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

by Sage Rae

  Charlotte

  “What you have to understand, Monsieur, is that most architects don’t give a goddamn about your opinions or about the cultural integrity of the building,” Charlotte—the whip-smart 26 year old, half-French, half-American spat, strumming her fingers through her curly near-black hair. For the dinner with the high-end client, she’d donned a shimmering white dress, a bit too low-cut for her normal taste. His eyes traced her cleavage, hunting for her concealed nipples. Not today, asshole, she thought.

  Being taken advantage of was something from her past. She wouldn’t allow it. Not now.

  “But that’s where we’re different. Yes, this design here, this is what you want…” Charlotte said, sliding her fingertips along the fine pencil lines of the shit design he’d offered her, the proposed plans for his new hotel. “But it doesn’t play into the gorgeous history of southern France. It doesn’t consider the surrounding buildings, or how we can uphold the beauty of the town of Montpellier. I can help you with that…”

  “If you’re unwilling to listen to our needs…” Christopher Agent, the fat-cheeked American sighed, letting his lips buzz. “Then I suppose we might have to seek another architect. It is a tragedy. I had heard marvelous things about your particular brand of… insight. Even if few people really end up using you. Suppose this is why. You don’t bend. You break.”

  “I’m trying to give you the very best. The most artistic, upholding our heritage as French people…,” Charlotte said, dipping her head. How the hell did she always find herself in this position: brown nosing potential clients, dressing quasi-sluttily just to nab the gig—or attempt it? Back in her Parisian architecture and interior design school, she’d been top of her class. Professors had lured her into their offices, speaking in whispered tones about her future, about following that drive to its pinnacle. “Don’t settle for anything but the best possible gig. You’ve got the eye, Charlotte. Don’t waste it.”

  But of course, when Manu, her older brother, had fallen into her life like a clumsy bird shattering the window, she’d been forced to take small-time gigs, ensuring their rent was paid, their fridge was half-stocked. She wasn’t the celebrity architect they’d thought her to be. Perhaps she’d never had it in her, after all.

  “I suppose we’ll have to table this discussion,” Christopher Agent said. He bumbled up from the table, on which had been stretched a white tablecloth. Candles flickered between them. “I’m not sure where you think the funds will come from for such an artistic undertaking. I’m not sure how you make money at all, to be frank. In this world, sensibility comes first. You should know that.”

  Christopher Agent stuttered, kicking his feet out in front of him and walking toward the edge of the large dining room. Montpellier chefs stirred just beyond, in the kitchen window, their white hats dipping left and right. When she and Christopher had entered the restaurant together, they’d joked about the mustachioed men behind the spatulas, declaring that Montpellier, France, had to be one of the most cartoony places in the world. “You French people,” he’d tittered. “Never ones to disappoint.”

  “Actually, I’m only half-French,” she’d offered. “I grew up in Manhattan, if you can believe it. Moved to Paris for college and haven’t really left since then. Although, I almost did. Almost moved back to New York.”

  “Do you regret not coming back?” he’d asked, his eyes still glittering, his lips wet and heavy with attraction.

  “No,” Charlotte lied. Behind her eyes, a newsreel of the events of her life slid past—orange and fiery and filled with regret. But instead of giving pause, she flashed a wide, shark-like smile to him.

  But only minutes after dinner, Charlotte had already disappointed him. She’d bucked at his architectural design, arched an eyebrow at his off-color joke, not given in to him in ways he was apparently used to, as a millionaire New Yorker. And now, he’d stormed out of the restaurant, hungry for an architect willing to structure a design for his selfish, foggy mind.

  What would Manu say, when she returned home? Her fingers found her temples, rubbed back and forth. A sudden migraine thundered between her ears. how was she going to pay their rent? Manu’s bartending gig gave him just a couple hours here and there, more like fluff money. “Manu, you were supposed to be something. We both were. Mon dieu,” she grumbled, half in French, half in English. The waiter arrived seconds later, smacking the bill atop the white tablecloth and muttering. Probably, he felt sure she couldn’t pay the bill herself. He was right.

  She was going to have to sneak out of the restaurant. But in her slinky little get-up, her shirt slit across her tits so that her nipples nearly poked from the shirt, “sneaking” was out of the question. It was like she had giant search lights upon her always, with men and women’s eyes scattering toward her and yanking back. Nobody wanted to admit her allure to his or her partner. She was on the tips of everyone’s tongues. Yet, she had no name.

  Charlotte tapped a heel down on the floorboards, cranking to her feet. The waiter hovered over a computer in the corner, his fingers clacking on a keyboard. Maybe he wouldn’t notice. Charlotte would have to find another high-end restaurant to bring her clients to—a place to impress them, to flirt with them, to bat her eyelashes like it wasn’t the end of the world, and the end of her bank account…

  It had been a long time since she’d felt stable. Since she’d felt like the world was wide-open for her. Since she’d felt like an empowered, don’t-give-any-fucks 20-something up-and-coming architect. And that was all one man’s fault.

  And, as she marched along the little aisle between tables, coated in shimmering white tablecloths, she spotted that very man.

  Peter Bramwell. Peter Fucking Bramwell.

  Handsome. With a perpetual five o’clock shadow, an immaculate suit, the top button of his white shirt unbuttoned to reveal tight, curly black hairs at the top of his chest. As she approached, he tossed his head back, as if he was making fun of the concept of laughter itself. Then, he brought his wine glass to his lips and turned his menacing eyes toward her. They were like daggers through her cheeks, then through her pupils themselves. Her stomach clenched, then released, and she felt at once like she might bolt to the side of the room, drop her hand to one of the pristine white pillars, and vomit across the marble floor.

  But instead, she stretched a smile over her face, flashed her white teeth (as she hadn’t afforded to whiten them, she hadn’t allowed herself a single drop of coffee or red wine in the previous four years. Maybe, maybe, when she and Manu were back on their feet again. Maybe then…).

  Peter Bramwell stood upon seeing her. For a long moment, Charlotte could imagine that things were just as they had been, ten, fifteen years before. At three years her senior, he was always towering over her: the best friend of her brother, Manu, the egotistical force strutting around their Greenwich Village neighborhood. She’d shivered along behind them like a shadow, a young and thin little thing, always a bit clumsy with her English and feeling less-than, awkward. She and Manu had moved to America as ten year olds, and spoke mostly in French with one another and their parents. As such, her English was accented, and prone to attack by people like Peter Bramwell. Even Peter, who often vacationed with her family in the south of France during summers—visiting old friends and relatives, marveling at the turquoise sea. Even he teased her about it. “Ohh weee Mademoiselle Charlotte,” he would say, gripping her curls and tugging them. “You’re in America now. Learn to talk like it.”

  But now, here he was. On her soil. In the south of France, Montpellier, as one of the richest men in the world. He gazed at her, b
ig-eyed, as she approached. She strutted slightly, popping her ass up in that tight gown, keeping her nostrils flared. What the hell was he doing there? Surely, he knew that’s where she and Manu had come after…

  After he’d ruined them.

  Peter stretched his left arm outward, attempting to stop her. His fingertips fluttered so close to the flat stretch of her abdomen. How the fuck did he get off, straining to touch her like that? She yanked away, placing both hands on her hips. Peter’s smile grew wider, as if she were a toy he was cranking up, reading to let fly across the room. Fuck off, Peter Bramwell. Fuck off. The words were sizzling at the tip of her tongue, ready to spew.

  “Well. If it isn’t my great old friend, Charlotte,” Peter said. He stepped back slightly, his eyes still burning into hers. Beside him, a balding, middle-aged man of seemingly incredible wealth (the watch, multi-hundred dollars, surely, along with the gleaming shoes—made special in Italy, or something of the like), turned his eyes up and down her thin legs, her breasts. Charlotte’s heart hammered with continued anger. She’d long forgotten about the bill she’d abandoned a few tables back, or about that fat-jowled American who’d turned down her architecture proposal. Now, her mind burned only with memory of this horrific man, this multi-billionaire Peter Bramwell—and about what he’d taken from both her and Manu.

  He’d ruined their lives.

  Peter

  “Peter,” Charlotte said. She hated that her heart ramped up its anxious beating, ramming at her ribcage like it was a front door. Even in those early years, she’d been helplessly attracted to him. It had been chemical, maybe, a product of her genetics and the fact that, who knew, her body’s immune system wanted his for some sort of futuristic, baby-making thing. It certainly wasn’t because she thought him a good person, or worthy of her love.

  Well, at least, she didn’t think that now.

  Peter continued to stare at her, allowing his tongue to flick along the bottom of his lips. He looked hungry, his cheeks growing red beneath his black beard. Once, Charlotte had watched him eat a steak, his crisp white teeth biting into the thick, near-red meat. He’d done so ferociously, like a soon-to-be man ready to conquer the world. He hadn’t been more than seventeen years old.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” she demanded then. She propped her fists higher on her torso, so that her knuckles stabbed up near her ribcage. She wanted to rail her nail into his chest, near his heart, and make that smile smear off his face.

  “Charlotte, now. This is certainly no way to greet an old friend,” Peter said. He tossed his head back toward the baldy beside him, saying, “Charlotte and I grew up together in Greenwich Village, if you can believe it. A little half-American, half-French girl, tagging along behind me and her brother. I mean, we felt like we ruled those streets. Good times, eh?”

  The man beside him chortled, so that a bit of food peppered out between his teeth. He shot back into the seat beneath him, trying to fold his belly back into himself. It was no use. Charlotte continued her overzealous stare. Now, it seemed that waiters and waitresses wouldn’t approach her, demanding that money for the check. She looked terrifying, for one. But for another, she was speaking to Peter Bramwell. Surely, he would foot the bill.

  It wasn’t like that two-hundred dollar bill for her meal was anything more than pocket change for him. The thought of it turned Charlotte’s stomach.

  Some people had all the luck. And all the fucking balls. And no decency.

  “I’m not sure how you want me to greet you, given what you did to me and my family,” Charlotte spewed. She didn’t care that this man stared them down, watching her spitball her way through the things she’d wanted to say to Peter for the past four and a half years. “You blubbering idiot, taking over the fucking world like you’ve always owned it. And leaving us—“

  “Calm down, Charlotte,” Peter said. Oddly, his smile seemed only to widen, to become almost shark-like in nature. “In actuality, it’s good we ran into each other. I was going to give you a call anyway. You see, being in the south of France right now has something to do with you. Not only my friend here.”

  The balding man chewed at his cheek from the inside. His skin paled. Now, Peter spun his head back toward him, knocking it toward the door. “You know, Monsieur, we were just wrapping up. I have to have a brief meeting with Charlotte, here. You know, she’s well-regarded as some of the best in French architecture. Although, I’ve heard she’s quite difficult to work with. If my contacts are to be trusted.” His eyes glimmered, as if he could see all the way through her, right to her soul.

  “You think you can just appear up out of my life out of nowhere and request a meeting?” Charlotte asked.

  “Consider it fate, Mademoiselle,” Peter said. He cut the chair, now empty of the balding man, out before her, gesturing. “Consider it fate that brought us here back together, at this fine restaurant, on a perfectly boring Tuesday evening. I’m sure you’ve nothing you’re missing after this, do you? I’m quite sure you’re not tied up.”

  Charlotte sputtered, wanting to deliver a zillion one-liners—with the hopes to slice through his core, to scold him. She willed herself to be like her mother, always belittling her father until he all-but crawled back to his study, never to make the beast rear her ugly head again (for another day, at least). But in the presence of Peter Bramwell, the man who’d more or less ruined her and Manu’s life, she was speechless.

  Charlotte found herself sitting across from Peter; watched as he ordered one of the more expensive bottles of wine with a flick of his finger. He dropped his head back in an easy laugh at her big-eyed look. “Come on, now. As if you don’t know my net worth. Almost everyone in this restaurant whispered it when I entered,” he said. “And I know you, of all people, have followed my career.”

  Charlotte didn’t want to indulge him. Didn't want to declare that, of course, she’d read every single gossip column, business analysis, and interview regarding Peter Bramwell. It was an obsession she tried to hide from her brother, Manu, who broke into shivers and angry banter each time Peter Bramwell’s name was mentioned—even on the news.

  “You don’t have to say one way or the other,” Peter said. “I just know the truth. But what you might not know, Charlotte, is that I’ve followed you, as well.”

  “So you say,” Charlotte said, rolling her eyes a full 360 before landing them back upon him. “All that bullshit you spewed to your friend back there…”

  “As if a drop-dead gorgeous French architect doesn’t make the news, at least in my circles,” Peter said. He snapped his fingers, bringing a waiter directly back toward their table. He ordered a round of entres, breads and light cheeses, along with a Nicoise salad. He rubbed his palms together. “Man, it’s been ages since I was back in France. You know, I look back on those summers fondly. The summers that I spent with you and Manu in Montpellier? Jesus, it felt like Manu and I were about the rule the world.”

  Charlotte slipped her arms over her chest. How the hell was she allowing herself to be trapped in a dinner with this devil man? Yet still, her attraction mounted. She found it difficult to breathe. “All right, so. Why the hell am I sitting here, Peter. Why the hell did you care if you heard about me ‘in your circles,’ or whatever. You got rid of us. And Jesus Christ, I wanted you gone.”

  “Charlotte, come on, now,” Peter cackled. “You were always such a spitfire. And now, look at you. Barely holding on by a string. Living out your life in some backwards apartment in the middle of bum-fucking Montpellier. Not even in the pretty parts…”

  “Come on, now,” Charlotte said. She stabbed her finger between them on the table, making both of their wine glasses shake. “You can’t speak to me that way. Not me. Not after all we’ve been through together. Not after, well. You know.”

  Peter still looked at her the way he had when they’d been in their older teenage years, early 20s. When she’d thought that, well. He was her destiny or some bullshit like that. The fact that his look hadn’t alte
red a single bit, that it still stirred with sexual prowess, bothered her. Like, years and years hadn’t passed, like Manu hadn’t bucked into her life and fallen from glory, becoming a bumbling bartender in the south of France, while her anger and volatility made her “difficult to work with,” despite her incredible creativity and her sincere desire to build. Build both herself, her life, and buildings along the coast.

  “What is it you want, Peter,” Charlotte finally stammered, forcing her eyes away from his. If she stared another moment more, she might find herself drawn closer against him. Wondering if his cock still looked the way it had, four years before. Or if he still liked to fuck standing up, her back stretching across the chilly wall. How she tried and ached not to allow her head to bounce back against the wall. How it always did, when he thrust just a bit too hard.

  “I want you to work for me, Charlotte,” Peter said. “I’ve purchased a villa. It’s about two hundred years old, and dammit, it needs some work. But I know you’re the one to build the interior into something worthwhile. I know you’ll uphold the old design, while crafting it into something unique and artistic and fucking beautiful. It’s been your gift, Charlotte, since I’ve known you. Since you were, what, drawing stupid chalk pieces on the sidewalk back in Greenwich.”

  “Stop flattering me. Stop talking about the past,” Charlotte said. Of course, with his mention of it, her eyes flashed with images—being 12 years old, stretching her colored chalk across the cracks of the sidewalk and building small universes that were all hers (until the rain came, of course). “Isn’t it the most useless thing in the world?”

  “I would say it gives us all we know about the future,” Peter said, arching his brow.

  “Well, aren’t you feeling literary tonight,” Charlotte said. She was conscious of how rock-hard her nipples were beneath her dress, nearly poking free.

  “Perhaps I have a bit more intelligence than you once gave me credit for, my dear,” Peter said, his eyes flashing.