Chapter Fourteen #5
‘You do know we’re going to have to make this look authentic?’ he said.
‘Obviously,’ I said. ‘I’m still fiddling with the shot,’ I added as an excuse, flustered now.
The truth was that being this close to him was making me nervous.
His thigh had literally slid up against mine, and his fingers, which were draped casually over my shoulder, were gently stroking the top of my bare arm.
All of a sudden I was hyper aware of every single movement, the tiniest adjustment he made to his position.
Needing to get this over with as quickly as possible, I dipped my head, pretending to nestle into him, noticing how broad his chest was, how he smelled so good, like the expensive perfume I’d caught on the wind in Monaco, something woody and exotic and out-and-out sexy.
I breathed it in, feeling his chest rise and fall beneath my cheek.
The feel of his cashmere jumper on my skin was so soft and comforting that part of me wanted to say to hell with the photo and just curl into him and stay there, and to be fair he didn’t seem to be in a particular hurry to move either, and was still stroking me, his fingers applying more pressure than they had before.
‘Ready?’ I said, my voice light and breathy.
‘Mmm,’ he said, looking at the camera and smiling in the almost-not-smiling way I’d seen him do for publicity shots.
I snapped away, three, four, five photos.
‘I think I’ve got it,’ I said, not moving.
‘Good,’ he said, not moving either.
I put my phone in my lap, and sat up straight, still not wanting to move.
I did a quick sweep of my fellow bakers, but seeing as they all thought we were a couple anyway, they weren’t giving our selfie-taking a second glance.
I noticed that we didn’t look at each other for quite some time after that, pretending instead to be riveted by the conversation about croissant recipes and best patisseries in Paris and where to buy macarons to take home.
We chatted easily about tennis – a subject I found myself genuinely wanting to know more about.
Marcus felt under pressure to win the following day.
He said that clay might not be his best surface, but if he wanted his opponents to see him as any kind of threat going into grass season, he had to do well at Roland-Garros, and that meant quarters at the very least.
And then a buzzer sounded and Colette announced that we must all return to our ovens to reveal our finished baguettes.
When we left the shop, Marcus suggested a walk around Place des Vosges and I jumped at the chance.
‘That would be a hard yes, because honestly? I’ve never eaten that much bread in one sitting in my entire life,’ I groaned.
‘Same,’ said Marcus. ‘And I’m begging you, don’t breathe a word of this to Patrick. He likes me to eat lean protein the night before a match. Do you reckon baguette and butter counts?’
‘Course it does,’ I said, feeling satiated and relaxed after one of the nicest evenings I’d had for a long time.
The company had been spectacular – Colette, my fellow bakers and, of course Marcus, who had opened up to me in ways I’d never expected, at least not yet.
And I’d learned something practical – I fully intended to cook more baguettes the second I got home and thought I could quite happily live on homemade bread and butter for dinner until further notice.
A low moon hung just above the steep slate roofs of the gorgeous peach stone, seventeenth-century townhouses lining the square. Marcus made me stop to post the photo of the two of us in the restaurant on Instagram because he thought I might talk myself out of doing it.
‘Also, it’s called Insta-gram for a reason – you’re supposed to post as things happen, not hours later,’ said Marcus.
‘Nobody does that anymore,’ I complained.
‘Well, I want you to,’ he said, looking pointedly at my phone.
He was asking me to splash our selfie all over my social media feed when it wasn’t my thing at all to gush about how wonderful my life was when that was only ever half the story, and these photos made it look as though my world was one big Parisian love fest. In order to keep it real, I should really be showing all the bad stuff, too, like .
. . my mind had gone blank . . . obviously not everything had been perfect since I’d arrived in Paris.
And yet, I couldn’t think of a single thing I hadn’t enjoyed.
The hotel was adorable, the service impeccable, Marcus’s team were far less intimidating now I was getting to know them better, the tennis was unexpectedly fun to watch, especially from plush front-row seats where I felt as though I was living every point vicariously through the players.
And Marcus. Marcus was . . . more charming than the British press would have us believe, and I fully intended to redress the balance, but all in good time.
‘Fine, I’ll post it now,’ I said, a thought popping into my head. ‘But only if you do, too.’
Marcus laughed off my suggestion. ‘I’m barely on Instagram.’
‘You have one hundred and sixty-six thousand followers,’ I said.
‘I checked. And no, I’m not stalking you.
That’s one hundred and sixty thousand more than I’ve got.
So if I’m going to announce our relationship to my friends, family and followers, then so are you,’ I insisted, daring him to disagree.
He tutted, pulling his phone out of his pocket. ‘You strike a hard bargain, Ava Whitfield.’
I pinged him across what I thought was the most flattering shot. Of me, that was – he of course looked stunning in all five of them.
I watched him frowning with concentration as we simultaneously uploaded the photo.
I put a soft warm filter on mine, hamming up the dreamy Parisian light, and then I tried desperately to think of a caption that would hit the sweet spot between funny and romantic.
I finally landed on: Pre-match baking in Le Marais with a hearts-in-your-eyes emoji.
I absolutely was not going to add any schmaltzy hashtags à la Charlie, as that would simply cheapen the whole thing, in my opinion.
And then I posted it before I could change my mind.
After circling Place des Vosges twice, we headed back to my hotel. Worryingly, I felt as though I could have walked around Paris with Marcus in the moonlight forever.
‘How are you going to get back?’ I asked him.
Marcus was staying near the stadium, in a room with nothing much about it other than excellent storage space and a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower, he’d told me.
‘I guess I’ll jump in a taxi,’ he said, making eye contact with me in a way that for a split second made me think that he was wishing he could stay over.
No, he absolutely couldn’t be. As well as the obvious reasons, he needed rest and sleep for his match, and to be near the ground the following morning for training. Why had my mind even gone there?
‘See you tomorrow, then,’ I said, fumbling around in my bag for my room key, more than anything so as to avoid looking at him. He was smiling down at me when I did look up, standing dangerously close.
‘I was thinking . . . we should probably kiss or something. In case there are any photographers lurking around. It would look pretty weird if I just dropped you off without so much as a peck on the cheek, wouldn’t it?’ he said, tipping his head to one side while he waited for my answer.
‘Um . . . really?’ I said. ‘You think they’re out at this time?’
‘They might be.’
My phone began to ping in my bag, which I could only assume was a reaction to the picture I’d just posted.
I didn’t want to look – there was the small matter of those horrible comments I dreaded – but I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to not find out what people were saying in response.
And as I was silently pondering that dilemma, Marcus took a step closer to me, sweeping his hand under my jawline, using the crook of his finger to lift my chin so that my eyes met his.
That beard; that one messy eyebrow, that ridiculously shiny hair.
Perhaps I should try to enjoy kissing him, whether it was for show or not.
That’s what single people did, wasn’t it, kissed random people they only vaguely liked?
I’d managed it before Charlie – surely I couldn’t have forgotten how?
I closed my eyes as his lips brushed across mine and then too quickly pulled away; I cupped his cheek and pulled him back towards me, kissing him this time, harder than I’d planned.
I parted my lips slightly, which was a huge mistake, because somehow the tip of his tongue slid inside my mouth and it felt like my legs had disappeared out from under me and I was floating off into the warm Parisian air never to be seen again and never wanting to be.
His hands were on my waist and moving slowly upwards.
If I didn’t do something now, we were going to go way too far.
Way too far. It took every ounce of mental strength I had to push him lightly away.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘That was a little—’
‘It’s fine,’ I said, cutting him off, because it really was. It had been me as much as it had been him and so, if anything, I should also be apologising. ‘I think we’ve convinced them, don’t you?’ I said, smiling weakly at him.
‘I’d say so,’ he muttered, seeming a little flustered too.
I made a move to leave, because somebody had to.
‘Night, then,’ I said.
‘Night, Ava.’
I walked up to the entrance, feeling him watching me, pushing through the revolving door, entering the safety and absolute silence of the hotel’s lobby, berating myself for coming on too strong, and for enjoying it more than I should have.
Marcus could still pull the interview at any point and this – kissing him like this – wasn’t how I was going to keep him on side.
I was halfway through my interview, I couldn’t afford to mess things up now.
It was going to be good, really good. I had faith in my ability to write it, and in Marcus’s ability to show me who he was in a way I’d doubted at first. As I took the stairs up to my room, I imagined him hailing a taxi out on the street, and decided that he probably wasn’t even giving our kiss a second thought.