I swung my gaze to him, going ice-cold with rage at his words. “I know that Damien. No need to point out the obvious. It’s what they expect. It’s what Daddy dearest expects so we can restore the family honour within this fucked-up legacy. My great-grandfather didn’t orchestrate this with the expectation that his grandson would fuck up. The shame of it, of having such weak blood. And that’s my father; weak, fallible, narcissistic. Who cares if it’s a life sentence? The wealth that is owed to me can be used to set-up a mistress, pay off the media…”
“What, so you can keep Xanthe there in a gilded cage?” Ludo interrupted, glaring at me. “Fuck’s sake. Do you even know how to treat women with respect? If Xanthe has half a brain, she won’t come near you. I would have treated her with respect, for fuck’s sake!”
I was literally incandescent with rage at hearing this. I got up and started pacing, a lion trapped in a gilded circus orchestrated by fucked up ringmasters. “You understand nothing, Mackenzie. Nothing at all. This life comes with fucking sacrifice and if they want me to marry some hag then so what? So be it! I treated Xanthe the way I did because I am trying to care for her. Because I fucking saw this coming. I was surprised that the older brothers hadn’t had this sprung on them but then I guess they’ve always toed the line.”
“True. I guess you can’t do much better than an oligarch’s daughter,” Bastien smirked.
“Shut the fuck up! I am not my brother’s keeper and if I have to do this then I will. My father, as usual, has got me exactly where he needs me and I’m captive to his capricious whims as usual.”
“Fuck’s sake. Stop being so melodramatic…” Damien held a hand up as he saw me try to intervene. I snapped my jaw shut, grinding my teeth. “If you do not want to do this then of course we will support you but it won’t be easy. We will most likely fail but ultimately we will respect the decision. That’s what family does.”
The anger leaked out of my body, making me boneless, and I sank back down into the chair. “I guess we need to give them a call then.” I paused, thinking, and not one to pass up on an opportunity to be a twat, smirked. “Guess it was good I ripped Xanthe’s heart out with my bare hands, no chance of her crawling back and fucking this up for us.”
Ludo and Bastien’s features contorted in rage and they leapt up but I was too quick, already at the door. I opened it and stormed off, needing to burn off some of the aggression coiled tight inside.
Xanthe
The tube ride passed in a blur of tears that I was too weak to swipe away. I was conscious of other passengers awkwardly trying to avoid looking at me, trying to avoid having to comfort me. Typical fucking Londoners, I thought cynically. I was grateful for not being interrupted in my distress. It gave me time to pass the long journey down the Victoria line, pulling myself together and assessing my next move.
It sounded ridiculous, even psychotically obsessive, but there was something about Blaise. He was more than a twenty-four hour shag. He was the kind of ride-or-die, church bells, coca-cola deal. However one liked to phrase it. It was a lie, a fucking delusion that I’d stay chill about leaving the weekend as a mere memory. That was never going to happen and I didn’t know why I had tried to pretend it would. I knew my judgement would be questioned after Xander but I guess when you knew, you really knew. He was just a false start.
That’s what made everything so painful. I understood that his cruel words were intended to keep me away, to protect me but I wasn’t going to allow it to ruin me. Blaise would be mine eventually, whether he liked it or not. It’s like I said, I was not one of those weak girls that gave up at the first hurdle. I would pull myself together on this tube and pretend that Blaise and I were done. In honesty, I wasn’t sure why I was so keen on pursuing him but I just had what Noelle called an intuition. Speaking of, I wasn’t sure if I should tell the girls. Anyone sane would dismiss it as obsessive madness.
Anxiety clawed at my throat when I thought about the return to normality. I wasn’t sure if it was a possibility anymore. I smiled as I thought about Noelle’s prediction in the pub. Maybe everyone had changed; the winds had blown in something momentous, life-shattering. Normality had lost its appeal after the weekend I had spent indulging my desires with a dangerous boy cloaked in secrets. The allure of pursuing something so forbidden was so much sweeter than the daily features of life before Paris.
“The next station is Brixton. Please alight here as the train will be terminating.” The automated voice rang out through the carriage, jolting me out of my reverie.
I stood up and headed out of the train into the familiar hubbub of central Brixton. I breathed in the cloying, summer air and headed home with new-found confidence. This was my territory, familiar ground, and I was in control here.
Unlocking the door, I heard silence. The girls must still be at work so I headed in and fixed myself a strong gin and tonic before plugging in my phone. I paced the small balcony, smoking, and trying to calm myself down. Finishing up the cigarette and feeling marginally calmer, I chucked it over onto the pavement and headed inside.
My phone glowed and I felt the icy-hand of tension squeeze my heart. Time to face the music. I could put off the inevitable no longer.
Ignoring the notifications crowding my phone, I opened it and called home. Sipping the gin and tonic, I sat on the edge of the sofa, anxiously tapping my foot and threading the blue velour throw between my fingers. The phone rang for an eternity and I wondered if they were out. My mother didn’t work but maybe she was seeing friends. Then again it was a Monday.
“Hello?” The crystal sharpness of my mother’s voice rang out, causing me to jump, the gin and tonic sloshing everywhere.
“Hi… Mum?” I greeted, nervously.
Silence greeted my ears and I braced myself, anticipating the fallout I knew was coming. I hadn’t checked my messages but I was prepared for the inevitable disappointment that not only were we so reckless in going to Paris but I also missed a day of work. This only jeopardised my already tenuous employment and would humiliate my mother as my boss was her friend.
“How dare you? Do you know how worried you’ve made us all? Poor Xander is distraught. He says you broke up with him?” I did not expect this. Of course, they would be upset that we had ended things because my mother had always gushed over the possibility of our wedding but I hadn’t expected her to lead the conversation with this issue. Clearly my employment was secondary to my relationship. How fucking outdated.
“I did. You must have seen that there were problems?”
“Of course not. But you should know, Xanthe, that all couples go through problems. He is perfect for you. Good family, good prospects, and he’s a nice boy.”
I knew I couldn’t go into what I was now seeing as emotional abuse and coercive behaviour because those words were not in my mother’s vocabulary. I remained silent, my mind whirring at her obsession. Why was she so fixated? Surely she must have known there was always the possibility that we would break up? We had got together at such a young age after all.
“And then you go to Paris? I was chatting with Delphine and she said you are clearly just going through a rebellious phase. I mean you were always so sweet as a teenager.”
“Maybe because I followed Xander everywhere.”
“And is that a bad thing?”
“I don’t know, Mum, you tell me? Is it a bad thing? What if I want to be my own person?”
“And become a cook? You know that’s just not viable. I get that it’s stressful working for Maxine but she is a dear friend and so established, you could do a lot worse.”
“A lot worse?” I choked out. I hated my job. Maxine, my boss, was a terror. I’d say that thirty of those missed calls would be from her wondering where the hell I was this Monday.
“And so ungrateful too. We helped you with getting this job and this is how you repay us? Not turn up? I’m assuming you were still in Paris and you couldn’t be bothered to turn your phone on? You didn’t even have the decency to let h
er know? If you could imagine how humiliated I felt today.”
“I’m doing it because Xander hates it when I cook and this is the closest I could get to working with food because everything else was vetoed. Don’t you see that as the slightest bit concerning, mother?”
“I’ll have none of this, young lady,” she snapped out. “I thought you were going to ring up and apologise but clearly not. I had none of this trouble with your older brother. Maybe it’s a youngest child thing? Zac is so well-behaved and doesn’t give us half the grief you do.”
My mouth dropped in astonishment. Grief? I had been the perfect little doll who danced to every whim people might have. A job I hated. The doting girlfriend. I just smiled and got on with it. One weekend when I indulged in selfish hedonism was all it took for me to be the failure. The black sheep. The cause for concern.
Click. She hung up on me. I drained my gin and headed to the kitchen to make another. I sank to the floor, sipping it and trying to get a hold of myself. Overwhelmed and panicked, I felt like I had been pushed into a corner. The world spun around me, keeping pace with the questions that just multiplied by the dozen. What the fuck had I done? If I had stayed with Xander then it would be fine. The job would be shit but I could quit in a couple years. That is if I wasn’t fired first. The controlling aspect of the relationship would be difficult but I’m sure I could manage. He was a fine boyfriend most of the time. All I had to do was play nicely in his doll’s house and dance along. How hard could it be to play in a doll’s house lined with privilege?
The thought terrified me so much my vision blurred and I choked out a sob. What the hell had I managed to get myself involved with? Blaise would be my ticket to freedom. We could fight for his precious libertas together. It probably was a saviour complex but I knew I couldn’t chain myself to Xander for the rest of my life. It was clear that finding someone else would be unacceptable. My mother had just made that painfully clear.
I stood up shakily, heading outside to have a cigarette and to clear my head. Think rationally for once. I couldn’t tell my girls about my plan with Blaise but I needed him to rescue me. It couldn’t be that hard. With each inhale and exhale, my resolve solidified and my confidence was restored. I could fucking do this. Once I had finished up, I chucked the butt into our little clay flower pot that served as an ashtray and pulled out my phone. Scrolling through, one message caught my attention. I slowed my scrolling and extended the Facebook message to view it but not to alert the sender that I had seen it.
* * *
Bastien: Sorry if this is weird but I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry if de Vere fucked you over. He can be like that sometimes, as I’m sure you’re aware. Got some serious shit going down so brace yourself.
* * *
That was it. The sum total of the message. I re-read it and re-read it, trying to decipher the code he was writing in. It must have something to do with the challenge that Blaise was telling me about in Paris but how that would affect me I wasn’t sure. The dots weren’t joining up but an ominous leaden stone weighed my body down, the overwhelming feeling of earlier threatening to encroach on me once more.
I opened my phone and pulled up Blaise’s Instagram page. Not only had he not blocked me, he still allowed me to follow him. Minor win as I knew that his page was most likely private. Boy must still care about me to some degree, I thought with humour. Maybe my insane plan would actually work. Scrolling through, it was clear his feed wore the same lens of bored disillusionment that he viewed the world through. Shots of parties in cities around the world, pictures with the boys from Paris, intimate shots with a sickening array of girls which made my insides twist in jealousy. The only picture that stood out from this montage was the one that exuded hope; a pastoral picture of rolling vines with the simple caption of libertas. His obsession. He wanted freedom just as much as I did.
The slamming of the door jolted me out of my reverie and I smiled. “Xanthe? You home, babe?” Noelle called out.
“On the balcony. Grab yourself a drink.”
“Oh honey, we’re gonna need a drink and you are gonna need to fill us in on all your debauched activities with the lovely Mr de Vere.”
I chuckled, waiting for them to join me. I would get up but I didn’t want to pop the peaceable bubble I had created on the balcony and, soon enough, Gemma’s blonde head poked nervously out.
“Hey,” I smiled at her weakly.
“Hey,” she replied, hovering in the doorway from the kitchen.
“Well, come on. Come sit,” I said, patting the seat next to me. Tentatively, she perched next to me. I wanted to roll my eyes. She knew that I didn’t fucking bite. Besides, she was bang out of order with the way she had behaved over the weekend. Couldn’t she just enjoy Bastien? What I wouldn’t give to trade places with her. The sweet, naïve girl didn’t know half of it. Fuck, I didn’t even know if I knew half of it.
Breaking up with Xander was my Pandora’s box. I had released so much information that I wasn’t sure how to deal with it. Why was my mother so invested in our relationship? Why was Xander so obsessed with me? If I had known what would happen I might have just stayed in the relationship and let the less palatable acts slide past. Life would be so much easier.
“I’m so sorry, Xanthe, about how I treated you in Paris. I get that I messed up and I can see how it came across badly… I mean Bastien is so different from Blaise.”
Sucking my teeth to rein my anger in, I interjected. “Let’s not bring that up. I am happy for you and Bastien. The situation is completely different, as in you’re together with Bastien, and that’s great but Blaise and I are just complicated.” I trailed off at the flash of hurt and anger that danced across her visage, directly opposite to her usual sweet disposition.
“And can’t you just be happy for me for once, Xanthe? I’ve supported you so much but can’t you see that not once have I had a boyfriend and Bastien is my one chance to find someone who cares about me.”
Hugging her tightly, I masked my lies with a murmur against her hair. “I am happy for you, babe. You know I am. It hurt that you couldn’t support me and Blaise, but we are over now. I will support you and Bastien, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Hey, bitches! I wanna get in on this,” Noelle announced, brandishing glasses and more gin and tonic.
I smiled. “Well, put the drinks down and get in on this.” We hugged for a while and I smiled. The rest of my life might be crumbling but at least I had my girls. Regret washed over me. Hopefully my insanity wouldn’t push them away.
Settling on the oversized bean bag by the railings of the balcony, Noelle topped us all up with more gin before fixing me with her gaze that meant she was going to find out everything. Masking my nerves and attempting to appear disaffected, I took a fortifying slurp of my drink.
“So, Xanthe… tell me. How was your romantic twenty-four hours?”
“Romantic, that’s what it was.” I smiled, the memories making me want to cry but I held my voice steady. “Wish I could have just stayed with him in our bubble. It was so nice not having the stress of the outside world. Just Blaise, who’s fucking fantastic in bed by the way, and me.”
Gem laughed at that. “Shame that’s not how the real world works.” I gritted my teeth at that but said nothing. I needed to be nice. She would never be able to understand. If this happened with Bastien she would have jumped ship immediately.
“Exactly, and that’s why we’re not continuing anything.” I eventually said, aiming to remain nice.
“What?” Noelle interjected.
“Something about a final task… Anyway, it probably was just a rebound thing and I need to focus on myself.” I laughed past the choked barbs of my lies, hoping my mask of disaffection was believable. “I’m still processing stuff about Xander.”
“What? That he was an abusive piece of shit?” Noelle snorted.
“Noelle!” Gem exclaimed.
I laughed again. “That. I mean, at the time it
just seemed that he loved me, you know? I had nothing to compare it to.” I averted my gaze from the sympathy visible in the girls’ eyes. “Anyway, what a fun weekend, hm?”
“It was! I knew that weekend would go down in the books, intuition and all that.” Noelle tailed off, stroking her pentagram tattoo, before continuing pensively. “The winds of change were strong on Friday. I don’t know girls, but I don’t think we’re free of their madness just yet.”
“It’s just intuition…”
“And intuition is oftentimes correct,” I murmured. It was correct with how my whole world had been turned upside down in a meagre forty-eight hours. I knew more now about my family, about Xander, about everything than I had in the last twenty-three years on this Earth. Shaking off the insidious tendrils, I smiled brightly at Gemma. “As in the case with you and Bastien! So, so exciting! Can finally put the ghost of Dylan to rest and you can enjoy time with your lovely new boy.”
“Amen!” Noelle cheered, saluting that with her glass.
“When are you seeing him next?”
“He said that he was away this week, some family thing.” My gut tightened and my mind whirred with this new information.
The task must be happening this week. Surely it couldn’t be too outrageous? That kind of stuff surely was the product of fiction not real-life. For all I knew, I had completely over-exaggerated the situation and he would come crawling back to me to whisk me off into the sunset, away from the clutches of Xander. My very own white knight.
A slap woke me out of my reverie. “Hey, were you even listening to Gemma?” Noelle snapped.
I smiled sheepishly, turning to face Gem, hurt visible again on her features. “Sorry, babe. Just was thinking about Bastien being away for the week. Blaise mentioned something similar so I guess I was wondering what it was.” I paused to offer them all a cigarette before lighting up and continuing, exhaling the smoke to mask my real feelings. “Sounds so mysterious, eh?”
Little Doll: Queens of Chaos 1 Page 13