by Nora James
He hoped his answer would keep the peace. He didn’t like to be bullied, wouldn’t let anyone else in the world do it to him, but he knew how difficult and spiteful Nicole could be. And she wouldn’t hesitate to take it out on Christine, or to use her own daughter, without worrying for a split second what distress she might cause the child.
Paul had to protect his innocent little angel at all cost. “Look, I’ll change my plans. Dinner tonight it is. I’ll be home slightly later than usual, I’m taking English lessons, but I can make it around quarter to eight. We can go out to dinner, the three of us. I’ll ring Monique and ask her to feed Christine at her usual time, and she can just have dessert at the restaurant. You’re right, she’ll be fine to stay up late for once even if she’s a bit cranky tomorrow.”
Nicole chuckled, a dry crumbly laugh of victory that revealed her dark soul. “Glad to see you’re not completely unreasonable. You’re still in the same old lousy apartment?
He grunted, to stop the swear words from flowing. He wanted to thump the rail he was holding onto, wanted to scream. Nicole had no shame. She used everything and anything, including her own daughter, to manipulate people into doing what she wanted. The end justifies the means was her motto and it looked like she was never going to change. And now she was belittling him, too. It was because of her that he couldn’t afford a better suburb, because of her drinking and gambling.
“I’m sure you have a fair idea of what caused my financial status.”
She ignored his comment. “So, anyway, we have a date.” There was arrogance in the way she said it.
Paul grunted again, holding back the urge to insult her.
“Cool,” she said in English to finish the conversation, probably thinking it made her young and hip but to him it seemed pathetic and only emphasised how superficial Nicole was. He hung up, hitting the button on his phone far too hard. He was going to have to put on hold his plans to ask out Elise.
He’d have to keep a close eye on Nicole, too. He hoped she wouldn’t be staying in Paris too long, prayed she’d give in to her usual restlessness and reckless sense of adventure and take off within days. There was one thing he knew for sure: he wasn’t going to let her ruin Christine’s life.
Nor would he let her ruin his for that matter, even though she was more than capable of it and she’d already put a stop to him asking Elise out that evening.
No, he wouldn’t let Nicole ruin all his dreams.
Not a second time.
He just hoped she didn’t find out about Elise.
Chapter 13
Today at the Cordon d’Or the dessert was crème caramel. Madame Delapaix paced the room, hands behind her back as she waited for her students to follow the recipe she’d just explained. She’d scribbled ingredients and quantities on the blackboard but she expected her trainees to put everything together from memory, just the way she’d done it in front of the class earlier that morning. It made them pay attention, she’d said, instead of giggling when she talked.
Elise had figured the comment had been aimed at her for having the audacity of asking another student to repeat the authoritarian teacher’s last sentence while self-centred Madame Delapaix listened with excessive pride to the sound of her own voice.
“Is the sugar mixture boiling now?” asked Madame Delapaix.
“Yes,” answered Elise automatically.
Madame Delapaix tut-tutted. “Raise your hand to speak, mademoiselle. This is a class of the utmost seriousness. If you are going to treat it lightly perhaps this is not the place for you.”
Both surprised and amused, Elise pulled a face, desperately trying to hold back laughter. The woman next to her, a small, slender brunette who reminded Elise of a modern day Edith Piaf, looked down, covering her mouth with her hand. Elise noticed how the woman’s cheeks raised into rounded little apples and realised she, too, was doing her best to remain serious. Suddenly the slight brunette burst into laughter and Elise couldn’t help but follow her example. Hands on hips, the outraged teacher told them off, even stomping her foot, but neither woman could stop the irresistible belly laugh.
“Wait in the corridor until you have calmed down, Mesdemoiselles,” ordered Madame Delapaix. “And don’t come back in if you cannot stop this laughing nonsense, giggling like little girls”.
The two women obediently left the classroom, grabbing their handbags off the back of their chairs.
Elise quietly pulled the classroom door shut. With tears of laughter in her eyes, she introduced herself. “I’m Elise. You already know that, right? You’ve heard Mrs Hitler tell me off often enough.”
The attractive brunette nodded. “I am Dominique,” she said, her French accent so strong Elise had no doubt as to her nationality.
Elise calmed down, but then another amusing thought crossed her mind. “I wonder if she’ll think to turn off the gas under our pots. Shall we go in and remind her?”
“After how she treats us? Certainly not!” Dominique giggled a little more. “She will spend the entire day scrubbing them, let’s hope.”
Elise sighed as she calmed down. “I thought it would be fun learning to cook in France. It was a dream of mine. This is the most fun I’ve had so far in class. In fact I’ve been thinking of pulling out, but I really want that certificate to put on my wall when I get my own café back in Australia.”
“The certificate will be a good thing, but you must be very disappointed. It must have cost you a lot of money to come here for this horrible lady.”
“Quite a bit. It could have been such a different experience with someone else.” Elise thought of Paul and how wonderful it was to learn from him. Too wonderful. He’d kissed her and she’d kissed him back, and what was the point of that? She didn’t belong in France and this was his home. Soon they’d be just about as far away from each other as possible on planet Earth.
Dominique peered through the window into the classroom. “She is pulling a face at someone else now. She is an old witch.”
Elise burst into laughter again. “It doesn’t make me feel like going back in there.”
“I don’t blame you. Or maybe we go in with a plan to kill the witch.”
“I don’t really fancy a French jail term. I think I’ll give the rest of the lesson a miss today. There’s only half an hour left now anyway. I might go somewhere, maybe le Louvre.
Dominique nodded encouragingly. “Of course! It is the world’s most beautiful museum. Well, according to me and I have impeccable taste.”
“I can’t wait to see it. What about you? Any plans?”
Dominique shook her head. “It’s my holidays. I have one month off and no plans except to improve my cooking skills for my own pleasure. Ha! What a joke! Pleasure with Madame Delapaix is impossible. That is probably what’s wrong with her.”
Elise chuckled. It was true. The witch and pleasure were hard to imagine together. “Why don’t we go to the museum together? But you’re French. You’ve probably already been a million times.”
“Two million and I still love it. I can show you around. Come on!”
The women glanced at Madame Delapaix through the glass door as they passed the classroom. The teacher turned her head and Elise and Dominique waved to her, giggling again at the shock on the older woman’s face.
They were soon out in the open again and they strolled over to the Metro. Elise took in the tree-lined streets, the beautiful stone buildings and glamorous high porches—built that way to take a horse and carriage, no doubt. She felt special just being here. It fed her soul with beauty and history.
“So what brings you to Paris apart from the lovely Madame Delapaix?” asked Dominique after chatting for a while and exchanging their mobile phone numbers.
Dominique was so friendly Elise felt she could open up to her immediately. There was something about being with someone you’d probably not see for long, someone who’d disappear from your life as quickly as they appeared in it, that made it easy to be yourself. “I could say I’ve
always wanted to see Paris, and that’s true. I could say I just needed a holiday, and that’s true, too. The real reason, though, is that a failed marriage brought me here.”
Dominique studied her a little too intently and Elise suddenly wanted to run and hide under one of those stunning Parisian bridges. Perhaps she’d confided in her too soon, or perhaps she was the wrong person to talk to after all.
Finally the French woman spoke. “Don’t be embarrassed. A failed marriage is better than no marriage.”
Elise frowned as she considered that statement. “I’m not sure, generally speaking. I mean, no marriage is better than marriage to Steve, my ex. That I know.” She laughed and Dominique joined in.
After a while Elise settled and went back to the topic. She could have let it go, but she wanted to get to the bottom of it, wanted to express how she felt to justify her actions as if that way she could make sure that she’d made the right decisions.
“Is a failed marriage really better than no marriage? Maybe not. Maybe it points to the fact that you have a problem and can’t make marriage work with anyone. I sometimes ask myself that question.”
They’d arrived at the Metro station and rode the escalator down to the platform where the train would be waiting. Dominique turned to Elise, shaking her head. “Non, non, non!”
Elise smiled as the forceful nasal sound reminded her of Paul.
Her new friend continued. “It simply means that one particular marriage did not work and in 90% of the cases—no, I stand corrected—in 99% of the cases it is the man’s fault.”
Dominique lightly tapped the arm of an old man in front of her. “Because men are pig-headed, right?” The fellow turned around scowling so much that his face seemed to collapse onto itself, folding until his features didn’t appear human.
Elise gasped with surprise at Dominique’s boldness and looked away to avoid the man’s gaze. She stepped off the elevator behind her friend, relieved they could pass the man and hurry off.
“You are terrible, Dominique! I hope he doesn’t speak English.”
They jumped into the waiting train along with all the other commuters and were soon separated by the crowd.
“It’s not far,” called out Dominique. “But we need to change in two stops, at Châtelet.”
Elise nodded and was grateful for the time away from her new friend to really think about whether no marriage was better than a failed one, but the answer seemed to elude her. Would she ever risk a serious relationship again? What about with someone who made her heart skip a beat whenever she saw him, someone like Paul?
There was no easy answer so she let the question go, and the rest of the trip flew by, Elise distracted by the crowd. There were the posh parisiennes with their polished pointy shoes and designer handbags, the cool ones in their American pop-star style clothes and everything in between, including a sleazy guy who kept making eyes at her and licking his lips until she gave him her meanest look—the one good thing she’d learned from Steve.
They reached their destination and emerged into the sunlight. Dominique quickly dragged her to the huge arched entrance of a long, fancy nineteenth century building, the kind that are common in the upmarket quarters of Paris.
“Is this it?” she asked but as they walked through and came out the other side into a magnificent courtyard she saw the famous glass pyramid in the centre and knew she was at the museum.
They queued and descended into le Louvre through the pyramid, paying the entry fee, and Dominique proceeded to show her through the magnificent galleries. Elise found herself nearly as impressed by the building itself, with its incredibly high ceilings and ornate carvings, as the breathtaking art. They decided to take the masterpieces trail: the Venus de Milo, the gleaming white armless statue first and then Leonardo da Vinci’s Gioconda. The famous portrait of the Mona Lisa was much smaller than Elise had imagined, but it was mesmerising, her expression definitely indefinable and she seemed to follow Elise with her gaze no matter where she stood to look at the painting.
“She’s alive, isn’t she?” Dominique said enthusiastically. “Her eyes burn through you like the eyes of a lover, non?”
Elise smiled and thought of Paul again, how she already adored feeling his eyes on her. She sighed. She really had to get him out of her mind. The kissing was probably just that, lonely lips locked in a moment of carelessness. After all, he hadn’t contacted her since and although she’d felt a pang of disappointment it was better that way. What future could there possibly be for them? She’d never understood long-distance relationships and she certainly couldn’t afford to come over to France on a regular basis.
Dominique crossed her arms. “You look sad. You must have some fun! Maybe in Australia it is different, but you can find a lover very quickly in France. It is so easy. Men are always ready for an affair here. Come on, let’s go to the next painting. A gorgeous Frenchman might be waiting there for you.”
Elise smiled. “I’m not really one for affairs. I don’t like flings. I put my heart into relationships. I love dreaming about a future together when I’m with someone.”
They walked through the gallery toward the next masterpiece on their list, the Wedding Piece at Cana. “I don’t even know if I’m capable of something that can’t be long-term.”
“Maybe you should find out. Oh, wait! I can introduce you to a friend of mine if you like. He is very, very handsome and he does gymnastics.” Dominique’s eyes widened and a cheeky grin lit up her face. “Very flexible.”
Elise laughed. “That won’t be necessary.”
There was already someone who made her heart beat, someone for whom she might be able to throw all caution to the wind. As she thought of Paul she realised she couldn’t imagine an affair with anybody else.
Dominique’s jaw dropped. “Oh, wait, there is already somebody!”
“No, there isn’t. Not really.” Elise could feel the heat rising to her cheeks. Not really? What did that mean? Even she didn’t know.
Dominique put her hand on Elise’s arm. “I am sorry. I am too nosy. I will leave you alone, after I’ve said this one last thing: I can see from your face that you care about whoever it is.”
Dominique’s comment shocked Elise. She didn’t already care, did she? She wasn’t trapped by her own feelings, was she?
They stopped in front of a huge canvas, a scene of a wedding in an elegant courtyard surrounded by the columns of an ancient-looking building. Elise studied the people in sumptuous clothes celebrating the union of a man and a woman and she knew instantly that deep down that was what she wanted.
She wanted to marry again. She wanted to find her soul mate. It wasn’t going to happen by having meaningless affairs in a place far away from home. She had to remember that tonight, when she’d be seeing Paul at the English lesson. She had to remember it too when she felt inclined to care about him. All he could offer her was a fling.
She had to remember that he wasn’t the man for her.
He simply couldn’t be.
Chapter 14
Paul wiped down the kitchen bench for the third time in a row. He’d finished for the day in the café and was desperately trying to keep busy while waiting for Elise. He wasn’t nervous about the French lesson anymore, not in the slightest, but it felt like his stomach turned inside out every time he thought of his beautiful teacher.
It wasn’t just excitement, either, even though there was undeniably a lot of that. Although it had taken him a while to recognise the emotion, he had been forced to admit to himself that it was anxiety: he was worried about what might happen next. He didn’t usually fear rejection—in fact he hadn’t worried about women for a long time—but with Elise it was different. She mattered.
He checked his watch again. It was two past six. Where the hell was she? Had she decided not to come at all? Perhaps she regretted kissing him. He hadn’t felt this insecure in years, not since he was a teenager. He leaned over the sink, hanging his head, and let out his breath. He was too inve
sted in this and all they’d shared was a kiss or two. He had to get a grip and keep things under control; it had to stay casual for Christine’s sake. All he could do was hope to God that casual was enough for Elise.
“Are you all right?”
He jumped at the sound of Elise’s voice and looked up. She’d entered the kitchen so quietly that she seemed to appear out of nowhere, like an angel descending from the Heavens. She seemed to be making a habit of that.
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t hear you come in. I’ve just finished tidying up. I think this might need cleaning.” As he feigned interest in the sink he felt his shoulders relax. She was here. It was all that really mattered.
She walked over to him and saw what he was pointing at. “Oh, the drain! Right.”
He nodded, grateful his explanation hadn’t been questioned. “That is what you call it? The drain.”
He smiled at her, his heart pounding his chest. She was even more beautiful than the day they’d met and he wanted to hold her against his body. All he needed was a clue as to how she felt about him.
She glanced at him briefly before looking away. Was she keeping her distance? Had nothing changed between them? He watched her crouch down, take an article out of her bag, pull out a chair and sit, ready to teach, as if nothing had happened between them on Friday, as if the kisses they’d exchanged, as warm and tender as they’d been, had disappeared from her memory, washed away by the clear waters of the Saint Michel fountain.
He sat facing her and waited for her to look into his eyes. She didn’t. She went about preparing for the lesson rather formally, finding a pen and notepad the way any teacher would. The lump that formed in his throat surprised him and he couldn’t lie to himself. He wanted her physically—he was a man—but it wasn’t just that. He wanted the beautiful person that she was in his life, even if it could only be for a short while. He needed that experience with her.