I Heart Paris (12 page)

‘I wasn’t trying to keep it from you.’ Alex stood still in the doorway. ‘I didn’t know she was going to be here and like I told you, it was for ever ago. There’s nothing to say.’ The low bathroom light silhouetted his slender frame and broad shoulders. Why was even lighting against me?

‘Whatever,’ I said, turning to the wall. I was determined not to let my hormones betray me.

‘Honestly, Angie, it’s not like there are any feelings there, I just don’t want my ex in my face.’

I felt the mattress give slightly with his weight and held my breath, waiting for him to touch me. But he didn’t.

‘I mean, would you want to hang out with your ex if he was in town?’

I breathed out. There wasn’t a single thing I could think of in the whole world that would be worse than me, Alex and Mark hanging out together.

‘Anyway would I want to spend a single second with her, when I could be with you?’

Begrudgingly, I rolled over to find that Alex really had assumed this argument was going to go his way. He was completely naked.

‘Are you hot or something?’ I asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘Pretty sure it was my suitcase that got blown up, not yours.’

‘Shut up,’ he said, sliding his body over mine.

‘Alex, I just threw up.’

‘And now you’re all minty and sweaty.’

‘Sweaty?’

‘Good sweaty.’

I highly doubted that. I knew what good sweaty was. Good sweaty was how he smelled after playing football in the park with his friends while I read on the grass, how he smelled when he came straight offstage from doing a show at the Music Hall and dragged me the three blocks to his apartment. Good sweaty was not me right at that moment. But I was oh so close to not caring.

I raised my arms above my head, helping him slip my T-shirt up and over, leaving us with nothing except sticky skin on sticky skin. Alex’s kisses were always insistent, but tonight they felt deeper than ever, I knew he thought he had something to prove. It felt as if he was trying to tell me something important that there wasn’t a word for. His hands moved over my body while we kissed, sending my senses into overdrive, I just couldn’t keep up. And I didn’t want to even try. After a while his kisses followed his hands, down my neck, my arms, my stomach, marking every inch of me.

I grabbed a handful of his thick, black hair and tried to pull him back up towards me, but he pulled away, disentangling my fingers and kissing them and running his tongue in between each finger, teasing, before getting back to the job at hand. My stomach jumped with every touch until I really couldn’t bear it a second longer. I reached out for his hair again and found my hand resting against his cheek. I opened my eyes to see his long fringe swaying in front of his bright eyes, his pupils wide and dark.

‘You OK?’ he whispered, his head resting briefly against mine, his hair in my eyes, our mouths almost touching, but not quite. Between the, butterflies in my stomach, short, irregular breaths and the electric feeling on my lips, I really wasn’t.

‘I want you,’ I managed to stutter in between ragged gasps. He smiled and combed a sweaty strand of hair out of my eyes.

It was always amazing with Alex, but I was ashamed to realize I’d got too used to tearing our clothes off and going at it like savages. We hardly ever indulged in each other like this. It was almost too good and I didn’t know how long I could last. He didn’t say anything, just held himself above me for another moment, the buzzing in my lips building until I couldn’t hold it any more and pushed my face up to his, taking him in, tasting the sweet saltiness as sweat ran down our faces and into our kisses. My hands tangled themselves in his damp hair, before my nails scratched all the way down the length of his strong back, his lean, muscled arms, and slipped around to press against the hair on his broad chest that turned into the narrow black trail running down his tight stomach. My legs instinctively rode up and wrapped themselves around his narrow hips. Before I could lose my mind completely, he broke the frenzy and pulled away. It took a moment before I realized I was panting, my mouth open, my face scratched from his early-morning stubble.

‘I want you too,’ he said quietly. ‘I will always want you. I love you.’

I stared at him hard, the, butterflies in my stomach turning into fireworks and the tingle from my lips spreading all over every inch of exposed skin. Nodding, I leaned up to kiss him again. It started gently, but it didn’t stay that way. His words echoing in my ears, his mouth hard against mine, hands locked together above my head and our bodies synched. Everything else began to melt and he was the only thing in the world, in existence, until suddenly, there wasn’t a him and a me any more. It was us, just us, and everything else slipped away entirely.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Reception seemed to take an uncommon amount of pleasure in ringing with my wake-up call ten minutes earlier than it was booked for the following morning, and it took me a whole three messy minutes to remember why that might be. Alex was already gone, off for an early morning radio show thing with the band, but that didn’t make heaving myself out of bed any easier.

Standing under the shower, waiting to feel human again, I went over everything I had to get sorted out in my head. First things first, I had to talk to Jenny. It was only nine-thirty here, half past twelve there. Probably not the best time to try and catch her for a heart to heart. She hadn’t tried to call or email since Tuesday night and with all the Solène nonsense going on, I just hadn’t really thought about it too much. Which was, admittedly, pretty shitty of me. But I could only deal with one problem at a time, I’d proven that before.

After I’d spoken to Jenny, I needed to sort out this article. I’d convinced myself so completely that I was utterly capable of completing this assignment, the idea of that not being the case was a bit of a shock. Yesterday had been fun and I’d got the names of a couple of cool shops, well, I thought they were cool, but they weren’t exactly super secret hipster vintage treasure troves. As sick and wrong as it was, I was really hoping that Cici would come through for me. Virginie was a teeny tiny Parisian angel, but
Belle
hadn’t exactly helped me out by hooking me up with their least fashion inclined employee. I rang reception to see if there had been any calls, faxes or emails for me from Cici, but there was nothing. And she wasn’t answering her cell. I was buggered.

Once all the research for the article was done and dusted (wishful thinking never hurt anyone) I needed to sort out the Alex situation. Given last night’s activities, I was pretty certain things were at the very least OK, but I had completely forgotten to mention the fact that I’d told Solène we’d go to her party. And I had a not-so-funny feeling that he wasn’t really going to be up for it.

And even worse, I knew it was tragic to admit it even to myself, but being without all my pretty things was still really playing on my mind. I’d forget for a moment and then a vision of my gorgeous gold Louboutins would shoot up and across my mind and it would be like a slap. And they would literally shoot up. In my fantasies, the airport security people had actually gone through the case and blown up each item of beauty individually. Sob. It had taken me a year to get comfortable with myself, with my new life, and it felt as if someone was testing me, taking it away bit by bit. Starting with my accessories. What a bitch.

I waited for Virginie in reception for fifteen minutes before I started to get worried. I’d parked myself in as dark a corner as I could find, dark sunglasses, black T-shirt, black jeans, hair in a ponytail, and had to wonder if I had been too successful in my plan to remain completely anonymous. It was the staff on reception that I wanted to hide from, not Virginie. Another ten minutes later, my phone trilled quietly inside my one-and-only Marc Jacobs bag.

‘Angela, I am so sorry,’ Virginie blustered down the line, not even waiting for me to say hello. ‘I come to your hotel now. I had to go to the
Belle
office and collect the fax from Cici.’

‘She sent a fax to the office?’ I asked, confused, but relieved. Who would have believed it? Cici had come through, she just wasn’t going to make it easy, obviously. How was I supposed to know she’d sent the fax to the office?

‘
Oui
, I have it with me now. We will get coffee and read together?’ Virginie asked.

‘Coffee sounds amazing. How long will it take you to get here?’ I was now dying for coffee. Possibly actually dying, my head throbbed and my mouth tasted like paint stripper. Not that I’d ever tasted paint stripper, but I felt I was making an educated guess.

‘Perhaps you could come to Alma Marceau
Métro
station? We spent so much time in the Marais and Saint-Germain yesterday,’ she suggested. ‘It is a simple journey, you take a train at St-Sébastien, change at Bastille and then Roosevelt. Or walk to Bastille, it is not far. You have a map?’

‘I do,’ I said, checking my bag. I did. Phew. ‘But really, I’m not really very good with maps – maybe we should meet here?’

Virginie laughed, all tinkly and reassuring. The opposite of a Cici cackle. ‘Angela, you will be fine. I will see you in half an hour. Call me if you cannot find me.’

I really was not in any fit state to be navigating myself around the
Métro
system. And looking at the
Métro
map on the back of the street map, it was not going to be as easy as Virginie had led me to believe. That girl had far too much confidence in me. I closed my eyes, dropped my head over the back of the chair and let out a too loud sigh.

‘Everything is OK,
Madame
?’ asked a very concerned voice at the side of me. ‘You are feeling unwell? Again?’

Opening one eye behind my sunglasses, I saw the concierge from last night standing at a safe distance to my left. Clearly he was convinced I was about to chuck up all over his newly pristine reception. Again.

‘I’m fine, thank you.’ I clambered out of the chair in the most ladylike fashion I could manage (i.e. not very) and attempted to compose myself.

He nodded curtly and backed away slowly, not believing me in the slightest. I pursed my lips together. I wasn’t having him going away thinking I was a horrible lush.

‘My best friend used to be a concierge,’ I blurted out. ‘At a hotel.’

‘
Pardon
?’ He stared at me from behind the safety of his desk. ‘Your friend works at our hotel?’

Why? Why couldn’t I just leave things alone?

‘Oh no, she lives in LA now,’ I carried on, ignoring the tiny voice in my head that was telling me to shut up over and over and over and over. ‘But she worked in a hotel for years. Have you worked here for long?’

‘For three years?’ he replied, still looking just as confused and now ever so slightly scared. ‘My name is Alain. We are very pleased to have you staying with us,
Madame
.’

Now, there was no mistaking that for a very polite way of saying ‘please get the hell away from me and leave me alone’, but could I do that? No. Because that would be too easy.

‘Wow, three years, that’s a long time in one job,’ I said, now leaning against the concierge’s desk. The little voice in my head had blossomed into a full blown bellow now, begging me to get out of the hotel before my new friend Alain threw me out. ‘Do you like it?’

He shrugged and stepped back from the desk. I couldn’t help it. I hate when people didn’t like me, or thought badly of me. Somewhere, buried not quite deep enough, was the feeling that somehow, my puking in the street outside this man’s hotel would get back to my mother. ‘Can I help you with something,
Madame
?’

Give up. Give up now, the voice demanded.

‘It’s Angela,’ I said, reaching across to shake his hand. ‘And no, I’m fine. Thank you though.’ Giving him one last extra bright smile, I admitted defeat and legged it out the door. Note to self, try not to humiliate yourself in front of hotel staff when you’re still a little bit drunk from the night before. And he was still bloody well calling me
Madame
when I was fairly certain I’d told him I was
Mademoiselle
at least twice.

At least I’d been right about one thing so far today, the
Métro
was not going to be easy. I’d found the first station easily enough, but had managed to go three stops in the wrong direction before I realized I was not on my way to Bastille. Every second I was sitting on that bloody train, I could see Donna Gregory’s expression as she read my article, her eyebrow eventually rising so high that it fell off her face completely. I was fucked. Properly and completely fucked. The tunnels were bigger and brighter than at a Tube station or in the subway, but after I had navigated the dozens of short staircases, hundreds of different exits and a very confusing signage system, it was well over an hour and a half since Virginie had called me. I eventually emerged hot, sweaty and completely dehydrated at Alma Marceau. Taking a second to try and work out where I was, I saw the Eiffel Tower and the river on one side of me and a huge roundabout on the other. Where on earth would Virginie be? Before I could throw myself in the Seine, my phone beeped again.

‘Angela? Are you OK?’ Virginie was apparently psychic. ‘I have been calling and calling.’ OK, maybe just concerned.

‘I’m sorry, I’m fine I think,’ I was not fine, I was very, very tired. As if my first solo mission on the
Métro
wasn’t going to be bad enough, why had I attempted it hungover? ‘Sorry, my brain isn’t working right yet. Where are you?’

‘I am in a café, just by the road. I am waving, can you see me?’

I did a slow turn, thinking how absolutely impossible it was going to be to find one tiny beautiful brunette in a sea of millions, before I spotted her, directly across the road and waving manically. At last, something was going my way.

‘Stop waving like that, you’ll have a stroke,’ I said, waving back and hanging up, happily.

Thankfully, I was able to navigate crossing the road fairly easily and when I collapsed into the chair Virginie pushed out for me, she’d already ordered me fresh coffee, which I downed like a shot.