Sacha took a deep breath of frigid air as he stepped out of the Ritz after greeting the new doorman. He’d offered to let the man check inside his backpack, but had been politely refused with a few clipped words and a quickly smothered look of puzzlement – at his offer or his scruffy appearance, Sacha couldn’t be certain.
It was still dark, the same fairy lights in the shape of chandeliers illuminating the square, but there were fewer people about than when they’d arrived late the night before. He left the elegant Place Vendôme with quick steps, but when he arrived at the lamp post where he’d left his bike, he cursed.
It was gone. His helmet lay, discarded, to one side and the lock had been chopped through with bolt-cutters. Whether it had been stolen or impounded, he’d have to discover later. He picked up the ruined lock and tossed it into a nearby bin with too much force. Swiping up his damp helmet, he rubbed his fingers absently over the scratches on the top as he headed for the métro – scratches from the moment he’d met her. What strange luck.
The day continued downhill from there. The console wasn’t at his apartment and he had to spend twenty minutes talking Nadia down. It might still be at the workshop. He couldn’t remember any more if Raph had had it with him there on Sunday. And, although he understood Nadia’s worry, he didn’t want to believe the boy had sold another one. Sacha had been certain Raph was making progress standing up to his older, so-called friends who kept asking him to buy pot for them. ‘Asking’ was too gentle a word.
But the looming start of his work day was a more immediate concern as he sat fidgeting on the métro on his way to the eighteenth. Despite the glut of electric scooters usually littering the footpaths in the centre of Paris, he only found one and it wouldn’t work, so he set off on foot. The other choice was a further two changes on the métro and walking was quicker.
The walk became a run for the last stretch and he arrived with two minutes to spare, to the expected ribbing from his ‘colleagues’. It was a rowdy day at the office – nothing he wasn’t used to, but his patience wore thin by the end of the day, especially when one of them boisterously suggested his poor mood was because he hadn’t got laid this century.
Sometimes he addressed those comments seriously, which quickly put a stop to them, but he ignored it that day. He didn’t have time. Cursing his missing bike again, he hurried to the main road, scrolling through public transport options to get him up to Joseph’s apartment in Saint-Denis.
The bus was more direct than a circuitous route on the métro, but he got stuck in evening traffic and nearly missed the grocery delivery he’d ordered for Joseph. He hauled the bags up the six flights of stairs, horrified at the idea of Joseph doing this himself only two months after his surgery.
‘You didn’t tell me the lift was broken!’
‘Salut to you too,’ Joseph said drily as he opened the door wide for Sacha and the grocery delivery.
‘How are you getting down the stairs?’
‘Very slowly.’ Sacha scowled at him. ‘I’m taking care. And the physiotherapist is happy with my progress. If you can convince Nadia of that, I’d appreciate it, because she doesn’t seem to believe me.’
‘We’ll believe you’re better when you’re running marathons.’
‘I didn’t run marathons before the knee replacement!’ Joseph laughed.
‘Would you prefer we left you to ruin your new knee?’
Joseph chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. To his annoyance, it still gave the slightest twinge. ‘You’re kind to this old man, but I’d rather see you busy with your own… life.’
‘Are you suggesting I don’t have a life?’ Sacha quipped. His smile faded and he groaned when Joseph gave him a pointed look. ‘Don’t start.’
Joseph held up his hands in surrender. ‘Did you give the ring back?’
‘Oui,’ he said in a clipped tone and stalked into the kitchen to put away the groceries.
‘And?’
‘And what? I gave it back. Fin de l’histoire.’ End of story. That was a happy lie. ‘You’re getting older all alone in this apartment and you’re worried about me?’
‘Pfft, I’m only getting older in my body and I’ve got this brand-new knee. Besides, I’m not alone. I am surrounded by neighbours. You, on the other hand…’
‘How can I be alone when I have you and Nadia and Raph?’
‘What about Rita?’
‘What do you mean? You know we broke up months ago.’
‘Then… perhaps it’s time to let someone else into your heart.’
Sacha huffed his inarticulate disagreement and wrenched open the fridge door. He’d tried with Rita, but he hadn’t been able to give her enough.
‘You see Rita at work?’
‘Of course, but it’s fine.’ Except when she looked at him as though she regretted giving up on him.
After doing a few more chores for Joseph, Sacha grabbed the key to the workshop and raced down the stairs of the tower block, trying in vain to work out an efficient way to get to Nadia’s place via Joseph’s workshop that didn’t involve a thousand buses.
When he finally arrived at the workshop and heaved up the roller door, the console was sitting innocently on the bench. He slumped against the wall with an enormous sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.
He pulled out his phone. ‘Nadi, j’ai trouvé la console.’
‘Merde!’ was her only response at first – not the one Sacha had been expecting. ‘I forbade him to see his friends this afternoon and he’s furious with me.’
Sacha leaned his head back and braced himself for a conversation he’d had many times. ‘Trust goes two ways, Nadi. He screwed up once. It doesn’t mean he’ll do it again. And it’s better if he feels like he can talk to you.’
‘Like he talks to you?’
‘No, like he talks to his mother. He knows you love him. You’re doing great.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed. ‘I put too much of this onto you.’
‘You know I’m here for you. I’m… just sorry I missed dinner last night. Écoute, I’m on my way, but it will take me a little while to get there. Raph will be fine on his own for half an hour if you have to leave for work. I’ll see you later.’
But Nadia wouldn’t let him end the conversation. ‘Are you going to tell me who she is?’
‘Nobody,’ he said firmly. ‘She is nobody.’ He could almost hear her eye roll.
His mind wandered as he waited for the bus and then sat on the RER, the suburban train. He pulled the old notebook out of his backpack and found the stub of a pencil.
As usual, he read a few pages from the front before the tip of his pencil ever touched the page. He scribbled a few lines – observations, connections, individual words. Then he found the page with the bottom ripped off. He brushed his thumb over the rough edge, and all the wondering he’d been trying not to do rushed back. Would she call?
By the time he reached Nadia’s apartment in a back corner in Aubervilliers, it was past nine – late enough that he felt sixty-four instead of thirty-four, but not so late that Raphaël would already be in bed. He let himself into the building with his key and rapped on the apartment door.
After a few muffled thumps, Nadia opened it and threw her arms around him. He enclosed her in a tight embrace, always able to feel her moods and vulnerabilities. She was older – thirty-six, now, with a few strands of grey in her hair from the years of completing her studies while juggling motherhood. Sacha had stepped up to be there for her, but he’d been a student, too, only twenty-three when Raph had been born.
He held her tight, and all of the rushing around was worth it.
‘Sorry I’m late.’
Ren’s day had begun in a much more luxurious manner, with a late breakfast delivered to her room. She sat at the table with her feet up on the upholstered dining chair, running a finger absently over the plasters on her heels and staring at the scrap of paper with its looping handwriting.
Who was he really, this man who told her compelling stories and opened up the world for her? Not to mention, he was an excellent kisser. It had only been for show and, after the mysterious phone call that morning, she couldn’t even be sure he was single, but wow, it had been one for her lonely imaginings in future years.
A knock on the door burst her fragile bubble. She snatched the piece of paper and stuffed it in her pocket. Steeling herself, Ren opened it to admit Ziggy and her grandmother. She wondered if she should fake a terrible lurgy to scare them off. They seemed a little taken aback at her appearance already.
Ziggy sighed pointedly and took a seat at the table, setting her tablet in front of her. ‘Livia and I have a plan.’
Bordel de merde. The curse sounded deliciously filthy. ‘If it involves me coming back to London…’
‘You’ve made your position on that clear,’ Ziggy said evenly. ‘And reception informs me that at least he had the sense to leave early in the morning.’ Grandmama harrumphed as though it was taking all of her energy not to speak. ‘You can take leave until the chalet weekend, as you requested.’ Ren tried not to snort at the idea of taking leave from her life. ‘But, Ren, I’m sorry, you can’t stay here at the Ritz. For one, think of the expense. And secondly, the chances of you being seen with him are simply too high.’
Ren wondered if her sudden stomach cramps were from nerves or lingering after-effects of the wine. ‘Where do you want me to stay?’
‘Didn’t you want to be free to choose? I got the impression your… new boyfriend would love to have you stay with him.’
Was it really necessary to save the money or did Ziggy suspect the fake relationship and was trying to smoke her out? Whatever her motives, Ziggy had succeeded in making Ren feel like a helpless dependent again.
‘Of course,’ continued Ziggy, ‘you could stay here for a few more days for some careful sightseeing. I can hire Aleksy to take the photos and it won’t be a problem to organise a new phone. You could have your break from London, without going completely off the radar. But, of course, Sacha could not be seen with you – at least not the way he looked yesterday. It would send entirely the wrong message. You are not desperate or sad. You were not dumped. Do you know that Charlie has been posting from the ski slopes already?’
Ren gritted her teeth. Had Ziggy always manipulated her like this? Or had she simply taken the dictates so meekly that she’d never had to be ‘managed’? Ren hated the implication that she’d enjoyed her time with Sacha because she was desperate and sad. Those words described her life in London more accurately than the two evenings she’d spent exploring the dark corners of Paris.
Ziggy’s attempt to manipulate her was so obvious that it had the opposite effect. She didn’t want to be the clueless socialite who didn’t know how to look after herself and was afraid of the dark.
‘Fine,’ she said curtly. ‘I’ll ask Sacha if I can stay with him.’ She’d ask Malou, but they didn’t have to know that.
‘Fine?’ Grandmama cried, clutching the arms of her chair. ‘You’ll stay with him? But we’ve said you don’t have to come home right away. Wasn’t that what you wanted?’
‘I want to stay with Sacha.’
Grandmama gave Ziggy an outraged look, but the inscrutable Ziggy shook her head subtly. ‘It sounds like her mind is made up,’ Ziggy said lightly. ‘As long as you will be very careful about photos, we will try to cover your absence for two weeks. And after the ski trip, we’ll travel back to London together for Christmas, the three of us, hmm?’
Ziggy stood and Grandmama followed, muttering, ‘This is not what you assured me would happen. The Ritz is the only place she knows. We can’t let her really stay with some Parisian…’
‘Street rat?’ Ren suggested with a smile that quickly faded when she realised that either Ziggy and Grandmama had never seen Aladdin or they didn’t remember that part. ‘He’s not a street rat,’ she mumbled. ‘I was joking.’ Grandmama looked ready to breathe fire.
‘We discussed this,’ Ziggy continued. ‘There are paparazzi on every corner of the Place Vendôme and there is already speculation about why you haven’t been posting to Instagram. And besides, would a man like that appreciate such a lovely room?’
‘Not at all!’ Ren agreed. She was nervous about leaving the Ritz, but Grandmama hadn’t quite been right when she’d said it was the only place in Paris she knew. Ziggy eyed her, so she erased the satisfaction from her expression as best she could.
Ren ushered them out quickly and took a deep, cleansing breath. She’d bitten off more than she could chew, but it was still her victory. She had two weeks to pull herself together and… perhaps see more of Paris.
‘Oh, just a moment!’ she called, rushing back to the door. ‘There’s something I need you to give back to Charlie.’ She rummaged in her handbag, experiencing a moment of panic that the stupid thing would hide again and she’d be stuck with it for the rest of her life. With a sigh of relief, she produced the engagement ring and pressed it into Ziggy’s hand. ‘You’ll see him before I will,’ she explained.
With one last critical look, Ziggy and Livia left her alone to enjoy the growing feeling of lightness. No more pretending she was still with Charlie. It was over. And she was in Paris.
She retrieved the crumpled scrap of paper from her pocket and smoothed her fingertip over his neat lettering. Sacha Mourad, followed by a mobile number with the French country code. Was it strange that what she most wanted to see in Paris was his face?
