by Liz Fielding
‘I... Yes. After the initial shock. When I’d heard his story. Sally is finding it harder. She can’t get her head around why he stayed away for so long. Why he never sent so much as a postcard. He didn’t even know, until he got to London, that our mother had been killed in a car accident.’
She swallowed. She didn’t have to imagine how it felt to have someone disappear from your life. To have no idea where they were or if they were alive.
She knew.
‘Do you understand?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Mum turned her back on him. That’s hard to forgive but she was vulnerable, and Nick Wolfe was an accomplished manipulator...’
‘Poor Hugo. Poor Sally.’
‘She’s struggling to forgive him, but she’ll get there. She has agreed to handle the design brief for the hotel, which is a start.’
‘And you came to Paris to find Hugo a chef?’
‘Job done. I already had Louis at the top of the list I’d drawn up in the event that we managed to get the hotel ourselves. I thought it would be a tough sell, but Louis was ripe for a move.’
‘And now you’ve found me. Your list of the lost is getting shorter. And the hotel, your home, is back in your family.’
He nodded, but his mouth tightened, and she knew that he was thinking of their daughter.
She put her hand over his. ‘How many years was Hugo lost to you, James? How many years since we were together?’
‘Too long,’ he said.
‘But we endured the dark times,’ she said. ‘We survived, carried on living and Eloise will be eighteen in just over eight years. If she needs us, she will find us.’
His hand turned and he grasped hers. ‘And if she doesn’t?’
He sounded despairing but she had lived with that thought a long time and had an answer.
‘We will know that she doesn’t need us, James. That she’s happy, with a family who love her.’
CHAPTER SIX
JAMES NODDED HIS acceptance of what she’d said and, as the waiter arrived with their food, released her hand and sat back.
The soup was rich, unctuous, warming with a hint of fish stock and a cluster of large prawns.
‘That has to be the best thing I’ve eaten in for ever,’ she said. ‘Was there some chilli in there? I feel warmed to my boots.’
‘Just enough for a little heat, not enough to get in the way of the flavour. Perfectly balanced.’
Food took them away from the fraught discussion of the past. James told her about the places he’d worked, some good, some ghastly. About the television show that had given him his big break. About the ups and downs of starting his own restaurant.
They were finally able to relax, laugh and when, a couple of hours later, they walked back out into the street, James took her hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
‘Thank you, James. It’s a long time since I ate in a good restaurant.’
‘Food is one of the most important constituents of a holiday. Besides, I don’t often have the chance to do this. It’s important to get out there, see what good food is on offer.’
‘A bit of a busman’s holiday, then. Can a chef ever just enjoy a meal without analysing it?’ she asked.
‘Identifying some subtle ingredient is half the fun, but it’s possible. Can you ever look at a bed without wanting to straighten the corners?’ he asked.
He was grinning and she laughed as she shook her head, said, ‘Thanks for reminding me about the day job. You are going to have to cheer me up by describing the best dish you’ve ever tasted.’
‘Oh, that’s a tough one...’
She suggested a few classics, but he shook his head. ‘I’ve tasted some of the greatest dishes, prepared by world-famous chefs,’ he said, ‘but the magic comes from more than what’s on the plate in front of you.’
‘Don’t tell the food bloggers that!’
‘Believe me, I’m not going to discourage them,’ he assured her. ‘They’re good for business and a restaurant dish has to have eye appeal as well as the perfect blend of flavours.’
‘But?’ She glanced at him. ‘There was definitely a lingering “but” hanging around the end of that sentence.’
He pulled her hand beneath his arm, drawing her close. ‘The temperature has dropped like a stone. Add hats and gloves to the shopping list,’ he said.
‘Hats and gloves,’ she repeated. ‘But?’
He paused at a crossing, watching the traffic, waiting for it to come to a halt before they could cross the road. For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to respond to the prompt, and she left it as they turned the corner in the courtyard, but as he punched in the keycode, he said, ‘You’re right about the “but”. Eating is about more than a pretty dish. It’s an emotional experience.’
‘So not what I expected.’
‘It’s not about how trendy the restaurant is, or the number of Michelin stars it can boast,’ he said. ‘It’s who you’re with that makes food memorable.’
He opened the door, stood back to let her lead the way.
Inside, the flat was warm, and he shed his coat, not looking at her, because it wasn’t some dish he was remembering, she realised. It was about who he’d been with when he ate it. Someone else...
She took a breath, wishing she’d never gone down this path, but knowing that she couldn’t stop. ‘Are you going to tell me?’
‘If I tell you,’ he said, turning to look at her, his face expressionless, ‘my reputation will be entirely in your hands.’
For a moment she was taken in, then she cuffed his arm as she realised that he was teasing. ‘You still do that!’
‘And you still fall for it.’
She unbuttoned her coat, and he took it from her, giving her a moment to catch her breath while he hung it with his in the lobby. Loving that he was still, deep down, the boy she’d fallen in love with. Afraid of the rush of pleasure it gave her.
‘Tea, coffee?’ he asked, picking up the wine glasses as he headed for the kitchen.
‘There’s tea?’
‘Herbal stuff. Camomile, spiced ginger, mint? We’ll go to Galeries Lafayette and pick up the real thing in the morning. Or there’s chocolate?’
‘No, I’m fine.’
She could hear him moving about in the kitchen, water running as he washed the glasses. ‘Have you guessed yet?’ he called after a few moments.
She sank into the soft leather of the sofa, stretched out her legs and cast her mind back.
‘It has to be comfort food of some kind?’ He didn’t answer and she tried to think of the best/worst comfort food she knew. ‘A chip butty?’
‘Are you referring to the perfection that is a soft bap, split open, filled with chunky fries and covered with curry sauce?’
‘That was the rugby-team version. I prefer mine dipped in mayonnaise.’
‘You don’t know what you’re missing,’ he said. ‘Try again.’
The kitchen on their floor at school had been equipped with a toaster but it had so much use that it was always breaking down, so James had brought in his own and kept it in his room. And a camping gas ring that broke every rule.
She remembered toasted muffins with raspberry jam that tasted of summer. He’d had the biggest pot of Marmite you could buy and on cold winter nights he would heat up tomato soup out of a tin...
When she looked up, he was leaning against the door, watching her, waiting for the penny to drop. And finally, it did.
It was not something they’d eaten at school but late one night in the little cottage by the sea and her heart turned over at the memory of that day, that moment...
‘It’s a fried-egg sandwich.’ Before she could draw one shaky breath, he was beside her, taking her hand. She laughed a little shakily and said, ‘But not just any fried-egg sandwich.’
‘The eggs have to be free range,’ he said, ‘bought at the farm gate. They have to be fried in butter...’
They were so close that she could feel his breath on her ear, her cheek...
‘...and generously dolloped with brown sauce, squished between slices of thick white bread. And the yolk has to be runny enough to spill out over your fingers when you bite into it.’
The image was so real that she could almost feel the yolk, taste the sharpness of the sauce...
‘Licking your fingers is half the fun,’ she said.
‘Licking someone else’s is the other half...’
‘It was the last Friday in May,’ she said, because someone should keep talking or they were going to do something stupid and she was so determined not to do that stupid thing...
‘We’d been on the beach hunting for fossils.’
The sun had been shining, but the sky was streaked with mare’s tails from a storm that had passed in the night. And right now, her heart was pounding, her lips burning...
‘You found an ammonite.’
‘A big one. I don’t know what happened to it.’
‘You left it in my room. I still have it. That, and a book of poetry that you gave me, the photographs of you on my phone and the clothes I stood up in, were all I took away from school.’
She turned to look at him. ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese. “I thought once how Theocritus had sung... Of the sweet years, the dear and wished for years...”’
For a long moment they looked at one another and then James said, ‘We had to leave the next morning and you insisted on going for a swim even though the water was freezing. Afterwards you were shivering so much that I ran you a bath so that you could warm up...’
‘My fingers were so cold I couldn’t manage the buttons. You did them up all wrong,’ she said.
He grinned. ‘I undid them all right.’
‘You were always good at that part.’
‘You had sand in your hair, sticking to your skin...’
‘I was cold and sore where it had rubbed.’ The breath was being squeezed out of her body and the touch of her clothes against her skin was torture.
‘Sand gets everywhere.’
His breath was on her lips, warming her as he had that day, his soapy hands sliding over her breasts, her thighs, between her toes—any place where a grain of sand might cling...
Did her lips touch his first or did he move to close the space between them? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they were together, that she was melting into a kiss so sweet, so mesmerisingly slow that she barely noticed the moment that she opened her mouth to the sensuously sweet dance of his tongue.
This was her soft-focus dream moment and she drew back just long enough to say, ‘The sandwich was epic, James, but let’s skip it and go straight to the bath.’
* * *
Chloe stirred, stretched.
Jay had been watching her for a while, completely blown away by the unexpected way she had opened up to him last night, become again the seventeen-year-old girl who had thrown away every last vestige of reserve.
Wondering if she would be happy about it in the cold light of day.
She’d been up and down, all evening. Flirty and distant in turn. He’d understood. She’d been through so much and talking to him had clearly brought back painful memories.
Despite that first explosive moment, he’d had no intention of pushing her into an intimate relationship. He’d waited years for this and wasn’t about to ruin things by pushing her into something she’d regret.
In the end he hadn’t had to push. All it had taken was a throwaway remark, to spark the memory of a special moment when they’d been happy, for her to fall, taking him with her.
The cottage had given them so much freedom. They hadn’t had to hide their feelings from disapproving teachers, gossipy girls.
They’d held hands as they’d walked to the beach, laughed a lot, done their bit to save water by sharing showers, been as noisy as they liked when they’d made love.
But that day had been different. What had started as a problem with buttons had built into a no-holds-barred, sensually devastating experience in which Chloe had given everything, demanded everything, with consequences that had changed both their lives. Hers, far more than his.
He bent and gently kissed her lovely mouth. ‘Wake up, sleeping beauty.’
‘I’m not asleep.’ She opened her eyes and what he was seeing was not regret.
‘I’ve been lying here afraid that I was dreaming and that if I opened my eyes, this would all vanish and I’d have to dash to my freezing bathroom, cram into the Metro and spend the entire day making beds and cleaning hotel rooms.’
‘It’s not going to happen. You’re on holiday and so am I.’
‘We’re on holiday and we’re lying in bed wasting the day?’
‘Who said anything about wasting it?’ Confident now, he propped himself up on his elbow, ran the back of a finger along the curve of her shoulder. ‘You look positively edible lying on that pillow.’
‘Edible?’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that what chefs say to a woman when they want to—?’
He put a finger to her lips.
‘You are the only woman I’ve ever said it to, Chloe. I’ve been too busy building a career, building a business, to waste time indulging in casual sex.’
‘Why would it be casual?’ She frowned. ‘There was no one?’
‘There was always someone, Chloe. Just because she wasn’t there, I couldn’t see her, touch her, didn’t change that.’
Lost for words as she took in the enormity of what he’d just said, she reached up, took his face between her hands and said, ‘Ditto.’
‘That’s from one of your movies. There was a song you loved...’ But she was kissing him, and he lost the thread.
* * *
They shopped in designer outlets in the Marais district. James topped up his wardrobe, bought a scarf. Chloe tried on a bright red coat. She needed a new coat and she was tired of wearing black.
James wanted to buy it for her, but although she wasn’t working, she insisted on paying for it herself. She thought he was going to argue, but maybe something in her stance warned him not to push it. Instead he bought her a white faux-fur hat.
‘I look ridiculous,’ she said. ‘And I never wear hats.’
‘You look gorgeous and you’re going to need it when we go on the bus tour.’
They ate soupe du jour in a bistro, which turned out to be leek and potato, but nothing like the way they had made it at school. Afterwards, while they had coffee, James checked his phone.
‘Problems?’ she asked, when he’d been busy on it for a few minutes.
He looked up. ‘Sorry... I didn’t mean to ignore you.’
‘It’s okay. You must have stuff that needs your attention.’
‘I do, but my attention was totally focussed on booking dinner on a Bateau Mouche for this evening.’
‘Oh.’
‘Was that a happy “oh”? Or a That is such a tourist thing to do “oh”?’
It had been a surprised, It would have been nice to talk about it or to have been asked first ‘oh’, but he had wanted to give her a treat so she said, ‘You did say we were going to behave like total tourists so it was a surprised, happy, How lovely! I’ve lived in Paris for years and never done that “oh”.’
He grinned. ‘I can’t believe the things I never did when I was living here. I haven’t even seen the Mona Lisa.’
‘I am shocked.’
‘You go to see her regularly, I assume.’
‘Every week and twice on Sundays.’ Then, grinning, she shook her head. ‘It’s been a while,’ she admitted. ‘It takes more than a moody portrait to impress a teenage girl.’
‘A moody portrait?’ He sh
ook his head in disbelief. ‘What about the enigmatic smile that everyone raves about?’
‘If you must know, I gave her four out of ten for effort. I swear that if she’d been wearing a watch, she’d have been sneaking a glance and wondering how much longer Leonardo was going to take.’
He laughed. ‘That’s harsh.’
‘Maybe I was projecting my own feelings onto her,’ she admitted. ‘The adults were droning on endlessly about the pictures, the sculptures and a ceiling that they stared at for what seemed like hours.’
‘You really didn’t have a good time.’
‘You want the truth?’
‘Will I be able to handle it?’
‘I was thirteen. It was Paris Fashion Week and instead of having a sneaky sip of champagne at Dior with my mother, my father insisted that I accompany him on a tour of the Louvre.’
‘A sulky teenager? I’ll bet he regretted that.’
She sighed. ‘I knew better than to show my feelings. I was very polite to the directeur and his guests, smiled in all the appropriate places, even asked a question or two. I knew how to make Papa proud.’ She shrugged. ‘Until I didn’t.’
‘I’m so sorry, Chloe.’
She reached out, took his hand. ‘Don’t be, James. Don’t ever be sorry. I’ve never, for one moment, regretted what happened between us.’
‘Ditto...’ He drew back, aware that wasn’t an appropriate response but couldn’t have said why. ‘But let’s give the Louvre a miss.’ He called for the bill, then said, ‘It’s not fashion week, but we could find a Dior boutique?’
She shook her head, touched that he would be so thoughtful. ‘We’re doing the tourist trail, it’s on every sightseer’s bucket list and it’s long past time that I gave the old girl another chance.’
They took their purchases back to the flat, Chloe changed into her new coat and they caught the bus from the Sorbonne to the Pont des Arts and walked across the bridge.
‘This isn’t good. I should have booked a skip-the-queue ticket,’ James said as he saw the mass of people waiting to clear security.
‘No need.’ Chloe tugged him away. ‘We’ll go in through the Carrousel du Louvre.’