The Devil In the South Of France: An Enemies To Lovers Romance

by Sage Rae

  Manu stuttered. He began to speak, slurring his words. “Char, he just. He came inna here outta nowhere and I…”

  “Manu, are you drunk?” Charlotte demanded.

  “You know I always drink a little bit when I’m at work,” Manu said, shrugging. “What’s that got to do with—“

  “MANU. Just stop, okay?” Charlotte cried. She pressed her hand against her chest and huffed. Her eyes welled up with tears. Peter longed to hold her against him, to whisper into her ear that everything would be all right.

  But the mess was far too great: a swirling cesspool of confusion and anger.

  “Charlotte. Do you know why he’s here or something?” Manu asked, again, slurring his words.

  Charlotte’s nostrils flared. “Manu. I was just trying to get a job that paid the bills a little bit better than your godforsaken bar, okay?”

  Manu dropped his chin to his chest. This was an assault to his way of being. Peter drew lines along his hairline with a soft finger. The air was taut.

  “And when Peter offered me the gig, sure. I was going to take it. But you know what? I came here tonight to tell you that Manu, it was time for us to try someplace else. To leave Montpellier. I don’t want Peter Bramwell’s money,” Charlotte began.

  “Where do you want to go?” Manu whispered, cupping his elbows.

  “I don’t want to go anywhere with you, Manu. I don’t want to go anywhere with either of you,” Charlotte stammered. “You’ve both made a mockery of my life, and I’m tired of it. If neither of you had come visit me in Paris all those years ago, maybe I would have had a fucking chance. But you did. And I fell for you, Peter. How stupid of me, of both Manu and I, to fall for you. But it’s too late, okay?”

  Charlotte took a small step back, pointing her finger first at Manu, then at Peter. Her lips quivered as she spoke. She looked like an injured animal, struggling to get away. But Peter knew better than to chase her.

  “You both better let me go,” she said. “I’m going to get the hell out of this city and go make my own life, without either of you.”

  “Charlotte, you can’t just go…” Manu began.

  “Yes. Yes I can,” Charlotte said, her eyes like daggers. “You’ve never given me a reason to believe that you cared about me as much as I cared about you. Either of you.”

  Charlotte spun back down the alleyway, marching toward her car. Peter and Manu remained pressed against the brick wall, both of their hands still in fists. Within seconds, their ears lost track of Charlotte’s stomping. She disappeared around the corner. There was a slam of a car door. There was a rev of an engine. Then, her car raced away. There seemed such finality to it. Like, really, this time: she wasn’t going to return to any childhood emotion of love.

  Peter was her past. He was a shadow. He couldn’t be anything else.

  Back to Paris

  Charlotte made a pit-stop at the apartment to toss a few things into her car, stab a hat on her head, and then duck back into the driver’s seat. Tears continued to run hot down her cheeks, but she felt resolute. Nobody, not Manu, not Peter, would orchestrate her decisions any longer. She was her own woman. Not a younger sister. Not a lover.

  She’d been allowing other people’s needs and other people’s opinions to guide her for far too long.

  Montpellier was an eight-hour drive from Paris. Behind the wheel of her car, she calculated the time—noting that, if she left now, she wouldn’t arrive to Paris until sometime late in the morning. Despite the fact that she had several friends in various arrondissements, they would all surely be asleep or at work at that time: meaning she might have to slumber in her car in one of the most dangerous cities in the world, waiting for someone to help her. For this reason, she gave herself pause—darting into a nearby hotel (just outside of Montpellier) to regroup and watch bad television, while marveling at how quickly everything could possibly change.

  Feeling unsure, and wanting to hear the sound of her own voice, she dialed a pizza delivery company and ordered a pepperoni pizza. But when it arrived, it sat, stinking and sad, on her bed. Turns out she didn’t have an appetite, after all.

  Peter and Manu had both attempted to call her several times. Her phone buzzed almost non-stop on the bed-side table, at least for the first 30 minutes (just before the pizza guy came). She wanted to lift it up, screech into it for them to leave her alone, and then toss the phone out the window. But that was her being brash. That was her playing their kind of hand.

  It had been so bizarre, seeing Manu and Peter fighting down the alleyway like that. In many ways, she felt like her twelve year old self, again, struggling to keep up with them. Every muscle had itched for her to stretch out and chase after them. They were her boys.

  But too much had happened. Her heart felt squeezed, trying to beat despite the constant, aching pressure of being in love with someone she wouldn’t allow herself to be with. Peter Bramwell couldn’t be her boyfriend; hell, he couldn’t be her friend. She wouldn’t trust him to remember to water her plant. Let alone to stay faithful to her, or to uphold his relationship with Manu…

  Charlotte slept fitfully that night, having raucous dreams of Manu and Peter punching one another until blood spewed down their cheeks and from their noses. She dreamed of Peter over Manu’s body, holding onto it, supporting the head. “CHARLOTTE! CHARLOTTE, I DIDN’T MEAN TO!” he cried in the dream.

  Charlotte bolted upright in bed, with sweat falling down her forehead. She blinked toward the window, where the sun had begun to cast grey rays along the road. Perhaps it was time to run further away from Montpellier. Perhaps she could outrun those dreams.

  Charlotte arrived to Paris late that afternoon. With her sunglasses atop her nose, her hair whipping out behind her, and a single foot stretched out on the dashboard, she felt like a portrait of a woman fully claiming her freedom. She’d long turned off her cell phone. If Manu and Peter were still trying to ring her, they were met with nothing but silence.

  A friend from college met her for a short dinner, telling her that he could arrange an interview with a colleague the following week. The job? At an architecture firm that was looking to expand its talent and artistry to younger, fresher minds. “I think, based on what I know of your work, that you’d be perfect for the position,” her friend, Paco, told her. “And honestly, I’m surprised it took you so long to move up here. Not a lot is going on down in Montpellier. Not when you could have Paris.”

  “I can’t believe it took me so long, either,” she sighed. “But I’m tired of dragging my feet. It won’t happen any longer.”

  Paco helped her meet with a real estate agent later that week. She signed a short-term lease for a tiny apartment in the 18th arrondissement, just a few blocks from the Moulin Rouge. It wasn’t a far cry from the life she’d had as a 21 year old student in Belleville. Incredibly, when she first sat perched at the edge of the bed, she could still feel that happy go lucky 21 year old wannabe architect bubbling up inside her. But this time, she was going to make it happen. She wouldn’t waste a single day, wondering if love was the answer. At this rate, she already knew the truth.

  It wasn’t. And it never could be.

  More Then Money

  Peter and Manu watched Charlotte storm down the alleyway, back toward her car, and remained standing there—just a foot between them—for another three or so minutes before speaking. Manu’s hands remained in fists, a fact Peter learned when he did finally force his eyes downward. He turned to the right, moving slowly so as not to make Manu punch him again. Peter pressed his hand against the brick wall, leaning against it.

  He wasn’t going to be the first one to speak.

  Finally, Manu tilted his head toward Peter, his eyes incredulous. “She’ll be back,” he said, his words firm.

  “I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” Peter offered.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Manu asked.

  “There’s just some stuff you don’t know about, Manu,” Peter said, forcing his e
yes to the cobblestones. “Some stuff between Charlotte and I…”

  “What? Jesus.” Manu spread his palms out across his cheeks, tapping at the now-drying blood. “I feel like I’ve missed out on so much shit. I need a fucking beer.” He reached into his pocket and drew out his cell phone, immediately tapping his finger against Charlotte’s name. “She’s not answering.”

  Peter and Manu walked back to the bar, both with their heads bowed over their cell phones. Peter felt a jolt, like a punch, whenever Charlotte ignored his phone call. He pictured her steamrolling down the highway, leaning forward, training her brain to forget his name. Peter Bramwell? Never heard of him.

  Manu was the bartender on duty. He pointed toward the door and snapped his fingers, declaring the bar closed. “Get out, everyone. Family emergency,” he said.

  “Manu. You know Marty said if you do this again, he’ll fire you,” a five-foot slinky son of a bitch said to him as he ambled out, still sipping from his pint glass.

  “I don’t give a fuck what Marty said,” Manu grunted. “Get the hell out of here, Remy. If you’re going to be a tattle tale, go ahead. Call him.”

  Peter sniffed at this act of bravado, knowing that, in a way, Manu was showing off to him. He leaned against the bar as all five bar-goers slunk from the bar, shrugging their shoulders. One middle-aged woman, a pretty face with a tight point at the tip of her nose, turned her head toward Manu as they left, ogling him. Peter nodded toward her, arching his eyebrow toward Manu.

  “And, who the hell is that?” he asked.

  Manu’s cheeks flashed pink. “Why do you care?”

  “Manu, my man,” he said, the old refrain he’d said time and time again when they’d been younger, in college. “It’s been, what? Five years? And you’re still hung up on the older women…”

  “They have something the younger ones don’t,” Manu said, allowing a slight smile to curl up. He snuck his hands beneath the register and brought up a bottle of whiskey. With the flourish of a seasoned bartender, he dotted two glasses between them and poured them each a double shot. His eyes found Peter’s again. Peter imagined that he might say something like—“To old times,” or “Man, it’s been too long.” But instead, Manu didn’t even bother to clink his glass with Peter’s. He just sucked it up.

  “Man, that’s harsh,” Manu said, sputtering. “Sorry. Just, having you walk in like that, and now with Charlotte running away to who knows where…”

  “I get it,” Peter said. “I do.”

  “I don’t know, man. You’ve been gone a long time. There’s probably not a whole hell of a lot you do get about us anymore,” Manu continued. He scrunched his blonde curls in his fingers, shrugging against the far wall of the bar. Outside, Montpellier bar dwellers attempted to yank open the door. To them, Manu barrelled out, “C’EST PAS OUVERTE.” It’s not open.

  “As you can see,” Manu said, staring down into his second-poured glass of whiskey. “I’ve really made something of myself.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Peter said.

  “Naw, man. It’s true. I’ve been a complete fucking mess for the past five years. Mostly just leaning on whatever goodwill my sister had for me. Which, as you can see, has more or less run out.” He paused for a moment, pressing his teeth into his large, lower lip. It had always been a bit too big—“utterly kissable,” one girl had described it as, when they’d been at a blow-out cocaine party in London. That had been a million years ago. When Peter had watched women ogle his best friend, and felt a jolt of pride at being connected with him.

  “Man, I…” Peter began. He snapped his hand on the back of his neck. He’d never allowed himself to envision a day like this. A day when he’d be faced with the horror of his own decisions, forced to reckon with the fact that he’d ruined Manu’s life.

  “I don’t know if I want it, Peter,” Manu said, his voice low.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know if I want that apology you’re trying to brew up,” he continued. “Because, fuck it, Peter. Do I want all those millions of dollars that you have in your account? Sure. But would I be happier? I don’t know. It wasn’t like that path we were on together was getting me anywhere fast. I was partying non-stop, while you were taking the business meetings. If I would have been you, maybe I would have taken the same route. I dunno.”

  Peter knocked his drunk glass of whiskey on the counter and poured himself another. His eyes never left Manu’s.

  “That doesn’t mean I want to completely forgive you, or whatever,” Manu said, scowling. “We were supposed to mean more than money. We grew up together, man.”

  “I know,” Peter said.

  “But now, you’re here. Why are you here?” Manu said. A small crinkle formed between his eyebrows, deepened. “You’re not here because of Charlotte, are you?”

  “I’m here because…” Peter paused. He hadn’t given himself the space to really know, for sure, why he’d bounded down to Montpellier the moment he’d felt a bit off-center in New York City. “I’m here because I looked around and you both were still gone. And you were the only ones I’d ever really cared about.”

  Manu sniffed. He took a staggered step forward, casting his elbows against the top of the bar and gazing out the window. “Man. You two were the only ones I ever really cared about, too.”

  They stood in silence. Peter felt that, instead of removing the weight on his shoulders, he’d only shifted it to his heart. The weight pressed tight against him, making it difficult to breathe. Is this what it felt like to love? Admitting that sometimes, that love had to be lost?

  “What are we going to do to get her back?” Peter heard himself ask, his voice gravelly and harsh.

  Manu blinked several times. From profile, Peter could see his eyelashes, long and clear. They looked like animated shadows, popping up and down on Manu’s cheeks. Finally, he spun his head toward Peter, giving him an almost demonic, half-smile.

  “There’s only one place she could have gone, you know,” he said.

  “And where is that?” Peter asked.

  “Paris,” Manu said, shrugging. “It’s the only place she was ever alone, without us. Remember when we visited her there, in that little studio? You insisted we stay in that penthouse suite…”

  “Right. That first million,” Peter said, rolling his eyes at his own foolishness. “You’re sure that wasn’t a million years ago?”

  Manu snuck up on the bar, making his legs swing back and forth. Something about him was electric, renewing a force in Peter that he’d forgotten existed. He found himself having to clamp his smile back down. He couldn’t be all grins, in front of Manu. Manu was nothing but his past.

  Yet now, as two twenty-eight year olds, he felt they were brimming with possibility—their brains united again. It was like they were back in business.

  “I haven’t let myself think about those days so often,” Manu said, almost sighing with nostalgia. “But dammit, they were good. I don’t even care what happened afterwards. Me, with the heavy drug use, and then you, with the betrayal…”

  “Remember that time at the Los Angeles mansion—what was it… Santa Monica?” Peter said, interrupting. His smile widened, flashing his eager, shark teeth. “I remember gazing out at you on the water. You’d stolen their sailboat!”

  “Jesus, I forgot that,” Manu cackled. He gripped his stomach, allowing his eyes to roll back in his head. “When I got back, I thought the owner—that asshole Italian businessman—was going to murder me. But you know what happened instead, don’t you?”

  Peter shook his head. Somehow, memory of the after was blotted out. Perhaps he, himself, had been too drunk to remember, or he’d scampered off with some California girl or another. Manu leaped off the counter to give the dramatic retelling—placing his hand on his heart, shaking his head so that his tangled, too-long blonde curls shook.

  “I get back in from the sailboat, and I’m drenched. So is the girl, who I find out is the Italian guy’s daughter. Damn. I know I’
m screwed, then,” Manu said, laughing. “But when I get up to his office to have that ‘talk’ he says he wants to have, who’s waiting there for me but—his wife! This gorgeous Italian woman, probably twenty years older than me. And she starts getting naked the minute I see her. I’m all hot and sweaty and bothered, and I’d just been making out with her daughter. But she doesn’t care.”

  Peter cackled. He dropped his hands to his knees, his stomach straining with laughter. “So, that was the first of the older women, huh?”

  “Oh, the first? I don’t know about that,” Manu said. “But it was certainly the most memorable.”

  Peter and Manu sipped whiskey into the night, swapping stories and generally catching one another up on the previous five years. For both of them, not a lot had “happened” in the grander sense. Sure: Peter had accrued several billion dollars, and Manu had accrued… what sounded like a couch and an affinity for video games. But neither of them had found love, really. Both of them had had some of the loneliest nights of their lives.

  At around three in the morning, Manu latched the bar door behind them. They strode down the street, stumbling slightly on the cobblestones. Manu slid his arm around Peter’s shoulder, walking in the way they had as much younger men—just getting one another home from the frat party, from the mansion with the whiskey that flowed like water.

  “You know, I think I might be in love with her,” Peter said then, his voice low. He’d felt the emotion coming like a wave, but hadn't expected that it would articulate so suddenly.

  “Charlotte?” Manu asked, although, of course, who else could he possibly be speaking of?

  “Sure. Is that stupid?” Peter asked. He stopped walking, his shoes scuffing at the cobblestones. Above them, the moon gleamed down, a full orb. It seemed powerful, casting a light over the windows, the rooftops, the Montpellier statues and fountains.