“You’re disappointing me, Eugene.”
I rolled my signature tarot card between my fingers, eying the impostor’s disappearing smile. His heart leaped into his throat. Dread twisted in his gut. He adopted a submissive posture, curving his back and bending his shoulders forward.
“Please, Mr. Radcliff, what you’re asking me is impossible. I’ve tried and—”
The thundering sound of my hand against my desk echoed across the stygian manor, muting him with terror. His face was ashen when, by mistake, he met my hellish stare and caught a glimpse of my monstrous face in the midst of the shadows. He bowed his head, his chin trembling.
“You failed whilst taking the generous amount of money I offered you for a job you assured me you were capable of doing. In addition to lying and not fulfilling your contract, you tried to fool me.” My physical appearance was enough to make him shrink back in horror, but my apparent calm was a deadly weapon. I didn’t have to threaten him; he knew he had no other choice if he didn’t want to lose everything.
“I can’t pay you back yet. I—I don’t have any money, but I—”Tik. Tak.His eyes darted from left to right as he struggled to conceal his panic. “I have a niece! Her name’s Lily Bellerose,” he shrieked, his voice on edge.
“Bullshit, Eugene. It all comes down to you being a fool without a poker face.” I cracked my knuckles, tired of this nonsense.
This pathetic fool had lost my money to gambling debts and spending more than he could on materialistic objects and women. He wore a pitiful designer watch, trying to belong to a social status that was out of reach for him. A crook—and not even a good one.
The point was, I couldn’t care less about some random girl, and I was even less interested in sequestering anyone. That’s what I got for doing business withThe Fool.
“She—She’s one of the greatest noses. I’ve never seen anything like it.”Now that’s interesting.“She inherited the talent of my sister. Believe me—”Surely not.“I may be an impostor, but she isn’t. I’ll get her to come to you—you’ll see it in front of your own eyes.”
“And why would I waste my time with her.”
“Because I can convince you. I have a secret… Something I’ve never told anyone. Something big.”
The flower shop owner elegantly wrapped and tied my bouquet with an ivory ribbon.
The scent of the Christmas’s Tale bouquet filled my lungs. The cherry-red roses bloomed my heart, along with the sweet scent of the white amaryllis, also known as the Christmas lily, one of my mother’s favorite flowers. In fact, she loved lilies so much—her favorite being the lily of the valley—that she named me after them.
Pure, plain, and perfect Lily.
“That’ll be twenty-four euros, mademoiselle.”
I snapped back from my thoughts when the vendor handed me my bouquet that I held inside my arms like a mother with her precious baby. I searched for my last remaining euros inside my floral-print wallet, blaming myself for the guilty pleasure I’d stumbled upon. The coins fell on the desk, and I counted each coin separately, the judging gazes of the people around us hastening me to hurry.
“Here, let me get this.” Adonis handed his premium credit card to the vendor with a dazzling smirk.
“No, Adonis! You don’t have to—” I defended pointlessly.
“It’ll be my Christmas gift to you, princess.”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulder, and I compressed the bouquet tighter to my chest. I wasn’t used to being called princess. I’d grown up on the bad side of the fairy tale. I was either the fair maiden without a story worth telling or the witch. It was a nickname given to me during my youth, because of my addiction to scents and flowers. A nickname that brought me anything but pain.
“Thank you,” I said in a low voice out of shyness before my gaze drifted to the store owner, who couldn’t keep her eyes from Adonis. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” she responded to Adonis, captivated by his charm.
After all, Adonis was, just like his name, unfairly gorgeous with his ocean eyes and golden hair. He smelled of purple—raspberry, lavender, and heliotrope—the kind of scent that everyone likes, but it wasn’t earth-shattering to me.
Once he’d collected his card, we strolled toward the exit, me inhaling the scents of the bouquet, him making everyone succumb with a devastating smile, the doorbell chiming when we stepped out.
Adonis was my only friend in Paris. We’d met in a garden in Saint-Germain-des-Prés and immediately grew our friendship based on our mutual passion for perfume, even if I was on the creative side and he on the luxury one—born on a land of milk and honey.
His father, Christian Carmin, was the CEO of Carmin, the giant of the most prestigious luxury cosmetic group, and Adonis was the only heir. He was destined to have the world bow at his feet while I was the outsider.
Or, most likely, an abnormal twenty-one-year-old woman who’d grown up with the belief she had a guardian angel watching over her. And if that wasn’t enough, I saw the world through different eyes (or, in my case, my nose). Probably a gift—or a curse—I inherited from my mother. I was convinced she would have become one of the greatest noses of all time if she had been still of this world.
But life was not a bed of roses.
Adonis and I ambled through the small-pebbled roads and cobbled lanes filled with cafés and eateries in the direction of my apartment. Trailing ivy covered the houses, along with winter decorations. Cars couldn’t venture through the narrow lanes, giving us a semblance of nature and poetry.
