by L. A. Rose
Annabelle steps into the apartment, and as she does, her eyes harden. “You don’t need to lie to me.”
“Ahaha, who’s lying? I’m not lying, nobody’s lying,” I stammer, exactly like someone who’s lying out their ass. I flee to the kitchen and scoop a handful of ice from the freezer. Annabelle follows me, her hair perfectly curled and makeup flawless for eleven o’ clock, which, now that I think of it, is a weird time to be ‘just passing by.’ Maybe this is normal for rich people.
“That bastard.” She sets her teeth. “He hit you.”
“What? No!” I cry, not missing the irony. I’ve made that claim many times in my life, and it’s the first time it’s ever been true. “I bonked my head on the door, that’s all!”
“You said wall before.” She advances, accusing.
“I practically have a damn concussion and I mixed up a word, cut me some slack!” I snap before realizing it’s not very Georgette-y. I wrap the dripping ice in a towel, hold it to my swelling forehead, and paste on a smile. “I’m so sorry to worry you, Annabelle. But it really is the truth. I’m awfully clumsy, as a matter of fact. My—er, my dear Cohen would never ever lay a hand to me.”
She stares at me a minute before smiling. As someone who regularly puts on a fake smile, I can tell when someone else does it. Hers is as creaky as an old seesaw. She takes my wrist and draws me back into the living room. “Georgette, sweetheart. If you’re honest with me, I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t just happen by tonight. My visit has a purpose.”
Well, poke me in the eye and slap me with a tuna.
“I’m not lying,” I say weakly.
“I’m so glad I did decide to stop by. I was quite torn about it, darling. But it looks like my warning comes not a minute too late.” She shakes her head in what I interpret to be, possibly not very graciously, a self-satisfied way.
“What warning?” All I want to do is take an Advil, or whatever the French equivalent is, and collapse back into bed.
“Oh, darling.” She shakes her head again, pityingly this time. “I understand. I truly do. All that money and might can dazzle a girl, when she’s without a proper guide. And he’s got the looks, too, nobody can deny that. A terrible combination. I’m sure you regret the situation you’ve found yourself in, by now, and a little bit of reflection earlier on might have served you well, but now that you’ve come to the right realizations, I’m here to offer you a helping hand.”
Jesus. The rich can talk in circles forever. I try and fail for a minute to find meaning in that perfumed pile of words. “Sorry, but…what?”
“Well, you’re going to break the engagement, obviously,” she says.
I will never, ever bang my head on anything ever again. Even something soft. “Look, Annabelle…er, dearest. I appreciate your concern very much, and I’m glad to have found a friend here. But Cohen didn’t hurt me. It was my clumsiness alone. He’s been out for the past hour—go ask the doorman if you don’t believe me—and look how fresh my bruise is. It hasn’t even purpled yet. I bumped it right before you came in. See?”
I give her a minute to examine the evidence before returning the ice pack to my forehead.
The breath leaves her in a whoosh. “I see.” She sits back. Is that disappointment in the creases on her forehead?
“So,” I say carefully. “I’ll put on some tea for you, then…?”
She grabs my hand. And, to my amazement, squeezes out a tear.
“Annabelle?” I cover her hand with mine, concern overriding my suspicion. I know what it means when a woman goes crying to another in the middle of the night.
“It’s just,” she sobs, “I’m so relieved, you see. When I saw you, my heart near stopped. I felt so terrible that he’d done it to someone else, after I’d convinced myself he wouldn’t.”
“Done what?” My heart plummets like a stone.
“I wasn’t going to tell you unless I absolutely had to, but I see no way around it now,” she sniffs. “The truth is…the truth is that I used to be with Cohen. For a short time, before I found my darling Claude. I was dazzled the same way you were, of course. For someone who doesn’t know his heart, the rest of him can be quite…alluring.”
Don’t I know it. But even that thought is crushed by Annabelle’s revelation. It seems insane to think, knowing what I know of Cohen and his absolute disdain for everyone, that he’d ever pursue someone like Annabelle…
“I struggled with my conscience after the dinner when we met. The poor dear seems to like him so much, I thought to myself, maybe he’s changed. But eventually my soft heart won out and I just had to come and tell you the truth. You see…Cohen used to hit me, too.”
She covers her face with both hands.
The apartment shatters, leaving me suspended briefly in black space before it reassembles, piece by piece. But…something isn’t right here. My instincts are singing at me. Annabelle’s sobs are too calculated, her story too hollow. A tiny being uncurls in my chest and whispers: she’s lying.
She drops her hands. “You do believe me, don’t you?”
And I’m immediately disgusted with myself.
I know almost nothing about Cohen. Why am I so willing to believe the best of him, and so quickly? The only thing I know for sure about him is that he’s a jerk, and that’s not exactly a great defense.
What reason would Annabelle have to lie?
What’s wrong with me, that I was so ready to throw away a lifetime of hard-earned lessons just to hope that Cohen might be different?
“Of course I believe you.” I rub her back, a ring of steel entering my voice. “Girls need to believe each other. I’m so sorry, Annabelle.”
“Thank you, darling. I feel better already knowing I’ve saved you from marrying that terrible man.” She peers at me. “When you break the engagement, if you wouldn’t mind keeping my little visit and confession quiet…”
“Yeah, I won’t say anything.” Uh-oh. I press my hand to my chest in the way that I hope a rich princess would after finding out her fiancé is a terrible person. “This is just…astounding. I’ll need time to process…”
“But you will break off the engagement?” Annabelle interrupts. She has the pouty scowl of someone so used to getting what they want that the mere hint that they might not is enough to ruin their day. And then I feel awful for thinking that, because she’s not acting selfishly at all. She just doesn’t want me to marry a man with that kind of badness in his heart.
The kind of badness I’d been so relieved that Cohen didn’t harbor.
Despite everything, though, I’m a realist at heart. I’m not going to throw away all that money and my new life to escape one month with the type of man I’ll be spending a lifetime with if I have to go back home. “Time is all I need, Annabelle, honestly. I need time to think. It’s just…I can’t believe I was so wrong about him.” And then, even though my heart is heavy and acting is the last thing I feel like doing, I force out a tear or two.
The tears are lies, but the words aren’t.
I thought I had instincts I could trust. Good ones. Honed ones.
And despite his attitude, those instincts had whispered to me that Cohen was a kind person, deep down.
Guess I’m not as smart as I thought.
“But didn’t you hear what I told you?” Annabelle tosses her hair back. “You can’t stand for this sort of thing. You should break it off immediately—”
“Time,” I say firmly, wiping away a tear. I summon the best part of my heart. “Thank you, Annabelle, so much. I can’t imagine the courage it must have taken to come tell me this. And I hate to send you off, but I won’t be able to truly think about this until I’m alone. I’m sorry.”
She stares at me. For a second, she looks almost angry. Then she smooths herself over and stands up. “Of course, darling. I understand perfectly. You can come to me with anything, I want you to know that.”
“Thank you,” I say again. Those words are starting to burn on my tongue.
> Finally, she leaves. I’m left alone. The apartment seems bigger and emptier than it ever had before. Cohen’s bedroom door, still shut, now looked like the eyelid of a closed monster eye. A monster that I don’t want to rouse.
I can’t go back to bed. Instead, I draw myself a bath and sink deep in the bubbles, the hot water loosening the concrete that had hardened over my thoughts. Anger breaks through.
That bastard, promising he wouldn’t hurt me like the very idea was abhorrent to him.
That bastard, with the flash of pity in his eyes.
Well, I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t be opening my heart to him again. It was stupid to let him see the real me in the first place. I’ll be an icy shell to him, Georgette Montgomery through and through, and the rest of me I’ll keep locked up until this month from hell is over.
I don’t need him to be different. He doesn’t matter to me.
I only cry a little bit, warm water joining hot. Because sometimes a girl just needs a decent cry, goddamn it.
~7~
Cohen’s Diary, Entry #2
I’ve proved myself right again. I am always right. I don’t know why I was expecting to be wrong this time.
No. No, I wasn’t expecting to be wrong. I expected this all along.
Rae hates me now. She lasted a good amount of time, I guess I should give her a medal. Congratulations: You Went Two Days Without Hating Cohen Ashworth, a World Record. Not sure what I did, but then again, anything I do is usually enough.
Came home, sat down to breakfast and she barely spoke to me. When she did, it was with the cool, polite voice of her alter ego. No inane chatter. No obnoxious jokes. Honestly, I’m relieved. I won’t have to put up with her annoying nonsense anymore.
She’s given up on the “niceness lessons.” Asked about it. She said, “No, we’re not doing them anymore. I realized you’re right. People like you don’t change.”
I am always right.
This is good. She will help me get the company, and then she’ll leave. I won’t see her ever again. We won’t talk and I won’t have to deal with this strange interest I have in her.
No more of these journal entries.
They’re too depressing.
Golf.
Short for Ghastly Overdone unLikeable-person Fun. I bet golf has been the shitty rich-person sport since the beginning of time. The caveman with the most animal skins probably spent his days trying to knock pinecones into rabbit holes with the leg bone of a tiger.
Long story short: golfing is the worst.
But when there’s a hundred thousand dollars on the line, I could do a lot worse that hit little white balls with a stick. So that’s why I’m here, on a golf course three miles outside of Paris—I hadn’t even known golfing was a thing in France—trying to hit a ball into a hole while being aided by one Claude LeCrue.
“It’s all in the wrist,” he says, although my wrist is the one part of my body he doesn’t seem interested in, judging by the way he’s squeezed up against me like we’re stuck in a tiny elevator versus an enormous golf course. “Gentle flicks. Gentle flicks.”
I glance around. Annabelle is seated on a chair, pretty in a soft white dress, though her expression as she watches her husband basically dry-hump me isn’t pretty at all. When she catches me looking, though, she rearranges it quickly into one of sisterly apology.
Her face, however, can’t compete with Cohen’s.
I ignored him all morning, dousing him with the freezing water of silence. The only moment I thought I might break was when he looked at me after I told him the niceness lessons were off. For a half second, there was something bare and raw in his eyes. Then it was gone, and it was icy cold Cohen and proper, closed-off Georgette for the rest of the morning.
It was exhausting.
Then LeCrue called us and asked us to go golfing, and, well…now this.
“Don’t whack, tap,” Claude informs me, jamming his hips against mine. I’m about to hit some small white balls with this stick, but they have nothing to do with golf. Except Georgette Montgomery would never do something so unbecoming. All she does is smile uncomfortably while Mr. LeCrue sorts through his golf clubs at the top of the hill, oblivious.
I’m about to make a lame bathroom excuse when Cohen materializes by my side.
“I’ll show her,” he snaps. “You’re doing a terrible job.”
And that’s how I know he’s really mad: he resorts to plain language, instead of the elegant stuff he usually uses to make other people feel like crap.
I smile tightly. I’d rather have Claude’s bony hips invading my space than have to face the unwanted reactions that take place in my body whenever Cohen touches it. “I’m okay, really.”
“You haven’t made a single hole yet. At this rate, we’ll be waiting around for the rest of our lives, and I do not intend to spend the rest of my life in a golf course.” He moves in. Claude, grumbling, moves out. And then Cohen’s hands are clasped gently above mine, showing me the way. He’s not shoving himself against me the way Claude was, but his proximity is enough to electrify me.
What right does he have to electrify me?
Damn it.
“Thank you, dear,” I say through gritted teeth. “But I think I can take it from here.”
“Is that a fact?” His thumb repositions my grip on the club. “I reiterate. Three hours. No hole.”
“I’ll make a hole in you if you don’t get off me!” His hip tilts slightly against mine and I get dizzy.
“There she is. I was wondering if I’d see her again,” he says into my ear.
“Who?”
“Rae.”
Anger bubbles up in my stomach, but before it can overflow, Cohen takes the club from me, says “Watch,” and delivers a smooth, powerful strike to the golf ball. It sails approximately a million miles through the blue sky, disappearing in some far nook of the green hills.
I turn around. Mr. LeCrue, Claude, Annabelle, and the caddy are watching with their jaws on the ground.
“We’ll go get it,” Cohen tells them.
“There are other balls, my boy—”
Ignoring Mr. LeCrue’s protests, he takes my hand and pulls me after him across the grass.
Once we’re out of earshot, I ask him coolly, “What do you want?”
“I was going to leave it alone.” He drops my hand and walks with his arms at his sides, looking straight ahead. His eyes are more tired than ever. He didn’t get home until late this morning. “But curiosity won out. What happened?”
Uh-oh. I rub my clammy palms on my jeans. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” he says. “Suddenly you won’t even look at me. Yesterday, I thought…”
He trails off.
Now my curiosity is winning out. “You thought what?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I couldn’t care less if you like me or not.”
To have him drag me off like that, only to tell me that he doesn’t care about my opinion of him, is beyond infuriating. “Bullshit. You were going to say that yesterday you thought that we were getting along pretty well. That I liked you. And you know what? Maybe I did, a little bit. That was before I found out what a liar you are.”
He won’t hit me. Not when the others would see the mark the second we walked back. But I’m telling myself that more out of habit than necessity. I’m not getting the danger vibes, the familiar prickle in my skin telling me to run, at all. And that just makes me angrier.
Because I should be afraid of him.
“What lie? I haven’t lied to you.”
“I promise I’ll never hit you,” I mimic. “Pretty words, those. Too bad you didn’t mean them for a second.”
“Stop talking in circles.” His shoulders stiffen. “I haven’t hit you, so I have no idea what you could be talking about.”
“Not me. But Annabelle. Back when you were with her.” I want to add you left out that convenient detail too, but it sounds too much like something an a
ctual fiancé would say. I don’t care if he’s dated Annabelle before. Obviously.
He stops short and turns to face me. He’s so visibly stunned that it tears down my defenses, but only for a second. Anyone can fake an expression. I’m proof of that.
“Where did you hear that?” he says quietly.
Great. I promised Annabelle I wouldn’t say anything, but it’s too late now. “Annabelle.”
Suddenly he grabs me by both shoulders. The shock reverberates down my spine. I’m almost happy, because now I can fear him like I should, but…the fear doesn’t come. He’s not grabbing me to hurt me, he’s…
“I don’t know why she would tell you that, but it’s not true,” he says, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say that’s a note of desperation in his voice. “Annabelle…wanted to be with me, it’s true. But we were never involved. She pursued me and I turned her down.”
“Was it an uppercut or a straight shot?” I sneer at him.
“I never touched her! Violently or otherwise.” His face darkens. “I can’t believe you think I’d do something like that.”
I shake him off me. “Every man I’ve met is capable of doing something like that, and has. There’s absolutely no reason for you to be any different. And absolutely no reason for me to believe you over her.”
He stares at me. Then his face slides shut. “Fine. Believe what you want. Like I said, it doesn’t matter to me.”
He turns away.
“God!” I burst out. “You are so aggravating!”
He bends down and picks the golf ball up out of the grass. Despite everything, a certain part of me enjoys the view. I want to douse that part in kerosene and throw it into an active volcano. “It does matter to you,” I say. “Why tell me it doesn’t?”
“If it matters to me or not, would that make a difference to you?” he asks with his back turned.
“Yes! I mean, no. I mean…”
“People believe what they want. I learned that long ago. If you’ve made up your mind about me, there’s nothing I’m capable of doing that will change it.” He tosses the ball up and catches it. “But you might want to consider this. If LeCrue doesn’t sell his company to me, Claude and Annabelle will inherit it. Considering the fact that my engagement is tipping him toward selling, it’s not unreasonable to imagine that the two of them might have a vested interested in driving us apart.”
