“The French, we train our children how to carry their liquor,” he teased.
“It’s hold their liquor.” He shrugged at my correction. “And yes, you were quite the sophisticated teenager.” He grinned. “And such a charmer. I think my mum was smitten with you.”
“We also like older women in France.”
“Oh, that’s … just, no. That’s awful.” He laughed and his eyes lit up.
“Everyone thought we were boyfriend and girlfriend,” he said lightly.
“Even my mum.”
“Really?”
“Sure. There was this one time I asked if you could sleep over—do you remember? We were going to watch Deep Impact and Armageddon? Anyway, she decided it was time to give me the talk.” His eyebrows lifted a centimetre. “Exactly. I had to explain to her that A) I already knew all that stuff, and B) you were just my friend, and C) Ewww, gross, how could she think I was thinking about having sex? ‘Mum, I’m only fourteen!’”
“And she responded how?”
“I think she was as embarrassed as I was. And she let you stay over.”
“I remember. I slept in the guest room.”
“Well, yes, I mean, we were friends—just kids really, but still, we were fourteen … even if one of us fancied the other—”
“I did.”
“You did what?”
“I liked you.” It was my turn to laugh.
“You did not.” His lips rolled in until they disappeared. “You didn’t. You never said.”
He ran his hand through his hair—my new favourite thing in the whole world. “I was a long way from home, and you were my closest friend, and we spent a lot of time together—every day. And you were very cute …”
He let the thought hang in the air, and I scoured my brain for any evidence of his twenty-year-old feelings, coming up short. I’d leave the scouring for later. Instead, I latched onto his depiction of teenaged me. “Cute?”
He shrugged. “You were. Let’s just say it’s a good thing your family had a guest room.”
“Oh really? You would have made a move?”
“As you said, I was sophisticated for my age.” I rolled my eyes. He held his hands out, mock offended.
“And now?” I asked.
“Now what?”
“Am I still cute?” Oh bollocks. I did not say that. I glanced at my glass—nearly empty. Bloody wine.
“Oh, no. Definitely not cute.” Oh. “Sexy, yes. Beautiful, yes.” Ohhh.
My eyes widened. I did not give them permission, but they were going rogue. I opened my mouth to speak and the words wouldn’t come.
“I have shocked you?”
“No, you’ve, well, yes, a little, but … thank you, for the compliment.” He tilted his head and lifted one shoulder, as though my beauty was a given and there was nothing to thank him for. My eyes flicked to the clock above the bar. Coming up on midnight.
“You need to go soon, yes?”
I sighed. I didn’t want to go back to the garden shed and sleep in a sleeping bag. I wanted to go to Jean-Luc’s bed and crawl under the duvet and snuggle up with him and reminisce about how much he’d fancied me and never told me.
“Yes. I should. We leave early tomorrow—at seven.” He sucked air through his teeth in horror. “I know. It’s barely civilised.”
“And you go where?”
“Uh, next is the château—it’s in the Beaujolais region, so that should be nice—then Antibes, Florence, Rome … we go to a lot of places.”
“Over what time? How long?”
“It’s only two weeks.”
“Two weeks for all those places?” he scoffed.
“I know, and that’s not even all of them. We only got into Paris yesterday.”
He shook his head and tutted, and I suddenly felt very foolish for having booked myself onto a rapid-fire touristy tour.
“But still, there is something very good in all this.”
“What’s that?”
“The Eurostar,” he said, grinning. “When you get home to London, we’re only a few hours apart.”
Bollocks, I was going to swoon again.
Chapter 4
I didn’t want to leave the nameless bar in Montmartre.
I wanted to stay there all night and drink scrummy wine and talk to the handsome man who had once been my best friend.
After his remark about the Eurostar, it was impossible not to project into the future where we shared an apartment on the Left Bank, him writing the great French novel, and me lying about on beautiful linens, sexily mussed up from all our lovemaking and eating grapes and cheese from a wooden board. Perhaps our future was in the nineteenth century.
He was talking about his next writing assignment. I should have been paying attention instead of fixating on his long fingers as they tapped on the table.
“When are you in Roma?” At his question, my eyes lifted to his.
“Oh, um … Thursday.” He smiled.
“Parfait.” Perfect.
“Sorry?”
“Well, as I said, the interview is on Wednesday.”
“Oh, right.” Why wasn’t I listening?
“It’s not so far, Naples to Roma. I could catch the train and see you there.”
“In Rome?” I must have sounded like a moron.
“Oui. You arrive on Thursday. Perhaps I can steal you away from your group. For dinner.”
Ohhh.
“You know, I’ve never actually been to Rome,” I confessed.
He looked confused. “Never?”
“No. I’m really looking forward to it.”
“Of course. You must. It is extraordinary.”
“High praise from someone who lives in Paris.”
“Peut-être.” Perhaps. “So, we have a date, oui, Catherine?”
It took approximately two-point-four seconds for me to decide. “That should work,” I replied, as though we’d just scheduled a business meeting. What a romantic, huh?
One of the couples said goodnight to the bartender and left. It really was getting late, and I was trying to eke out the last sips of my wine, but Jean-Luc took the couple’s departure as our prompt to go.
“We should …” he said, standing.
“Yes, of course.” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so disappointed. Bugger the stupid bus tour to hell. I wondered what he’d say if I abandoned it and invited myself to stay in Paris. Probably something like, “Uh, non, merci, crazy Australian-British woman.”
Jean-Luc didn’t take my hand when we left the bar. More disappointment, but seriously, what did I expect to happen, that he would declare his undying love for me? He’d thought I was cute twenty years ago, and even though I was head-over-heels in lust, it wasn’t like we’d be sending out the wedding invitations any time soon.
I had a firm chat with myself on the way back to the scooter. It had been a minor miracle I’d found Jean-Luc again—or rather, that Jaelee had. I’d thank her properly as soon as she was speaking to me again. But I needed to take the whole situation for what it was—a wonderful, remarkable, one-in-a-million fluke—and stop indulging my lustful thoughts.