You're the One: a Contemporary Romance Novella Set in Paris (Bistro La Bohème) (2 page)

Madame Blanc
let out a deep sigh. “Adèle hates the nap time, and she dreads school because
of it. Every morning it’s tears and struggle to drag her here.”

Natalie was
taken aback. “Oh. I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

And that was
when she thought of the secret book club. It was a risk, but one she was
prepared to take. It wouldn’t get her fired. The worst that would happen if
they got caught would be a roasting from the director. Natalie could live with
it.

After the
children got engrossed in their books, she sat on the floor and watched the
perfect little angels. In less than ten minutes their attention spans would run
out and they’d start fidgeting and making noise. But she was prepared—she
had a big book with pictures and lovely stories. They’d discuss the stories,
and then she’d return them to the dormitory for a little rest. Her rest.

But right now,
all four presented a picture of creative concentration. Thomas was humming car
sounds. Samira was so absorbed, her tongue was sticking out. Natalie watched
them, struggling with the urge to ruffle their hair and kiss their soft cheeks.
A familiar yearning rose inside, filling her heart to the brim and moistening
her eyes. She was so ready to be a mother. God, what she wouldn’t give to have
a child of her own to hug to her chest, a wide-eyed bundle of love.

But she had to
be patient. After yesterday’s debacle with Fred, she needed to retreat and do
what it took to repair the damage. She was lucky to have him.

And he didn’t
want to be a father.

She could only
hope that one day he would.

***

“By the way,
I’m really good in bed.” Louise gave Adrien a heavy-lidded look and inched
closer on the sofa.

He forced a
polite smile. What was he supposed to say to a declaration like that?
No kidding?
I bet you are?
It sounded so ridiculous he opted for silence.

She drew
heavily on her cigarette. “My flatmate won’t be back until morning.”

He studied his
shoes.

She spoke
again. “I’m into all kinds of kinky stuff—”

“Shall we play
blitz?” he asked.

She slinked to
a small desk in the corner of the room, opened the top drawer, and retrieved a
chessboard. “Ta-da! How about a game of strip chess instead?”

“I don’t
think—”

“I’d
loooooove
losing this one to you,” she
said with a purr as she sat down.

She emptied
her beer and gave him her meaningful stare again.

Shit.
The situation was getting out of hand, and he had only
himself to blame for it.

He took a deep
breath and blurted, “Can I use your bathroom?”

“Sure—”

“I’ll find my
way.” He jumped up before she could say something that would make him even more
uncomfortable.

“It’s the
second door on your left.” She sounded a little deflated.

He got there
in five strides. Thankfully, the door had a lock. He turned the key and leaned
his forehead against the cool wood.

Think, Adrien, think
.

He had to find
a reason to leave Louise’s place without being too rude. Despite her crass
advances, she didn’t deserve a put-down. Nobody did.

He should’ve
known better, heeded the misgivings he’d had about her even before they met in
person. An amateur chess player, she had proclaimed herself his biggest fan and
wrote to him through Facebook a couple of months ago. They discussed chess. She
claimed to rock at blitz games and dreamed about playing a game with him. And
then, a week ago, she suggested they meet
in
real life
. By then she had hinted her interest in him went beyond
intellectual. Part of him knew meeting her was a bad idea, but it had been
eight months since his ex had jilted him and, well, he was feeling lonely.

His second and
worse
mistake was agreeing to come up
“for that blitz game.” He’d already determined during their drinks at
La Bohème
that he wouldn’t be asking her
on a second date. Behind her randiness and garish clothing, he had glimpsed a
person who was emotionally unstable and silly. Going up to her apartment was a
momentary lapse of judgment that could only be explained by the large amount of
wine he’d downed during the evening. Which, in turn, was due to the long lulls
in their conversation and his failure to work up any enthusiasm for her
convoluted stories.

It’s no use ruminating now. Get out there
and deal with it
.

He stepped
into the living room. “I’m sorry, but I just remembered something. I’ve got to
go.”

As excuses
went, it was a crappy one, but he couldn’t think of anything better.

She stood and
sashayed toward him. Before he realized what her intention was, she put her
arms around him and—taking advantage of her considerable
height—planted a slurpy kiss on his mouth. She smelled of beer and
cigarette. He stood still, keeping his lips sealed and his arms hanging at his
sides while he debated how to extricate himself from this new complication.

To his great
relief, she pulled back and stared into his eyes. “Are you gay?”

“No, but
I’m . . .I can’t do this.”

She frowned,
but then her face brightened. “Oh, I see. You don’t kiss during sex.”

Oh God.
He swallowed hard. “I’m not ready for sex.”

Her gaze went
to his crotch.

He swore
silently as his face grew crimson. “That’s not what I meant.”

She gave him a
hurt look. “But we corresponded for two months! I don’t understand.”

“We
corresponded about chess.”

Oh, what the
hell. She did have a point. He’d known for some time what she was about, and
he’d been willing to take a chance on her. Until today, that was.

“Louise, I’m
truly sorry about this . . .If you decide to post ‘Adrien is a
jerk’ on my Facebook wall, I’ll let you.”

“You know
where the door is,” she said.

The next
morning, he opened his Facebook account dreading what he’d find there. To his
surprise, his wall was insult free. Instead of trashing him in public, she had
sent him a private message. Her shortest ever.

You obviously can’t handle an emancipated
woman. I was wrong about you. You’re too straitlaced. Please don’t contact me
ever again.

He exhaled in
relief. Her appraisal of him was unfair and unflattering, but if it made her
feel better, he wasn’t going to argue.

And he
definitely wasn’t going to contact her again.

***

“I hate this
weather,” Marie said after ordering another cappuccino. “It’s only the
beginning of October, but it’s already cold and wet.”

Natalie
nodded.

“I feel like
eating chocolate all the time, which is bad for my figure,” Marie whined.

Natalie patted
her friend’s hand. “Don’t despair. We may still get an Indian summer in a week
or two.”

For an
emotional person like Marie, weather was a significant variable, interfering
with her mood and well-being for better or worse. Right now, definitely worse.

“I haven’t
told you the latest. I had a second date with Stephan,” Marie said.

“How did it
go?”

“Not well. We
spent the evening talking about his work problems, his bitchy boss, and his
ex-girlfriend.”

“Ouch.”
Natalie wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t bode well.”

“It wasn’t
until just before we got the check that he remembered to ask if I’d had a nice
week.”

“And?”

“I started
telling him how depressed I was about the weather, but he interrupted me and
went on about his ex again. Can you believe it?”

“No third date
then, huh?”

Marie chewed
on her lower lip. “He
is
kind of
cute, in a blissfully self-centered way, you know? As if he can’t see that
people might not be interested in him. A bit like your Fred.”

Natalie
frowned. “Fred isn’t like that.”

“Oops. Did I
say something wrong? Sorry. Of course, Fred isn’t like that.”

In spite of
Marie’s emphatic refutation, Natalie felt she needed to prove her point. “He’s
swamped with work right now, and when he gets home in the evening, he refuses
to talk about it. He doesn’t want to bore me.”

“That’s
great,” Marie said enthusiastically.

They fell
silent for a moment.

“I’ve got an
idea. I’m going to throw a party next Saturday,” Natalie said.

Marie clapped
her hands. “Yay!”

“Fred loves parties
and having his friends over. He’s been so busy lately he hasn’t seen them much.
I’ll call everyone and organize it. We’ll have a great time.”

“Ooh, invite
that redheaded colleague of his who was there last time. I’d like to take a
closer look at him.”

“Will do,”
Natalie promised.

What a stroke of genius,
she thought on her way home. A party
would cheer Fred up and distract him from work. It would also relax the tense
atmosphere between them since the “baby talk.” Not that he had said anything
brusque, but she found him snippier and more on edge than usual. Or maybe she
was just imagining things.

At any rate,
before she went full steam ahead with invitations and preparations, she had to
be sure Fred wasn’t working on Saturday evening.

And the only
way to find out was to ask him.

Natalie
glanced at her watch. It was only six, which meant Fred wasn’t coming home for
at least another three hours—a long time to wait. She tried his
cellphone, but her call went straight to his voice mail. After a moment’s hesitation,
she dialed his office number.

To her
disappointment, Fred didn’t pick up his office phone either. Probably stuck in
a meeting with his cell turned off. She was about to hang up, when a sweet
female voice answered the phone. “Reception. How may I help you?”

“I’m sorry. I
was trying to reach monsieur Frédéric Gasque. Is he in a meeting?” Natalie
asked.

“He just left
the building,” the receptionist said.

“So early?”
Natalie blurted.

“Monsieur
Gasque always leaves the office at this time.”

Was there a
note of mockery in her sweet voice or did Natalie imagine it? Her stomach
knotted with unease. Fred always left at six? He
used to
leave at six, but not for weeks now. The receptionist would
have noticed it, wouldn’t she? Was the woman trying to play some kind of stupid
joke on her?

Natalie spent
the rest of the evening attempting to distract her mind. She tried to read,
watch television, and surf on the Internet. All with equally pathetic results.

Fred came home at half past nine. He hung
his jacket by the door, declared he was done in, and spent the rest of the
evening watching TV.

***

This was an inane idea. What was I thinking?

Natalie wiped
her sweaty hands with a paper tissue and adjusted her sunglasses. She felt
puerile and ridiculous hiding behind a tree in front of Fred’s office building.
When she’d bought those oversized glasses, the newspaper, and the wig—a
jet-black bob with blunt bangs like Uma Thurman’s in
Pulp Fiction
—she told herself it was a game. She would play a
little game of detective to weed the seed of doubt planted by the sweet-voiced
receptionist. She’d have a laugh about it with Marie later.

But now that
she was playing the game, she didn’t find it the least bit amusing.

It was ten to
six. Natalie peeked from behind the tree and saw Fred walk out the revolving
door. He looked fresh and debonair in his well-tailored suit, with his
navy-blue raincoat thrown over his forearm.

Natalie
expected him to head to the parking lot, but he strode in the opposite
direction. She followed, keeping a good distance. Five minutes later, he turned
onto a pedestrian street, entered a bistro, and settled at a table in the
corner. She hurried in unnoticed and found a vacant table at the opposite end
of the room. After a moment’s hesitation, she yanked off her sunglasses and
opened her newspaper.

A waitress
with dyed pale blue hair served Fred a beer. Natalie ordered a glass of
Bordeaux and waited. Ten minutes later, the waitress was back at his table
again, holding another beer. But this time she no longer wore her uniform.
Instead, she was clad in skinny jeans and a formfitting black leather jacket.
Natalie watched her discretely. Her hair was cut pixie style. She had a
luscious mouth, with a little piercing on her lower lip. As for her body, it
was undeniably hot. Lava-grade hot.

The bistro was
nearly empty, with the exception of an old lady reading a book, a guy in a
baggy sweater staring at his laptop screen, Fred, and herself. Natalie could
hear the waitress’s words even from her distance.