Foreign Love (An International Sports Romance) (Love in Shades) (9 page)

Chapter 25

Julia

“This is crazy, right Jules?” Mackenzie says. She’s pacing the room, tugging on the ends of her long, dark hair. She called me using CheekyChat, the anonymous online dating app developed by the startup where Willow is interning this summer. Mackenzie’s CheekyChat avatar follows her movements, perfectly masking her face. “I barely even know the guy. I can’t just drop everything and go to Phoenix with him.”

Mackenzie has had a rough past few months. So, she fled New York and is spending the summer at her brother’s California beach house trying to focus and get her life back on track. But, her next-door neighbor just happens to be the lead singer of the hottest band in the country and he also just happens to be a little crazy in love with her. He’s begging her to accompany him on the first stop of his nationwide tour. To me, it’s the perfect scenario. But Mackenzie has found a way to make that into a problem.

And despite how uncertain and conflicted I’ve been feeling about my own love life, I need to be her rock. I’ve always been the rock for Mackenzie and Willow. To them, I’m Julia, the master of spontaneity and dispenser of sage words. But right now, I feel like a fraud because I can’t even sort out my own feelings.

“I hate to break it to you, Mac-Mac,” I say as I stretch out on the bed, pushing the heavy quilt aside, “but you aren’t exactly doing anything groundbreaking out there in L.A. All you do is rehearse and go to the beach. It’s not like you’re trying to solve world hunger…or find a cure for halitosis.”

I expect her to laugh, but she doesn’t. Instead, her creepy little avatar glares at me and says, “I should be focusing. I came out here to focus on my dancing. Not to follow some musician around like a groupie.”

I laugh bitterly as I snatch my glass of red wine off of Lucien’s bedside table and take a quick sip. I could say exactly the same thing because I’m about to follow this stranger across the country to go meet his family. I glance at my half-packed suitcase lying open in the corner of the room. “Dude – you make it seem like you guys are about to elope or something. It’s just one goddamned concert.”

“In
Phoenix
,” she stresses the word. I can see that she’s losing her shit.

I sigh. “Yes, in Phoenix. Why is that a big deal?” Judging by the way she’s behaving, you’d think that Phoenix was in a galaxy far, far away.
C’mon, Mackenzie – it’s barely 350 miles from Los Angeles
.

“I should call him and cancel,” she grumbles.

I can’t help but laugh as I slide off the bed and pull open the drawer where Lucien has neatly stored my perfectly folded clothing. She must be falling hard for this guy if she’s panicking so much. “Why the heck are you so freaked out about this?”

She licks her lips, looking hesitant. “I like him…alot.”

And suddenly, a lightbulb goes off in my head. “You’re in love!”

“No, no. Not love,” she says a little too quickly. “I don’t know him well enough to be in love with him…That would be crazy, right?...Right?”

She’s asking the wrong person. I’m the girl who just fell head over heels for some guy I fucked on a plane barely minutes after meeting him. Lucien’s words come to mind. “L’amour ne s’explique pas, mon amie.”

She spins to look at me. “Has Paris turned you into a beret-wearing, baguette-eating hopeless romantic?” At least
she’s
laughing.

“Something like that, I guess.” I exhale heavily. “Stop trying to be a good girl, Mac. It doesn’t suit you. It’s inauthentic and it’s no good for your blood pressure. Come on, let that bad girl free. I miss her. It’s like I moved to Paris and you turned into a stiff.”

Her tone goes dry. “
You
seem to be forgetting that I majorly fucked up my life. I lost focus. Started partying my ass off and totally missed the boat on my application to Joffrey.”

“That was a fluke,” I promise her. “You’re the best dancer I know.” Mackenzie has convinced herself that her dance career is over if she can’t get into Joffrey. At least she’s not the one being told that she’ll need a screw in her knee if she wants to prevent it from being dislocated every time she makes a sudden movement. She wouldn’t be able to handle standing in my shoes.

“This is all crazy,” she whimpers. “Crazy. He’s a rock star, Julia. Beautiful women throw themselves at him everyday. Do you honestly think that he and I could have something real?”

I roll my eyes and sigh. “Don’t be pissed just because he gets mad groupie love. Even Prince Charming had to work his way through a throng of groupies before he could find his Cinderella. Don’t turn down your invitation to the ball, Mac-Mac.”

She stops fidgeting for just long enough to stare into the camera. “Sweet analogy, Jules, but c’mon…”

“Mackenzie, go with him. He’s the hottest musician on the planet. He could have any girl he wants. And he wants
you
. Stop overthinking this. It’s just one concert stop. Go with him. Go make some memories.”

I toss my itty-bitty yellow and white bikini into my open suitcase. Carpe diem.
Go make some memories
…Now, that’s some advice I plan to take.

Chapter 26

Julia

The grin on my face is a mile wide as I turn off the faucet and reach for the towel hanging on the hook behind the bathroom door. I sing loud and off-key as I wrap myself up and step out of the stall. I lean over the sink and rub my palm across the cloudy mirror, chasing the fog away.

I pull my hair into a messy bun high on my head and pack my toiletries into my pouch all while humming the White Hot Coals tune low under my breath.

“Lucien? Are you back?” I call out. I could swear I heard a small bang in the other room. I must have been mistaken, though.

Lucien’s friend, Grégiore, is lending us his car for the trip to Théoule-sur-mer. Lucien left shortly before I jumped in the shower to go pick up the car and get a few things that we’ll need for the trip.

I’m fucking beaming. I’m so excited.

I carry on singing as I glance around the room one last time to make sure I’m not forgetting anything. I’m all packed for our trip to Lucien’s hometown.

I throw the bathroom door open and am in no way prepared for the sight that greets me.

There’s a stunning woman sitting on the edge of the bed. She’s wearing nothing but Lucien’s white button-down shirt and a menacing frown.

“Wh-who are you?” I ask. I cling tight to the bath towel, holding my toiletries case defensively against my chest.

Her eyes narrow as she stands to her feet and pads over to me, her long blond hair swaying with her movements. She towers over me, glaring at me from under her thick eyelashes.

She holds up her phone, waving it in my face. In the screensaver photo, she and Lucien are standing face-to-face, foreheads touching. She’s in a white dress and there’s a glistening diamond on the ring finger of the hand cupping his cheek. “I’m Anaïs. Lucien’s
wife
,” she snarls in a thick French accent. “Now, who the fuck are you?”

Chapter 27

Julia

Nothing can really prepare you for the moment when you first discover that you are nothing but a cheap imitation of your lover’s wife.

Her hair is blond like mine but longer and thicker. Her eyes are blue like mine but deeper and more striking. Her limbs are long and elegant in a way that I immediately envy.

“So, where is my husband and why are you in my house?” Anaïs growls accusatorily as she stands in front of me, her weight shifted to one elegant leg and her hand fisted on her slender hip.

I try to stand tall, look her in the eye. After all, I haven’t done anything wrong here. “Lucien never mentioned you,” I say defensively.

She hocks bitterly. “
Le bâtard. Le salaud
,” she mumbles under her breath.

He
is
a bastard. Well, at least that’s something Anaïs and I can both agree on. Hey, who knows – we might have a thing or two in common.

Aside from the blond hair.

And the blue eyes.

And the fact that we were both duped by the same handsome, lying Frenchman.

“Do you fuck my husband?” she asks so angrily that I’m afraid to answer the question. Anaïs penetrates me for a moment with her angry stare before hocking venomously, spinning on her heel and heading towards the kitchenette. “
Du vin! Du vin!
I need some wine!”

I watch, still stunned as she rummages frenetically around in the cupboards before retrieving a wine goblet and a bottle of red wine. She busies herself opening the bottle, moving around the kitchen with a degree of choreographed familiarity, as if it’s something that she’s done so many times before.

I should go. I should get dressed, grab my suitcase and go.
That’s what my mind is saying, but my body remains immobilized, still in shock, still trying to process what is going on in front of me.

She glances up after a while as if she had forgotten that I was still here. “
Mais pourquoi tu restes là?
” she says frowning deeply. “
Va-t’en
! Go away,
stew-pid
American girl,” she hurls with a dismissive flick of the wrist. She spews curse words at me and, it may be because of the speed at which the words fly out of her mouth or because of the fact that I’m still in utter shock, but my mind refuses to even attempt to understand and translate what she’s saying.

I pull a steely breath, fighting back the tears burning the back of my eyes. I pull a dress from the top of my suitcase. It’s the flirty, green summer dress I was wearing the day I came back to Paris. The day I met Lucien and fucked him in the lavatory. The day I decided that, even though I was attracted to him, I didn’t want anything beyond a few illicit moments in an airplane washroom.

How the fuck did I wind up
here
? In Lucien’s apartment. Wrapped in a towel. Face-to-face with his wife.

Fuck – I’m a silly girl.

Anaïs rattles on in French and I catch bits and pieces of her hysterical tirade.

“…How could Lucien do this to me?...”, “…I’ve been nothing but a good wife…”, “…I don’t deserve this…”

I should say something. I should do something. I should fight back. Lucien misled me as much as he did her. I’m a victim, too. I was completely blindsided by what took place here today.

But as I watch Anaïs in the throes of her frenetic meltdown, I think back to the phone calls that he’d take leaning over the verandah, whispering into the phone in hushed tones. And the apricot face scrub that was sitting on the edge of the bathtub and the pink loofah that was hanging on the showerhead the first day I got here but magically disappeared the next time I returned.

The clues were there all along, but I didn’t want to see them because I just wanted to play the part of the broken-hearted American girl falling madly for a romantic Parisian man who could make all my misery go away with one perfectly maneuvered French kiss and a string of sweet nothings whispered in my ear in a language that I barely understand.

Now, his crazy wife is standing directly in front of me, her full glass of wine tipping precariously with each of her animated hand gestures. “
Stew-pid
girl! Go! Go!
Avant que j’appele la police
!”

My eyes are heavy, tears streaming down my face as I wheel my suitcase through the front door and hear it crash loudly behind me as my lover’s wife slams it shut.

Chapter 28

Lucien

The sudden burst of light pouring in through my bedroom window jolts me awake.

“
Lève toi, merde
. Get up,” Grégiore howls as he yanks the drapes wider and opens the window. “It is beginning to smell like rotting meat in here. Get the fuck up and wash yourself.”

I lie back against my pillow and throw an arm over my eyes. “Grégiore, what the fuck are you doing in my bedroom?”

And that’s when the events of the past few days come flooding back to me again, stabbing through my chest with the intensity of a hot dagger.

I had left a spare key with Grégiore – just in case – when I was planning to take Julia to Théoule-sur-mer for the weekend.

But then, something went wrong.

And now, Julia’s gone.

She just left.

While I was out planning our romantic getaway to my hometown, Julia, for whatever reason, was plotting her escape from me.

But I can’t focus on that now, because Grégiore is standing in front of me, yanking the sheets off of my bed. “Up, up, up. Time is mon-nay.” He’s telling me that he got a fax this morning revealing France’s starting lineup for the Olympic Games soccer tournament. He’s telling me that I’m listed as the first-string forward. He’s yelling at me to go shower and get dressed. Because we have to go. Now. Now. Now.

I tumble out of bed and within half an hour, I’m wearing a clean suit and following Grégiore down the stairs to his car on the sidewalk.

We’re off to a press conference. Because it looks like I’ll be representing my country in the Olympic Games after all.