Find You in Paris: A fun and sexy enemies-to-lovers romance (The Darcy Brothers)

by Alix Nichols

  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 them 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 are 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.

  SEVEN

  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 credited 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.”

  The group wishes me a good night, and I withdraw into the house.

  Did I mention I’m sharing a bedroom with Darcy?

  Thankfully, it’s huge and has a nice big couch in addition to the king-size bed. Darcy kindly offered to sleep on the couch. I agreed immediately, not bothering with the no, you take the bed nonsense. His comfort is the least of my concerns.

  But I don’t go to the bedroom just yet.

  Inspired by Mat, I engage in some “crawling and climbing” of my own, starting with the walkout basement and the kitchen. After that I move on to the living room on the ground floor and upstairs to the bedrooms. Knocking gently on one door after another and sneaking in when there’s no reply, I cover each level as fast as I can. And as thoroughly as I can. Unlike Mat, my goal isn’t to learn how this villa saves energy.

  I’m looking for dirt.

  Who knows, I may never return to this place, so tonight is my chance to find a room stocked with cocaine packets or a freezer filled with body parts, or at least a bundle of compromising letters.

  When I step into a bedroom across the hallway from mine on the first floor, I hear familiar voices and freeze. They’re coming from outside. The window is ajar, and the people talking underneath are none other than Darcy and Raphael.

  I crouch under the window and listen.

  “Your fake girlfriend—she’s cute,” Raphael says.

  “Define cute.” Darcy’s voice sounds funny. I think he’s a little drunk. “Do you mean diverting with her rustic southern accent?”

  “No, I mean good-looking.”

  “Rrrreally?” Darcy slurs. He is drunk. “I wouldn’t call her good-looking. Perky, yes. Fresh-faced, maybe. But certainly not good-looking.”

  “You serious?”

  “A woman needs a good measure of class to be considered good-looking.” Darcy pauses before adding, “Diane Petit doesn’t have a nanogram of it.”

  Ouch. That stings.

  Raphael mutters something and then says louder, “So, under no circumstances would you date her for real?”

  I find myself holding my breath.

  Just my vanity, no doubt.

  Darcy takes his time before answering. “I can imagine exactly three circumstances where I’d date her for real. First, I go crazy. Can happen to the best of us. Second, I’m coerced. And third, the survival of humanity depends on it.”

  Raphael chuckles. “Sounds as if you don’t have much regard for your future wife.”

  “It’s mutual between us,” Darcy says.

  It is, indeed.

  EIGHT

  Earlier today, I woke up to chirping birds and murmuring waves. Darcy was already out. Twenty minutes later, I joined the guests having a sumptuous breakfast on the patio. Their faces showed various degrees of hangover, ranging from Genevieve’s zero to Raphael’s one hundred with everyone else in between.

  I greeted Darcy with the sweetest “good morning, chéri” I was capable of and sat down next to Jeanne as the chair next to him was already occupied by Laurent.

  Three cheers for the man!

  A couple of hours later, we arrived in Crete—no sightseeing this time either—and boarded the co-owned jet. At around five in the afternoon, Darcy’s chauffeur dropped me off in front of my building, and I was finally home, frustrated and depressed after my luxury getaway.

/>   I feel a lot better now, ensconced in a beauty salon with Elorie, both of us getting massages and manicures.

  “So, what’s the occasion?” she asks as a nice-smelling lady in a white tunic applies red nail polish to her pinky. “Must be something big.”

  I focus on my thumb, which is being painted blue. “Why do you say that?”

  “You bought me a drink after you got a job offer from that online magazine. Now you’re paying ten times more.”

  I smile and shake my head, still looking for the best way to deliver the bombshell. Elorie will find out about Darcy, anyway, either from a common acquaintance or a photo in a tabloid. It’s crucial that I tell her first.

  “Did you win the EuroMillions jackpot?” she asks. “That must be it. How much was it?”

  I smile. “I won zilch, as usual. But I did sell a few photos through an online depository, and I finally got paid for the wedding I immortalized three weeks ago.”

  “All right, that explains the how of this.” Elorie narrows her eyes. “But it doesn’t explain the why.”

  OK, Diane—ready, set, roll.

  “I’ve been hiding something important from you,” I say. “And now I want to come clean and apologize.”

  “I knew it!” She let out a smug puff. “Spill the beans.”

  “I’m seeing someone. And it’s getting sort of… serious.”

  Elorie’s jaw slackens. “No way! Since when? Who is he?”

  “His name is Sebastian,” I say before adding under my breath, “Darcy.”

  She leans in, eyes wide in disbelief. “Come again—Sebastian who?”

  “Darcy.”

  “Darcy as in d’Arcy du Grand-Thouars de Saint-Maurice, the billionaire count at the helm of Parfums d’Arcy?”

  I nod.

  “The a-hole who ruined your father?”

  “Yes,” I mumble.

  She turns away and keeps her gaze on her nails for a long moment.

  I know what she’s itching to say and I dread it.

  “Hypocrite,” she finally spits out without looking at me.

  What can I say in my defense?

  Nothing at all.

  Elorie pulls a face and says in a squeaky nasal voice, “I’m Saint Diane. I disapprove of your materialistic dream, Elorie. I would never date a billionaire. Money means nothing to me.”