had been a lot for twenty-two-year-old me to handle. And looking at him right now, I wasn’t sure twenty-nine-year-old me could manage him much better. The truth was, I’d been in deep with him. The world he lived in was passionate and dramatic, and I’d suffered terrible attacks of insecurity as I’d tried to belong.
Being young and a bit naive, I hadn’t always liked who I was when I was with him. Jean Claude had seemed to thrive on my attention—okay, more accurately, my fixation with him. While our spats had been the stuff of telenovelas, dramatic and ridiculous, making up had been breathtakingly erotic. While Colin in Ireland had been a kindred spirit who’d made me laugh and feel safe, Jean Claude had introduced me to true passion. He’d made me feel things I wasn’t ready for, so when my time with the Beauchamps was up, I’d fled for my next job in Germany during Oktoberfest.
“Ahem.” The sound of a throat being forcefully cleared caught my attention, and I saw Zoe standing there with a big grin on her face.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I . . . We . . .”
“I understand,” she said.
“Let me introduce you. Zoe Fabron, this is Jean Claude Bisset. Jean Claude, my friend Zoe.”
“Enchanté, mademoiselle,” he said.
“Bonjour,” she replied. She then switched to English for my sake. Her face was pure innocence when she said, “What a remarkable coincidence that we ran into you.”
Jean Claude beamed at me. “I am a very lucky man today.”
I smiled at him, feeling guilty for our deception.
“I can see you two have much catching up to do,” Zoe said. “Chelsea, I will see you back at the café?”
“Right, yes, I’ll be there,” I said. “Later.”
Zoe stepped forward, kissed me on each cheek, and with a wave, left us to our reunion.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said. He pulled me in for another hug. “How long are you in Paris? We must spend every second together.”
I laughed and hugged him back. “I have to be in Italy next week for work, but I’m free until then.”
“You are not working?” he asked. He gestured to my stained waitress’s garb, and I felt my face get hot. I hated lying. It never went well for me. I decided if Jean Claude and I were going to have anything worth having, then I had to tell him the truth.
“Zoe lent me these clothes,” I said. He looked at me in confusion. “So that I could sit outside Absalon and look for you.”
I paused, wondering how long, with the language barrier, it would take for him to get that I’d been lying in wait for him. If he ditched me now, I would totally understand.
“You are not a waitress?”
“No.”
“So you are not working right now?”
“No.”
“Then we haven’t a moment to lose,” he said. “I have a design meeting tonight, but I need a date for a party that is très élégant tomorrow. Go with me?”
“You do understand that I was sitting out here, watching for you,” I said.
“And you found me.”
Okay, clearly he did not care that I was a borderline stalker. Well, okay then.
“What should I wear to this very elegant party?” I asked. Judging by the pictures I’d seen of him on the Internet, this was likely to be rather high end, and I was not fashionably equipped for that at the moment.
“Haute couture, of course,” he said.
“Of course,” I repeated. Now I was definitely swimming in water over my head. I’d seen the price tags on those garments. A pair of pants could cost more than a month’s rent. Eep! Maybe I could talk him into meeting me for coffee instead.
He pursed his lips, and his eyebrows lifted. I had a feeling he knew exactly why I was hesitating. His words confirmed it. “It is too bad you do not know someone who has an entire design house at his disposal, yes?”
“I couldn’t,” I said. I shook my head. “That is too generous. Besides, I can’t go in there looking like this.”
“Of course you can,” he said. “You are my guest. You can do anything you want.”
He didn’t wait for me to answer but swooped one arm around me and whisked me into the design house as if it were a perfectly ordinary occurrence to invite a wine-soaked waitress into a high-end atelier.
Jean Claude led me through the showroom floor and up to the second level, where the seamstresses toiled in bright sunny rooms amid rolls and rolls