Chapter 3
3
One of life’s great pleasures, for Noah Dufour, were the combined aromas of strong coffee and tobacco smoke, preferably enjoyed alone in a place that allowed him to watch the world waking up around him.
This morning, however, he wasn’t observing the activity in the square overlooked by the outside area of the café just outside the fortress walls of St Paul de Vence. He was scrolling through messages on his phone. More specifically, the messages that had been received and sent by Mademoiselle Laura Gilchrist.
Not that she’d responded to his initial contact with the restaurant photos, like the delightful food, so beautifully presented with its decorations of microgreens and tiny edible flowers. Even the picture of a single dessert with two silver spoons hadn’t provoked her enough to comment, and Noah had almost given up trying to get through the barriers around the most stunning woman he’d ever seen, but then she’d sent him that photo…
It was clearly intended to remind him that their relationship was strictly professional. He’d zoomed in on the plaque she was holding that proclaimed her the winner of what had to be a prestigious award in the Scottish real estate industry.
Mais, oh là là là là …
He’d looked at this image a thousand times since and, if the intention was to create another barrier between them, it hadn’t dimmed his longing one little bit. If anything, it had increased the impression that Laura Gilchrist was, quite simply, a goddess. A woman who deserved to be worshipped.
It had been a mistake to send the explosion of love hearts, of course – trop peu professionnel – but Noah had been far more circumspect since then. He’d resisted contacting her, waiting until he’d had an excuse, and that had been to let her know that the plumber he’d organised to attend to the hot water problem at La Maisonette had been successful. Mike was going to line up the other tradesmen that might be needed as well, like a glazier and a builder.
Her response had been brief.
Merci beaucoup
And then there’d been a tiny chink of light through that professional barrier.
How is Ellie coping, do you know? Is there anything that she needs?
I’ll call in on her today and find out. I’m going that way. I want to send you a photo of La Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence. Henri Matisse considered the design and decoration of it to be his life’s masterpiece. The house he lived in is nearby, too. La Villa Le Rêve.
Please do. Famous artists are of interest to many people.
Like restaurants?
Noah couldn’t resist nudging that professional barrier again.
Were you tempted by La Farigoule?
The lack of response had been long enough for Noah to decide he’d pushed it too far, then his phone signalled an incoming message. When he’d become engrossed in something else, the sound had made his heart skip a beat.
You captured the romance of France very well. I’m sure one of those photos will end up in our brochure.
The smiley face at the end of the text had been a surprise. It felt like Laura was taking a step outside the realms of a professional relationship, too. A small step, perhaps, but it felt significant.
The frequency of messages had gradually increased. As July arrived and summer settled in, Noah had been able to reassure Laura that her sister was coping very well with her new life in France.
He’d added just a single heart that time.
He’d sent the photographs he’d taken of the chapel in Vence with the stained-glass windows and images painted on ceramic tiles, the pretty, two-storied house that Matisse had lived in and some links to more information. He’d waited for Laura to respond to that and he wasn’t disappointed. She hadn’t made him wait that time, despite the heart emoji he hadn’t been able to resist adding again.
Fascinating. I read that Picasso visited him there. And that Marc Chagall lived in Vence even longer than Matisse?
Oui. There is a Chagall mosaic artwork in the Vence cathedral and his grave is in St Paul de Vence.
I wish I’d known. I’d like to have seen that.
It’s not too late, ma chérie. Come back and I will show you everything. Did you know that Vence is famous for having the smallest cathedral in France?
There was no response to that but Noah wasn’t bothered. It had been their longest text conversation so far and he had umpteen other local features of interest that were the perfect excuse to initiate further contact. Besides, he felt like he was getting to know this mysterious woman a little better now.
She needed time to feel safe.
And he had all the time in the world.
He signalled the waiter.
‘ L’addition, s’il vous pla?t .’
He had work to do.
But maybe he’d swing past La Cathédrale Notre Dame de la Nativité in Vence to snap a photo of that mosaic on his way to view a potential listing in Grasse. If nothing else, when he checked the image it would give him an excuse to look at that photo of Laura that had been automatically added to his camera roll.
The one where her smile was reminiscent of all the seductive mystery of La Joconde. Where she was wearing the gorgeous black dress that left her shoulders bare enough to invite a kiss and showed off collarbones his fingers simply itched to trace.
* * *
It was past five o’clock in the morning and should have been daylight, but the dense cloud cover and pouring rain on the west coast of Scotland made it feel more like the middle of the night as Laura ran into the brightly lit gymnasium. It had, in fact, felt like summer had started fading weeks ago – almost as soon as she’d returned from that visit to France.
She was shivering in her designer Lycra leggings and matching crop top, but the first ten minutes on the treadmill were enough for her to ditch the sweatshirt she’d kept on and hit the next level for speed and incline. Another ten minutes and she would be warmed up enough to get stuck into her circuit routine. Maybe she’d feel a little more enthusiastic about it by then, although it didn’t matter if she didn’t.
This was her routine and it was paramount to stick to it. Routines – like boring men – were the threads that made up the safety net of her life and she wasn’t about to take the risk of letting them unravel. Besides, doing things that were good for you felt like you were building a credit that could be spent on something more enjoyable, eventually, even if it wasn’t so good for you.
Maybe especially if it wasn’t good for you.
She had her phone strapped to her arm to give her some music to accompany her workout, so the sound of a text message arrived via her Bluetooth earbuds and, while it was still earlier than 7a.m. in France, she just knew that it had come from Noah.
Or was she hoping it had?
Bonjour, Laura. I hope you will have a good day.
Laura used the rest of the thirty seconds of catching her breath to send back a two-word response.
You too.
She wasn’t smiling outwardly as she went to the first station of her circuit routine and picked up a pair of five-kilogram dumbbells to do some single arm curls, but she couldn’t deny it felt like she was smiling inside.
Okay, the guy was arrogant and overconfident and maddeningly persistent but… but she was getting so used to the contact that she’d stopped rolling her eyes and making him wait for any kind of response. They were working together, after all, and ideas for the brochure to help sell La Maisonette were coming together nicely. A lot of that professional contact was being exchanged via email rather than text messages now, with larger files full of photographs and property details being sent back and forth but, somehow, the habit of texting had become… just that. A habit. Only now, it was more personal. Sometimes, Laura even found herself pausing for a moment in whatever she was doing. Listening for the sound of a message arriving.
Hoping she was going to hear the ping?
Her biceps burning, Laura moved to the triceps pulldown equipment. She loaded up the weights, took hold of the rope loop, braced her abdominal muscles and tucked her elbows in. This was such an automatic routine that counting the reps in each set and even listening to music or a podcast didn’t mean she couldn’t have another line of thought ticking away in the back of her head.
Like her programme for the day, which included numerous viewings, a photo shoot for one of her new listings, a staff meeting in the Oban office and countless emails and phone calls to attend to.
The email Noah had sent the other day, with a link to the fabulous art gallery that was just up the road from his agency office had occupied her entire lunch break. The history of a fabulous hotel restaurant – the Colombe d’Or – just before the entrance to the historic part of St Paul de Vence had been another revelation. How amazing that she and Ellie had walked straight past it, oblivious to the story that Picasso and Renoir were rumoured to have paid for meals or accommodation there with paintings or sketches? She’d clicked on a link to the menus and barely tasted the quinoa, cucumber and chickpea salad she’d been eating while reading about quenelles of fresh salmon and roast beef with gratin dauphinois.
That was the day she’d sent the first text message that wasn’t a response to one that Noah had sent.
I think I need to go to the Colombe d’Or for dinner. Maybe I’ll come back to visit when we do the photo shoot for La Maisonette.
His response had been instant.
J’ai hate ca.
He hated that?
So why had he sent one of those clever showers of hearts?
Laura had ignored the list of calls she needed to make to confirm appointments in order to use a translation app to check the message. Noah didn’t hate the idea at all. He was looking forward to it.
Couldn’t wait, in fact.
It was ridiculous to feel this relieved, mind you, but there it was.
Maybe she couldn’t wait, either.
She’d certainly been thinking about it ever since. She’d even gone online to see how you could do that sending showers of hearts thing. Out of curiosity, nothing more. She would never dream of doing something like that herself.
But she was thinking about it again now. About the dinner that Noah was looking forward to them having together – trying to focus on imagining the food rather than the man on the other side of a tiny table. An image of those thinly sliced potatoes, baked in double cream, with Gruyère cheese, garlic and thyme made her unconsciously put more effort than usual into her leg press set, pushing a foot plate so heavy it instantly made her whole lower body burn. The pain should have been a welcome distraction but, instead, Laura was letting her thoughts stray to another website she’d been on more than once recently.
The online presence of the Noah Dufour immobilier included a photograph of its managing director, and the image was disturbingly easy to retrieve from her memory banks. It looked like a studio portrait, and Noah was looking straight into the camera with a hint of that look. The one he’d bestowed on Laura when she’d first walked into his office.
The one that suggested she might be the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
In this photo, his face framed by unkempt curls, his lips were barely tilted with just a frisson of that lazy smile. Had the photographer been an attractive woman, or was that expression of appreciation simply the way this man approached life in general?
It made him look…
Ellie had called it ‘rock star chic’, which wasn’t a bad description. Laura could imagine him holding a guitar, front and centre on a poster that countless teenage girls would want on their bedroom walls.
The pain in her leg muscles was unbearable now. Laura moved her feet from the plate to the floor and leaned forward to take several deep breaths. There was not enough to distract her, and the heat she could feel blooming deep in her belly couldn’t be attributed to purely physical exercise. Neither could the groan that escaped her lips as she finished her workout and headed for the shower.
Where was this almost uncontrollable fascination with Noah Dufour coming from? Why was it so strong, and when was it going to wear off?
Ellie was planning to stay in France until the end of summer, which was officially the end of August, wasn’t it?
Would she have to wait that long to quash this distracting new element in her life? Longer, even – perhaps until the house was sold and what had created the connection between herself and Noah Dufour would cease to exist.
Or could the process be accelerated? The photo shoot could probably be arranged to take place within a few weeks given the progress that Ellie was making on preparing both the house and the garden for sale.
It was her excuse to go back to France.
To see Noah again.
Ohh…
Yes …
The prospect was both terrifying and remarkably titillating, and the sensation was a whole new world for Laura, taking her back to another one of those possibly unanswerable questions.
What was making him so ridiculously desirable? Was it that he was so far towards the opposite end of the Laura Gilchrist spectrum for evaluating the suitability of men?
The opposite of a suitable man like Colin Armstrong, perhaps?
That suitability hadn’t stopped her from politely declining the CEO ’s invitation to dinner that he had made in the wake of the awards dinner. Laura had used a prior engagement as her excuse for being unavailable, but Colin must have seen through her apology because that was weeks ago and he hadn’t asked again.
And that had felt like permission to keep indulging in wayward thoughts about such an un suitable man.
As for where it had come from, perhaps it was simply FOMO . Was she missing out on discovering that sex could be like it was in the movies or the books she had secretly devoured as a teenager? That – if she was daring enough – she might be able to exorcise the vaguely distasteful and definitely disappointing experiences she had had so far in her life?
It was exactly what she was doing in a way, wasn’t it? Allowing herself a fantasy because it was safe. It wasn’t as though this was ever going to be more than a long-distance flirtation disguised as a business relationship. The house would get sold and she’d never see or hear from Monsieur Dufour again. This tiny seed of rebellion against the firm rules that Laura lived her life by was only temporary, so it couldn’t do any real harm.
And it was undeniably irresistible…
* * *
The messages between Laura and Noah were getting steadily less businesslike.
So was the time that they were being exchanged. A line was definitely crossed when Laura received a message late enough for her to be in bed.
This felt… intimate.
Private.
Maybe he was in bed, too? Thinking about her?
What is your absolutely favourite food, Laura?
Maybe she wanted to shock him. She shocked herself by confessing it.
Hamburgers. And fries…
He could have sent back a horrified face emoji. Or a laughing face. Instead he sent the one that was licking their lips, after the words, moi aussi.
And what is your favourite passe-temps? Your hobby?
Laura had to think about that one. Hobbies implied pleasure. Playtime. And she didn’t do playtime. She couldn’t even remember playing as a child. She’d watch her sisters playing. She’d join in sometimes but she could never lose herself in a game. She always had to watch and listen for the moment the fun had to stop.
When real life would take over.
When she might have to try and protect her mother and her sisters.
I don’t have time for hobbies.
A beat later, she felt the need to soften her sharp response.
What’s yours?
She was almost asleep when the response finally came. It was a voice note – a recording of someone playing a guitar, delicately picking the separate notes of a melancholy but beautiful tune that Laura recognised but couldn’t instantly place. It sounded professional.
Exquisite.
Utterly romantic.
She had to ask.
What is it?
Eric Clapton. Wonderful Tonight. Bonne nuit, Laura.
But who’s playing it?
C’est moi. It’s one of my passe-temps. Did you like it?
Perhaps if Laura wasn’t in her own bed and on the verge of falling asleep, or maybe if she hadn’t been totally disarmed by the revelation that Noah was a talented musician, she would never have done what she did next.
For the first time in her life, Laura sent nothing but emojis.
A whole shower of red hearts.