The Paris Secret

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The Paris Secret Page 24

by Karen Swan


  ‘No.’

  She watched him closely, his body completely still, betraying nothing, but she had seen that look in his eyes a moment ago, his answers just that bit too quick . . . He wasn’t as comfortable with this line of questioning as he wanted to suggest.

  ‘Or maybe you’re lying. Perhaps you do care,’ she suggested, determined to fight him, to find the crack in his armour, dismantle his arrogance . . .

  ‘Why should I lie?’

  She shrugged. ‘I really don’t know.’

  Scorn furrowed his brow but as he stared down at her, she felt it again – that imperceptible shift, his black eyes pulling at her like quicksand, making the ground fall away beneath her feet. She felt her breath catch and he looked away quickly. Had he noticed it too?

  She stared at his profile, seeing now the tension in his jaw – his entire body, in fact – as though he was holding himself in check.

  ‘Why have you really come here?’ she asked.

  He stepped away, his eyes back on the canvases on the counter again. Did he find it easier to be confronted with his family’s shame than to stare at her? ‘It was wrong what happened the other day, that is all. You did not deserve it.’

  ‘Didn’t I? But I thought you said it was all my fault. I put your family through this.’ Her words were pushing him now, she could see. Suddenly she had him on the retreat. The air between them had become tight, thin.

  He looked back at her. ‘I don’t know what you did or didn’t do, but my father trusts you.’

  ‘But you don’t.’ Her words snapped at the heels of his, her temper thin. He was playing games, trying to be oblique, vague with her, avoiding her even though he had sought her out.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’

  ‘Doesn’t it? Don’t you count? Is everything in your family always about your sister?’

  ‘Don’t!’ In an instant, he was bearing down on her, his hands on her arms, pinning them to her sides.

  She gasped, having to bend back for some space, his face just inches away, and as those angry eyes burned on hers again, his body as tensed as a boxer waiting for the first punch, she suddenly understood exactly how good his English really was, why he’d even needed to have an ‘intention’: in a flash she remembered the way he’d held her on the steps as his girlfriend stormed past, his face in the rain as she’d rejected his kindness, why he’d bid in Chantilly as Noah stroked her hair . . . ‘What the hell are you doing to me, Flora?’

  She saw the fight in his eyes, could tell from the pulse in his jaw that he didn’t want to want her.

  ‘Xav—’

  ‘Don’t,’ he repeated. The word was a wall, stopping her in her tracks, and after another airless silence, he turned and walked away, crossing the room in three strides, out of sight in six.

  Flora watched him go, her heart pounding. She had never felt more confused. She wanted to hate him . . . hated to want him. He was more trouble than she could handle, she knew that, and yet to her shock, her surprise, her horror, she wanted him to be the stereotype, the man in the headlines, the one Ines kept warning her about. He might be no good for her, he might be the biggest mistake she’d ever make, he might be fire . . .

  But she still wanted to play.

  Ines had bagged the best sunloungers, white-and-gold-striped ones on the jetty which, for the hire price, got you valet parking too. They jutted out from the beach over the shallow sea, away from the hubbub on the sand. It was a perfect day. The water was like bottle-bottom glass and every so often, she could see shoals of tiny silver fish shimmy underneath the decks.

  It was an intense scene, not one for naturists or peace-seekers. All around them, with not more than a foot between the beds, were bodies, beautiful ones admittedly – tanned and slim, decked with Melissa Odabash bikinis and waterproof Rolexes. Flora shifted position and stretched out, admiring the delicate silver-and-turquoise anklet Ines had brought her as a surprise gift and wondering where she could get a pedicure around here that wouldn’t require a mortgage. Bruno was off SUP-boarding somewhere but Ines was lying on her tummy beside her, reading her book. She was wearing the purple crochet Kiini Bea bikini that had been sold out since March, her skin bronzing before Flora’s eyes.

  Flora sighed, fiddling with her sunhat and idly watching the masses converged on the thin gold crescent of Garoupe Bay. The private beaches were demarcated by coloured umbrellas – blue-and-white stripes, red, yellow, gold and white – and on the small patch of public beach, every inch of sand was staked and claimed.

  It was a privileged bubble to be floating in, she knew. As the nearest beach to the Cap – where the Vermeils’ estate was situated – it attracted a wealthy, international crowd. It had to – just a Coke here cost 12 euros. But the people-watching alone was fabulous and she was sure that if she were to hand out her business cards on this beach (admittedly impossible to keep anywhere in her scanty aqua Eres bikini) she’d probably get a 40 per cent call-back rate.

  She changed position again, wondering what Freds was up to, knowing he’d hate it here. ‘Posers,’ he’d groan, scoffing at the Rolexes and diamond toe rings and children with £200 haircuts. This was exactly the kind of scene he had in mind when he teased her about being ‘so jet-set’ these days. His idea of a beach holiday had a sand dune with a golf course behind it and grey whales in the water; there wouldn’t be another person in sight – beyond Aggie, of course (Flora didn’t care what he said – she knew they still loved each other) – and they’d have a portable BBQ tray for cooking up sausages, and a cricket set.

  Flora smiled at the thought of it – it reminded her of their family holidays in the Highlands, growing up – before realizing she was smiling and promptly wiping the grin from her face. How could she daydream when his life was a waking nightmare? How could she even lie here, lazing above the water, watching the social elite at play, when he was potentially counting down the days he had left of freedom? How could she call herself a good sister, basking in the sun whilst knowing that his days had never been darker?

  She shifted position again, feeling guilty.

  ‘Oh, what is wrong with you?’ Ines demanded, looking up from her book and squinting into the sun at her.

  ‘. . . Nothing.’

  ‘Really? Because you’ve been jumping around on that bed like it’s got bugs in it.’

  Flora cleared her throat, knowing she was still nervy from this morning’s showdown with Xavier. ‘Sorry. Just a bit restless.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you go for a swim or do something then?’

  ‘No, I’m fine. I’ll just . . . lie here. You read.’

  Ines arched an eyebrow.

  ‘Really. Read.’

  Ines sighed and went back to her book.

  Flora stared up at the roofs that peered out through the dense vegetation on the Cap, jigging her leg in the air. Privacy certainly wasn’t an issue for the residents here – between the high walls and the pine trees, it was a wonder they had any ocean view at all. There had clearly been a lot of new developments built in the last few years, with contemporary glass-cube apartments cutting into the rocks, but many of the larger villas were in the old-school colonial style of the Vermeils’ place: tall and blocky, with louvred shutters and painted in ice-cream colours of mint, strawberry pink, vanilla.

  Ines’s family place was set back one street from the sea. It was modest compared to most of the places around here – a mere six bedrooms – but Ines had been coming here all her life; every summer had been spent on this beach, and she was recognized and accepted by the locals as one of them. Useful, when trying to find a parking spot.

  Not that she imagined the area’s VIPs ever had to worry about that. Natascha and Xavier Vermeil probably got a Mexican wave from the crowds on the beach every time they came down here; they’d probably be allowed to land a helicopter on a lilo if they wanted (actually, she didn’t know whether the family owned a helicopter but she was quite sure that if they did, they could – that was h
er point).

  She frowned, realizing she was thinking about Xavier again. She shifted onto her side—

  ‘Oh my God, really?’ Ines demanded crossly.

  ‘Sorry!’ Flora squeaked, hands held up defensively.

  ‘You just don’t know how to relax, you know that?’

  ‘Like your boyfriend, you mean?’ Flora smiled, trying to make Ines smile too.

  But she didn’t. ‘Seriously. You work too hard. You’ve forgotten how to chill.’

  Flora closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She could chill. She could relax. She could—

  Xavier drifted into her mind again. The way he’d leaned over her in the flower room, how his hands had felt on her skin, how his words had told her one thing and his eyes another . . .

  She swung her legs off the bed and stood up in one fluid motion. Ines gawped up at her as though she were mad. ‘Ice cream?’ Her voice was high and shaky and she knew she was perilously close to betraying herself; she needed to move, do something, get away from Ines before she dragged the truth from her.

  ‘Sure,’ Ines said with a shake of her head and baffled expression that implied she would go along with whatever it was that would calm Flora down.

  ‘I’ll choose?’ Flora asked rhetorically, sliding her feet into her flip-flops. She went to retrieve her kaftan – only to find Ines hadn’t put the cap back on her suntan lotion properly and sticky cream had oozed all over it in a gooey blob. She let it fall back in a heap. It was too hot for layers anyway.

  ‘Why not,’ Ines said, in that same ‘let’s keep the ship steady’ voice.

  ‘Bruno?’

  ‘No. He could be hours.’

  Grabbing her tiny cross-body Marcie bag and slinging it on over her bikini, not losing a moment, Flora strode along the jetty, the decking boards rattling as she walked. She felt much the same herself, rattled. It just wouldn’t go out of her head – that damned moment, the sheer perversity of it – her chasing him, for God’s sake! Him practically running from her! Wasn’t he supposed to be the bad boy?

  She climbed the steps and walked over to the café where Ines usually bought the ice creams. There was no queue. Her heart sank. She’d be back sitting down and stuck on that lounger again in three minutes flat and her nerves would still be jangling.

  She looked up and down the pavement. It was set up above the beach, a small hill rising above it and leading back to the shaded residential streets, but she knew there was a grocery shop on the corner, just opposite Christie’s Real Estate at the top.

  An idea came to her. Flora walked over to the valet who had parked Ines’s car earlier. He had flirted a little with her as they’d got out and given him the keys.

  He straightened up as he saw her approach. ‘Hi,’ she smiled. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good,’ he replied. ‘You?’

  ‘Yeah, great.’ She fanned herself with one hand, blew out lightly through her lips. ‘Hot.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Listen, I want to get some ice creams from the shop up there. Can I borrow your bike?’

  ‘My bike?’

  She smiled and nodded, indicating the battered black bicycle propped against the wall behind him. ‘I’ll bring it back, I promise. You’ve still got our keys, right?’

  He shrugged. ‘. . . Sure.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, flashing him a beam as he wheeled it over, looking perplexed that a girl who had arrived in a Porsche should be leaving on a pushbike.

  She pedalled away, feeling the breeze quicken and lift her hair, grateful for the chance to expend some energy and burn off this restlessness that was making it impossible for her to sit. Xavier Vermeil had managed to boil her blood and then just left her to simmer but she wasn’t going to sit around, brooding on him; she had far bigger things to worry about. She loved her brother and she needed to place all her emotional energy in him.

  She took the long way round, not in any hurry to go back to lying down and having nothing to do but think. Instead she pedalled hard up the hill and turned into the Cap itself, trying to lose herself in the winding, shaded lanes that were banked on every side by high walls and staffed gates, Rolls-Royces and Bentleys purring softly as they passed by. She had no idea where she was but nor did she want to either, preferring to hide from her own shadow and enjoy the feeling of her thigh muscles burning and her breath coming fast.

  She stood out of the saddle on the hills, sitting back and freewheeling on the other sides, dodging the pine cones that lay where they fell, no pedestrians, no pavements. She meandered lazily in and out of the roads, feeling heady as the balmy air kissed her exposed body as she darted from searing sunspots to the dappled shade of giant plane and eucalyptus trees. She wondered about the families who had once lived here, as well as the families that lived here now; the biggest estates were owned almost entirely by Russians, and in fact Abramovich’s yacht Eclipse was currently moored just off the Cap, eliciting a roll of the eyes from Bruno, who had remained resolutely unimpressed.

  By the time she pulled up at the corner store thirty-five minutes later, she was puffing and pink-cheeked from her exertions – fatigued but not worn out, shadows still creeping through her mind – shivering as the air conditioning chilled her skin when she paid for the ice creams.

  She hopped on the bike again and glided down the hill, back towards Garoupe. The valet was still standing at his post and she could see Ines with him. Flora waved, the plastic bag with the ice creams inside dangling from her wrist.

  A lime-green Mini Moke – roofless, barely ten inches off the road – was coming up the road in the opposite direction to her. Flora barely noticed. She could tell from Ines’s body language that she had questions she wanted answers to.

  It was only as she passed the car that she saw the dark hair of the driver flash by, the darker eyes. Xavier stared back at her and Flora felt time become elastic again; she felt as though she was in slow motion, life on a go-slo filter as everything that hadn’t happened between them stretched out, there again, not going anywhere, his eyes locked on hers, unable to look away . . .

  Then he was behind her. Out of sight again, out of reach—

  The sharp scraping of metal on metal, the sudden squeal of tyres, startled her, the bike wobbling precariously side to side as she pressed the brakes and tried to stop without going over the handlebars on the slope. But by the time she was able to look round, he was gone, the bright green paint from his car now scraped along a street light, the only evidence he’d ever been there.

  She didn’t allow herself the luxury of pondering his evident surprise or why he might have been distracted to the point of crashing. She wheeled off again quickly, staying busy-busy-busy, dismounting the bike in silence as she arrived at the valet’s stand thirty seconds later. He took the bicycle from her, as slack-jawed as Ines. Flora reached into the bag and triumphantly held out the ice cream for her friend, ignoring both their gawping expressions.

  ‘What?’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The very air was lavender-scented up here. Grasse, the world’s capital of the lavender industry, was just behind the ridge of hills that the car was slowly climbing and as they moved away from the blinding glitter of the Côte d’Azur to the dense green lushness of the wooded mountains, the very tenor of the land changed. They had only been travelling for twenty minutes but the glitz and flash of the promenade, where bikinis were worn with wedges and Pagani supercars sat at the lights with Vespas, had given way to a humbler, more crumbly aesthetic with rough stone walls and gnarled centuries-old olive trees, giant pines shedding their coats on the pass, the houses painted in spice colours of saffron, cumin and turmeric.

  The hills folded in undulating ribbons, pleating back inland before jutting out again, steep sand-coloured escarpments boldly bare as they rose above the forests. Away from the oligarchs’ domination of the coastline, the more modest homes of the merely rich colonized the flatter land in the high valleys amidst the vineyards, with orange and lemon
groves landscaped as gardens, and pools winking up at the mountain road that folded around in ripples.

  Flora could already see Saint-Paul-de-Vence ahead of them. It clung to an outcrop of rocks like a giant barnacle, the square, unsentimental church tower like a finger pointing up to God, as though boldly betraying his hiding place. The grey stone ramparts seemed to meld invisibly with the cliffs, the clay-tiled roofs of the medieval houses ridged and rippling downwards in steps, the towns in the Provençal foothills beyond indistinct in the midsummer haze.

  The cab pulled to a stop in the centre of town, outside a café, its tables shaded with a rattan sunroof, ivy creeping over the walls in sticky tendrils and a giant watermill wheel set into the side of the building. Flora paid and jumped out, allowing herself to be swept along with the tide of tourists all heading down a narrow street, past the old covered flower market where an elderly woman was sitting on a deckchair, fruit laid out on trays before her. Opposite was a large pedestrianized square where several games of pétanque were being played, surrounded on three sides by cafés, their tables full thanks to the blistering heat, and people sitting and resting on the low wall.

  Flora drifted past. She wasn’t exactly sure where she was going, only that the gallery was somewhere in the old town. The town walls were impossible to miss, rising ten metres above the streets, the ground itself becoming cobbled, the rounded stones polished but highly uneven under her Hermès H slides. She trod more carefully as she and the rest of the crowd were funnelled up a ramp leading into the ramparts. The sun was momentarily eclipsed from sight and she was grateful to be back in the shade, unwittingly smiling at the horde of already-hot children jostling by the public water fountain beneath a giant plane tree.

  But if everything seemed oversized outside the town walls – the trees, the view, the walls themselves – stepping through the gate was like stepping into Lilliput: everything seemed scaled down and tiny, the streets so narrow she felt she could brush both sides with her outstretched arms. The lanes were stepped in parts, rising sharply before levelling out again, the shops’ wares hanging on the outer walls and doorways like in a bazaar. There were ice-cream parlours and sunglasses boutiques, dress shops selling boho cheesecloth dresses, homewares boutiques boasting local cold-pressed olive oils and the region’s famous lavender essential oils. And art galleries. Hundreds of them.

 

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