Kissed in Paris (17 page)

A few feet down the sidewalk, he stopped abruptly, grabbed my hand and spun me around in the other direction.

“What is going on?” I hissed as I attempted, unsuccessfully, to disentangle our hands.

“
Rien
,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Nothing. I am taking you to another store I know. It is called Camaieu. I think you will like it.”

“Okay, then why are you holding onto my hand with a death grip and making me walk a hundred miles an hour?”

He flashed his obnoxious smirk. “I told you that you would need the sneakers.”

“Just tell me what the hell is going on,” I snapped. “
Who
are we running from?”

Julien opened the next door we came to and shoved me inside ahead of him. “You shop. I will be in the corner making a phone call.”

“What? Who are you calling?” I asked, wishing I could bug his phone so I could find out what was really going on.

“
Vas-y
,” he said. “I will only be a minute.” Julien spun around and disappeared behind the racks of stylish clothing, leaving me dumbfounded in the middle of the store.

A sleek saleswoman appeared by my side.
“
Je peux vous aider, Mademoiselle
?”

“Um . . .  no,
je
. . . um . . .”

“You speak English?” She smiled at me with kind, hazel eyes.

I nodded, my mouth still dangling open.

“Come with me. I help you shop.” She placed her hand on my shoulder and guided me through the store, picking out an assortment of jeans and tops along the way while I smiled distractedly and scanned the racks for Julien.

Just as she was setting up a dressing room, and I was beginning to wonder if Julien had left me here for good, he popped around the corner, holding a plum-colored T-shirt. He held it out for me. “Here, I think this will look good with your hair.”

“What were you doing?” I asked as I took the shirt from him and tossed it into the dressing room.

“Making a call, like I said.”

“So, can we get out of here soon? Is this person going to come get us? And who is it by the way?”

“Her name is Camille. And no, she hasn’t answered her phone yet. I left her another message.”

Was Camille one of Julien’s girlfriends? A guy like him was certain to have at least a few women scattered around France.

While he certainly had a protective, sweet side to him, he also didn’t strike me as the commitment type. His
one chance at love
he’d referred to on the train was probably a goldfish he’d forgotten to feed.

“It didn’t take you that long just to leave a voicemail,” I remarked. “Who else did you call?”

Julien’s eyes flickered as he placed his hands on my shoulders and pushed me into the dressing room. “Just try on the clothes. I make you a promise that I will get us out of Annecy as soon as I can, and I will. There is nothing more for you to question.” He dropped his hands from my shoulders and shut the door in my face.

“I will wait here,” he called through the door. “Show me when you’re done so I can see.”

“Humph,” I snorted. Like I was actually going to play dress-up with him and show him each outfit. I didn’t even want to be here. I mean, yes, I couldn’t say I wasn’t looking forward to trashing my heels and this ridiculous dress and changing into some normal, clean clothes, but that was beside the point.

The point was that this situation was completely out of control, and judging by the way Julien had one eye glued over his shoulder since we’d left the café, we weren’t safe here. We needed to get out of Annecy and find Claude as soon as possible.

I threw on a pair of dark, boot-cut jeans and the plum T-shirt, decided it would do, and just as I was about to strip off the shirt, Julien cracked the door open. “Let me see.”

“Hey!” I said, pulling the shirt back down over my stomach. “Ever hear of knocking?”

His eyes combed the length of my body, resting a little too long on my chest. “I was right. This shirt does look nice with your hair. Do you not think so?”

I pushed him out of the dressing room and shut the door back in his face.

Maybe Julien was gay, I thought as I glanced at myself in the mirror, catching a glimpse of the strawberries that had appeared on my cheeks.

Then I remembered his shameless glimpse of my chest and the way his mischievous eyes had scanned my body earlier that morning in the hotel room
and
at the café. No, he definitely wasn’t gay.

I recalled the last time Paul had gone shopping with me and the exasperated look he’d plastered across his face each time I walked out of the dressing room. Julien was right about one thing—French men
were
a different breed. A weird breed. A breed
I
definitely wasn’t used to, and as soon as I could get home to Paul, a breed I wouldn’t have to worry about or come into contact with ever again.

At the register, as Julien pulled out his credit card, he insisted that I get a navy blue top I was about to put back, as well as a chunky, beige cardigan sweater to go over everything.

“It might get cold tonight,” he said, tucking his card back into his wallet.

“That’s the least of my worries.”

On my way back to the dressing room to put on the new clothes, I noticed a few other men in the store with their girlfriends, pleasant looks on their faces, no mumbling or complaining going on. Something must’ve been in the water here . . . or in the wine. This was not normal.

I emerged from the dressing room in my new sneakers, jeans and the plum-colored T-shirt.

Julien smiled at me. “Now at least your clothes are relaxed.”

I chose not to respond and instead brushed past him. It was time to get out of here and figure out a plan. Julien reached for the door, but surprised me as he rested his other hand on the small of my back. He kept his hand there until I’d passed through the doorway and walked out onto the sidewalk.

Heat crept up my spine, all the way to the tips of my ears as his hand slowly slipped off my back.

“Thank you for the clothes,” I said, focusing straight ahead on the sidewalk, wondering why Julien’s touch made me feel so off balance. It’s not as if I’d never had physical contact with a man other than Paul.

Well, okay, I hadn’t had
much
physical contact with other men . . . okay, fine, I couldn’t remember the last time a man other than Paul had placed a hand on me. And to tell the truth, I couldn’t remember the last time Paul had placed his hand on my back the way Julien just had. Not that there was anything wrong with that—Paul just wasn’t a cuddly, touchy-feely kind of guy.

“Like I said before, it is no problem,” Julien said.

I continued to focus on the road ahead. I would be home soon and would never again have to worry about other men making me blush. “So, what now? Should we call that girl again? Camille?”

“She will call me back soon.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, positive.”

Julien’s reassurance didn’t mean much to me anymore. He’d been sure about a lot of things up to this point. Sure that we would find Claude
and
my passport in Giverny, and then in Annecy. Would Camille coming to save us from the transportation strike be another thing he was “sure” about, but that didn’t come to pass?

Just as I was beginning to ponder what we would do if Camille didn’t pull through, Julien stopped and peeked into a store called Darjeeling. This time though, instead of jeans and T-shirts clothing the mannequins, their smooth white bodies were strung in racy lingerie.

He lifted both eyebrows this time and shot me a sly grin. “You probably would like some clean underwear too. No?”

 “Are you kidding?”

“No, I am serious. You are probably wearing the same pair for a couple of days now.”

“What about you? You don’t have a change of clothes with you either.”

“I was only planning on being away from home for a day at the most. Do you need the underwear or not?”

As I mulled it over, I realized I would love a few pairs of clean, comfy underwear to replace the pair I’d been donning the past day and a half. And I
would
pay him back. So it’s not like I’d be indebted to Julien forever.

Oh what the hell. “Come on,” I told him as I opened the shop door. “You will
not
be watching me try anything on this time, and I’m not
getting anything . . . you know, crazy.”

Julien’s eyes crinkled as he laughed. “Suit yourself.”

I strolled through the store in search of black or white cotton bikini briefs—the kind of underwear I normally wore. I wasn’t a thong girl, and even if I had been, I wasn’t about to buy a bunch of lacy, provocative thongs while Julien was trailing along at my side.

I’d never been in a French lingerie store before though, and the problem was, there didn’t seem to be anything
that
wasn’t
provocative. Rows of lacy, transparent bras in purples, grays, light greens and blacks paired with matching transparent boy shorts and panties lined the walls. I had to admit, I’d never seen lingerie more beautiful, but who was I kidding? This was awkward. And I was engaged. Just thinking of Paul made me uneasy as I strolled through the aisles of gorgeous, sexy, French lingerie with Julien, who was acting as if we were shopping for something as benign as apples.

After making a round through the entire store without picking up a single thing, I turned to Julien. “I don’t think there’s anything for me here. We can just go.”

“What? You do not wear lingerie like this at home? Even with your fiancé?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Julien crossed the store and picked up a white bra with gray straps and a little gray bow in the middle that came with a matching pair of white, non-transparent boy shorts. “What about this? Would you not even wear something this prude in front of him?”

“That’s not prude! That’s . . . well, it’s sexy. And yes, of course I would wear that in front of him. We’ve been together for eight years. It’s not like I’m afraid to show myself to him.”

“The question is not if you are afraid. The question is, do you even wear lingerie with him? Ever? Because the way you are walking through this store, with your hands in your pockets, not touching a thing, I imagine the answer is no.”

I yanked the bra and underwear set out of his hands and pushed past him toward the dressing room. Julien chuckled behind me, making me want to turn around and smack him. Who did he think he was constantly questioning my relationship with Paul? Our level of intimacy was just fine, and it wasn’t like I was actually going to divulge the details of our sex life to him.

Besides, he was totally wrong about me and Paul. Sure, I wasn’t wearing sexy lingerie every night of the week and giving him stripper lap dances like I’m sure Julien’s girlfriends did for him, but we’d been together for eight years, and it was normal for the passion to die down by that point. Paul was stable. And he’d known me since I was twenty-one years old. What did Julien know about that kind of stability? Obviously nothing.

 Inside the dressing room, I continued to stew over Julien’s rude comments as I pulled the text message note out of my bra, reminding myself to translate it as soon as possible. I tucked the note into my jeans pocket, slipped on the new bra and underwear set and regarded my reflection on the mirror. I hadn’t checked the sizes before I’d ripped them away from Julien, and I quickly realized the cup on the bra was a size too small. Other than that though, it
was
a gorgeous set. 

Julien’s voice sounded on the other side of the door. “I found another one you might like.”