French Kissing: Season One

by Harper Bliss

  “How do you know?” Against her better judgement, Steph went on the offensive.

  “So you don’t deny it?” Juliette asked, hunched over, her elbows leaning on her desk.

  “In order to defend myself, I’ll need the facts.” Steph’s confidence was quickly wavering.

  “You were seen exiting her home this morning.” Juliette fumbled with her phone before sliding it to the edge of her desk.

  Steph picked it up and stared at a blurry image of her on Avenue Foch. “Shit.” Panic coiled in her stomach. She looked up at Juliette. “Press?” If it was, Dominique’s life was about to turn into hell, and it was all Steph’s fault. It didn’t matter that she could have been at Dominique’s flat for various reasons, a picture like this always looked bad and implied the worst.

  “Luckily for us and our client,” Claire said. “No.”

  “Thank god.” Steph’s muscles relaxed a fraction. “Then who?”

  “Sybille lives in the same building. She saw you—”

  “And she took a bloody picture of me instead of addressing me?” Rage flared in Steph’s veins. From the beginning, she’d known there was something untrustworthy about Juliette’s new assistant—the unflinchingness in her gaze and that calculated stare.

  Juliette shook her head. “That’s hardly the point here, Steph.”

  Steph, still standing close to the door—ready to make a quick exit—padded to the closest chair and sat down. “I know how this looks, but this doesn’t really prove anything.” Steph couldn’t actually believe she’d just said that. Juliette and Claire were her bosses but also her friends. They knew.

  Their response of crushing silence was the worst.

  “I’m sorry,” Steph started again. “I—I think—” She stopped herself before saying something really silly, like admitting to her feelings for Dominique out loud. “It happened twice. It ended this morning.”

  “Twice?” Claire looked genuinely shocked, as if it was such an impossibility in her perception of Steph’s world.

  “What were you thinking, Steph? Really? That it would just be your dirty little secret?”

  Steph remembered Dominique’s words, that first time at her studio. It would have been if she hadn’t gone back last night, if she’d been strong and hadn’t given in to that nagging feeling in her gut—that feeling of what? Love? As if that was ever good for something.

  She could put up a fight, tell them how strongly Dominique had come on to her, how she’d kept sending her seductive texts, but the fact of the matter remained that she should have been above that. But the worst of it all, topping the shame and the guilt and the very real prospect of losing her job, was that, now that it was out in the open, now that Juliette and Claire knew, even the tiniest sliver of hope—the one that had been nagging her inexplicably since that first time—of her and Dominique ever taking it beyond two nights, was dead and buried. Gone.

  “I’m sorry. You should probably get on with it and sack me. I, really, um, don’t have anything else to say.” Tears were not something Stéphanie Mathis indulged in regularly—possibly ever—but now, she felt them burn behind her eyes. Not because of the job, not even because of her friends losing all respect for her, but because of a woman she couldn’t have. And it was the first one she’d desperately wanted in a very long time.

  “Steph,” Claire urged. “Look at me.”

  Reluctantly, Steph looked up, her eyes stinging and her hands shaking, unable to meet Claire’s gaze fully.

  “Are you?” Claire bunched her eyebrows together. “Are you in love with her?”

  “What the fuck does it matter?” She exploded. “It’s impossible.” She shot out of her chair. “Look, nobody knows. Just keep Sybille in check. Handle the account yourself. I’ll clear out my desk tomorrow.” Steph reached the door, practically falling against it, the wood cold against her forehead, breaking out in sobs. She wanted to storm out, but she couldn’t move.

  “Hey,” Juliette said, her voice trembling. “Come on.” Steph heard her footsteps approach. “Let’s not be so drastic.” She curled an arm around Steph’s shoulders, which only made her cry more. “Turn around.”

  With great difficulty, Steph found the strength to swivel her body around. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.” Her voice sounded broken, as broken as her soul.

  “Let’s all go home. Sleep on this. We’ll come up with a strategy first thing tomorrow.” Juliette pulled her close for a hug. “Come on, I’ll take you.”

  CLAIRE

  “The client is king, or, in my case, queen,” Dominique said. “If you want to keep my business, Stéphanie stays on as my account manager.”

  Bloody hell. The feeling is mutual. Earlier that day, they’d decided to inform Dominique that Claire would be handling her affairs personally, not mentioning the reason why, but expecting that it would be silently understood and easily agreed upon.

  Claire and Juliette sat across from the députée, in visitor chairs on the other side of her impressive oakwood desk.

  “She is still working for you, I presume?” Dominique asked.

  The nerve this woman had. Claire supposed it was necessary to survive—and thrive—in a political party full of conservative, entitled men.

  “Yes, of course, but under the circumstances I do believe it would be better—” Claire tried again. They had also decided that firing Steph would do more harm than good. Over the years, they really had become friends first and co-workers second.

  “I’m sorry to be so blunt, Madame Cyr, but what I do in my bedroom is none of your business.” Dominique said it as if it was the most normal thing in the world that she was sleeping with another woman—one more than ten years her junior—a mere week after she’d announced the separation from her husband, less than a year before an election that could make or break her.

  “With all due respect, Madame députée, but that’s where you’re wrong.” Claire had had about enough of pussy-footing around the issue and if Laroche was too smitten to get it, then tough luck for her.

  Dominique rose from her chair. “It’s very simple, ladies. Do you want my business or not?”

  “Of course we do,” Juliette replied before Claire had the chance.

  “Then deal with it. It’s what I pay you for.” Claire could almost feel Dominique’s green eyes pierce through her skull. “Handsomely as well, I believe.” She reached out her hand. “Do we have a deal?”

  Juliette shot out of her chair to shake it. “Deal,” she said, with a voice like dripping honey. Did she not realise this could be their firm’s downfall?

  Claire didn’t have much choice but to stand up as well. “Of course,” she said, while taking Dominique’s hand in hers, feeling quite dirty while doing so.

  “And Stéphanie stays?” Dominique gave Claire’s hand an extra squeeze, emphasising her point—that she was in charge.

  “Oui.” She couldn’t suppress a slight disdainful chuckle. Politicians were all the same. It really only was about power and sex.

  “Merci.” Dominique waited to sit down until they’d exited her office.

  Once they were outside of the Palais Bourbon, Claire broke out into the rage she’d been holding in for the past fifteen minutes. “We should have dropped her as a client, Jules. This is not right.”

  “They’re consenting adults. Nothing unethical is taking place here.” Juliette still sounded convinced, but Claire had known her long enough to know what that slight quiver of her lip meant.

  “She’s not even divorced yet. She has children. She just treated us like dirt in there, and, as the icing on the cake, we both know how she will vote when gay marriage comes up in the Assemblée. The hypocrisy of it all is just too much.”

  “Welcome to politics, my friend.”

  “We were doing just fine before we started working for Dominique Laroche and I certainly don’t feel a moral obligation to help her. I agree with none of her party’s standpoints. Zero.”

  “Maybe not her party’s, but she’s
a woman fighting an uphill battle. She’s crushing all these old farts that used to run the MLR as if nothing could touch them. You have to respect that.”

  “So we have to support her just because she’s a woman? You were there just now, weren’t you? The way she spoke to me—”

  “She was defending Steph, which frankly, I had not seen coming at all.”

  “So now they’re going to be together and live happily ever after?” Claire let out a loud chuckle. “You know Steph just as well as I do. The only reason she thinks she likes Laroche is because she’s so utterly unavailable. It’s going to crash and burn. They won’t be able to work together anymore and we’ll have to pick up the slack and hope this whole affair doesn’t blow up in our faces.”

  “Oh and you have a crystal ball, do you?” Juliette stopped to look at her. “Look, we decided to enter the big leagues together and go after politicians. We caught the biggest fish possible with Laroche. We roll with the punches, it’s what we do. And if we do it well, we can retire in ten years. How does that sound?”

  Claire’s eyes grew to saucers. “I thought we were in this business because we loved it, not for the money.” In all the years since they’d started the firm, they’d never had an argument like this one—one that addressed their core values.

  “Of course we love it, but let’s not be naive, Claire. We’re hardly in the business of making the world a better place.” She looked at her watch. “I’d love to continue this delightful discussion, but I need to get home.” Juliette sighed. “Long overdue conversation with Nadia.”

  Claire stood around for a bit after Juliette had caught a taxi, glancing at the Palais Bourbon, where Dominique and the likes of her ruled the country. She decided she needed a long walk to Saint-Germain-des-Prés where, hopefully, she’d find Margot at home.

  NADIA

  Nadia poured herself another glass of wine, even though she knew that liquid courage would not help her much tonight. Even though she was expecting her, she jumped when she heard Juliette turn the key in the lock. After filling another glass with wine, she went to meet her in the hallway.

  “I thought you might like this.” She offered Juliette, who was heeling off her shoes, the glass.

  Juliette looked far from relaxed enough for the conversation they were about to have. If she was already half-boiling with rage now…

  “How did it go?” Nadia enquired.

  “Claire strongly believes we should ditch Laroche as a client.” Juliette accepted the drink. “This would never have happened if Steph had kept it in her pants.” She took a sip. “Now, it feels as though everything is turning to shit.”

  “Come inside, babe. Sit down.” Relief began to spread in Nadia’s chest. It was only a temporary, cowardly stay-of-execution sort of relief, but nonetheless, she couldn’t possibly tell Juliette what she’d done if she had all of that on her mind. That would just be cruel.

  “Look, babe, huh, Steph came to me with this early last week. She begged me not to tell you and I honoured her wish, but now that it’s all out in the open…”

  Juliette deposited her glass of wine on the coffee table and sat down in the sofa. “You knew?”

  “Only briefly before you found out and I urged her to end it. I mean, this is Steph, I didn’t think it would be that much of a problem, but clearly, well, something more is going on.”

  Juliette sank into the sofa, half her body disappearing into the cushions. “The worst part about all of this is that I’m genuinely starting to believe that Steph might have feelings for her.”

  “That’s the impression she gave me as well. She would never have come to me if she didn’t.” Nadia sat down next to Juliette. “What I still can’t wrap my head around though, is how it all came out.”

  “My new assistant Sybille, she’s already proven her worth, I’ll tell you that. Only two weeks on the job—”

  “Isn’t it a very big coincidence?”

  “Maybe, but a very lucky one for us.” Juliette turned to face Nadia. “Would you have told me about it if it hadn’t come out?”

  Guilt and shame fought for the upper-hand in the mess of Nadia’s emotions. “She came to me in confidence, Jules.”

  “I understand that, but I’m your partner and Steph’s boss and her actions had a direct impact on the business Claire and I have worked so hard to build.”

  “Do you think I should have told you?” It was the best defence Nadia could come up with.

  “I don’t know.” Juliette surprised her. “The state we’re in…” Deep melancholy had taken hold of her voice. “So, about that talk…”

  Fear ran through Nadia’s veins like an icy liquid replacing her blood. “It can wait, really.”

  “Really?” Juliette reached for her wine glass again. “Come on, now that we’re sharing.”

  Nadia’s mouth went as dry as the desert. She took a long gulp of her wine before speaking. “It’s not just one thing.” She heard the words coming out of her mouth, but she couldn’t really imagine it was her saying them. “This thing with Steph has been bugging me and I have this other conflict of interest at work.” Nadia looked at Juliette expectantly, hoping she’d pick up on her last statement—granting her more reprieve before dropping the big one.

  “What sort of conflict?” Juliette took the bait, genuine interest displayed in her eyes.

  Aside from everything—and the real purpose of this talk—it felt so good to just have what felt like a normal conversation. The first one in months.

  “Margot’s ex, who is a doctor with Médecins Sans Frontières, and broke her heart pretty badly when she left, is coming back. The board gave me no choice. She’s related to one of the members and she has excellent credentials. But I suspect Margot will not be taking it very well. Inez is an ER doctor and Margot a trauma surgeon, which means they’ll probably end up working together on a daily basis.”

  “Oh fuck.” Juliette shook her head. “Poor Claire, she really likes Margot. I haven’t seen her this smitten in years.”

  “I know, the timing is a bit off.” Nadia drank again. “But it doesn’t have to be the end of them.”

  “Looks like you’ve been sitting on a lot of secrets of late.” Juliette spared her a small smile.

  You have no idea. “Hence my preoccupation this weekend. It was all a bit much.”

  Juliette reached out her hand and touched Nadia’s knee. “I’m sorry I haven’t been here.”

  “I’m sorry too, and you have plenty of problems of your own.”

  “Are you staying?” Juliette’s hand travelled higher, caressing Nadia’s thigh. “We could just order take-out and watch crappy TV.”

  Nadia was up for the lazy TV dinner, but the way Juliette’s hand made swift progress up her leg, betrayed other desires—desires she couldn’t possibly meet. Not with the one secret she hadn’t shared still wreaking havoc on her soul.

  “Indian?” she tried, cupping Juliette’s hand with hers, stopping its flight up her thigh.

  “I’ll have some Tunisian first,” Juliette murmured, her voice already in the lower, bedroom register.

  Nadia had to choose between giving in to her partner’s advances or telling her why she couldn’t possibly be intimate with her.

  STEPH

  So many questions crowded Steph’s brain. The only one that mattered to her, though, was if she would see Dominique again. After Juliette had dropped her off at home last night, she’d been in such a daze, such a depressed funk, she’d swallowed half a sleeping pill and fallen into a dreamless sleep. Only to wake up to a world that was still the same—still falling to pieces.

  After Claire and Juliette had informed her that she wouldn’t be fired—a direct consequence of their friendship, Steph was certain—and they’d be handling Laroche personally from now on, Steph had hidden in her office, avoiding Sybille’s knowing glare. She’d obeyed her bosses’ orders for once and hadn’t contacted Dominique. What would have been the point anyway?

  Mostly, Steph had f
elt ashamed because of her outburst in Juliette’s office the night before. Because of having needed her boss to take her home. Because of feeling so broken over something that was never meant to be.

  She sat in her cheap Ikea sofa, tainted forever by what had happened on it that first night with Dominique, nursing a beer, toying with her phone. To call or not to call.

  “What do you think, Pierrot?” She scratched him behind the ear and he just purred louder.

  While she was staring at the screen of her phone, it lit up, displaying a message from Dominique.

  I’m coming over. Be there in ten.

  “That’s that conundrum solved,” she said. Pierrot still didn’t care.

  She sat waiting, finishing her beer, thinking back to the time Dominique had showed up uninvited, bottle of wine in hand, and how, in a way, it had always seemed inevitable.

  Steph hadn’t seen or talked to Dominique since she’d left her in the en-suite of her bedroom at Avenue Foch. Knots formed in the pit of her stomach. When had her life become this complicated when all she ever did was try to avoid a mess like this?

  Pierrot’s head shot up when they heard a soft knock on the door—someone must have let her in downstairs. Probably not a good development either.

  Steph let Dominique in, not knowing what to expect. Someone on the war path, ready to drink blood? For all Steph knew, Dominique could be convinced that she had spilled the beans.

  “Hey,” she said, her features soft—against all expectations—when she walked in. Pierrot greeted her with a rub against the calves and she briefly bent down to pet him. “How are you?”

  Steph could have broken down there and then—the tension she’d been carrying with her all day dissolving with Dominique’s display of kindness—but she stood tall, because, what other choice did she really have? “Fine. I’m so sorry about all of this though. I didn’t—”

  “I know you didn’t tell them, Stéphanie.” Dominique moved towards the sofa. Steph had a flashback to that time Dominique’s face disappeared between her legs on it. “Tell me what you know.”