Icy Pretty Love

by L. A. Rose

  Icy Pretty Love

  A novel by L.A. Rose

  Copyright © 2014 by L.A. Rose

  All rights reserved. This work or any portion thereof may not be utilized or reproduced in any way, with the exception of review purposes, without the written consent of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to real persons, living or dead, is unintentional and entirely coincidental.

  ~1~

  Every single building in Paris looks the same.

  No, really. I did some research. Apparently there are restrictions on what you can and can’t do with the architecture, so every apartment complex and office building preserves that old-timey, romantic European feel. It’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong. It just happens to be inconvenient when you’re as lost as a sock that slipped between the dryer and the wall.

  “Oh look,” I say aloud. “Another gray building with a fancy trim. What’s that? Could that be a beautiful old stone church? Is that a new beautiful old stone church or just the same one I’ve passed three times already? It’s the golden question, folks, and the winner gets…why not…a winner gets a portion of the hundred thousand dollars I’ve been promised. I’m feeling generous today.”

  I get a few strange looks, but no help. Parisians are much like the buildings—everyone seems to adhere to the same strict dress code. Black is the name of the game. Funeral-chic. Scarves everywhere, and boots with a three-inch heel at minimum. French people do not mess around. I also have no idea if they understand me or not.

  I consult the crumpled address. Rue 45 Lalourret. I thought I was on the right track until I realized that rue is just the French word for street, and that every marker I’ve passed has rue on it. It’s hard being a genius.

  Beneath the address is an equally crumpled print-out of the latest email from Mr. Moneybags Ashworth, Sr.

  You should have no trouble finding the apartment building. I trust you will find your accommodations to be most hospitable. If you need assistance, text this number: 334-827-3884.

  I thank you again for your help, Ms. Grove. I don’t think I need to remind you that utmost secrecy is of essence. The month you are to spend as Georgette Montgomery must be above suspicion.

  But will the man I’m meeting be as hospitable as my accommodations?

  I haven’t spoken to Cohen Ashworth yet. It’s his father who made all the arrangements. His father who called me mysteriously in the middle of the night with the proposition that would change my life. His father who provided the plane ticket, the instructions dashed liberally with the phrase utmost secrecy, apparently fulfilling some childhood desire to star in a spy movie. Translation: I am super rich and I will slice you in half with a diamond-coated saw if you breathe a word of this to anyone.

  But for all his overdramatic James Bond emails, there’s no hinting at the personality of the man I’ll be pretending to be engaged to for the next month. And for all my less-James-Bond-more-high-school-girl-on-a-blind-date Googling, all I could find was an arrest record detailing the sexual relations he had with a koala he stole from the zoo.

  Okay, that’s a lie, but when you’re contractually obligated to spend a month with a man you’ve never met, you tend to imagine the worst.

  And when you’ve spent three years in my field of work, the worst tends to be sexual deviancy. With or without koalas.

  That scintillating imagery isn’t helping me find the apartment building any faster. I’ve got to text the number. But first I have to say goodbye to someone.

  I stop in front of a trash can. It’s not a fancy trash can, just a regular bin in front of a café, filled with tourist refuse and wine bottles—damn French—but it’s about to become the metaphorical receptacle for something much more important. I unhook a necklace from my throat. It’s the kind of stupid thing girls give each other in grade school, a blinged-out name necklace. Rae is decorated in dimmed fake crystals, most of them missing. When I got it for my fifth birthday, I was so excited—Rae’s not the easiest name to find in the world of personalized jewelry. Though people named after Game of Thrones characters probably have it worse.

  It’s a reminder that I was happy. That I was a normal girl. Once.

  But that girl is gone. And the girl I’ve been for the past three years? I’m getting rid of her, too. For the next month I’ll be beautiful rich fiancé Georgette Montgomery, and after that—

  I’ll be whoever I want to be.

  “Au revoir, Rae Grove!” I shout and hurl the necklace into the trash can so hard it cracks a wine bottle, bounces up, hits me in the face, and rolls off the curb into a sewer grate. So much for poignancy.

  “Mon dieu,” a woman in black mutters as she passes me. I don’t know what that means, but I’m guessing it’s something in the realm of Good luck with your new and improved existence, girl-who-once-was-Rae-Grove!

  “Merci,” I say, and then I look down at the number again. Thanks to my nervous crumpling-and-uncrumpling on the plane, it’s a bit hard to read. The last digit’s either a seven or a four. I go with four. I always liked the number four.

  RG: Hi! Sorry to bother you. I was hoping you could give me some directions. I seem to have lost my way.

  ‘I seem to have lost my way.’ I’m pretty sure I heard someone say that on Downton Abbey once, which I marathoned for research. I’ve already got this rich girl act down pat.

  334-827-3884: I fail to see why it’s my responsibility to give a stranger directions.

  RG: Oh, sorry. I should have mentioned. This is “Georgette Montgomery.”

  334-827-3884: No idea who that is, and no idea what kind of existential crisis you’re suffering to make you put your own name in quotes. Either way, not my problem.

  Ouch. Leave it to me to accidentally text the grumpiest English-speaking stranger in Paris. That last digit must have been a seven after all. But when I text a few different possibilities of what that blurred number could be, nobody answers. Even when I wait an hour. Then two.

  “Excuse me—uh, pardon moi?” I try, tugging on the sleeve of an elderly gentleman in black. “Do you know how to get to—uh, donde estas—sorry, that’s Spanish—damn it—”

  He shakes me off and crosses the street with a muttered, “Mon dieu.”

  Maybe that doesn’t mean what I think it means.

  It’s getting late. The sun is dipping behind all the glorious buildings, edging the church I’m standing next to with gold. I was supposed to meet Cohen Ashworth at two p.m. I have no choice.

  RG: Hey, sorry to interrupt your anger management class, but I’m super lost and I speak exactly zero French, so whoever you are, would you mind Google-mapping Moreau Church to Rue 45 Lalourret?

  334-827-3884: Rue 45 Lalourret?

  RG: That’s the one!

  334-827-3884: Hm.

  RG: Is that an ‘I’m going to help you’ hm or a ‘this conversation is over’ hm?

  334-827-3884: Stop over-analyzing my hm. You can’t infer tone from a text message.

  RG: You’re pretty literal, aren’t you?

  No response. A few minutes later, though, I get a screenshot of a map. Yes! I’m only two streets away!

  RG: That’s perfect, thank you so much! Your so helpful. I’ll stop bothering you now.

  I press send without bothering to correct my typo, run across the street, and learn by way of screeching brakes and (I’m assuming) French cursewords that people do not jaywalk here. But I shake off the near-death experience. Something far more nerve-wracking is looming. In minutes, I’ll be meeting the mysterious Cohen Ashworth. If he turns out to be an asshole…

  Well, I’ve dealt with assholes, and for considerably fewer dollar signs.

  I follow the turns on the screenshot, and gasp when I find the building marked Rue 4
5 Lalourret. It’s all marble, with windows reaching high. Intricate carvings and statues are incorporated into the architecture. The doors are glass and full of golden lobby light. Even by Parisian standards, this is one fancy building. I take a deep breath.

  I am Georgette Montgomery.

  I am cultured, delicate, and wholesome.

  I have never even heard of the walking disaster known as Rae Grove.

  Georgette Montgomery pushes her way through the glass doors and into the lobby, which looks like an art museum puked all over it. Someone threw a lot of money at a lucky interior designer. A fountain glistens in the middle of the floor, a very European naked baby spouting water toward the ceiling. The couches are sleek leather, the coffee tables mahogany. I’m no art historian, but I’m fairly certain the painting mounted on the eggshell wall is a Monet.

  The bald, fifty-something doorman says something to me in French. All of his missing hair seems to have migrated to his caterpillar eyebrows, one of which is raised. Even with the dyed blonde hair, the sophisticated bob, the innocent pastel dress I’m wearing, he can smell the LA streets on me.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, making my voice light and elegant. “I don’t speak French. Could you buzz me up to the top apartment?”

  Before he can respond, the shiny elevator doors on the other side of the lobby spring open. I barely notice, but the doorman does. He bows low in its direction, unhinging at the waist. Apparently a member of the royal family resides here. I turn, and—

  It’s unladylike to let your mouth hang open, but I can’t help it, because the man who just stepped out of the elevator isn’t a member of any royal family on earth. He’s a king from another plane of reality altogether. It’s like a strobe light has started, because I process him in flashes.

  Dark, almost-black hair, tumbling in unruly waves.

  Height. Good God, that man could reach up and swat an airplane from the sky.

  But he wouldn’t need to, because the glare in those narrow, ice-blue eyes could shoot down a jet.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Baldy the doorman says hastily in accented English, straightening. “This young woman just requested to be buzzed up to your penthouse suite, and your approval, of course, is of paramount—”

  “Not approved. Never seen her before,” the man says brusquely, pushing past with barely a look in my direction. His voice is dark honey and oak. I’m lost in it when one very important fact surfaces. His penthouse.

  “You’re Cohen Ashworth!” I choke on my own saliva. Very classy, yes, very nice.

  He sighs. The simple exhale is a better expression of cold disdain than the worst insult. “That is my name, yes.”

  Get it together, Rae—Georgette. Just tell him who you are. I daintify my voice. “I’m so sorry. I should have said so earlier, of course. I’m Georgette Montgomery.”

  “Do you expect a medal for it?” he asks coolly. To the doorman: “Renard, I’m going out. Direct all inquiries to my voicemail.”

  Judging by recent encounters, apparently everyone in Paris is an asshole, even if Cohen Ashworth is as American-born as I am. Did he forget why I’m here?

  “I mean, I’ve come here to be Georgette Montgomery,” I say meaningfully. I’d hate to give the game away in front of Baldy the Fancypants Doorman. “For you.”

  He looks dead at me. I avert my eyes and bat my lashes. To maintain the appearance of a lady, yes, that’s it. Not at all because his gaze sears me.

  “Renard, this woman is insane. Have her escorted off the premises,” he says.

  What the hell?

  Baldy makes a swipe for me. I dodge him and grab Cohen’s arm. Screw daintiness. Screw secrecy, because this is ridiculous.

  “I mean I’m Rae Grove, the girl you hired to come here and pretend to be your fiancé for a month. For a hundred thousand dollars. Ringing a bell yet?”

  “That’s the craziest lie I’ve ever heard,” he scoffs.

  He can’t be serious. Right?

  I present him with the only proof I have—the crumpled email printout from Ashworth Sr. He scans it quickly, and as storm clouds gather on that perfect brow, as his mouth drops open slightly and his knuckles whiten on the paper, I realize one thing.

  I’ve left my home, my country, and flown halfway across the world with nothing but a suitcase and an alias to pretend to be the fiancé of a man who had no idea I was coming.

  ~2~

  I’ve never been anywhere so luxurious, so clearly meant for perfect tidiness, that had so much clutter scattered everywhere there could conceivably be clutter.

  It’s mostly in paper form. Papers stacked high on the creamy Italian furniture, papers scattered on the dark wood floors, underneath the hand-carved table, even in the old, haunted-looking fireplace. Papers shuffled in a stone bowl clearly meant for fruit, all over the rich ochre carpet, jammed underneath the door to the bedroom. Normally I’d be twitching to clean it all up. But I’m too busy being intimidated by this…presence in the center of the room.

  It doesn’t seem quite correct to call him human.

  “You sit there,” he snaps, pointing at the one chair that isn’t coated in a not-so-fine layer of paperwork. “Don’t touch anything.”

  I sit. My heart’s pounding. If only I’d been able to find out something about him before I came here. Anything. When your livelihood centers around spending nights with strange men, you learn that the best way to protect yourself is to get inside their heads. Figure out what they want from you and give it to them before they get frustrated enough to take it.

  But this is different.

  He didn’t hire me. His father must have orchestrated this whole thing without breathing a word to Cohen. I can’t give him what he wants, because he doesn’t want anything from me.

  I should leave. Walk out the door. But…

  A hundred thousand dollars.

  My only way out of this life.

  Not to mention that if I leave now, I have nowhere to go and not enough money for a plane ticket home.

  Cohen paces. His eyes are cold fury, his face murder carved in marble. He’d be devastatingly attractive if he didn’t look so dangerous.

  “Hey…” I start, unsure if I should keep the timid Georgette voice or revert to the tougher Rae. Cohen looks like he could eat Georgette alive.

  “Don’t talk. I can’t think if you talk.”

  Great. He’s nuts. I draw my knees up on the chair, calculating.

  There’s two ways that men can hit you. One is meant to humiliate, to punish, but not fatally. I can handle that. I have handled that, and for a lot less than a hundred thousand.

  The other kind is rage in the form of a fist. It’s everything that’s ever gone wrong in his life, and in that moment, he directs it at you. If you let him do it more than once, he’ll kill you. The trick is to learn the difference.

  If he hits me, I’ll endure it.

  If he hits me hard, I’ll bolt for the stairs. Run to the lobby and hope that Baldy has a heart underneath all that deference.

  Some people help you. Most look the other way.

  And then what? I’ll be homeless on the streets of a country where I can’t understand a single word.

  Good job, Rae. This is the single biggest fucking mess you’ve ever gotten yourself into. You should have known that a hundred thousand for a month’s work was too good to be true. You’re still that stupid fifth grade girl after all, believing that the world would come through for you.

  Finally, Cohen seems to come to a decision—though judging by his expression, it’s one that pains him. Without looking at me, he switches on a huge flat-screen plasma TV mounted on the wall. Then he does something on his sleek black smartphone.

  Words flash to life on the TV. Video call outgoing…

  And as I sit frozen, the call goes through—to Ashworth Sr., the man who showed up at my usual bar that night with a smile and a proposition. The man who plunged me headfirst into this vat of shit.

  The video quality is crisp and c
lean, nowhere near the grainy Skype calls I had a couple times with my high school pals before they moved on to brighter futures and brighter people. I can count every wrinkle on the old man’s face, note the absence of creases in his silk tie, admire the quality of his toupee.

  “Cohen,” he says smoothly. I remember that voice well, saying Excuse me. Ms. Grove, isn’t it? May I have a word? “What an unexpected pleasure it is to hear from you.”

  “It’s entirely expected and you know it.” Cohen stands ramrod-straight. His back is to me, but tension is written in every muscle. His voice is contained rage. Silver mercury. “You can’t believe that I wouldn’t immediately notice your stench all over this idiotic plan.”

  “I’m guessing you’ve met Ms. Grove. Or Ms. Montgomery, as she may have introduced herself.” Ashworth Sr. peers past Cohen, his turtle eyes landing on me. “Ah. Good to see you haven’t thrown her out on her backside just yet.”

  “I have neither the time nor patience for your games.” Cohen’s hand flexes. “Explain yourself. Now.”

  “Ms. Grove is here, as I’m sure she’s explained by now, to act as your fiancé for the next month.” Ashworth Sr. smooths his tie as if he’s explaining nothing more complicated than how to prepare instant coffee. Not that he’s ever drunk that in his life.

  I can’t understand how he’s so calm in the face of Cohen’s anger. Then, of course,

  I do understand. He’s thousands of miles away from it.

  I, however, am not.

  “And why do I need a fiancé for a month?” Cohen asks tightly.

  Ashworth Sr. continues. “For the same reason you’re in Paris. Don’t pretend to be stupid. I know you’re not. With your reputation as a drug-addled misanthrope, Mr. LeCrue is as likely to sell his company to you as he is to sell it to some cretin on the streets.”