Page 66 of Thirty Days in Paris

She decided she would walk rather than cycle. She was proud not to have taken the Métro once since she’d been here. She had read somewhere that your activity level over the course of the day was more important than an intense workout if you wanted to keep on top of your weight, and it looked as if that was true. Despite her indulgence on the food front, she had lost a bit of her middle-age spread from all the cycling and walking.

She set off, walking past the café that had become her favourite, tempted for a moment to abandon her mission and head inside for an almond croissant. She watched the street cleaners emptying the bins and washing the pavements, the papas in immaculate suits walking their children to school, the delivery vans unloading fruit and veg. A young man sat in a doorway, engrossed in a paperback book, and she felt a momentary pang. A young girl smoked a cigarette and argued with a man in unnecessarily large sunglasses. An ancient woman shuffled along the pavement with a minute dog clad in a tartan coat. Morning in Paris. It made her ridiculously happy.

Maybe this was where she belonged?

She arrived at the bottom of the street and looked up it, to the battered cars parked along the pavement, the occasional splash of graffiti that gave it a tiny bit of edge. The silver of the roofs, the dormer windows, the black wrought iron of the balconies: it was so unmistakably Paris. Could she feel at home here? she wondered.

She thought she already did.

The front door of the building was propped ajar. She went inside and climbed the stairs to the first floor. The door of the apartment was open too. She could sense Jean Louis as soon as she stepped inside, the cologne she had smelled on him when they had passed in the street making her stomach flip slightly with anticipation. Not fear, for she had rehearsed her every movement and had given Nathalie the address of where she was going just in case. Her boots rang out on the parquet as she walked into the main room.

He was standing by the window, admiring the view he would use as the primary selling point. He turned with a charming smile. ‘Madame Hiscox?’

She had used her married name.

‘Bonjour, Jean Louis,’ she replied, and he frowned. Clients would not normally call him by his first name.

He examined her for a moment. She probably was very different from the girl he had once known. Older, wiser, her hair shorter, undoubtedly more curvaceous. And a little more glossy. Certainly more confident.

‘It’s Juliet,’ she prompted him. ‘Juliet Miller?’

He still didn’t click, unless he was a better actor than he had been.

‘Your au pair. You must remember.’ This was a statement not a question.

‘Juliet.’ He managed a smile. She could see him desperately trying to assess the situation and work out what the hell she was doing here. ‘Quelle coincidence.’

He spoke French, presumably to gain the upper hand.

‘No. It’s not a coincidence.’ For a moment, she relished the power of seeing him panic.

‘You’re here to view the apartment?’

‘I’m here to see you.’

He tried to take in what she was saying. He frowned. ‘I must ask you to leave. This is a private home. I have a viewing—’

‘Yes, yes, I know. The viewing is with me.’

‘I see.’ He understood now, that he had been trapped.

‘You can show me around while we speak. It looks very nice.’ She took in the shuttered windows that looked out onto the street, the herringbone floor, the mid-morning light turning the wood a buttery yellow. The bleached beams. The minute kitchen in reclaimed wood.

He gawped at her, with no idea what to say.

Suddenly, all she felt for him was pity, not fear. ‘I want you to know that what you did to me was very, very wrong, Jean Louis.’ Using his name made her feel powerful. She would never have called him that before. ‘I don’t mean the kiss. It was just a moment, and we both knew it was wrong. It was what you did afterwards.’

‘Juliet.’ He ran his hands through his hair, still plentiful and luxuriant. ‘Do you not think I know?’

‘I don’t know. Do you?’

‘I was out of my mind. I was so terrified. Not of Corinne, but of what was happening to her. I knew … if she knew … about us—’

‘I know why you did it.’ Juliet’s tone was sharp. ‘But you could have found a way. I would never have betrayed you. I would never have told her what happened between us.’

‘I know. You protected me even though I didn’t deserve it. You were so much better than me. So much stronger.’

He’d gambled on her loyalty. He had known she was honourable. And he’d used her integrity to save himself. All the rage she had been bottling up for thirty years came bubbling up to the surface.

---