Page 26 of The Paris Trip

‘You don’t need to apologise. Not to me.’ Liselle sounded surprised. ‘You’re an artist, Leo. Of course you feel passion, and of course you must express it. That passion is part of who you are and I welcome it.’ She turned, heading towards him. He shifted backwards automatically, but she kept coming. He backed all the way up against the wall of the studio, until he couldn’t retreat any further. She placed a hand on his chest, her big eyes gazing into his. ‘You’re painting again. That is all I care about. It’s… miraculous.’

‘Hardly. I can’t seem to get it right,’ he muttered.

‘You will,’ she said simply. ‘I have faith in you.’

His lip curled. ‘Fine talking. I wish you’d lend me some of that faith. Because I have none left.’

‘Willingly,’ she whispered.

Alarm bells rang in his head at that look in her eyes. He looked down at the hand on his chest.

‘Listen to me, Liselle… I’m not interested. How many times do I have to tell you?’ Leo inhaled sharply, struggling to push away the inner demons that had been crowding him for hours. This was Liselle… Beautiful, wild, unpredictable Liselle. He needed to pick his words with care. ‘You being my manager, that works. We’re a good team. But we can’t go back to how things once were between us.’ He tried to make her see sense. ‘I’m no good for you. I don’t love you. This thing… It’s toxic.’

‘Only because you won’t let me in. You need someone, Leo. You can’t do this alone. Why not let it be me?’ She stretched on tiptoe to kiss him and he grabbed hold of her shoulders, holding her back as gently as he could. Her eyes flashed with anger. ‘Let me go!’

‘Not if you plan to kiss me.’

‘You can’t possibly prefer that English idiot to me. She’s barely female.’

‘Don’t be offensive,’ he growled.

‘Have you seen her figure? If she even has one under those mannish clothes she wears.’ She shuddered.

‘Those are Bernadette’s clothes. Of course they don’t fit her very well. Bernadette has a much larger physique.’

Liselle stared. ‘Why on earth is she wearing your sister’s clothes?’

‘She lost her luggage. I asked Bernadette to lend her something.’ He grimaced, aware that his sister’s spite towards their guest had extended to lending her the drabbest, least appealing clothes she could unearth from her drawers.

‘Oh, well… If the little fool can’t even keep hold of a suitcase… Leo, darling, you can’t be serious about wanting to paint her.’

‘Watch me.’

Her lips tightened. ‘I love that you’re painting again. It’s so exciting… But why ask her to sit for you? What quality can she bring to your canvas? Dullness? Ordinariness? A sensible little librarian type who looks like she’s never even had a lover.’ She paused in her tirade, her gaze devouring him with sudden fury. ‘Is that what you like about her? Her innocence?’ She took a step back at last, her hands dropping away, a knowing look on her face as she finished softly, ‘I can do innocence if you like. We can role-play. There doesn’t have to be all this drama between us.’

Leo’s gaze narrowed on her face. ‘I thought we’d agreed that you’d only be my manager from now on. I thought we were over this.’ He was perplexed and more than a little irritated. ‘What’s changed?’

She pouted. ‘Oh yes, I’ve been so happy, trailing about in your shadow, waiting for you to start painting again, so I can make some money as your manager and sell your work.’

‘I’m sorry if I’ve had a dry patch lately… ‘

‘Dry?’ Her laughter was cruel. ‘Any drier and it would be the Sahara.’

His jaw hardened but he said nothing. She was merely baiting him, trying to drag emotion into the argument, so she could unbalance his calm.

When he stayed silent, she went on unsteadily, ‘But that was before she turned up. Quite out of the blue, wasn’t it? And all that business about getting knocked down in the street… I don’t believe a word of it. You must’ve known her before yesterday. None of this makes sense otherwise. A complete stranger, walking in here, turning your life upside down, inspiring you to start painting again with one look from her very boring eyes?’

When he failed to answer this clearly rhetorical question, Liselle shook back her long Titian hair, a curtain of shimmering flame. ‘No, I don’t believe it! You were lying. She is lying. But I tell you this, Leo, she will hurt you. Because she doesn’t understand you.’ She tapped her chest, her chin thrust proudly in the air. ‘I, Liselle, understand you. I will always put you and your art first. Now, leave this little English thing and come back to me.’

‘Liselle, please,’ he began wearily, his head throbbing from lack of sleep and possibly the start of a migraine, but she interrupted him with a violent gesture.

‘No, I am done talking. It is time for you to paint. So I have come to you.’

Her eyes fixed on his, Liselle unfastened the belt of her dressing gown, exposing her nude body beneath.

As he caught his breath in protest, she shrugged the green silk from her shoulders and stepped away from it, standing naked in the middle of his studio, straight-backed and defiant.

‘Paint me, Leo,’ she ordered him. ‘You know you want to.’

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