Three steps ahead of us, Clementine pivoted at a corner and led us down a smaller hallway, where the clatter of our footsteps climbed the walls and echoed on the hard ceiling.
At a glass door emblazoned with the name “Lynvidia LeMarck” and a silhouette of a horse and old-timey carriage with a man standing in front of them like he’d almost gotten run over, Clementine hissed to the guards that they shouldstay outsideand led Nicolai and me into the small room.
After the weirdness of the morning, I almost got a case of nerves without being surrounded by armed guards, but the tall woman sitting behind the desk drumming her pale pink-manicured nails on the glass-topped desk made me nervous for a whole different reason.
As Clementine spearheaded our entry into the small office, she had both her hands out, wrists bent like she was showing off her own neutral manicure and calling, “Lynvidia! It’s been an age.”
I followed her inside, watching to see what I should do to act as if I belonged there. When no one seemed to look at me, I cocked one hip out and lifted my chin, smiling politely like an extra on a movie set.
Lynvidia pursed her lips, unnaturally puffy on her hollow-cheeked face, and scanned me from my blond-dyed hair to my still-untied shoelaces and back up. “Clementine, a pleasure as always. Is this yourfriend?”
I looked her in the eyes, as if she were the camera, and kept the quiet smile on my face.
The sneer in the woman’s voice suggested that I should not qualify to be Clementine’s friend as she received both of Clementine’s hands and clutched them like she was drowning. Her gold cross necklace swinging near her chest was a metallic shade of her beige-checked ensemble. As she half-stood, herhips were so narrow that her pencil skirt really resembled the diameter of a pencil.
“Yes! This is Lexi Romanov, Nicolai Romanov’s brand-new wife,” Clementine said. “She’ll be on the red carpet tonight and all over the influencer pages soon after. The paparazzi will go wild for her tomorrow, which is when she will be carrying your bag. Don’t you recognize her from the livestreamed wedding video?”
I tried to look elegant and like an empress in disguise, but I was wearing jeans and a silly ruffly blouse.
Lynvidia was unblinking, staring me in the eyes like she was a blue-eyed wolf and I was the idiot lamb wandering into her path. “Quite a dress, you were wearing, for the wedding.”
I’d liked my froufrou wedding dress, but it had been one of the cheapest on the bridal store’s website. The dress and the shape of my body underneath probably weren’t chic enough for these people.
I kept my voice low, which is what I thought a royal would sound like. “It was spur of the moment.”
“Yes, that explains it.” She finally released me from her stare and turned to Clementine. “If you’re sure this would be good for you, sweetheart.”
“Lynvidia, you are an absolute lifesaver. I love you more than I can say. Nico, give her your credit card,right now.”
Nicolai wore an amused half-smirk meant to charm as he let my arm drop and dug a black credit card out of his wallet for her.
Lynvidia ignored his expression and tapped his credit card on a white box next to her laptop, which lit up green. “Of course you love me, Clemmy. Everyone loves their Hermès rep when they need a Birkin purse, or in your case,twoBirkin purses. This is quite unheard of.”
“That’s not what you said when I took you skiing in Gstaad last year with my old school buddies. Speaking of which, we’rehaving a bit of a soirée on Christian’s boat in Monaco in the second week of August. Can you come?”
Lynvidia fished a pleased smile from underneath her sneering demeanor and waved Nicolai’s credit card at him without looking. “I’ll see if I can get away. Your purses are in the back. I’ll just get them.”
When the door to the back room swung shut, I deflated a little, but Clementine hissed at me from between clenched teeth,“Nope!Cameras! Stand up!”
I straightened. Just because I didn’t understand the machinations didn’t mean that I wanted to upset Clementine.
Lynvidia breezed right back out of the back room, holding two terra cotta boxes tied with black ribbon. “Here we are.”
Clementine leaned over the transparent desk and practically snatched the boxes out of her arms. “I’m so sorry that we don’t have time to stay for coffee today, Lynvidia. I’m sure you can see how this is a bit of a haute couture emergency. I lent Lexi my Bottega Veneta clutch for tonight, but we simply must find proper gowns for the entire next week. I’m sure you understand.”
Lynvidia’s mauve-lipsticked mouth dropped open at, I assumed, Clementine’s lack of decorum. “If that’s the way you want to do it, I guess.”
Clementine spun on one of her stiletto heels and barreled straight at Nicolai and myself. We bustled toward the door before she ran us over. Clementine half-turned her chin over her shoulder and said, “I’ll send you a plane ticket for August, my sweetheart. Thank you again and again, bisous-bisous!”
I could only imagine the stunned silence in that office after we escaped.
“Was that okay?” I asked Clementine as she led us back through the rabbit warren of hallways. “That doesn’t seem like it was okay.”
“It’s fine. I’ll send Lynvidia a plane ticket this summer and chaperone her around my friends for an evening. She’ll be wasted after three hours again, and I’ll shove her into one of the cabins to sleep it off until the next morning. It’s so boring when she does that.”
“I don’t mean to impose. I don’t want to obligate you to do things if you don’t want to.”
Clementine shoved the cubic orange boxes at Nicolai and then fluttered her fingers in the air. “I was going to offer to take her to Monaco this summer anyway. Birkin is rumored to be releasing a new colorway this fall. I want to make sure I have one before any of those bitches who think they’re my friends lay their hands on them.”
