by Mallory Fox
I slit my eyes, looking between them both. “Seriously, what has he done now?”
The truth is, Seth and I are in one of those rare moments when we both seem to be getting along. I haven’t seen him since he dropped me off at the Kensington apartment but from the moment I opened my eyes the morning after Wonderland, Seth was being civil and dare I say it nice. He was a moody bastard when I first turned up but the ice between us thawed.
Yes, I wasn’t expecting to stay the night, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. It does feel like we’re having some sort of truce. Maybe even friends? Is that what you are? That’s not what you were thinking when he dragged you off to that kinky room. Don’t lie, Pearl, you loved it. And I’m sorry to say, that’s not what friends do.
The girls wait until Henry leaves before sitting me down on the U-shaped sofa that faces the huge window overlooking the lake, Flick on my left and Gabby on my right. The view is breathtaking, but I can’t concentrate. I’m all quivery and twitchy again.
“You’re both freaking me out right now,” I snap. “What has the bastard done this time?’
Gabby shakes her head. “We wanted you to hear it from us.”
“Why?” I sigh. “Are you both fucking him now?”
Flick chews her lip, frowning. “No. Of course not, we know how you feel about him, which is why you need to know.”
“Then hurry up and tell me.” How I feel? Is it that obvious?
Flick takes her phone from the table, swipes at it and then hands it me. I take it from her and look at the screen. On it is a gossip website and in the middle of the screen is a picture of Seth looking broody with a beautiful blonde on his arm. They look to be January sales shopping, so this was taken recently.
Flick confirms what the knot in my stomach is telling me. “I’m sorry, Pearlie. Seth was spotted with Lana Langfield yesterday. We think they’re back together.”
I let that sink in, noting the numbness in my core, and breathe in deeply. “Is that it?”
Flick’s brows knit together. “Did you hear what I said? Seth’s back with Lana.”
“Of course I heard you. And I’m happy for him.”
Liar.
I get to my feet and make my way over to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. I don’t even want a cup. It’s just something for my hands to do. Seth and Lana. They do look good together. But what about us?
What about Seth and Pearl?
I lift my eyes up to meet my friends. “Do you want a cup of tea?” I say, nonchalantly. They shake their heads, both staring at me with their mouths open. “We thought—”
“You thought wrong,” I say, dismissively. I was the one who rejected him. I say it like a mantra over and over in my head.
“Pearl, it’s okay to be upset.”
“I’m not upset,” I say, my voice sounding a little high pitched for so early in the morning.
Flick and Gabby give each other knowing looks.
“Good…” Flick says, speaking deliberately. “Because you won’t mind coming to the Annual Harbor Party at spring mid-term break.”
“Why should I mind?”
“Because Seth has been chosen to host this year and…” Flick trails off, looking at Gabby.
“We think he’s bringing Lana,” sighs Gabby.
I don’t mind, but it’s only when I close my bedroom door, and see the evidence of Seth around the room, that I allow myself to feel anything. He’s still a neat freak, that much is certain, but there are remnants of someone living here that isn’t me.
Traces of bergamot and citrus linger where I stand, and waft at me as my fingers trail over the jacket hanging off the back of the door. I open the wardrobe to find his shirts hanging where my ball gowns and cocktail dresses used to be. I had one of the maids put my evening wear in storage before left, since I wouldn’t need them in the depths of the English countryside. Seeing his shirts there instead of my dresses makes my body yearn for him even more.
I run my hands over the shirts, breathing in faint the scent of him. But it’s not enough.
The weight in my chest is still there.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m heading into the en-suite bathroom. His cologne bottle is on one of the bathroom cut-out ledges. I pick up the bottle and take off the cap, and inhale deeply. The smell is intensely Seth in every way but it makes my eyes water.
This is not how Seth smells. It’s too cloying, too clinical.
I drift back into the bedroom, kick off my shoes, and pull back the covers on the bed before crawling under them fully clothed. The sheets still have his unique fragrance all over them, a mix of his aftershave and his own scent. Under the covers where no one can see, moisture prickles my eyes and misery sticks in the back of my throat.
Fuck. I miss him already.
Why did I even look for him on New Years?
I said it was because I need him to arrange a meeting with Marcel, and I do.
After I found out what Seth had been doing all this time, looking into our parents’ death. I had hoped it meant he was planning to expose his own grandfather. But the package Gabby sent me was not what I was expecting at all. Enlightening, but nothing solid. Seth has files upon files of evidence but nothing he could take to the police.
And his reaction when I asked for his help?—annoying, difficult, and frustrating. Seth might help me with Marcel, he said he would try and arrange a meeting, but I suspect he doesn’t want to.
And here I am, in Seth’s bed, alone, with a psycho after me and bills to pay, all while Seth is out playing happy couples with Lana bloody Langfield.
Chapter 8
Pearl
La Roche doesn’t disappoint.
The monotony and freedom of being back is just what I need as a distraction. A ton of work combined with hellish taunting from the fake faction.
Rumors of me being a high-class call girl, despite an official statement from my PR team and one from the chancellor to the entire student body, haven’t made the slightest bit of difference on campus. Mostly, it’s harmless. A few choice words, cold-shoulder treatment, and some vandalism to my car… nothing I can’t handle.
I make it halfway through term without my security guard kicking the shit out of anyone. Yes, I have a security guard. Two, actually, one to follow me around La Roche and one to prowl the grounds of my Hertfordshire home. Levi thought it was necessary that I get protection, given what happened last term.
Although, having a bodyguard doesn’t stop me from checking the entire house every night before I go to bed, or keeping the gun Levi hand-delivered to me last term, stuffed between the mattress and the bed frame. I’ve also got a mini can of pepper spray in my purse at all times, just in case.
A couple of weeks into term, my paranoia has settled and I finally get a chance to chat with Gabby.
This is the first time she’s shown up to the one lecture in corporate finance we share during the week, and she seems distracted by something or someone. She’s biting her lip, brow creasing, as she taps out a reply on her phone every few minutes.
We’re in the Greenhouse. Smaller than the main seminar rooms with tall windows all around, the students have dubbed it so because gets hot in summer and cold in winter. As it’s still January, we’ve chosen to sit at the back, close to the windows where the sun shines in. It does mean you can’t see the white board very well, but the room is too icy to sit in for a full hour and listen to someone drone on and on about the finer points of leisure resort business models. Plus, the view is spectacular, overlooking the helicopter pad and the snowy mountains.
As Gabby glances up she puts her phone down, and I take a breath before letting rip the question I’ve been wanting to ask since I got back.
“Who did that to you?” I indicate to fading bruises around her lower arms. They looked like finger marks two weeks ago. They’re barely visible now so Gabby no longer tries to hide them, but I know they’re there. “Those bruises,” I say. “Is that why you ditched me on New Yea
rs?”
She stiffens, eyes flicking to me as she pulls her cardigan sleeves down. “I did apologize for that.”
I let out a long breath. “Gabby, I’m not asking for another apology. I want you to tell me who did that to you. Was it your messed-up family or your asshole of a fiancé?”
After Flick told me about Gabby’s unexpected engagement to some mafia king, I did a little digging. Alessandro De Martino is not your typical Prince Charming. No, he’s your typical cold blooded, nightmare who slaughters women and children for fun. Alessé has a reputation that makes Levi look like a bloody saint.
And it’s my fault she ended up with him.
Gabby opens her mouth to speak but then closes it, eyes locking on the lecture room door as it opens.
Claudia, and the small gaggle of lower-class hotel chain bitches who usually follow her around, lapping at her heels, choose that moment to walk in. They start up the steps. As soon as mine and Claudia’s eyes meet, she pauses mid-ascent and rolls her eyes.
“Honestly, this place just keeps letting the trash back in.”
“Hello to you too, Claudia,” I snipe.
There’s a smug look about her today. Claudia was voted to be student body president end of last term. I’m a little shocked, but I guess throwing herself at half the males on campus probably has everything to do with it.
“That’s my row that you’re sitting in, but whatever,” Claudia says, flicking her hair over her shoulder as she appraises the seating situation.
Gabby tilts her head, leaning back in her seat to gesture around us. “The entire row we’re sitting in is empty, Claudia. Everyone can have a seat.”
“Thanks, but I wouldn’t want to sit so close to a working girl. I might catch something,” she says, wrinkling her nose, sticking it in the air. Gabby glares at the back of her head as Claudia takes the row a few seats down from us.
“How did she get voted in as president again?” I ask, using the opportunity to take my laptop out and switch it on.
“No idea. The bitch has been unbearable since you left,” Gabby says, voice low, just as the professor for this session walks in.
I roll my eyes. “She was always unbearable,” I whisper back.
As Gabby starts up her own laptop, my gaze sweeps to her wrists again and at the markings there. A twinge of annoyance mixed with regret presses down on my chest. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Gabby says nothing, eyes focused tightly on the whiteboard and the diagrams being drawn on it as the lecturer gets stuck in.
I should be paying attention too, taking this all down, but this semester’s class notes have already been emailed to me, since I wasn’t supposed to be back at all. In a way, being suspended is a blessing. I’m ahead for once instead of frantically trying to catch up.
“And you didn’t tell me what happened to you that night. I called you as soon as I could, but you didn’t answer,” she snipes, finally. The tone of Gabby’s voice is a little reproachful. I did turn my phone off but only because phones aren’t allowed in the club.
Since she won’t answer me about the marks, I try a different tactic. “If you’d turned up when you said you would, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Are you even going to tell me where you were?”
Angling her head, Gabby eyes me from under her lashes. “Are we really going to talk about this now?”
I shrug my shoulders. “It’s as good a time as any.” Flick isn’t here for once and I have Gabby to myself. I haven’t spoken to Flick about any of this so I can’t talk about it in front of her. As well, this kind of conversation stresses Felicity out.
Gabby sucks in a long draw of air and presses the top of her pen to her lips, looking deep in thought. “I was with Lorenzo.”
I scrutinize my friend. “Who?”
“Alessé. He prefers me to call him by his middle name.”
I’d like to know why her fiancé would request that of her but I don’t want to poke about in Gabby’s private life too much. She gets upset if I so much as ask her what she’s planning to wear. As someone who has her own demons that she very much wants to keep hidden, I prefer the same treatment.
Strange to think, five years later and the paranoia that Daddy was notorious for is still so ingrained in me.
“Did you do the thing I asked you do?” I say, keeping my voice hushed. When Gabby wouldn’t break into Seth’s yacht, I had her make a copy of the keys.
She pauses for a few seconds. “Yes, I made a copy,” she says under her breath.
“Good. We’re going to need them. I’m thinking of trying this half term.”
Gabby looks at me mortified. “You want to sneak into Seth’s yacht at the Annual Harbor Party? Everyone will be there,” she hisses.
“That’s why. Unless you have a better plan?”
She slowly shakes her head. Eventually, she let’s out a sigh and shifts her attention back to the board. I’ve nothing more to say to Gabby and I can’t focus on the session, so I take to staring out of the window at a moving speck in the distance.
A helicopter is arriving.
It grows bigger, the whirring sound of the blades drowning out everything else. The whole room, including the professor, turns their attention to the window and to the helicopter landing just outside it. Whose stupid idea was it to put a seminar room right next to the helipad?
Fully disturbed now, we’ve all stopped to watch the aircraft land. The rotor blades shut off and the door slides open. Like royalty visiting his kingdom, out steps none other than Seth Montford with Charlie Stamford in tow.
Seth and Charlie are here?
They both look smart. Seth, as devilishly handsome as ever in a dark grey, single-breasted suit jacket over a crisp-white shirt and dark grey trousers, takes a moment speak to the pilot. Charlie, equally dressed to impress in a perfectly tailored taupe suit, white shirt and dark copper tie, stops beside him.
They must have been at our second campus in Lucerne where the college has its very own business hotel for training students the hands on aspect of hospitality management. It’s where most student presentation days take place.
I’m suddenly conscious of my own attire. I haven’t been able to afford a stylist since the lawyer fees started coming in once a week, so chucking on a black fitted blazer over a simple white blouse tucked into a long, woolen wrap skirt with flat boots seemed a good idea this morning.
Even my hair is uncomplicated, twisted into loose bun on the top of my head. Typically, Gabby is wearing a very cute, short tartan skirt with a pair of fuck-me boots.
It’s fine. Seth can’t see me from where he is. The reflected glass between us also gives me an excuse to stare at him openly.
“Merda,” Gabby says, under her breath.
“Flick is going to hit the roof,” I sigh, because she is. Once she knows Charlie is here in Montreux, she’s going to freak the hell out.
I had a text from Seth earlier, so I knew he was coming back. He did not mention Charlie in that message at all. All it said was…
Coming back today.
Don’t worry, you can have the lake house.
At first, I was relieved he was coming back but now I’m not sure. I’m just starting to get used to him not being around again. And after what happened last term, the last thing I want is to watch Seth with someone else. I went through all that with Flick. I tried; I really did. It sounds petty, but if I can’t have him, I don’t want see anybody else with him. If Seth and Lana are even a thing?
“It might not be true,” Gabby says, placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
“What?” Did I speak out loud without realizing or did Gabby interpret my thoughts? Either way, it’s worrying. I turn to look back at Gabby who just gives me a soft smile.
“About Seth dating Lana. It’s obvious you still care for him.”
My brows snap together. “Oh, no, I wasn’t… it’s just complicated.”
“How sickening to see incest happening right before your e
yes.” Claudia’s voice, grates at me from the middle of the room.
At her words though, my face flushes. “How many times,” I say, my voice strained. “We’re not related.”
Claudia scoffs, looking over her shoulder at me. “Related or not, fucking family members is absolutely disgusting. Davis was right about you. Have you always been like this or did your mommy and daddy do things to you to make you this way?”
I give her an evil look, flattening my lips, disregarding the way my chest tightens at her casual insult of my parents. “Jealous that I’ve had what you can only dream of?”
“I don’t dream of incest, Darling. I’m not sick in the head or desperate like you,” she snickers, as though what she’s saying is hilarious. Her minions laugh along with her.
“Oh, just being a Livingstone makes you desperate,” I snip back.
“Girls, please! We’re in the middle of class,” Professor Bachmann suddenly exclaims, looking directly at me.
“Claudia started it—”
“I know you’ve been excused for the incident last term, Ms Darlington, but I won’t have you causing disturbance in my sessions. If you want to continue, you know where the door is.” Well done, Pearl, how to sound like a brat. What are you, twelve years old?
I should back down, but the finance professor’s tone pisses me off so much that I’ve had enough. I calmly shut my laptop and place it and my books in my college bag, and get to my feet. I’m not going to sit here and be insulted. Who needs corporate finance when you have a CFO at your beck and call anyway?
Claudia arches a brow, a smug smile on her stupid face as I stride out of the seminar room.
“I’ll show you bloody incest,” I say, flipping her the bird.
Just as I knew she would, Gabby follows after me into the connecting entryway of the greenhouse building.
As soon as the seminar door closes, I round on my friend.
“I need your skirt,” I say, dumping my bag of books on one of the benches. “And your boots.” Her eyes widen as I shrug off my blazer and start taking off my woolen wrap.