Page 10 of Midnight in Paris

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Tom, what were you going to say?’

He shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I’m used to better things?’ he said, an inflexion in his voice now.

‘Whereas I’m used to crappy hotels at best? Is that what you mean?’

‘I didn’t mean it likethat.’ He sighed, running his hands through his hair. ‘I just wanted to treat you, is all.’

‘You have.’ She swallowed down the insult; he hadn’t meant it. ‘It’s fine. We’re together, that’s the most important thing.’

Tom’s features relaxed then and he walked towards her, wrapping his arms around her waist, the movement bringing, as it always did, a shiver of pleasure. She wished sometimes that she wasn’t so attracted to him. Because it would no doubt end in tears.

‘You don’t date Tom, you borrow him,’ one of Tom’s friends had joked when they’d met briefly in a bar. ‘The minute you feel settled, he’ll be on to the next.’

Tom had laughed it off, but something in the back of her mind had recorded this and she had filed it away in a boxmarked ‘Danger’ in her brain. She couldn’t allow herself to fall for this man because he simply wasn’t someone who fell for anyone back.

But she turned to him and let him cover her with kisses; felt her body respond until she no longer cared about his past or their future but simply the moment; she forgot about everything other than him, and her, and the both of them together in this tiny fourth-floor hotel room in Paris.

‘Is it worth it?’ he asked two hours later when they stood in the square outside the Louvre, tourists milling around them.

‘Are you kidding me?’

He shrugged. ‘You’ve seen the outside. And we can get pictures…’ He trailed off, sensing he wasn’t going to win this one. ‘Maybe we could come back later? The queue is totally insane.’

She was too taken with the sight of it to mind the queue, this building she’d seen many times before in guidebooks and online but never in the flesh. The traditional, sombre buildings that hugged the square, and the pyramid of glass and light that rose up in the centre, both at odds with – and somehow complementing – each other. The Louvre had been her first choice, the first place she’d wanted to come when he’d asked, and she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.

‘It’ll be just the same later,’ she said. ‘Maybe we should just wait.’ She hated the hesitancy in her own voice – knew it was, in part, because he’d paid for the trip. He owned their time in Paris.

‘You don’t know that. Maybe people stop coming at teatime or something.’

‘Tom, we’re in Paris.’

‘Yup.’

‘It’s not going to stop for teatime.’

‘OK.’ He looked sulky, boyish. ‘I just hate queues, is all. And there are loads of other galleries.’

‘It’s the Louvre, Tom.’

‘Yes, I’m aware.’

‘And you must have known. The website said most days you’d have to queue.’

He sighed and suddenly it felt as if he was half her age. A small boy frustratedly waiting at the window of the ice cream van.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘Go, if you want. I’ll queue. We can meet up later? Or I can call you when I’m nearer the front or something.’

‘Your phone won’t work here, remember?’

‘Well, maybe you could just pop back and check from time to time. I’m staying, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.’ She almost stamped her foot with frustration, but managed to contain the impulse.

His eyebrows shot up at her tone. ‘What?’

‘Well, you’re clearly not that bothered so…’ she shrugged, meaning it.

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