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

by Sage Rae

  It was because she’d actually been worthwhile, his brain spat back at him. And none of those things had been.

  Charlotte’s eyes whipped toward him. She shifted, growing increasingly tense as he drew closer. She brought her arms over her chest, shrugged. “I don’t think you give a shit, though, do you? It’s like you to just get whatever you want from a conversation. And from this, you’re probably like—oh. Charlotte’s being vulnerable. Which means I can sleep with her.”

  Peter brought his hand into the air, his finger pointed. No. That wasn’t entirely it, he wanted to spew. But Charlotte did have him calculated, like a kind of math problem. Her eyes were like daggers through him. Assessing his every thought, his every move.

  “In essence, then, Peter. When you tell me that you don’t really know why you bought a villa in the south of France, I know you’re lying,” Charlotte said. “Because I know that every action you make has a direct reason why. It’s not in your character to just make things up as you go along. You aren’t on a couch somewhere, playing video games, like Manu is right now. Manu didn’t have the insight you do. He didn’t have the drive.”

  “But you do,” Peter said.

  Charlotte shrugged. Her lower lip quivered. “I don’t know if I do, Peter.”

  The wind began to whip up, causing white caps to form atop waves. They smashed into the side of the boat, interrupting their intimate moment. Peter took to the mast once more, steering the boat back toward shore. “GET AWAY FROM THE SIDE!” Peter cried.

  Charlotte followed his guidance, swirling from the edge and sitting near the center of the boat. They quaked to and fro, without speaking, as water smashed into the boat and then spewed into the belly. Charlotte’s dress was completely drenched after only a few minutes. If Peter didn’t act quickly, the boat might become too waterlogged. Before, when this had happened, he’d had to jump ship, being unable to steer it all the way back. He’d lost two sailboats this way.

  But Peter felt a jolt of adrenaline, a surge of knowledge that if he didn’t act now—if he didn’t push himself to get this boat, and Charlotte, to shore, she would never forgive him. He imagined them diving into the turquoise, swimming for shore. He imagined her anger when they reached the edge, her lips curling into an angry, half smile. “I should have known you were out to get me,” she might say. “I should have known you didn’t have my best interests at heart.”

  Within the next ten minutes, Peter latched the boat to the side of the deck. Charlotte swept from the boat, her dress dripping wet. Above them, the clouds stirred grey and black, alternating colors. A light rain had begun to patter down upon them. Her eyes were like massive orbs, filled with something that felt a bit like promise, or hope. Certainly, they were more like the eyes of the much younger version of Charlotte. Not the cynical one he’d seen out at the restaurant.

  “I wasn’t sure you would get us out of there,” she murmured, drawing her dripping hair around her ears. “That was—I mean. Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Peter said. He had a moment of instinct and yearned to wrap his arms around her, feel her soft cheek against his chest. But she hung back from him, crossing and uncrossing her arms, like she was knitting them up. And why would she allow him to touch her, anyway? That had led to nothing but heartache for her. He was something she’d assumed she’d left in the past. And now here he was again: cropping up, like yesterday’s nightmare that wasn’t done with you yet.

  But Charlotte bit her lip, then, in that almost provocative way that made him think she wanted him, wanted him to bend her back and press his lips against hers.

  The rain ramped up, pounding against his upper arms, his shoulders. Rain poured between the muscles on his chest, sweeping across his belly. His undershirt was now completely soaked. And Charlotte, stick-thin beneath that dress, looked so weak, frightened. Peter’s stomach clenched. But he reached for her hand, drawing her toward the end of the dock. Her feet scuttled after him. The moment had passed.

  He couldn’t allow something like that to happen, he thought. He couldn’t allow himself to seem weak, or able to fall for her again. The reason he was back in Montpellier wasn’t for love, no. Rather, it had always bothered him that Manu and Charlotte remained on there, as if they’d escaped him. It bothered him that he no longer mattered to them, outside the bounds of however you think of the devil—just a figment of evil, far away from you. Something to be thought about later, or not at all.

  Charlotte’s voice piped up behind him as they ran, escalating in pitch. He spun around at the convertible, stabbing the button that drew the top over the car to protect the seats. He blinked at her in the rain, as she spoke louder. Her face was no longer awestruck, big-eyed. She looked at him with intensity, without the child-like wonder she’d had on the boat.

  Everything had to die out, he knew.

  “Listen, Peter,” Charlotte said, her voice cutting through the rain. “I don’t know why you wanted to bring me out on your boat like that. But you can’t just—you can’t just think I’ll fall for you like that. I’m older, now. Much wiser. I know what kind of man you are.”

  Peter didn’t speak. He flashed a strange smile to her, before allowing it to falter. He wanted to seem dominant over her, yet felt almost frightened of what she might say next. No. Frightened wasn’t the right word. His arrogance was too great for that. Whatever she said, it couldn’t possibly affect him. Could it?

  “I will work on your French villa,” she continued. “But how can I avoid that kind of job? It’s—it’s a fucking dream, Peter. I know you know that, so thank you for giving me the job. I’ll make it into a dream.”

  “I know you will,” Peter said, his voice low. He wasn’t entirely sure she could even hear it.

  “But we can only see one another in a professional setting. Okay?” she continued. She whipped her wet hair around her ears, and she shivered wildly, so that she nearly bit her lip. “I don’t want to see you outside of plans for the villa. I don’t want to get back on your boat, or talk to you about anything that doesn’t somehow involve this job. Okay?”

  Peter nodded, preparing to speak. But already, Charlotte spoke over him—storming through his thoughts like a soldier.

  “Because doing this job for any reason besides the money is a complete and total betrayal of Manu,” she stammered. “If he knew I was even with you right now, he would never forgive me. Do you understand that? I’m risking everything. I’m risking the only relationship that I completely uphold.”

  “Hasn’t he been taking advantage of you since the beginning?” Peter demanded.

  “Don’t you tell me how I’m supposed to feel about Manu,” she said, stabbing a finger into his chest with such force that he fell back on the frame of the car. He sputtered, tilted his head, knew he needed to right himself if he was going to get out of that conversation without another point, another ridicule, another reason why he was fucking garbage, in Charlotte’s eyes.

  So, he twisted around and stomped toward the front of the convertible, opened the door and sat. Charlotte followed suit, so that she stared ahead. His foot found the gas and he revved them forward, tossing gravel rocks behind them as they chucked away from the town of Sete, back toward Montpellier.

  “If you could drop me off a few blocks away from the apartment, that would be great,” Charlotte murmured, again crossing her arms tight against her, so that her tits grew flat, board-like inside her still-wet dress. Peter’s hair had dried in the crisp wind that swept past the cracked windows, but his clothes remained drenched, as well.

  “I’ll be in touch about the villa. You can have whatever rate you name,” Peter continued. “I’ll have to run to New York next week, but I’m happy to have you in there drawing up plans while I’m gone.”

  “Back to New York,” Charlotte sighed, her eyes shimmering. “What about this time makes me think you’ll even come back to pay me what I’ve earned, let alone use this gorgeous villa?”

  “Tell you what,” Peter said,
his voice almost sarcastic—for he had to learn to live within the distance between them. “If I don't use this villa as much as it deserves, you can spend as much time there as you want, after it’s finished.”

  “I don’t need your charity,” Charlotte said. She cut out from the side of the car, giving him a slight wave. Her face was scrunched, lined with sadness. “You have my number. Just let me know.”

  Peter drove the rest of the way back to his apartment building alone, his heart hammering so wildly that it made his throat feel stretched out, like he didn’t have enough skin, enough organs. Emotions had been something he’d assumed he’d left long ago, in the trenches of the past. But now, he stumbled into the door of his penthouse, reaching for the whiskey atop the mahogany desk in the corner. The first drink burned, cutting into that stretched-out throat. But the second, then the third, went down smooth. Things in the room began to lose their fine edges, become sloppy.

  For the first time in a very long time, he recognized just how alone he was. He shot into his chair, allowing his brain to roll over to where Charlotte and Manu lived. Despite the fact that they had very little, that their bank account was a big, echoey cavern and their rooms were tiny, their carpets assuredly stained, they had one another.

  And Peter had given up on both of them a long, long time ago.

  Haze

  The next few days found Charlotte walking in a kind of haze. She’d felt very much that being out on that boat with Peter had stripped her of much of her anger at him. Although she still shook with resentment at what he’d done to Manu, the fact that he’d returned to the south of France, and that he’d made himself so vulnerable to her (if only for just a moment) meant something. Didn’t it?

  Manu seemed generally oblivious to the entire situation. He called in sick the following evening, sitting in front of the television and clicking through French soap opera channels. Once, Charlotte stomped in front of him, pausing between him and the TV, and demanded, “What would you tell your past self about this life? What would you tell that Manu about how much television you watched today, or how many chips you ate?”

  Manu stuffed another chip, and then another between his lips, crunching so hard that the crumbs fell to his chin, across his chest. He glared at his sister, scrunching his cheeks up toward his eyes. A long, long time ago, some of Charlotte’s best girlfriends had ached for Manu to call them. They’d sobbed that he was too good for them, an asshole who would never give them the attention they deserved. Now, it had been over two years since Manu had gone on a single date, or even jerked his eyes in the direction of another woman..

  “Are you going to keep just standing there?” he finally asked her, his lips still stuffed with crumbs. “Because you’re wasting both of our time.”

  “You should really head into the world again,” Charlotte heard herself say, marching back toward the counter. She stuffed several empty chip bags into the trash can, shrugging her shoulders back. “Have you considered moving somewhere else, maybe? Like, New York?”

  “You know I can’t go back there,” Manu scoffed. “You know that’s where all the shit went down, Charlotte. And it was your idea to come back to France to start over. Don’t you remember that? All that bullshit you spewed back then?”

  Charlotte’s nostrils flared. She longed to repeat back to him what she’d actually said. That they could both start over there. Fight for what they really wanted in life, outside of Peter Bramwell. But now, Peter Bramwell had followed them there, almost flaunting all the goodwill in his life. Ensuring that Charlotte knew just how lackluster things had gone for both her and Manu in the wake of that disaster five years ago.

  “Come on, Manu. You haven’t exactly done anything with your life since then,” Charlotte sighed, biting at her bottom lip. She tasted metal. She’d bit too hard. Immediately, she mopped at the blood with a soft napkin, spinning back toward the wall. She never wanted Manu to see her weak. She never wanted anyone to see her weak.

  “What’s the use? Everyone out there becomes a Peter Bramwell, if he isn’t one, yet,” Manu offered. “You get close to them. You think you guys have the world, together. But then—boom. He fucking takes all your clients and boots you to the door. I don’t want that to happen again.”

  Charlotte paused. She hunted for the right words to articulate, just to explain to him that she wasn’t coming from any place of terrible judgement. “I just always thought you were worth so much,” she tried, yet immediately sensed it was the wrong thing to say. It articulated that he wasn’t worth anything, now.

  Manu paced the soggy carpet, his toes digging into it. He hadn’t trimmed the nails in a while, and they were lined with black. When they’d been children, Manu had screeched each time their mother had tried to put him in the bath. “You’ll be just a street urchin,” she’d scolded to him in French. “And I won’t be able to help you, then.”

  “Stop trying to kick me out, Charlotte,” Manu said, almost sneering. He reached for his flannel shirt and brought it over his shoulders, shrugging it on. “I can see your movements from a mile away. This is a fucking chessboard.”

  “It’s not.” Charlotte hesitated, drawing a deep breath. She shuddered as she released it, conscious that arguing with Manu meant asserting her ego over his. It wouldn’t bode well for either of them. She, she spun toward her bedroom, dropped herself on the top of the duvet, and kicked the door closed. There, in the solace of her bedroom, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to visual plans for Peter’s villa.

  And, unfortunately, as she daydreamed up the plans, she couldn’t help but envision herself in the space, living alongside Peter. She imagined them in elegant clothing, a white dress that swirled around her legs and whipped with the wind, standing atop the balcony and looking out toward the Mediterranean. She imagined a sun-dappled day, their swimsuited bodies stretched out along the pool. She imagined his hand reaching upward, snaking the strings of her bikini apart so that it fell down her stomach and splattered to the concrete below.

  Wild parties they would throw, together. Intimate nights, cozied up by the fire as it crackled over a thick log, cut fresh from the forest. Drinks they would sip. Her head would fall to his shoulder as she slipped from conscious laughter to unconscious slumber. And this would be their schedule, their lackadaisical lifestyle, forever more.

  Charlotte reached for her cell phone and typed out an insane rate—something she knew only top-grade architects charged their clients. Then, she pressed send, telling herself she would only agree to do the project if he agreed to the cash. Within seconds, he sent her a message back.

  “I see you like to play hardball,” it said. She could read it in his exactly tone, filled with humor and life. “But I will match what you want. I’m back in France on Monday. Let’s meet at the villa and discuss your plans. I know you see just what I thought you would in the building. It excites me to know that. That maybe nobody changes as much as you think they will.”

  Charlotte didn’t respond to this. But she did lay back with the phone atop her chest, listening to her heart rattle around in the ribcage, as if it was trying to escape. She pressed her fingers across her tits, dotting them over the nipples. This man, preparing to pay her several millions of dollars? He’d taken her virginity when she’d been too young to know what she was giving up. She’d been so sure that he would uphold that fact, since she’d known him since she was just a girl.

  But she’d been incorrect about him.

  And what made her think that she should bring him back into her life, now? Was it all about the money? She told herself it was. But in actuality, just the mere thought of him atop that sailboat, gripping the mast, made her heart flutter. The way the wind caught through his dark curls, casting them back, so that they were stark and clear against the grey clouds above.

  In the next room, Manu flicked through another several channels before turning the TV off, with a flick. Charlotte listened as he stomped through the kitchen, opened the door and left the apartment.
There was no way to know where he was going, what he did out there alone. She supposed he entered one bar or another, perhaps even the one at which he worked, and sipped himself to drunkenness. She would be asleep by the time he arrived home.

  Peter Bramwell had done this to him, she told herself. But also, he’d done it to himself. It had been a joint effort. The way one thing was a direct result of so many different things, all of them happening in a kind of Rube Goldberg mechanism. The marble fell onto the spoon, which flipped up the needle which made the balloon explode. Perhaps Peter had been the first. But Manu had certainly orchestrated all of the lasts.

  Just a Client ?

  Peter arrived back from New York the following week. But already, Charlotte had been in contact with him: sending him initial ideas, inspirations, photographs of other French villas that maintained the brilliant “bones” of the structure while upholding beauty and artistry. To each email and message she sent, Peter just responded with, “I trust you. You know that.” But still, she wanted affirmation, especially if she was going to start ordering all the lumber, the tiles, the hardwood floors, the chandeliers, the marble…

  The list of things to do was growing wild, chaotic. And still, Charlotte needed to enter the villa to begin drawing up the specific plans. She needed to measure, to visualize, to dream. And in order to begin doing that, she needed Peter to return.

  Of course, her excitement about Peter’s return wasn’t just linked to the villa. She spent hours awake at night, daydreaming about his arrival back. What was he doing in New York? Did he have a selection of girls he always say when he was there? A selection of girls who did his bidding—sexually, socially, whatever? She shivered, thinking about it. In the previous year, she’d hardly gone out on a single date. All the Frenchmen in Montpellier were played out. It was always the same story. They took her to the same goddamn restaurant, told her the same stupid story about how they were going to “be someone” someday. It was never true. It was never anything more than fantasy.