‘But what I didn’t say is that she’ll be seated at the same table as my mother. The same table we are seated.’
‘Oh, boy.’ My laughter is hard, his fingers tightening. ‘Were you banking on me not noticing the gazelle in the room?’
‘What do gazelles have to do with anything?’
‘It really doesn’t matter.’
If you’ll let me explain—’
‘But what does matter is that you really are a piece of work.’ I nail a smile to my face as I begin to scan the space for an exit, other than the one behind me. I’m not leaving. At least, not yet. But this is something that requires a discussion in private. Somewhere without an audience that run into the hundreds.
‘Do you remember when I said that I would never set out to hurt you intentionally?’
‘Oh, so this was an accident? Right.’
‘This is not my doing,’ he replies, turning us in the direction of a side door and into another room. No, not a room; more a narrow hallway, staff to-ing and fro-ing, turning their bodies sideways as they pass, barely sparing us a second glance.
I’m pleased, at least, he had the same opinion about privacy.
My hand still secured in the crook of his arm, he leads me left into an alcove very much like the ones I’ve read about in historical romance novels. A seclude alcove. A dark curtain. A window seat. A place to canoodle without anyone seeing.
There will be no canoodling today. But there will be answers.
‘I swear to you I didn’t know.’ He stares down at me, his green eyes angry. ‘Not until Everett sent me a text when he saw Amélie’s name on the seating plan.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell me then?’
‘No, because I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to track down my mother to correct the fuck up.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ I resist the urge to fold my arms across my chest because there’s no way I’m spoiling the fall of this gown. ‘So you went around town looking for your mother?’
‘I asked Paulette to find her, and when I spoke with her this afternoon, she agreed it would be tactless for Amélie to be seated at the same table. She was under the impression the event planner had removed her to another table.’
‘And?’
‘It seems she moved herself back.’
‘Which mean what, exactly?’
‘Apart from the fact the woman has a screw loose, I’m not sure. Unless you want to cause a scene.’
Which, I’m sure, would go down so well for me. ‘You should’ve told me, Remy.’ Yet another incidence of his high-handedness
‘And give you a chance not to come?’ he retorts.
‘And that would be my decision to make, not yours. You get that, right?’
‘Monaco is a small place. You’re going to come across her sometime.’
‘And I would’ve preferred it to not have been tonight,’ I counter, trying very hard to stay calm in the face of this overbearing, asshole side of him.
‘All right, love birds. Break it up.’
At the sound of Everett’s deep . . . ly annoying voice, I find myself growling at the ceiling. ‘I feel like breaking something.’
‘Not me,’ he says, pointing at the earpiece dangling from his ear. ‘I’m working.’ His gaze slides to Remy. ‘And not him, he’s got a speech to give.’
‘I suppose that leaves Amélie, then.’
‘I reckon you could take her. Let me know if you’re gonna throw down and I’ll start offering odds.’
‘Rhett,’ Remy murmurs wearily. ‘Don’t encourage her.’ But he’s smiling, even as he watches me roll my shoulders.
‘All right slugger. Your table awaits.’ Rhett flourishes bow, the kind suited more to a seventeenth century gent.
‘You smell nice,’ I say as I pass. ‘What is that? Chloroform by Tom Ford?’
‘I don’t need to knock them out, Heidi. I have to beat them off.’ He mimes something that looks a little like baseball but not quite. Cricket, maybe?
‘There’s a joke in there.’
‘Please don’t look too closely,’ Remy adds as we reach the hallway again.
‘I’m not sure I’m talking to you.’
‘I think you’re annoyed at the wrong person.’
‘I appreciate you tried to sort this out, but you can’t make my decisions for me. You get that, right?’ He doesn’t offer an answer, though a muscle begins to tick in his jaw. ‘Besides, do you really think I’m so petty as to throw some kind of tantrum and make you come on your own?’
‘I wasn’t sure what your reaction would be.’
‘Then you don’t really know me.’
‘I know you enough to trust you with my heart.’
My anger drains away, my throat suddenly tight as I tip up onto my toes and press my lips to his smooth cheek. ‘Then let me look after it. And let me make my own decisions.’
At the table, Remy has been placed to his mother’s left, my own seat almost facing his, as is often the way at formal dinners. Not that I have much experience from this side of the table. The guest side, I mean, not the proximity.