of Mr. Ashworth. Interesting, that. Maybe I oughtn’t be focused on showing you what Cohen's really like. Maybe there are some people out there who need to get to know the real you."

I wasn't expecting that, and for a second, my expression slips. She sees it. Her smile widens and contentment floods back into her face. "Got a secret or two worth hiding, hmm?"

"I guess every married and unemployed woman needs a hobby," I say lightly. Don't show the panic. Don't show the fact that if she probes into you at all, she'll find out that Georgette Montgomery is nothing more than pretty smoke and mirrors. "I should be going now. I think I've overstayed my welcome."

"Oh, darling," she says lazily. "You were never welcome at all."

I smile tightly, get up, and back out the door. And even though I exposed her lie, it's obvious to the both of us who's won this round.

~10~

It's odd, the routines one settles into.

Making breakfast for someone, for instance. Back in LA, I would usually sleep until three or four before getting up to eat, and then it was usually McDonalds or microwaved mac n' cheese. At the time I told myself I was sleeping so late solely because I stayed up so late, but now I'm starting to see that those long, hazy days half-asleep in my bed with the full-of-holes-and-stains sheets were tinged with depression.

But now I don't feel that way. I'm excited to wake up in the morning. I'm in Paris! I can take a bath and go to bed early at night! I won't have to get into any strange cars with any strange men! And, as it turns out, I like making breakfast. I like the different forms that sizzling can take—the sizzle of eggs, the sizzle of bacon. I like pairing different fruits with different expensive cheeses. And, oh God, don't talk to me about the cheese. By the end of this month I'll have gained five pounds purely from cheese and I couldn't be happier about it. Goat cheese, soft cheese, hard cheese that explodes in my mouth with a ping, cheese that smells like something roused from the grave but tastes so heavenly it could put me in an early one...

Anyway. That's enough about cheese. Maybe later I'll talk about wine.

I haven't heard anything from Annabelle in a few days now. I didn't mention it to Cohen, but I did drop a line to Ashworth Sr., letting him know that someone might be probing into my past. Instead of replying, he sent me documents.

A birth certificate.

A high school yearbook photo for a high school I didn't go to.

A college degree.

A whole life I never lived, written out in pictures and official signatures. He had all these ready from the start, just in case. I was ready to show them to Annabelle if she called again, but she hasn't yet. Maybe she was bluffing.

In the meantime, I tape the fake degree to my wall. I always wondered what it would look like if I'd earned myself a college degree.

Or even a high school diploma.

The weirdest thing is that I'm getting used to this. The expensive furniture, the expensive clothes. I'm settling into it like a new bed. But I shouldn't get too used to it. After all, in a matter of weeks, I'll be moving on to something new. A life better than the old Rae's, but not as good as Georgette's.

And that's fine. A whole life like Georgette's wouldn't be right for me.

I shouldn't get used to him, either.

Even if he's started complimenting my cooking, tentatively at first, like he's not used to saying nice things about anything, and then so enthusiastically that I realize how much he's enjoyed it the whole time. Even though my heart has started doing a happy little skip whenever he walks in in the morning, exhausted from his late-nighters that I've decided not to ask about. Even if I walked into the living room yesterday and caught him sleeping on the couch, all the hardness melted off his features for once, leaving him looking calm and handsome and...

This is getting ridiculous.

"This is getting ridiculous," he says, startling me from my reverie. We're eating a lunch of coffee and cured salmon baguette sandwiches.

"What is?" I ask.

"These niceness lessons." He points at the itinerary I've written out for him. "Today we're supposed to go ride that blight on the earth."

I search my brain for what I may have put down. Oh, yeah. "You mean the Ferris wheel?"

He groans.

"Well, look at what you put down for things that annoy you." I reach across the table and flip the notebook page. "Commercialism, sappy romance, clichés...I can't think of anything that embodies those things more than taking a ride on the big Ferris wheel on Valentines Day."

He blinks. It's almost cute. "It's Valentines Day?"

I laugh. "We're in Paris on Valentines Day, and you haven't noticed all the hearts and roses decorating every possible surface?"

"People's decorating habits usually horrify me. I can't be bothered to pay attention when they get a little more garish than usual." He shrugs, then glances sideways at me. There's something apprehensive in his expression.      

"What?"

"You're not...expecting anything, are you?" he asks.

I force another laugh. "I'm not your real fiancé, remember? The only way you have to do something for me for Valentines Day is if Mr. LeCrue is watching. And our next party with him isn't until Saturday."

He breaths a visible sigh of relief. I shake my head.

"I feel sorry for your next real girlfriend."

"Why?" he says. "If I was obligated to, I'd have my assistant send her flowers and an appropriately idiotic card."

"See, there's your problem right there." I stab an escaped piece of salmon with my fork. "That word. Obligation. No girlfriend wants to hear that."

"So I should pretend that I'm interested in a holiday that mass-markets supposedly individual expressions of love, is that it?"

I roll my eyes. "Once you love someone, you shouldn't have to pretend. You'll want to do it all on your own. And I'd hope you'd put some of that brainpower to coming up with something more interesting than flowers and a stupid card."

He finishes off his orange juice. "Who says I'm interested in love either?"

I frown. "Everybody's interested in love."

"I'm not."

It's times like these when he's so unbelievably frustrating that if we were both at the top of the Ferris wheel right now, I couldn't promise I wouldn't push him off. "Have you ever been in love?"

"No."

"Then how do you know it's so terrible?"

"I didn't say it was terrible. I just said I'm not interested." He sets his cup down.

"Love is a great thing," I say firmly. "It's what makes people happy. And you should be interested."

"Why bother being interested in something I'm never going to—" He stops.

"Never going to what?" I prompt.

He stands up. "Forget it. Let's go get this Valentines Day torture session over with."

I smile. "Good. Because the Ferris wheel isn't all I've got planned for today. We're going on a Valentines Day extravaganza."

He starts to groan, but doesn't have time to finish, because I'm already pulling him toward the door.

The car is waiting at the curb. I instruct Geoff to head to the nearest movie theater. There's an American romance showing, with French subtitles. When Cohen hears where we're going, he leans forward to intercept the driver.

"Cancel that. We're not going to go see some stupid romance movie whose writers probably came up with the plot in an online generator."

"Yes we are! Cancel his cancellation, Geoff.”