by Alix Nichols
You do that, genius.
Whoever drafted that agreement—I suspect it was Darcy and his bro all by themselves, seeing his obsession with confidentiality—left a loophole. The text focuses too much on the fake relationship and things around it. But there’s nothing in it that says I must keep my lips sealed with regards to unrelated trivial secrets I might stumble upon, such as tax evasion or financial fraud.
Or less trivial ones, such as murder.
I almost drooled as I pictured myself finding proof that the senior Darcy’s death wasn’t accidental. Lo and behold, he was killed in cold blood by his oldest son, Sebastian. The golden boy will be investigated, found guilty, and sent to prison where he’ll rot for rest of his days.
Wouldn’t that be a hoot?
“Any other questions?” Darcy asked, breaking me out of my favorite fantasy.
I’d told him my biggest concern was how Dad would handle the news of our association once it reached his ears.
“He’ll get over it,” Darcy said, all dry pragmatism.
“He’ll stop talking to me.” I wrung my hands. “He’ll think I’m a traitor.”
“If it’s any consolation, my mother thinks I’m a traitor.”
Does she now? Is that why Marguerite d’Arcy has been holed up in Nepal doing charity work for over a decade? Voilà Paris called her “the French Mother Teresa” in the feature they ran about her a couple of years ago.
“Why would she think that?” I asked.
He sighed and waved my question off. “Long story.”
I made a mental note to investigate.
Before we said good-bye, Darcy informed me that our first “post-reconcilliation” outing will be a “small, informal gathering” to celebrate his brother Raphael’s twenty-ninth birthday. I pointed out I didn’t know anyone in his circle. He said he’d invited Jeanne and Mat. Mat is an up-and-coming politician he believes in and backs. I’m friends with Jeanne. We can spend most of the weekend chatting with the couple. That way, neither of us will appear stiff to anyone watching.
I nodded, dropping my head so he wouldn’t see me roll my eyes.
Because, honestly, who are you kidding, man?
You never smile. I’ve never seen you slump or stoop, be it in photos or in real life. Regardless of what you say or do, your body language, accent and manners scream, “Stuck-up aristocrat.”
You don’t just appear stiff—you’re Count Stiff. No, you’re King Stiff.
Brace yourself, your Majesty.
I’m here to depose you.
Chapter 6
Diane
I sip my iced tea and stare out the bay window at the waters of the Mediterranean. I’m no longer in Dad’s cheap divorcé pad deep inside the ugliest industrial suburb of Marseille. This place is lush and unspoiled by construction folly. In fact, the only construction here is an unobtrusive energy-efficient villa overlooking the beach.
The “small, informal gathering” Darcy had told me about turned out to be a weekend party for over fifty guests. Held on a Greek island.
A private Greek island.
The guests were flown to Crete this morning by private jet—of course—all white leather and overwhelming sleekness. While up in the air, I met Darcy’s middle brother, Raphael—the CEO of a large audit firm—his best friend, Laurent, and a bunch of other people, all of whom eyed me with unrestrained curiosity.
After we landed, I was eager to see the sites, but it looked as if I was the only one who’d never been to Crete before. Even Jeanne, the only other “normal” person in this jet set, had visited it when she backpacked around Europe at twenty.
“Another time,” Darcy had said to me, all bossy and curt, before we were all ferried to Ninossos, farther south, on board a private mahogany-paneled yacht.
How else was a poor rich man to transport guests to his island?
“Papa loved this place,” Darcy says, planting himself next to me. “The weather is mild here almost all year round.”
I can definitely believe that, considering how sunny and warm it is right now in the middle of winter. The island is small and kept in its natural state, except for this villa. Perched on a hillside and separated from the sandy beach by terraced gardens, it offers a breathtaking view over the sea.
What’s not to love?
“It’s Raphael’s now,” Darcy says.
I give him a sidelong glance and turn away quickly, embarrassed by the effect his jeans and shirt are having on me. Dammit! When he wears one of his bespoke suits, I can tell myself it’s not him, it’s the cut. The second I catch myself eyeing his torso, I bring up the image of a Savile Row tailor wielding his magic scissors and turning amorphous men into hunks.
The problem is no sane person with functioning eyes would call the man standing next to me amorphous.
I force a sneer. “Is the boat his, too?”
He nods.
“And the jet?”
“We co-own it, the same as Le Big Ben.”
“I hadn’t pegged you as someone who’s into sharing, even with family members.”
“You’re wrong—I do share, and not only with family. My other jet is used for corporate travel by all Parfums d’Arcy managers and sales reps.”
I shake my head, tut-tutting. “How disappointing. Billionaires aren’t what they used to be.”
He says nothing.
I sneak a peek at him. Darcy’s expression is as stony as ever. It’s not as if I expected him to crack up or anything, but… I don’t know… maybe smile a little?
Forget it.
Who cares what he thinks, anyway?
I point at the picture-perfect young people who sunbathe and entertain themselves in a variety of beachy ways a couple dozen meters from the villa. “I’ll go find Jeanne.”
“Of course,” he says. “I’ll go chat with the caterer and the local staff and make sure everything’s ready for the party tonight.”
I scrunch my eyebrows. “Shouldn’t Raphael do that? It’s his birthday.”
“Raphael should relax and enjoy himself,” Darcy says. “It’s his birthday.”
Righto.
With a canned smile, I hand him my empty glass and head outside.
The first thing that jumps out at me as the soles of my feet touch the sand is just how much Raphael is enjoying himself. Reclining on his back, the birthday boy is letting a topless Scarlett Johansson doppelgänger on his left smear sunscreen onto his tanned chest. While she’s at it, a topless clone of Natalie Portman on his right giggles at something he said.
Seriously?
I look around. Am I the only one who finds this utterly ridiculous?
Oh, wait! Maybe the trio is reenacting The Other Boleyn Girl.
Yes, that must be it.
I avert my gaze, scanning the beach crowd for Jeanne.
Honestly, what did I expect? Rich men are all like that—spoiled and obnoxious. I’m sure Raphael’s older brother engages in similar pursuits when he isn’t in a fake relationship with a girl who shudders at the thought of kissing him. To say nothing of engaging in a threesome with him. My antipathy to Darcy aside, I’d have to be unconscious or dead to be involved in a threesome with anyone—even a man I lusted after.
If I ever met such a man.
“Hey, Diane!” Raphael waves enthusiastically while “Scarlett” and “Natalie” peer at me, giving off distinctly hostile vibes. “Over here!”
Er… I don’t think so. “I’m looking for Jeanne.”
“Mat’s wife? I saw her inside.” He stands up and saunters toward me in all his bare-chested glory.
I wonder if his brother’s muscles are as well defined as his. Then I wonder why I’m wondering this.
“You should ask Seb to give you a tour of the island,” he says, looking me over.
I give him a pointed cut-the-crap look.
He shrugs with a hint of defiance, as if to say, I’m just playing my part and so should you.
Oh, well, I guess I should. There ar
e doppelgängers within earshot, after all. And, judging by how quiet they’ve suddenly grown, they’re all ears.
“Great idea.” I force a smile. “Do you come here often?”
“Whenever I can. This is my favorite place on Earth.”
“What’s the deal with the third Darcy brother?” I ask. “He wasn’t on the plane, was he?”
Raphael shakes his head, his grin fading a little.
“I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him yet,” I say.
It’s clear he doesn’t relish the turn our small talk is taking, but I can’t help myself. “Will he be arriving later, on a regular flight with all those poor millionaires crammed in business class?”
“Noah isn’t coming,” Raphael says, his smile strained now. “He had some… important business to take care of.”
Birthday boy takes a sudden interest in his feet, as if he just discovered he had toes. It doesn’t look as if he’ll say more on the subject.
Never mind. None of the Darcy secrets will resist Diane Petit’s power of observation.
You just wait.
“Raphael, come back here,” Scarlett Johansson calls out, pouting. “You promised to return the sunscreen favor.”
Natalie Portman mirrors her pout. “And I’m still waiting for my foot massage.”
Raphael looks at me, obviously relieved. “I’d love to chat more, but I have promises to keep.”
“Off you go,” I say.
Behind me, someone jogs toward us. Before I have time to turn around, that someone puts his arm around my shoulders.
“Let me show you around this rock.” Darcy says, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Come, chérie.”
I knit my brows. “Didn’t your governess teach you that sneaking up on people is bad manners, chéri?”
A smile crinkles Raphael’s eyes as he turns toward Darcy. “Is everything under control? Food delivered and servers lined up?”
Darcy hesitates. “If you really want to know, there was a small issue with the swimming pool. The caretaker couldn’t get the new heating system to start.”
“It’s no big deal,” Raphael says.
“You invited people to a poolside party, didn’t you?” Darcy’s tone is so distinctly older brotherly it reminds me of Lionel. “You don’t want to let them down.”
“You’re right,” Raphael says before turning to me. “We should all thank whatever deity we believe in for people like Seb. They make the world a better place.”
Yeah, sure.
“Speaking of a better place.” Raphael wrinkles his nose at Darcy. “Did you actually manage to fix the pool heater?”
“I managed to find the user manual,” Darcy says. “And Kostas fixed the heating system.”
Raphael taps his brother’s shoulder. “I’ll leave you to your girlfriend.”
“Come.” Darcy pulls my hand. “I want you to meet Laurent and some other friends.”
I give him a canned smile. “I can’t wait!”
What I really can’t wait for is to go back home and barf.
Chapter 7
Diane
It’s ten in the evening and the party is in full swing.
Darcy and I stand between two ancient olive trees, in a small circle of dressed people, most of whom are friends of Darcy’s. The majority of his brother’s crowd are in swimsuits and flock around the pool and the DJ, who’s converted one of the decks into a dance floor.
I would’ve liked to plunge into the pool, too, and maybe dance a little. I’m closer both in age and attitude to the boisterous “Raphaelites” than the stuck-up “Sebastianers.” But what I want to do is irrelevant. I’m here for work—not pleasure. That’s what I tell myself every time Darcy wraps his arm around my shoulder or sets his hand on the small of my back to show his friends how much “in love” he is.
Does he think they’re stupid?
I don’t know about men, but I’m almost sure the women have us figured out by now. Our embraces are devoid of tenderness. The looks we exchange are cold, and the endearments we say to each other sound painfully fake.
But it’s Darcy’s problem, not mine. My contract says nothing about “good acting.” As far as I’m concerned, all’s well.
The DJ starts a new disk. It’s by an unfamiliar artist, but one I’ll certainly be looking up. The beat is so hard to resist that all of Raphael’s standing and sitting friends begin to groove. One by one, the swimming ones come out of the pool, too, and join in the fun. The two Boleyn girls rock their nimble frames suggestively, no doubt to please their “king.”
Where is the birthday boy, by the way?
I turn my head toward the barbecue grill. There he is, cooking batches of seafood, meat, and vegetables. Said batches—cleaned and skewered for him—are being ferried from the kitchen and, once off the grill, served by the catering staff.
I look away, trying not to sneer at this rich man’s version of hands-on work.
A splash draws my attention to the pool where a vision in female form emerges. She makes me think of Botticelli’s Venus. Minus the supersized shell. Plus a red bikini.
No part of her is beautiful, strictly speaking. But there’s such confidence in her posture and in the way she surveys the crowd that you can’t help wondering: Am I missing something? Could she be a royal princess from one of those napkin-sized countries around the Mediterranean? I try to run a facial recognition search in my mind, pulling up all the princesses I’d seen in gossip magazines when I’d done my “research.”
No one matches Venus. Maybe she isn’t royalty, after all, but simply the first woman I’ve met whose self-esteem feeds on something other than her looks. Could be money, wit, professional aptitude, unequalled skill or expertise in some area… Whatever it is, she has tons of it.
All around, heads turn and conversations falter.
Venus steps onto the deck and wrings her mane of silky hair, her gesture full of easy elegance.
Darcy follows my gaze. “Genevieve Lougnon, heiress to the Lougnon Champagne house. She’s Raph’s best friend since childhood.”
Laurent gives me a wink. “My jaw dropped, too, when I saw Genevieve for the first time. But don’t worry—you’ll get used to her aplomb. Eventually.”
Laurent is a surgeon and as middle-class as it gets in Darcy’s inner circle.
Jeanne and Mat join our small group.
“You know,” Mat says to Darcy. “I almost declined your invitation.”
Darcy raises an eyebrow in surprise.
“It’s one thing to have you back the Greens’ European Parliament bid—for which I’m eternally grateful,” Mat says. “But it’s another to let you jet me to a poolside party on your private island.”
“It’s Raph’s,” Darcy says, ever the nitpicker. “I thought the Greens were outside the rich-poor divide.”
“No political party really is, regardless of what they claim.” Mat shrugs. “But it would, indeed, have been worse if I was a socialist.”
“You think this could backfire?”
Mat gives him a wink. “If hard pressed, I’ll say I only agreed to come here so I could study your top-notch low-energy house.”
“You know what’s funny?” Jeanne says to Darcy. “Mat actually did spend three hours this afternoon crawling all over the house and taking notes.”
“Unfortunately,”—Darcy smiles—“nobody will believe him.”
It’s the first time I’ve seen him smile. His face lights up and transforms in a most unexpected way. There’s mirth in his eyes. His lips, usually pressed together in a hard line, part and show white teeth. His body relaxes, and the permanent stick up his posterior seems to dissolve as if by magic. He looks almost… charming.
“Unfair but true,” Mat says.
Jeanne gives her husband an affectionate look—the kind neither Darcy nor I can ever produce for each other, even if our lives depended on it.
“Hey, hon.” Jeanne turns to me. “I heard from Chloe about your dad’s struggle to get cre
dited for his new perfume. What a bummer.”
I shrug. “Belle Auxbois said she’d sue him if she saw his name mentioned anywhere in relation to it.”
“So it’s in the contract?” Mat asks. “Wasn’t he aware of her terms when he signed it?”
I sigh. “It’s not that simple. The contract says she may ‘wish to but doesn’t have to’ credit Dad. It’s written in fine print, tucked away on one of the last pages. When he read it before signing, he saw what he wanted to see.”
“Poor Charles.” Jeanne gives my arm a squeeze. “He assumed she’d recognize his ‘help’ like the other celebs he’s worked with in the past, right?”
I nod.
“The road to hell is paved with assumptions,” Darcy says.
Neither his tone nor his expression betrays an ounce of the sympathy that Jeanne and Mat’s comments conveyed.
Self-righteous ass.
He does have a point, of course. I’ve lost count of how many times Mom and I have told Dad he needs to quit being such an idealist and learn to plan for contingencies. We’ve also begged him to expect his clients and business partners to try to screw him over.
Because most of them will, given the chance.
So, yeah, I do agree with the point he’s making, but my agreement doesn’t make his remark more palatable. I guess it’s the way he delivered it—injecting it with such superiority—that turned my stomach.
He must think he’s so much better than Dad! Than all of us lowborn provincials. Bile rises in my throat. I know I should let this slide, but the itch to bite back is stronger than me. Must have something to do with family honor, I suspect.
The Darcys versus the Petits.
I pick up a seafood platter and hold it up for my boyfriend. “Let he who is without assumption cast the first prawn at me.”
He stares into my eyes, saying nothing.
I shrug and put the platter down. “I’m not feeling well. Must be the oysters or just a stomach bug.”
“I can give you some of my SMECTA,” Jeanne says quickly. “I never travel without it!”
“It’s OK—I’ll be fine tomorrow morning. What I need is sleep.” I wave my hand. “Night-night, everyone.”
