Everyone was in a good mood on Sunday morning – or Ren’s capacity for positive thinking had revived itself overnight. She didn’t want to speculate on the merger, but she suspected, given the numerous photos Ziggy snapped during the meal, that they would be formulating an announcement shortly that would take the pressure off her and Charlie.
Grandmama tried to talk to her about plans for Christmas Day, now only four days away, but she struggled to pay attention and her foot kept poking Sacha’s under the table of its own accord.
‘Can’t we have Christmas… in Paris?’ she suggested without thought. She didn’t dare catch Sacha’s eye. They hadn’t discussed what would happen this evening when they left the ski slopes. So many times, now, she’d been on the brink of saying goodbye to Sacha. Surely she could snatch a few more days with him, extending her reprieve until Christmas.
‘In Paris?’ spluttered Ziggy.
‘Well… we’re all here,’ Ren pointed out.
‘And the Ritz does a lovely Christmas dinner,’ her grandmother pointed out.
‘You will have to come back to London at some point,’ Ziggy said. ‘Why not now?’ Because I’ve only just stopped pretending with him.
‘She’ll want to meet Sacha’s family, too, won’t she?’ Charlie’s mother Gina said. That would be true, if her relationship with Sacha was normal and not a gauntlet of obstacles on both sides. ‘The French celebrate Christmas on both days, don’t they? Christmas Eve, too? What does your family do, Sacha?’
‘I’m not sure the Mourads celebrate Christmas,’ Livia commented, but Ren stared at her in confusion. Was she making assumptions about the Middle Eastern origin of his surname? Ren couldn’t remember if Sacha had mentioned his father’s background.
He didn’t respond to Livia but turned to Gina instead. ‘We celebrate on Christmas Eve overnight. Both of my parents have died, so my sister, my nephew and I celebrate with a good friend of the family.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry about your parents,’ Gina said. ‘I always wanted to try a yule log, you know, those French Christmas cakes that look like logs. Do you bake one of those?’
‘La bûche de Noël,’ Sacha said with a nod. ‘My sister and I prepare it together, from an old recipe from my Lebanese grandmother.’
If Ren hadn’t been desperate to join him for a family Christmas before, she certainly was now. She’d never baked anything at Christmas. The family chef was always too much of a perfectionist to tolerate a helper who was all thumbs in the kitchen.
‘That’s perfect, then. Christmas Day is free for dinner at the Ritz. It sounds marvellous,’ Gina said with a smile. A few seconds of spluttering from around the table were the only hint that not everyone had imagined this plan for celebrating Christmas together.
‘Yes, marvellous.’ Ziggy covered the awkwardness with two clipped words she definitely didn’t mean.
‘Christmas at the Ritz sounds lovely,’ Charlotte piped up and Ren realised the trap she’d landed herself – and Sacha – in. She got more time with him, but he had to face this awful party again. She was so bad for him. But she didn’t want to let him go – not yet.
She and Sacha tumbled into their seats on the TGV blessedly alone that evening. Ren draped her arm over him and tangled their legs, breathing an enormous sigh of relief.
‘I don’t think my knees will ever be the same again,’ Sacha groaned. ‘But it feels so good to get the boots off.’
‘You were pretty good at the blue slope by the end,’ she said. ‘We just need to get you curving with parallel skis and it won’t hurt your knees so much.’
‘Thanks, coach. Somehow I don’t think your grandmother will invite me back to the chalet.’
‘They all give me such a headache at the moment,’ she groaned. ‘I don’t know what’s going on and the only thing that makes sense is this.’ She lifted her face for a kiss and he obliged. ‘It was like Grandmama was pretending she didn’t disapprove of you. Charlie was pretending he wasn’t threatened by you. Charlotte was pretending there was nothing at all wrong. Ziggy was pulling strings behind everyone, but I don’t know to what end, and you and I…’
‘We were pretending to be in a relationship, while really being in a relationship – secretly. Wait, that’s absurd.’ He laughed, leaning his head back against the seat.
‘At least I think the merger will be back on. Then everyone can forget Charlie and I were ever together – like I want to.’
‘You think you can? Forget him?’
When I look at you, I already have… ‘If we’re working together after the merger, I won’t be able to get rid of him entirely, but I think I can forget I thought we’d get married one day.’
To her surprise, his smile faded. ‘You can just… leave the past behind like that? Your desire for happy endings is that strong?’
‘It’s not like that,’ she insisted, her skin prickling. ‘I don’t mean forget, forget. But I have to cross out the mistake and continue on.’
He gave a bleak laugh. ‘That’s exactly what I’m unable to do. Every mistake leads here, to now. Crossing things out is ignoring them and losing the thread of what makes us who we are.’
‘Your father taught you that,’ she said softly, and his gaze jerked back to her in surprise.
‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘And you understand him. There are things you can’t forget, either.’
‘Don’t compare what happened to me with what your father experienced.’
‘Why not? They’re both traumas. You can’t hold it inside. It comes out.’
‘What other choice do I have? Telling you… maybe I shouldn’t have. You have enough burdens, right?’
‘Sharing your memory is not a burden.’
Her throat was thick as she tried to work out if she could believe him. ‘But sharing your father’s memory is,’ she remarked.
‘You probably think it cost him too much, holding onto the past – it costs me too much.’
‘That’s not for me to say, but your father’s life had meaning, you know,’ she murmured. ‘Before you took up his legacy, before you did anything in his memory, his life had meaning. I listen to you talk and it’s clear. All lives have meaning and purpose. It’s you who’s not at peace, not him. You need to decide his life was complete, was worth something. Maybe you need to stop focusing on the shadows.’
Sacha sat staring blankly for so long that she wondered whether she’d gone too far. ‘All lives have meaning and purpose? Including yours?’ he finally asked.
He’d trapped her in her own logic and deflected her observation, but the words still struck deeply. ‘I…’ Had she truly wasted so much time and energy believing she was useless? ‘I suppose it must,’ she said in disbelief. But what exactly did that mean for her now? All she knew in that moment was that she was meant to love – earnestly and generously and perhaps unwisely.
‘Are you coming back to my apartment tonight?’ he asked softly.
‘Yes,’ she answered, enjoying the twitch of his lips at her resolute answer. ‘And every night until Christmas. I’ve been terrible company for Malou.’
‘I don’t believe you were terrible company,’ he said with a sceptical look.
She drew close and whispered with a smile, ‘I was terrible company, because I wanted to be with you.’
A blush crept up his neck. ‘Do you… do you really want to come to dinner on Christmas Eve? You don’t have to.’
‘Why do you think I don’t want to come? I suggested Christmas in Paris because of you, Sacha, because I’m not ready to say goodbye yet. But do you still think I’m more interested in Louis Vuitton than Saint-Denis? Or do you think I’m snobby about cavorting with a flea market trader? That’s who you meant, right? You celebrate Christmas with Joseph?’
‘I know you better than that,’ he said, but he wasn’t looking at her. ‘Perhaps it’s us I’m worried about. They’ll love you so much, I’ll hear about it for years.’
‘This is really petty,’ she began slowly, ‘but I kind of like the idea of them all comparing your next girlfriend to me.’ He choked. ‘I am the selfish, pampered heiress, after all!’
‘I’m not sure I like the idea of your next boyfriend being compared favourably to me!’
She bolted upright and grabbed handfuls of his sweater. ‘Oh, God, you don’t mean that.’
‘You started it.’
‘I only said it because I’m a pain and you’re… I’ve never met anyone like you.’
‘I assure you, there are lots of us.’
‘That’s not what I mean and you know it.’ She bit her lip, staring at the bland institutional carpet on the backs of the chairs in front of them. She’d never felt like this before and she wasn’t sure she would again. But at least she had the sense not to say it. Sacha didn’t believe there was any way they could be together – she wasn’t sure she believed it herself. What was the point in burdening him with her feelings?
She definitely wasn’t brave enough, and wasn’t strong enough to hear him say they were a beautiful mistake, destiny off-course, a treasured memory.
‘Do you own any books with happy endings?’ she asked instead, resting her head against his shoulder. He considered the question for long enough that she had her answer. ‘Well, I know what you’re getting for Christmas.’
Ren was determined to make the most of the short time they had. She dragged Sacha back to the Marché aux Puces on Monday to buy Christmas presents, bickering companionably about the definition of the word ‘expensive’. She revelled in every day-to-day activity, Sacha laughing indulgently when she couldn’t work the scales for fruit and vegetables at the supermarket or turn on the oven. He showed her how to cook a few basic dishes and she rewarded him lavishly with kisses.
In the evenings, he sat and read a book while she draped herself over him, distracting him until he gave up and kissed her. If the days felt endless in their normality, the nights were limited and desperate, conscious of the approach of Christmas – and the end of their time together.
On Tuesday morning, the 23rd, she threw open the curtains of Sacha’s bedroom to see a handful of paparazzi loitering. She tugged the curtains shut again as quickly as she could, feeling like Brian from the Monty Python film, except thankfully decent, if slightly ridiculous, in her fluffy pyjamas.
Sacha waved to the photographers with a grim smile on his way to the boulangerie and returned with croissants, which improved Ren’s mood significantly, when she’d stuffed the first one in her mouth and ate the second more slowly, enjoying the delicate layers of pastry melting on her tongue.
‘We just don’t get them like this in London,’ she said with her mouth full.
‘I suppose this is why they say you should live like no one’s watching.’
Ren’s phone rang and she warily accepted Malou’s call and drifted back into the bedroom. ‘Hey,’ she said with false brightness. ‘I see the paparazzi are bored again.’
‘Huh? The street outside the gallery is crawling with them.’
‘Oh, no, not there, too!’ Ren groaned. ‘I just meant they must be bored if they want to get a picture of me stuffing my face with croissants.’
‘You haven’t seen the news, then?’
A shiver of unease rippled through her. ‘What news?’
‘The stained-glass panel was stolen from the gallery last night. Not only are we crawling with paparazzi, the police are swarming the corridors as well.’
‘What? Was anyone hurt? Did they take anything else?’
‘Everyone’s fine, and just the panel. It’s odd, as though they knew something we didn’t. I had a call from the French Ministry of Culture yesterday. They were supposed to come and view it today. The timing feels like too much of a coincidence and it wouldn’t surprise me if the owner has something to do with the theft. But it’s safe to say Asquith-Lewis is big news this morning and I don’t think Ziggy is entirely unhappy about it, despite the security breach. I’m not surprised the paparazzi is back at Sacha’s place, too. After the photos from the ski slopes, all of Paris wants to know who Sacha Mourad is.’
‘They do not!’
‘Maybe not all of Paris, but you were off the radar for long enough that the tabloids sniffed a story and now the gallery is in the news as well…’
Ren sank onto the bed, feeling the walls creep nearer. Could she really do this to Sacha, in good conscience? ‘What do they know so far?’
‘Pretty much everything. He’s a teacher at a collège in a poor part of Paris and originally from Aubervilliers.’ Ren’s throat closed. She hated that news outlets were poking into his life, but that was nowhere near everything. ‘Ziggy called the PR team back from holiday this morning to deal with both problems.’
So, she was a problem again. It had been fun at first, but now she was just upset. ‘Was she planning to ask me? She’s the one who told me I had to bring him skiing to show that everything was fine. Although I also suspect she wanted to scare him off.’
‘That obviously didn’t work,’ said Malou. ‘What would you say if she asked for your advice? Don’t worry, it’s all fake? Or yes, you haven’t come back to mine since you shared a room in the mountains and had lots of rebound sex?’ She sighed. ‘I wish we could gossip about this like normal people.’
‘I’m not normal people,’ Ren moaned. ‘God, I wish I was.’
‘I’m sorry, Ren. You know I’m on your side, right?’
‘Except that Ziggy is technically your boss.’
‘I don’t care. We’ll find a way through it. Is it… real, now? You and Sacha? Or are you just hiding behind him.’
Hiding behind him… That sounded awful.
‘He’s listened to me and helped me see the world in a different way and all I’ve done is hurt him, and cost him money, and let my family insult him and now I’m adding an invasion of privacy on top of all of that. He’s… special and he doesn’t deserve this.’
Malou was silent for a long moment. ‘Special?’
‘Please don’t ask,’ Ren said with a sigh. ‘I don’t know. And I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m dreading Christmas. I have to let him go. Using him to avoid my problems isn’t fair, so I have to find some way to say goodbye to him on Christmas Day.’
‘He’s coming to Christmas lunch? That shows commitment.’
She smiled faintly. It did show commitment, but not to her. He’d agreed to help and he took his responsibilities seriously. ‘Grandmama couldn’t not invite him, in front of everyone at the chalet. It’s such a mess. Charlie and his parents, me and Grandmama and Ziggy and poor Sacha.’
‘He can look after himself.’
Ren smiled faintly, remembering his expression when Charlie had tried to belittle him on the ski slopes. ‘I hope you’re right.’
