Lindsey Kelk 5-Book 'I Heart...' Collection (86 page)

And I have to be honest, aside from the fact that I have a killer black eye (I fell over my boyfriend’s shoes – no, really, I did. Our relationship has not taken a dramatic turn for the worse) I think I might love Paris. Compared to London and New York, everyone seems very chilled out. Every other building is a bar, and the ones that aren’t bars are cafés and restaurants pushing wine and beer on you. No wonder France has a reputation, hic. The city really is beautiful though, I saw Notre-Dame all lit up last night and I thought I might cry. And that wasn’t just because I had to walk back to the hotel with no idea where I was going in borrowed, but not broken-in four-inch heels. I felt as if it was floating on the river and it might sink at any moment or melt away or something. It was just too magical to be real. To clarify, I didn’t feel as if I was floating, I felt as if I was walking on hot coals and smashed glass. Ouch.

Don’t worry, I haven’t gone all romantic on you, the only thing that brought me back down with a bump of course, was me. On my face. Serves me right for getting up in the night to pee. Or, serves me right for drinking so much that I had to get up in the night to pee, I’m not sure which.

Anyway, I just wanted to check in and let you all know I’m OK. Sorry I’ve been AWOL, but there was a problem getting a cable for my laptop (bloody Macs) and my BlackBerry isn’t working (anyone ever had trouble getting Verizon service in France?), but I’m back now and still in desperate need of your top tips. It could end up in Belle magazine! Have to go now, I have approximately three hours before Brooklyn Boy gets back from his long hard day of interviews (poor lamb) and I have to take him out for a slap-up birthday dinner. And at least two of those hours will be spent trying to cover up my black eye, otherwise there will be no gazing lovingly over dinner. In fact, I would imagine he’ll struggle to keep anything down at all.

Ah, c’est la vie …

I posted the blog and flipped the computer shut. There was no reply from Mary even though I knew she would be at her desk, and the other emails, including an urgent request from the bank of Paraguay, would wait until I’d had a very long, very hot bath.

Before I’d moved to New York, it took me about three minutes to decide what to wear on a date with my boyfriend. Usually, whatever was on the top of the ironing pile that didn’t actually need ironing. After almost a year living with Jenny, I couldn’t decide between a pair of black jeans, a pair of black leggings and three identical V-neck Tshirts in black, white and grey. After trying on all three, I opted for the white, teaming it with my skinny jeans, Virginie’s baby blue Louboutins, and a long, delicate silver chain with a beautiful aquamarine stone pendant I’d picked up during my last spin around the shops in the Marais. I wasn’t convinced it would pass as an insurance-covered replacement for an essential item in most work places, but this was Belle after all. How was a girl supposed to go out to dinner in Paris on a Friday night with her boyfriend on his thirtieth birthday unaccessorized? The extra make-up I’d picked up from MAC (vive la American world domination!) on the way back to the hotel however, was definitely an essential, whichever way you looked at it. By eight, you could barely see my bruised cheek and black eye. If I set the dimmer fairly low. And parted my hair to one side. And didn’t look up. Finally satisfied that I was passable, I sat in the chair by the window, editing the beginnings of my article for Belle and waiting for Alex to sail through the door.

Thirty minutes later, I was still waiting. I closed my laptop and flicked through the TV channels, trying to be reassured by the fact that the chair still smelled like Alex and not unnerved by the fact that it smelled like him because he’d slept in it for half of last night. Ten more minutes of French Wheel of Fortune (starring Victoria Silvstedt!), I worked out that I could call Alex’s mobile from the French hotel landline. Cross-legged on the bed, my mobile in one hand, the handset of the hotel phone in the other, I attempted to work out how to put through an international call. When the door clicked open five minutes later, I had got as far as bashing the receiver into the mattress, while repeatedly calling it a piece of shit.

‘Ahh, Kodak moment,’ Alex said from the doorway.

‘Where were you?’ I half shouted. ‘It’s nearly bloody nine.’

‘Didn’t we say nine for dinner?’ he asked sheepishly, brushing down the back of his hair.

‘You said eight,’ I replied, emphasis and finger-pointing on the ‘you’.

‘Shit, Angela, I’m sorry.’ He winced. ‘I guess I got caught up with everything. You ready to go now?’

‘Yes,’ I said, feeling bad right away. He’d had to work on his birthday after all, I ought to give him a little bit of leeway. And if he really did think we were meeting at nine, he was fifteen minutes early. I stood up and gave him a twirl. ‘Do I look ready enough?’

‘You look awesome,’ he said, crossing the room and wrapping his hands around my face. He kissed me gently and peered at my injuries. ‘How’s the face?’

‘Painful.’ I pressed my lips together to redistribute what gloss there was left on them. ‘Does it look awful?’

‘I can’t even see it.’ He brushed my carefully arranged hair out of my face. ‘Really, you look beautiful. And really, I’m sorry I’m late.’

‘Don’t worry.’ I kissed him again. ‘It’s your birthday, you can do whatever you like.’

‘Thanks. I’d done a great job of forgetting about that.’ He ran a finger from the fine, short hair at the nape of my neck all the way down my spine and back up again. ‘I can do whatever I like, huh? Sure you don’t want to celebrate in here?’

Looking up at his high cheekbones, his dark eyes, I paused for a moment.

‘They have room service,’ Alex promised, his finger on the base of my spine making figure of eights all the way back up again.

‘I think I’m offended that all it takes to get in my knickers is the promise of room service,’ I said with closed eyes, my back melting.

‘They have steak frites.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘Saignant.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Just cooked on the outside, bloody as all hell on the inside.’

‘Oh.’

‘And I’ll let you sing happy birthday to me.’

‘I don’t think that’s going to help matters, do you?’ As difficult as it was, I wriggled out of his arms, trying to solidify my spine. ‘We’re going out for dinner whether you like it or not, it’s your thirtieth birthday.’

Alex stuck his hands in his pockets and gave me a defeated half-smile. ‘And you’d think I’d get to do whatever I wanted to do on my own birthday, wouldn’t you?’

‘And you will later,’ I replied, blushing at my own brazenness. ‘But you promised to show me Paris.’

‘So if I show you mine?’ Alex never blushed.

‘Take me out for dinner and we’ll talk.’ I picked up my bag and headed for the door with a great big smile on my face.

‘So how was everything today?’ I asked, ripping into the bread basket. Bread first, booze later. I’d learned my lesson. ‘Did all the meetings go OK?’

Alex nodded, sipping a glass of red wine. I’d suggested champagne, but he had insisted he had nothing to celebrate. Boys are so touchy.

‘You saw all the record label people?’ I thought I may as well carry on asking questions, even though I knew he wasn’t going to answer. The second we’d walked out of the hotel, it was as if someone had thrown a switch on him. I could barely get two words on a subject. And it wasn’t as though he was the world’s most chatty individual, but he was definitely being weird.

‘Yeah, all done,’ he said, reaching for a piece of bread and then thoughtfully tearing off the crust. ‘Tell me about your day.’

‘Got up, got a power lead for my Mac, came home, blogged and waited for you,’ I briefed him. ‘Come on, spill. What interviews did you have today? Did you tell all of France how much you love me?’

‘Ah, come on Angela!’ Alex pulled a face. ‘I’ve been talking all day. Can we just go an hour without questions?’

‘OK,’ I said, trying to keep up with his mood swings. ‘Um, what are we going to do after dinner?’

‘That’s still a question.’

‘Oh yeah.’ I bit my lip, thinking for a moment. ‘I found this really beautiful little garden in the Marais this afternoon.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Alex nodded at the waiter as he placed two plates full of steak frites in front of us. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘It was lovely.’ I tried not to be distracted by the giant piece of meat on the plate in front of me. Good God, I loved food. ‘There was this really gorgeous courtyard, surrounded by these really elegant archways, and through them there was a garden with really low manicured hedges that were in like, swirly patterns. It was so peaceful and pretty. So different to New York.’

‘Was it the Musée Carnavalet?’ he asked in between mouthfuls.

‘Yes! I loved it.’ I nodded enthusiastically. ‘We should go if we get the chance. I keep forgetting that you know where stuff is.’

‘Yeah, I don’t know.’ He looked down at his plate. ‘I mean, you have lunch with Louisa tomorrow, right? And it’s the festival on Sunday and, well, then Monday we’re going home.’

‘It’s such a shame,’ I said, letting my knife slip into the steak as if it were butter. Oh, this was going to be good. ‘I really wish we’d been able to do more stuff.’

‘All I know is that I can’t wait to get home.’ Alex poured us both more wine. ‘This wasn’t as good an idea as I’d thought it would be.’

‘Oh.’ At that moment, I may as well have been eating a tin of Stagg stewing steak. ‘You’re not having fun?’

‘Hey, I didn’t mean I’m not glad you’re here,’ he started to backtrack. ‘I just hadn’t thought we’d be doing so much work.’

‘Yeah, it’s awful being popular, isn’t it?’ I wanted to raise an eyebrow, but ow ow ow.

‘It sucks,’ he relented with a small smile before his face fell again. ‘And, you know, well, I should have figured that Paris wasn’t strictly speaking, my happy place. I’m just not feeling myself.’

It didn’t take a genius to guess what he was talking about, but I had made a promise with myself that the name ‘Solène’ would not be passing my lips this evening.

‘I’m really glad you’re here right now,’ he added, putting down his knife and fork. ‘I’m sorry we haven’t spent more time together.’

‘We’re together now,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘But you are going to have to talk for a bit so I can eat this amazing steak.’

‘How about we both eat and then we can talk?’ Alex bargained, his foot rubbing up the inside of my leg. ‘Just listen to everyone else for a while.’

‘That’s all right for you to say,’ I said through a mouthful of bloody meat. I held my hand over my mouth, but really, we were a long way past that. Thank God. ‘You can understand what everyone else is actually saying.’

‘And it kills you that you can’t,’ he said with the first genuine smile I’d seen in over an hour.

‘I’m a writer, I’m inquisitive,’ I protested.

‘You’re nosy,’ he bounced back.

‘And I thought we weren’t talking while we were eating?’

Alex speared a piece of steak with his fork and grinned.

‘So, does it feel different?’ I asked later as we walked through the streets eating ice creams. It was still warm and Alex paused to lick an escaping trickle from the back of my hand.

‘Does what feel different?’ he asked, going back to his own cone and swinging my arm happily. The second bottle of red and the champagne I ordered while he was in the bathroom seemed to have loosened him up.

‘Being thirty,’ I explained. ‘Do you feel different?’

‘Nope,’ he replied quickly. ‘How’s that ice cream?’

‘It’s not a good enough liar to distract me that easily,’ I came back just as quick. ‘You must feel a bit different, surely.’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said, pulling me down a narrow cobbled street lined on either side with small shops filled with bright fabrics. ‘Do I look different?’

I took a big lick of my ice cream and stopped to look at him. Same shiny black hair, short and ruffled in the back, one chunk always slightly stuck up from where he’d been running his hand through it all day. Long and shiny in the front, parted slightly to the left so one side fell just below his eyebrow, fluttering in front of his eyes, a bright and vivid green. They looked a little tired, but it was late and I was guessing that spending half the night in an armchair wasn’t conducive to clear eyes. A few laughter lines reminded me that, despite the last few days, he spent a lot more time smiling than he did brooding and sulking. The other side of his hair fell longer, past his high cheekbone, highlighting the contrast between his black hair and pale skin. His lips were just as full and red as ever. As they stretched into a small smile, I could see that they were stained with the red wine we’d been drinking.

‘So, do I look old to you?’ he asked again.

I shook my head and reached up on tiptoes to kiss him, ignoring the ice cream that was melting all over my fingers. ‘You look OK.’

‘Well, thank God for that. Come on.’

‘Where are we going?’ I asked, my heart skipping along faster than I could in my borrowed Louboutins and tossing my messy almost empty cone into a bin while Alex munched his.

‘You wanted to see Paris.’ He pointed up a set of steep steps. ‘So let’s go see Paris.’

I looked upwards and saw a beautiful church with a gorgeous domed roof. ‘Sacré-Coeur?’ I asked, channelling my inner Rough Guide.

‘Sacré-Coeur,’ Alex confirmed. ‘Can you take the stairs in those shoes?’

‘I love that you know me well enough to ask,’ I said, looking down at the pretty instruments of punishment I’d buckled to my feet. ‘And I love that I am comfortable enough with you to say no, no I cannot.’

‘Come on,’ Alex laughed, pulling me towards a little tram-looking thing. ‘We don’t have long until they close up.’

Once we’d run the gauntlet of men trying to sell us plastic Eiffel Towers and Sacré-Coeur snow domes, and squeezed into the rush of people clicking their cameras before they’d even got in front of the church, I turned and stared out over Paris. It was so breathtakingly beautiful, a pitch black sky dotted with stars reflected in the city below it. Once I’d got my breath back, I turned around to take in the church, if you could call it that, it seemed so inadequate a word. It was so beautiful. Prettier than Notre-Dame, more welcoming than imposing, but still so dramatic, I couldn’t find words for it. The white stone seemed to glow in the darkness, floodlights shining from below the building and carefully placed spotlights illuminating every beautiful feature. If there were any flaws, I couldn’t see them. Jenny would kill to find out who had designed the lighting on this place and get them to do her next headshots.