Without warning, Nicolas grabbed my hand and led me to the passenger side of his fancy sports car. He opened the door and leaned into my ear. “You’ll be safe from the photographers in here.”
I hesitated. Luc thought I was upstairs in our hotel room. If he found out I’d been hanging with the Bouchers, let alone climbing into cars with them while being photographed, we’d be having serious words later.
“Please, Charlotte. There’s something important I’d like to ask you before my father and Brigitte come back. And it will only take a minute.” Nicolas did not possess the aggressive sleaze factor that his father did. The look in his eyes was sincere, and these camera-wielding maniacs weren’t going to back off any time soon.
I climbed into the tiny car, hoping I wasn’t going to create a massive marriage fight by doing this. But something told me that whatever Nicolas was about to say wasn’t going to creep me out the way his father had. I was also hoping that he could fill in some blanks as to what else had gone down between his family and Luc’s, since it was becoming clear that Luc wasn’t too eager to tell me the whole story.
Nicolas cranked up the heat, then swiveled toward me.
Suddenly a vivid scene from the last movie I’d seen him in flashed through my head. He’d played a troubled musician with a drinking problem. And in this particular scene, à la Pretty Woman, he’d made love to a woman on a grand piano.
Oh, God.
Focus, Charlotte, focus.
“Ça va?” Are you okay? he asked.
“Just a little warm. Could you turn the heat down?”
“Oh, of course. It’s just that you had goose bumps on your arms. I thought you were cold.”
“I was, but…” But then I had a vision of your toned, naked body and a piano… I reached for the door handle. “I’m sorry, I have to go find Luc.”
Nicolas laid a warm hand on my arm. “Please, Charlotte. Just give me one minute.”
I took a deep breath and forced the sex scene out of my mind, telling myself that Nicolas was a real person and that was only a movie. After Nicolas said whatever he had to say to me, I would get out of this car, find my husband, and we would forget any of this mess had ever happened.
“What do you need to ask me?” I said, registering the stress on Nicolas’ handsome features.
“First, I want to apologize for my father. I hope he hasn’t said, or done, anything inappropriate to you. Judging by the look on your face when I drove up, I assume it is too late for that.”
“Your father’s not very subtle, is he?”
Nicolas shook his head, his jaw tightening. “No, my father has never been able to keep his words or his hands to himself in the presence of a beautiful woman, no matter how complicated that might make his life. I am nothing like my father. I’m sure you picked up on this, but we don’t get along very well. Anyway, I didn’t ask you here to tell you the long story of why I don’t care for my dad or for the way he treats women.”
“So what do you want to ask me?”
Nicolas cleared his throat, nervously tapping his hands on the steering wheel. “I’m not sure how much Luc has told you about our friendship, or about our family history, but Luc and I were best friends in school—before my father screwed that up. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Luc for years, but he won’t return my calls. He wants nothing to do with me or my family, and there’s something important I found out recently. Something Luc needs to know. I’m aware that I am a complete stranger to you, Charlotte, but when my dad introduced you just now as Luc’s wife, I knew I had to try to reach him through you.”
“What is it?”
Regret traced Nicolas’ brow, the lines around his stone gray eyes creasing as he spoke. “Luc’s father didn’t deserve to go to prison. He was innocent, and if Luc will give me a chance, I can prove it.”
Tucking Nicolas Boucher’s card safely into my sparkly clutch, I stormed into the hotel lobby. I didn’t care if Luc was in the middle of negotiations with Brigitte.
It was time for him to tell me the truth about the family I’d married into.
But when I opened the fancy iron door that led to Le Bar 47, I bumped right into a fiery little blonde.
Oh joy. It was my favorite ex-wife.
Vincent was hot on Brigitte’s trail, reaching for the pouty young actress. She huffed as she pushed past me, so forcefully I almost fell backward.
But I caught myself. I wasn’t about to let her make even more of a fool out of me than she already had.
A harried, frantic look passed through her glassy green eyes as she stumbled over her four-inch heels. “It wasn’t all my fault, you know,” she slurred in French. “Luc was never home; he barely paid any attention to me. He had another woman on the side, I know he did. And then he gets me pregnant and—what did he expect me to do?” Tears now blurred those big baby eyes of hers, but she quickly wiped away her wounded look and replaced it with fire.
“He still loves me, you know. He always will, Charlotte. He always will.”
“Ça suffit.” That’s enough, Vincent said, taking her by the arm. “Go to the bathroom and get yourself together. You cannot show up to the premiere party in this state.”
Drunk, raging, and emotional. I’m sure the paparazzi would eat that up in a second.
I turned to flee the scene, but Vincent laid a hand on my arm. I yanked it away. “Leave me alone, please. I have to go find my husband.”
“It’s unfortunate that we met under these circumstances, Charlotte. You are a beautiful, classy woman. I do hope our paths cross again.”
I didn’t grace him with a response. Instead I hightailed it the hell out of there. I hoped our paths never crossed again, but I had a feeling that Luc’s complicated web of family drama—which I’d had no clue even existed until today—wouldn’t disappear quite so easily.
Up on the third floor, I let myself into our suite. I wanted to see Luc’s handsome face, hear him tell me this was all a bad dream—or at least explain to me why he hadn’t told me that his father had gone to prison, and what in the heck the Bouchers had to do with it.
But instead of answers to my questions, I found Luc’s black suit jacket tossed on the bed and heard his muffled voice coming from the other side of the bathroom door. I pressed my ear against the door but couldn’t make out any of the short, tense phrases that flew from his lips.
Who could he be talking to?
Hoping he stayed in the bathroom a tad longer, I closed my eyes and concentrated on his words. Finally, after a minute of indecipherable ranting, I heard one sentence loud and clear.
“Charlotte won’t know the truth until it’s finished. It will only put her in danger.”
I backed away from the door, my head suddenly dizzy with questions. What in the hell was going on? What would put me “in danger”?
If Luc walked out of that bathroom and saw me standing there, stupefied, he would know I’d been eavesdropping. After everything that had happened today, after everything he’d been keeping from me, I shouldn’t have cared. But some bizarre instinct settled into my gut, and before I could fully evaluate my next best course of action, I found myself walking quietly back through the suite, opening the door, and closing it behind me.
Resting my head against the wall out in the dim hallway, I forced a few long breaths in through my nose, out through my mouth. My mom had always taught me to breathe like this when I was panicked. And even though after she’d left my father, most of her mom instincts had been sucked straight out of her, in that moment, I wanted nothing more than to see my mother’s face, tell her everything that had happened today, and ask her what I should do.
In a rational state of mind, I would’ve walked right back into our honeymoon suite and demanded answers. I would’ve insisted that Luc spill all of his dirty family secrets and tell me who he was just speaking with so we could move on with our lives.
But with my key in the lock, Luc’s mysterious words ricocheted through my jumbled brain once m
ore. And I realized that being rational had never been my strong suit.
SIX
“Chérie, where were you? I thought you came back up to the room.”
I smiled at Luc, revealing no trace of the panic that coursed through my body. “I just took a little stroll around the block. I needed some air. Is everything okay? You seem a little stressed.”
“The talk with Brigitte didn’t go so well. To be expected, I suppose… but still, this is not how I wanted to end our honeymoon.”
Suppressing the urgent questions hanging on the tip of my tongue, I walked over to my husband and ran a suggestive finger down his chest. “Our honeymoon isn’t over yet… we still have tonight.”
Luc pressed my hand to his heart and sighed. “Mon amour, you are not going to be happy about this, but I have to take the train back to Lyon. Tonight.”
My hand dropped from Luc’s chest, my heart deflated.
“What’s going on, Luc? Why do you have to leave?”
He paused for a split second before taking my hand once more. “It’s Adeline. She has a really high fever and needs to go to the doctor. I just spoke with my mother, and it sounds rather serious. I need to get home right away.”
He was not just speaking with his mother—was he?
“Of course. I’ll come with you,” I said, before he could read the doubt in my eyes.
“No, chérie. Stay and enjoy the suite. After all, we are all paid up for one more night. You could invite Lexi over and order room service. I’m sure you’ll miss her once we’re back in Lyon and it could be nice to have one more girls’ night before you officially start your new, domesticated married life.” He grinned and kissed me on the cheek. “I will see you first thing in the morning.”
I needed to hear the truth out of Luc’s mouth before he left this hotel. We were married after all. We should tell each other everything. But my new husband was already grabbing his packed suitcase and heading for the door.
“Luc, we really need to talk. A lot has happened today.”
“In the morning. I promise. I can’t keep Adeline waiting any longer. I’m sorry.” He kissed me once more on the forehead, then zipped out of our luxury honeymoon suite, leaving me alone, confused, and in desperate need of wine.
After conducting my second raid of the minibar, I pondered what Lexi had said earlier about keeping my voice and my independence… and about never becoming my mother.
As much as I hadn’t wanted to admit it at the time, Lexi was right—I needed an outlet. During my year in Paris, my blog posts had provided just that. But as I’d learned the hard way, publishing details about my personal life online—even though the blog was anonymous—wasn’t such a hot idea. Well, especially when I took away the anonymity by publishing an article under my own name in Bella Magazine.
Now that Luc and I were married, I had no intention of airing our clean or dirty laundry to perfect strangers, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t still reach out to women just like me who were navigating the tricky ins and outs of French marriage.
I’d only been married to a Frenchman for five days, and already I had loads of topics to explore: ex-wives, in-law drama, family secrets, and finances. Of course I couldn’t forget about the good parts either: romantic dinners in the City of Lights, outrageously incredible lovemaking, chocolate croissants in bed—and the list could go on.
I pulled out the empty journal I’d been meaning to write in all week and gazed at the gorgeous cover photo of a man and woman kissing in front of the Eiffel Tower. I’d been in love with France since I was a little girl, and now here I was, living out my dream of marrying a sexy, sweet, adoring Frenchman and honeymooning in the most romantic city in the world. But there were clearly some lessons I had yet to learn about how marriage works, and specifically about how marriage works in France. If I was confused, I’m sure there were tons of other women just like me who could use a dose of wisdom and humor as they settled into their French marriages.
And so, as I sat alone in my Paris honeymoon suite, drinking wine and missing my new husband, I began composing chapter one of The Girl’s Guide to Tying the French Knot.
SEVEN
“Helloooo,” cooed a familiar voice from the other side of my hotel door. That didn’t sound like Lexi… it sounded like—
“Fiona! Oh my gosh, what are you doing here?”
Lexi and Fiona tackled me with hugs as they barged into my hotel suite.
Fiona and I had become close friends while taking classes together at the Sorbonne in Paris, and she’d recently moved to Lyon with her doctor boyfriend and my former English student, Marc.
“Lexi called me after your shopping trip this afternoon and tempted me to take the train up to Paris for the night. She had a feeling you might need us.” Fiona squeezed my shoulder, her sweet British accent making me smile.
I glanced over at Lexi, surprised and so thankful for her thoughtfulness.
“Lexi was right. If you girls hadn’t have shown up, I may have spent the night in the hospital with a wine and chocolate overdose.”
Lexi led Fiona into the suite and picked up one of the empty bottles and two crumpled chocolate bar wrappers. “I would say so, honey. Good thing we arrived when we did.” Then she eyed me in my oversized I Love Paris T-shirt and black yoga pants. “You’re not looking so hot. What happened after our shopping trip?”
“And where’s Luc?” Fiona added.
“It’s a long story, and I want to tell you girls all of it. I really do. But I need to get out of this hotel.”
“Is she still staying here?” Lexi asked.
“Who?” Fiona said.
“You didn’t tell Fiona about my run-in with the ex?” I asked Lexi.
Fiona stared at me, clueless.
“No, I figured it was your story to tell,” Lexi said. “But I had a feeling that tonight might not go so well. Let’s get you dressed so we can hit the town. This story will go much better with a cocktail.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” I said.
Armed with two high-heel-clad friends, I strutted through the hotel lobby comforted by the fact that if there happened to be another ex-wife sighting, this band of stilettos would know exactly what to do. Regardless of the minor fallouts I’d had with Lexi and Fiona in the past year, I knew without a doubt that these girls had my back.
I only wished I could say the same about Luc.
After a swift walk up Avenue George V, we arrived at Bound, a chic bar full of twenty-somethings sipping expensive cocktails and staking out their next date. We headed straight to the bar and ordered three of those expensive cocktails for ourselves. This was no time to mess around.
Once we were settled in our corner table, cocktails in hand, the girls raised their eyebrows at me expectedly.
“So did I hear this correctly from what you said earlier… you met Luc’s ex-wife?” Fiona asked.
I swirled my pretty blue cocktail around in my glass and took a massive sip before catching the girls up on some of the insane events of the day. I told them about the dress disaster, about Brigitte and Vincent’s bizarre relationship, and about Vincent’s sleazy advances. But when I got to Nicolas pulling up in his sports car and insisting that I get in, Lexi almost shot across the table.
“You were inside Nicolas Boucher’s car? And you’re just telling me this now? Charlotte, are you freaking kidding me?”
“Lexi has apparently been in love with Nicolas Boucher since she was a teenager,” I explained to Fiona.
“Oh my God, Char, I’m hyperventilating over here,” Lexi continued, her cheeks blushing crimson. “What was he like? Was he just as hot in person as he is on the screen? Are you going to see him again?”
Fiona placed her hand over Lexi’s knuckles, which had turned white from gripping the table so hard. “Lexi, seriously, he’s still just a person, like you and me. He puts his pants on one leg at a time—”
“Honey,” Lexi interrupted, “in my little fantasy, Nicolas Boucher wouldn’t b
e wearing any pants.”
Fiona giggled then turned to me. “So, Char, the real question is, what did Nicolas ask you once you climbed in the car?”
Lexi’s huge amber eyes drooped in disappointment.
“Don’t give me that puppy dog look,” I said to her with a laugh. “All right, if you must know, Nicolas is actually more handsome in person than on screen. When I got in the car, all I could think about was—”
Lexi, who’d been downing her cocktail so quickly you’d think her mouth was on fire, gripped my wrist. “The piano scene.”
Fiona and I burst into laughter while Lexi lowered her voice. “Okay, I’m going to make a confession. After I saw that movie, I couldn’t stop thinking about that crazy piano sex scene. And later that night, when Dylan and I were in bed together, I accidentally called him Nicolas.”
Fiona gasped, covering her hand with her mouth. “Lexi, that’s taking it a little far—even for you.”
Lexi threw back the rest of her cocktail. “Dylan wouldn’t talk to me for a whole week. He thought I was cheating on him with someone named Nicolas. And to be honest, ever since I saw that film a few weeks ago, I feel like I’ve been cheating on him because I cannot stop thinking about that damn piano scene.”
“Well, you’re only human,” I said. “I probably shouldn’t say this, being newly married and all… but it was an incredibly hot scene.”
Lexi raised her glass. “Cheers to that.”
We all clinked glasses, then finished our first round of cocktails before signaling for the server. It was going to be a long night.
“Besides your little bedroom slip, how are things going between you and Dylan?” Fiona asked.
“It’s been interesting, to say the least,” Lexi said. “Basically, we have really amazing sex, but the reason the sex with Dylan is—and always has been—so damn hot is because it’s always make-up sex. We fight about everything. And even though he’s a man, and we all know that men can be infuriating, it’s not always his fault. I know this might surprise you ladies, but I’ve been known to be a little explosive when I’m angry, and unfortunately Dylan’s the same way.”
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