Page 32 of A Royally Fake French Menage
“I said no, Beau,” Genie sighed, leaning her head on my chest like she’d been through this conversation before. “And don’t you have your own problem child at home?"
I snorted a laugh at that. I was sure Sylvie would be delighted at being called Beau'sproblem child.
Beau smiled. “She probably calls me hers,” he mused. “And I'm flattered, but no. That is… of the past.” he flicked a lint from his blazer. “This afternoon’s entertainment starts before the main event. Or did you not want to see your mother at the gala dinner, or ever again?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
GENIE
Istood before my mother who wept crocodile tears across a debtor’s desk and sighed.
This is why she blindsided me the first time.
Grace Lockwood, my mother, already knew about my trip to Europe before I told her because she had me followed. She already knew, because she was in panic mode. And she was on my case to launch my lines because her business—hers, not mine—had failed. Again.
This was not the first time my mother’s choices didn’t work for her. It simply was another chink in her perfect armor the world never saw. All the lies. The bullshit.
Tonight looked like a last ditch effort to keep it all afloat. Beau Bennett found out about that and for reasons still known only to his own interests, decided to stick his nose where I wasn’t sure I wanted it.
So I stood in the debtor’s dingy office in a part of London where I’d never been and probably never wanted to be ever again. My mother’s hair stood on frazzled ends as she stared at me through lashes clumped together. Her makeup had run andher clothes were torn. The entire building, a warehouse on the edge of Westminster's industrial sector, stank of stale urine.
Mom’s skirt was in taters, and she sobbed openly, grasping at my feet as I skittered backward into a hard body. One arm wrapped reassuringly around my waist. I didn't have to glance backward to know it was Jacques.
A pudgy, sweaty looking man leaned across his desk, and leered at me. I half expected a burnt out cigar to hang from his fleshy lips. The whole set up had a noir type feel to it, like something out of a nineties gangster fast talking flick.
Because that’s what this whole thing was.
A set up.
Because not only would my mother not only die before her treasured wardrobe was torn or ruined, she didn’t have a bruise on her. The whole building and its scents—for the daughter of a luxury brand magnate—was overkill.
And the real tell? Those clumpy lashes and smeared makeup. My mother could be in a multi person porn film as the final event, the money shot mayhem, and her makeup would beperfect.
Not a run in sight.
I sighed. “Is this really what you’ve been reduced to? An act so pathetic you’ll wear dime store makeup to con me into whatever it is you’re asking for? I said I'd go to the party. You didn’t have to pull this charade off to get me to go, Grace.” I flicked a hand in Mom’s direction. The paid actor on the other side of the desk smirked, and leaned back.
A half smoked cigar emerged from his pocket. He lit the thing, obscuring some of the stale piss that tainted the air. “Told you she wouldn't go for it. I brought in the toy boy, though.”
My blood ran cold. “What?”
Beau frowned. “What deal did you make, you pathetic excuse for a maternal unit.”
I snorted, and even Jacques laughed, tugging me tighter against his chest. Somewhere in the background, Barclay moved around, exploring. Jacques wouldn’t allow him closer to the action than that, and so he was relegated to the distance while we renegotiated my mother’s “freedom.”
“Don’t take her seriously,” I scoffed. “Whatever trouble she’s gotten herself into, it’s not here, Beau.”
He turned his frown on me. “Genie, I don't think this is quite the farce you think?—”
A soft gasp from behind us broke the pervasive stench that choked us all. I twisted around in Jacques arms in time to see Barclay crumple, but not without taking the shadow behind him to the floor.
Twin flashes lit the space. Both shots were silenced, and all the louder for it.
I stood between the two men with their raised weapons as beau swore softly, striding forward to check on my sobbing mother.
“What do you need?” he asked softly, though his voice had an edge to it.
I suspected this wasn’t how he wanted the night to go, but he foresaw the outcome much clearer than I had. I shook my head, ignoring him as I took off at a run, heading for Barclay where he crouched on the floor over the figure all dressed in black.
