by Megan Mulry
I feel like groaning but smile instead. “Isn’t the TGV just as fast?”
Zoe turns to look at me like I’m some sort of imbecile. “Rome de Villiers’s private jet? Did you hear me? I’ll get to see the two of them up close and personal.”
I smile because she’s kind of adorable and I get what she’s saying. It’s her job and she’s excited. “Oh, fine. Have fun chasing your big story.”
I pretend to sleep until after I hear Rome’s car peel out of the driveway and I’m sure they’re all gone.
“You just missed Aziza and Rome and Zoe,” Margot says over the rim of her mug. “Nice timing.”
“Not too hard to figure their comings and goings when he drives a car that’s louder than the Indy 500.” I pour myself a cup of coffee and reach for the paper. “I can’t believe you still get an actual newspaper.”
“Trevor’s old-fashioned—and an early riser. He always goes into town first thing and brings back croissants and a few papers.”
“I’m not complaining.” I flip through the pages and pause and smile at a small black-and-white photo of my mother in Cairo. She looks daring and happy with a Lawrence of Arabia–type white scarf wrapped around her head. I don’t love how her daring personality affected my childhood, but at fifty-three, she kind of has it all going on.
Margot looks over my shoulder. “Is that your mom?”
“Yeah. Doesn’t she look great?”
Margot stares at me, then back at the paper. “Yeah. Crazy, but great.” Margot pats my shoulder and gets up from the table. “I’m going back to bed.” She winks at me and points upstairs. “First day of my honeymoon and all that. Ariel is off with her grandparents for the week.”
“Off you go, then. Can I borrow your car and do a little shopping? Maybe make some lunch?”
“Sure. That would be perfect. The shops are open for a couple of hours this morning, but then they close for the rest of the day. The keys are in the dish by the front door. Take my Peugeot. Lulu and Trev usually come back down around ten.”
“Okay.” I smile and go back to the paper. It is like a commune, for goodness’ sake, all these happy people living under one roof.
I drive into town, park in the central square, and walk up the narrow street to the small market for cheeses and fruit. I flirt with the handsome young man behind the counter, asking him how long he’s lived here (born here, of course) and his recommendations for the best bread and meats. I don’t know what it is about a man in an apron, but I love it.
Next I go to the boucherie and buy a beautiful rack of lamb that I watch the butcher trim and wrap while his wife makes fresh sausages. Everything about this place makes me miss California . . . not one bit. Well, I miss the waves, actually, but everything about how these people live their lives right now and not on some treadmill to save up for the weekend or vacation or some other far-off goal kind of makes me shiver with happiness.
Then I go back down the narrow, steep street to the boulangerie to get a few batons of bread and a glistening apricot tart for dessert. I drive back to Margot’s place, and when I walk into the kitchen, Lulu and Trevor are reading the paper and drinking coffee.
“Hey, did you find everything?” Lulu asks, looking up from the paper.
“Yes. Oh my gosh, it’s so beautiful here,” I say with a happy sigh as I begin to unpack all the things I bought for lunch. “You guys have landed in paradise.”
“It’s pretty great, right?” Trevor is smiling and looking at the paper at the same time. “Do you think you’ll stay for a while?”
I take out the food and set all the packages out on the counter, then start looking around for a few pans and platters. “I would love to, but I think things are about to explode at work. My uncle’s pretty much freaking out, so”—I pull my head out from under the counter and turn to face them—“probably not more than a couple of days, but once things settle down, I’m definitely coming back.”
“Good!” Lulu exclaims. “I’m so sorry again for all my gushing about Rome’s place yesterday.”
I begin making a rub for the lamb while I talk. “It’s okay. I don’t know if Margot told you, but I’ve actually had some business dealings with Rome, and it was kind of awkward. But it’s not a big deal. I just wasn’t expecting to see him, you know, socially. But I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I’m sorry again.”
“Oh, gosh. It was totally my fault. And no, Margot hasn’t said anything. I can’t believe you’re, like, this big, important businessperson all of a sudden.”
I sort of laugh through my words. “Me neither. I’m trying to rely on my strengths—math and statistics and all that—but my uncle is pretty confident that I can handle the rest of it: negotiating with clients, all the other public stuff. It’s just going to be a really steep learning curve.”
“You should talk to Trevor,” Lulu says. I have my doubts about how this British layabout can assist with my internecine business dealings, so I simply smile and nod.
“Yes, let me know if you want any help,” Trevor offers, still reading the paper.
I’m rubbing the herbs into the lamb, when I decide to pry. “So, what do you do, exactly, Trevor?”
The paper goes down so I can see his face. “This and that. Like you, I’m interested in numbers.”
Lulu punches him in the shoulder. “He’s being stupid. He’s a total financial genius. He trades everything from metals I’ve never even heard of to boatloads of copper and whatnot. Why are you so secretive about it?”
I stare at this man in his ripped Glastonbury T-shirt and Vilebrequin swimming trunks and start to laugh. “You’re a commodities trader working out of a farm in the Luberon?”
He smiles and shrugs. “I guess you could say that.”
“Excellent.” I shake my head. Landon and that picket fence are starting to feel so faraway, so irrelevant. “I might have some questions for you after all. There’s a factory deal in Russia that’s been giving me some trouble—”
“Segezha?” he asks, with a partial smile.
“Yeah,” I half laugh. “Segezha. You’ve heard of it?” I shake my head again and smile.
“Yes, I’ve heard of it. It’s like a toy that all the kids on the playground suddenly want.”
“Something like that.”
I set some carrots and potatoes to roast in the oven and finish by making a big salad. “Shall we eat outside?”
“Definitely,” Lulu agrees. “I’ll set the table.”
About an hour later, Étienne and Margot are downstairs in all their honeymoon swooniness and the lamb is almost done and we’ve opened a crisp bottle of rosé and we’re sitting outside at the huge stone table, about to have lunch. I get up to check the lamb, which has been slow-roasting on the grill for about an hour and looks just about perfect.
And then I hear the roar of that godforsaken race car in the driveway.
“Oh! Is that Rome? What is he doing back?” Lulu perks up, then catches my eye and pretends to be disinterested.
Seriously. Is the man just going to torment me endlessly?
Étienne gets up and goes to the front door, and, sure enough, he returns a few minutes later with Rome, who is smiling and patting Étienne’s back.
“What the hell?” I mutter as I lift the hood of the grill and put the meat on the wooden platter to set for a few minutes. He comes right over to me, the idiot, and kisses me on both cheeks.
“Miki. How are you this afternoon? I missed you this morning when I came by to pick up Zoe.”
“I was asleep.”
He smiles. “Sorry I missed that,” he murmurs. And then turns to face Margot and Étienne. “I hope I’m not imposing.”
“Of course not,” Margot says cheerfully, then looks at me. “I mean . . . we have enough food, right, Miki?”
There’s enough food for an army. I was extremely ent
husiastic at the market with the cute shopkeeper. Everything’s already out on the table—the roasted vegetables, the huge salad, several cheeses and breads. I nod.
Rome rubs his hands together. “Great. It smells wonderful. I didn’t know you could cook, Miki.” He’s standing too close to me again, near the stone grill, and I want to spear him with the long fork.
“I just follow recipes.”
He lifts his chin like he doesn’t really believe me, but maybe he’s done messing with me for a while.
“I thought you went back to Paris.” It comes out sounding like he’s a bad penny that keeps turning up, but that only makes him smile more.
“I just wanted to get rid of Zoe. And Azi had to get back for a work thing. So I figured it was only an hour or so to come on back and hang out with you all.” He turns from me to face Étienne. “I also brought some wine. Let me go get it out of the car.”
I take a deep breath when he’s gone back into the house and he’s out of earshot. I’m still holding the grilling fork and I’m using it like a conductor’s baton—or an épée, I think viciously. I gesture with it while I talk. “What the hell is he doing here?”
“I think he likes you,” says Lulu innocently.
“You think?” Margot razzes.
“But he’s engaged to Azi.” Lulu looks to Trevor as if he would know, because obviously the facts no longer make sense to her. She’s always trying to believe the best about people. “So that can’t be right . . .” Her voice trails off as she tries to figure out some way in which everyone can be a good person in this scenario.
I wave the fork. “Exactly! It is not right, Lulu. He just does whatever the hell he wants without—” I stop talking when I see him through the kitchen window, unloading the bottles of wine. He comes out a few minutes later with two unmarked bottles of red wine. I assume they’re from the co-op at the bottom of the hill, but I’m quickly reeducated.
Étienne sits up straighter when he sees the bottles. “Should I put on a tie?”
“Very funny. It’s just wine. A little wedding present.” Rome removes the corks from the two bottles as he talks, and then he pours some of the wine into the empty wineglasses on the table. I’m still standing by the grill, not wanting to be part of whatever it is that’s going on with this French wine foolishness.
Looking as if he’d dive into his glass if he could, Étienne takes a tentative sip and lets it rest in his mouth, then does a quick swish and swallows. When he opens his eyes, he turns to Margot and kisses her passionately, like he’s already drunk after one sip. “I love you,” he whispers.
“I need to have some of that,” Margot says with a laugh, then takes a sip from her own glass. “Oh, Lord,” she whispers.
“Good, right?” Rome says, still swishing and sniffing his around in his big glass.
Lulu and Trevor are the next willing victims, sipping the wine and swooning like fools. I think Lulu actually shudders.
“Miki?” Rome asks, holding his glass toward me.
“No, thank you. I’m fine with the rosé.”
“Oh, Miki, you have to.” Lulu is being Tigger again. My look silences her. “Or not. More for us—right, Trev?”
“Right, darling.” He kisses her cheek, then looks over his shoulder to make sure I’m okay. There’s something British and gentlemanly about Trevor that makes me feel safer than I would with all these seductive Frenchmen everywhere. “How’s the lamb doing?” Trevor asks.
“Done.” I pick up the platter and set it in the middle of the big table. “Bon appétit.” At least I hope they can all enjoy it. I’ve totally lost my appetite.
“Looks gorgeous. Thanks for letting me crash.” Rome slips one leg and then the other over the stone bench alongside the table and sits down. Of course, the only place left is between him and Étienne, and it would be immature and ridiculous for me to scurry off to my room and hide. Even though that’s exactly what I want to do.
I sigh and sit down next to him. He pours me a glass of the magical red wine and encourages me to have a sip with a nudge of his shoulder against mine. “Go on. It’s just wine. Take a sip.”
“Oh, fine.” I reach for it with a snippy attitude, and he puts his hand on my arm to stop me.
Margot quickly starts serving the food and making small talk with Étienne and Lulu about how delicious everything looks, to distract them.
“You can be mad at me,” he says softly, “but don’t be mad when you take your first sip of this.”
I set the glass down. “Are you going to try to tell me how to drink a glass of wine?”
Lulu laughs, then tries not to keep laughing. Rome smiles at her, as if I am the one who’s such a spoilsport. I breathe in and try not to feel like I have a radioactive love machine sitting two inches to my left. “Fine.” I smile thinly and reach for the glass. “Here goes.” I take a sniff, and as much as I want to hate it, it’s one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever smelled in my life. As with Étienne, I kind of want to burrow down into the glass and never come out. Just from smelling it.
Rome is still swirling his around and watching me be seduced by his damn wine.
I take a sip. At that moment, my bitterness flies away, because it is simply one of the most pleasurable experiences of my life—the taste of the natural embodiment of the earth and the sun. It makes me feel as if I am part of the universe or something extraordinary that people who write about wine probably have a better way of describing. To me, it just tastes like love. On my lips. Down my throat. Warm in my belly.
I open my eyes and realize the other five are staring at me. Margot looks a little guilty, despite herself, like she tried to warn me.
“Hmmm,” Rome hums, kind of a question and a victory all at once. “So you like it?”
“Yes. Who wouldn’t like it? It’s delicious.” I put it back down and pretend that I don’t want to cradle it against me for the rest of the meal. It’s probably obscenely expensive, and I don’t want to encourage him.
Of course, Rome never needs encouragement.
“So?” Étienne prompts. “What is it?”
“It’s the 1982 Pauillac,” Rome explains.
“I knew it!” Étienne cries, smacking his fist on the stone surface and dipping his nose into the glass for another soul-satisfying sniff. “Damn it, Rome. You shouldn’t have.”
“It’s peaking. We need to drink it. And you get married only once—or, in your case, twice, but I suspect this is a long-term hold. Am I right?”
Étienne smiles at his cousin, then pulls Margot close. “Definitely. But still, this is too much.”
I begin filling my plate with salad and vegetables and slicing off a few pieces of the lamb, and then Rome is doing the same. After a few minutes, we’ve all piled our plates with food, and before anyone takes a bite, Rome raises his glass.
“To Margot. The perfect woman for Étienne.”
“To Margot!” everyone chimes in, and Margot looks sweet and sort of embarrassed, then jokes, “Does this mean I can’t drink if the toast is in my honor?”
Rome laughs. “This, you can always drink.”
She takes a sip, and then we all dig into the food. I’m not a gourmet or anything, but I do love to cook when I feel like it. Everything just tastes fresh and delicious, and everyone is loving it. The wine doesn’t hurt. Apparently, this is a family game the Rothschild cousins play, bringing unmarked bottles of Lafite or Mouton Rothschild and then trying to guess the vintages or vineyards.
It’s good to be the king.
After he pours me a second glass and he’s not pestering me too much, I turn to steal a glance at Rome while he’s talking to Trevor about a deal Clairebeau is working on in Milan. I know he senses I’m paying attention, but he doesn’t slow down the conversation. I take another sip of the wine and slip deeper into the wonderful lull of friends and food and this spec
tacular place in the world.
He turns to me slowly, his lips on the edge of his glass, and takes a sip. Margot and Étienne are all lovey-dovey—and why shouldn’t they be, after one day of wedded bliss? Lulu and Trevor are talking about a piece of furniture she’s working on. And Rome is staring at me while that enchanted wine slides past those lips.
Fine. I look. And start not to care about fiancées again. My heart tightens in my chest. I put the wineglass down and look away from him, out across the valley, beyond the swimming pool and the ancient hedges and rough ground.
“Miki?” His voice is mellow.
“Yes?” I don’t want to face him.
“We need to talk.”
“Fine.” I look at my hands, then up into his eyes. “You want to go for a walk?” I suggest.
“Sure.” He smiles at the idea. “Then we’ll have coffee and that apricot tart.”
“Okay.” I stand up and pull my long legs out from under the stone table. I can feel Rome staring at my bare thighs, almost as if he has his actual hands on me. “Excuse us for a few minutes, will you?” I ask Margot.
She looks up at me. “You okay?”
I love her for that. She’s not going to let me get hornswoggled by a bottle of wine and a few suggestive glances.
“Yeah, I’m good. We’ve got some business to discuss.”
Rome rolls his eyes. He puts his hand at the small of my back and guides me toward a path at the far end of the pool. After Rome and I have walked about ten minutes, through the oak grove and then farther, into terraced rows of olive trees, he puts his palm on my bare neck and I stop walking.
“Miki?”
I turn to face him. “Are you engaged to Aziza or not?” I blurt. “No hedging. No story. Just the truth.”
He looks up to the sky and shakes his head, then looks me right in the eye. “Yes, but it might not be for long.”
I know it’s immature, but my first impulse is to kick him in the shin. I don’t, but I really want to. I want to throw sand in his eyes and pull his hair and do every angry, juvenile thing I can think of—because he is so awful. “Take your hand off me.” His fingers have started massaging my neck where it meets my shoulder, and it reminds me of how he did that same thing the first morning in Saint Petersburg, and how good it felt.