From Paris With Love This Christmas

by Jules Wake

  ‘Siena, stop making a scene. You’re drunk. Flying is perfectly safe. We’ve been through this before.’

  As if someone had said, ‘at ease,’ the policeman’s expression returned to bored resignation.

  ‘I’m not afraid of flying,’ she said resolutely.

  ‘Coffee,’ the policeman nodded across the terminal towards the Costa coffee they’d left minutes before.

  Refusing to give in, a stab of adrenaline, fired by panic shot through her. Without thinking, she kicked the policeman hard on the shin.

  ‘What the?’ he exclaimed. ‘Madam, you need to sober up before I arrest you for assaulting a police officer’

  All Siena heard was ‘arrest you’. She kicked him again even harder.

  ‘I’ve warned you.’

  Yves tugged at her. ‘Sorry officer, I’ll sober her up. Once we’re on the flight to Paris, she’ll be fine. I promise,’ he entreated. ‘She’s never done this before. Please don’t arrest her.’

  Siena did the only thing she could think of; she kicked the poor man for a third time.

  Chapter 27

  The whispered debate raged at the custody sergeant’s desk, with lots of glances her way. Maybe they were going to let her go.

  There’d been a rather depressing attempt at decoration comprising a lacklustre piece of silver tinsel looped along the front of the desk, which was falling off at one end and a plastic holly wreath hooked onto the coat stand in the corner. Enough to remind you that Christmas was coming, in case you’d forgotten and sparse enough to let you ignore it. Christmas was only days away and she had no idea where she’d be spending it. Not in France, that was for sure. Or with Jason. She was so mad at him. And terrified that he really believed what he said, espèce d’imbécile.

  She screwed up her eyes as if that might shield her from the bleak ache in her chest.

  Her bottom had almost welded itself to the hard grey plastic seat, she’d been here so long. They’d taken all her things from her. Watch, jewellery, handbag.

  ‘Miss Browne-Martin. I’m afraid we’re going to have to keep you here overnight.’

  She got the impression that Sergeant Franks had been bullied into coming over to tell her, as if none of them wanted to break the news to her.

  ‘Really? Can’t you let me go and I’ll come back tomorrow.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. You’ve committed a serious offence.’ She could see the struggle on his face between being professional and fatherly.

  ‘But I did apologise to the police constable and explained why I did it.’ Surely they could see she wasn’t a real criminal. ‘I was desperate and it was spur of the moment. It wasn’t assault, not proper assault. In fact he saved me from a probable assault of my own.’

  ‘Sorry Miss,’ Franks shot a look over his shoulder at the two officers, staying put behind the desk. ‘I have to follow procedure. What you say to me doesn’t count. I can’t make those decisions and as we can’t get hold of a duty solicitor for you tonight, you’re going to have to spend a night in one of our cells. Unless,’ he looked hopeful, ‘you have your own legal representation.’

  The irony blossomed, brilliant and beautiful. ‘I do, unfortunately the same man is also Yves’ uncle. I don’t think he would be prepared to help.’

  The policeman winced. ‘No one else?’

  She could call Jason and ask him except his number was in her phone in Yves pocket probably half way across the Channel by now. Bloody phones, everything was in them. ‘Not really.’

  ‘We’ll do our best to make you as comfortable as possible.’

  Siena closed her eyes vacillating between the urge to laugh or cry. With a glass of Prosecco in hand with Lisa, or at the pub, Will leaning at the bar and Marcus perched on a stool, the retelling of her night in the cells would go down well.

  But what about Jason right now? She tried to haul back the soft sob that broke. What was he thinking? That she’d left?

  ‘Is there any way I can get a message to someone to let them know I’m safe?’

  ‘Do you have a number?’

  ‘It’s in my phone.’ She sighed. Which had been palmed by Yves in the coffee shop.

  ‘If you have an address, I could phone the local police station. See if someone could drop in.’ His face concertinaed into lines. ‘But there’s a strong chance they’re not going to have the manpower. Not this time of night.’

  The alarm buzzed, ejecting him with a jump from the type of sleep extreme climbers on the edge of a mountain enjoy.

  Balefully he looked at clock. At some time around three, he’d given up listening for her to come home. Given up trying to shape any sort of apology. Five was the last time he remembered looking at the digital numbers.

  Groggy and hopeful, he reached for his phone.

  Nothing.

  He rolled off the bed still fully dressed and looked out into the hallway. Her bedroom door framed the sunlight pouring in through open curtains.

  Nausea, a riptide of acid, curled low in his stomach. What had he done?

  What an arse, telling her to go home. She’d done what he told her to. So now why did he have this hollow feeling in his chest? He shook his head and caught sight of himself in the mirror.

  ‘You fucking dickhead.’ Last night’s clothes looked worse this morning. He looked like shit.

  Shoving two indigestion tablets into his mouth, he stripped and got into the shower. As punishment, he turned the tap to cold halfway through. It cleared the fug residing in his head and he was able to face himself in the mirror with slightly more equanimity.

  In the reflection behind him, he could see the rank and file of the red and white jars and tubes of her lotions and potions. Arranged in little trios of this and that, an order to them quite beyond him. Knowing it wouldn’t help, he picked up the moisturiser she smoothed on her face and neck every morning, despite the fact she looked perfect already. Opened it, and like a dumb masochist, took in a deep smell.

  As if he’d conjured up a ghost, she flitted through the bathroom, her ridiculous wisp of a robe floating after her during their ritual dance between sink and shower, the intimate mix of her scent riding like a shadow behind her.

  He closed his eyes, almost felled by the ache hollowing out his chest. Had he made a terrible mistake?

  ‘You bloody know you have,’ he told his reflection in the mirror.

  Coffee and toast did nothing to settle his stomach. His phone sat on the table, idle and utterly fucking useless. He wanted to shake the damn thing, make it work, make it ring. For the tenth time, he scrolled through the roll call of inadequate texts he’d sent last night.

  Let me know you’re safe.

  Are you coming back tonight?

  Can you ring me? I’m worried about you. Are you safe?

  He understood why she hadn’t texted him back. But what if Yves had hurt her? Not in public, surely. Christ, he didn’t even know which restaurant they’d gone to last night. Where were they now? In a hotel? He could call all the hotels in the area. What sort of reaction would he get if he asked if they had a Frenchman staying with them called Yves?

  He put his elbows on his knees, his head sinking into his hands. She’d gone. And he’d sent her packing.

  He stared down at the floor, still covered in glitter despite Siena’s blithe assurance she’d tidy up every ‘last smidge’. A memory of her cheeky assurance and optimism that she could do a good job pierced him.

  He jumped to his feet. Fuck it. Siena wouldn’t sit here being maudlin. She’d be doing something about it. They could sort the details out later, but he had to get her back here where she belonged.

  He’d call her on the hour, every hour until she answered and he could tell her … His heart kicked in his chest, a bloom of sensation that radiated out to every nerve ending.

  Tell her that he loved her.

  Suddenly it was that simple. With a surge of hope, his fingertips tingling, he called her number, his foot tapping und
er the table as he listened to the beeps connecting the call. It began to ring. Snapping to attention he sat up. Held the phone away, looked at it and then put it back to his ear to listen again.

  With a bitter groan, he slapped the phone on the table. Nothing could have broadcast her return to France more authoritatively than the alien long flat intermittent beep of an overseas dialling tone.

  Chapter 28

  Bright light forced her eyelids shut again as Siena came to. With a groan she unpeeled herself from the horrible blue plastic mattress, which squeaked as she moved. Shifting her weight and gaining purchase on the slippery surface whilst wrapped in a blanket with the texture of fibreglass, took some effort, but eventually she managed to get to a sitting position. Daylight poured in from glass bricks high above her head, glinting off the glossy glaze of the tiled walls.

  The surfeit of man-made materials had left her in a cocoon of damp sweat, making her shiver slightly. She felt grubby, her skin soiled to the absolute bone, although the cell gleamed with the clinical spotlessness of an operating theatre. The first thing she’d do when she got out of here was wash around the back of her neck. Let clean water trickle down her neck under her clothes.

  Worse still was the sense of being watched. For most of the night, she’d tucked herself into the wall, her back to the black half sphere in the ceiling. The slot in the door shot home, as it had done numerous times during the long dark hours of the night, and a face appeared.

  ‘Drink? Tea? Coffee?’

  ‘Coffee please.’

  She closed her eyes, and tipped her head back. Thank God, it was morning and she could get out of here. Unfortunately getting out wasn’t anywhere near as easy as getting in.

  ‘Bloody hell Siena, you know how to get yourself to trouble. Assaulting a police officer! The old bill take that sort of thing very seriously.’ Despite his wide-eyed amazement, Will looked reluctantly impressed. ‘Can I ask the obvious question?’ He led her out of the magistrate’s court towards his battered Golf.

  ‘What, why did I kick him?’ she asked getting into the front seat.

  ‘I think that was probably quite a smart move. I can see why you did it, although I’m not sure how Yves thought he’d force you to get on the plane.’

  ‘He had a few aces up his sleeve.’

  She told Will what Yves had been planning.

  ‘Wow, he did his homework. Could he still go through with it?’

  ‘Yes. I guess. But the threat would have been worse than reality and once you know someone is behind the threat, it undermines the case. I doubt Stacey would have gone through with it, especially not if she thought the police had been involved.’

  ‘No, she wouldn’t have liked that at all,’ said Will with a cynical laugh. ‘Reputation and money was very important to her. Jason was alright when he had a fancy job in the City but she didn’t like the loss of status when he quit.’

  ‘She doesn’t sound very nice. No wonder he thinks that I won’t stick around for too long. He’s convinced that I’ll get bored, get fed up with not being rich and go home.’

  ‘You can’t blame him, really, Stacey wasn’t the best example of the female species. I don’t think Jason was so in love with her that he was heart-broken, more disappointed she wasn’t prepared to work with him as a team. He wanted a partner, support; not financial but someone who would say, ‘I understand your dreams and I’ll be there to help you get there.’’ Will slapped his forehead. ‘And if you repeat that I will have to kill you because he will fucking kill me.’

  ‘So what about you? What are your dreams?’

  ‘Me? I don’t go in for that new age crap.’

  Siena didn’t believe a word he said.

  ‘What I really want to know,’ Will gave a coy look, ‘is why you didn’t call Jason?’

  Siena’s lips tightened. ‘Because we had a bit of a row last night.’

  Her head hurt like crazy and she felt like she’d been through an emotional tornado that had picked her up, given her a maximum spin and then spat her out, leaving her like a limp doll tossed over an old fence.

  Thank goodness the magistrate had been prepared to listen. Will’s character reference had also helped. She couldn’t leave the country now even if she wanted to and there was the small matter of community service. There might be extenuating circumstances, but no matter what, you could not kick a policeman.

  ‘I don’t want to see Jason at the moment.’ She fiddled with her watch, remembering how good it had been to get her things back.

  She’d lain awake for a long time on that hard narrow bench bed in the small hours of this morning thinking about home. Wishing she was lying across Jason’s warm, hard body, her leg crooked into his. That was home, except he couldn’t see that. Would he ever? Tough, she had no intention of wasting any more time waiting for him to catch up.

  He might be running scared of commitment and convinced that she needed more from him than he could give, but she was going to show him she didn’t need him or any other man telling her what she did or didn’t want from life.

  Yves, Maman and Jason, even Laurie to an extent, all had views on how she should live her life. It was time she took charge and decided for herself.

  She still had a lot to prove to herself. She had a life to live and she wasn’t exactly desperate to tie herself to one man. She was going to start over. By herself.

  ‘Now are we all done?’ Will started the engine. ‘Back to Brook Street?’

  ‘No, I can’t go back. Jason doesn’t want me. Can I ask you a massive favour?’

  He suddenly hunched over the steering wheel, wariness bouncing from his body language.

  ‘Perhaps? Please don’t tell me you want me to take you back to Heathrow.’

  Chapter 29

  The combined rattles of the Land Rover were so loud, it felt likely something might shake loose at any moment and fall off, and his own teeth were in danger of being shaken from their sockets. Jason ignored the noise and kept his foot flat to the floor. As long as it wasn’t the engine, he wasn’t stopping. He had exactly fifty-five minutes before the flight left. If he didn’t catch this one, he had no idea how to track Siena down. Neither Laurie nor Cam were answering their phones.

  He floored the car up the hill to Luton Airport. Thank God for online check-in. He’d snagged the last seat on the twelve o’clock flight. He was due to land at two o’clock and the game at the Stade de France – where Siena’s stepfather was spending his birthday – was set to kick off at two thirty.

  Now he had just twenty-five minutes to park, get through security and to the gate. Fuck, he was cutting it fine. The tension in his shoulders was wound so tightly he could barely unclamp his hands from the steering wheel.

  ‘Good afternoon sir, is this your first time with us? Can I take your registration number?’

  Sweat ran down his back. Twenty minutes. He rattled off the number.

  ‘Thank you, Sir. Can I ask you to—’

  ‘No you can’t.’ He flung the keys at her through the window, opened his door, and squeezed the through the gap between the car and the kiosk, taking off at a run towards the terminal, patting his pockets as he went. Passport, wallet; he had them both.

  Weaving through people, he jumped over a couple of pull along cases that threatened to derail his determined trajectory, any minute expecting to be rugby tackled to the floor by a gun toting police officer.

  Bursting through the doors, he took a sharp left racing towards the escalator at the far end.

  ‘Excuse me. Excuse me,’ he panted, pushing through dumb-ass people who’d decided that the centre of the escalator was a good place to stand.

  At the top, there was a small queue waiting to go through passport control. Shit. He rubbed his calf with his other foot like a demented stork. What was wrong with these people? The family in front of him hadn’t even got their passports ready.

  ‘Hurry up,’ he muttered under his breath as they eventually began to root through an enormou
s holdall, saying to the man on the desk, all jokey and relaxed. ‘They’re in here somewhere.’

  When he finally got the desk, the Border Force officer took his time giving Jason a careful look before studying his photo.

  Jason attempted a smile, trying to hide his mounting impatience, knowing how easy it would be for this guy to make life difficult if he pissed him off.

  At last he was waved through, to find an endless line of people snaking back and forth between tape barriers as far as the eye could see. The security barriers and detectors seemed impossibly distant. He looked at his watch. Ten minutes to boarding.

  He had to get the plane.

  ‘Are you OK, sir?’ He’d missed the approach of the uniformed lady. She probably thought he was a bit suspicious, all sweaty and wide-eyed with panic.

  ‘No, my flight leaves in ten minutes.’

  ‘Have you got luggage on board?’

  For a second he hesitated. Luggage on board meant they wouldn’t take off without you. Delays while they waited for you. ‘Yes,’ he lied.

  ‘Come with me.’ She guided him straight through, ducking under the barriers, leading him straight to security. ‘Have a good flight.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you.’

  For once the metal detector arch didn’t beep and he ran through to the crowded concourse till he spotted a departure board. Gate 27. A ten minute walk. Jeez. Couldn’t someone give him a break?

  He took off at a run, careering along the travellator, skipping over luggage. In the distance he could see the yellow illuminated sign for the gate.

  Jumping down three stairs at a time, he tore down the two flights of stairs emerging at the bottom into an almost deserted waiting area.

  ‘In the nick of time,’ said the girl at the desk, her grave expression giving way to a sympathetic smile. With a quick look at his passport she waved him through. ‘Have a good flight.’

  Now, he’d caught the damn thing, it couldn’t fail to be good. All he had to do during the next seventy-five minutes was work out what he was going to say when he got to the other end.