the success of this visit was by no means assured, despite her being forced to give far too much ground already, made the wad of anger and anxiety wedged in her throat only that much harder to swallow.
Nudging and jostling her way through the sea of arrogantly self-possessed Parisians and foolhardy tourists blocking her exit, she finally found what she assumed was the taxi rank. Although it was hard to tell. Unlike the orderly queue you would find at any main-line London station, here there just seemed to be an extension of the melee inside, with people pushing and shoving as the sound of horns and car engines filled the air in a seething mass of harassed, pissed-off humanity.
Ignoring the rank, she picked her way across the cobblestoned street in the kitten heels her stylist, Rene, had suggested pairing with a caramel-coloured power suit, after a panicked consultation the night before. As she’d worn the two-thousand-pound designer suit while negotiating her last TV contract, it supplied the dual karma of making her feel both in control and lucky. But Rene had bolstered her confidence still further by pointing out the combo of pencil skirt, loosely tailored jacket and silk blouse made a fashion statement of kick-ass insouciance.
You are a lean, mean kick-ass machine. Not the girl he abandoned.
Repeating the mantra went some way to quelling the rioting lava as she reached the main boulevard. She squeezed her eyes shut and thrust out her hand, hoping none of the vehicles barrelling past lopped off her arm. A squeal of skidding rubber had her prising open an eyelid, to find a cab stopped inches from her toes.
‘Bonjour, monsieur,’ she addressed the wiry man in the driver’s seat.
The cabbie gave a curt nod. ‘Bon matin,’ he corrected.
Pulling her iPhone out of her coat pocket, she tapped the calendar app, even though she’d memorised the location during the two-hour train journey from London, and read aloud. ‘Le Café Hugo, á la Place des Vosges, s’il vous plait?’
The driver grunted, nodded, then flicked his head in a surly gesture, which she took to be the Gallic cabbie’s equivalent of ‘Hop in, luv.’
As they bounced down the street, then swerved into the snarl of rush-hour traffic, she rehearsed the speech she’d been working on since yesterday.
She might be famous for her warm, witty, friendly ad-libs to camera on The Best of Everything, but she had decided that adhering strictly to the script on this occasion was absolutely imperative.
There was going to be nothing warm, or witty, or friendly about this meeting. She would be businesslike and direct and completely devoid of emotion. She would present Luke with exactly how much she was prepared to offer to make this problem go away, and that would be the end of it. Because she’d come to the conclusion that’s exactly what this so-called book deal was really all about.
A barefaced attempt to hold her to ransom.
She’d asked her literary agent to make some discreet enquiries with his contacts in New York and it transpired there had been no deal signed as yet—just as Jamie had suspected.
Halle had forced herself not to overreact about this final betrayal. She was a wealthy woman. Why on earth should she be surprised that an opportunist like Luke would eventually seize the chance to hose her for some cash? As long as Lizzie never found out about her father’s mercenary scheme, and the book deal went away, it hardly mattered how she achieved that.
If she had to pay to get Luke Best out of her life forever, she’d do it. She’d already built in a ten per cent increase in the sum she’d discussed with her financial adviser if Luke insisted on negotiating, and Jamie had drawn up the relevant contracts, which she had in her briefcase ready for Luke’s signature. As soon as the rat signed on the dotted line, she would be free to make a dignified exit, after making it absolutely clear this meeting marked the end of any and all business between them.
She was a smidgen outside her comfort zone on this. But Luke didn’t need to know that. As long as she kept her head and didn’t let her anxiety at seeing him again show. And if she could manage to keep her nerves in check while instructing an audience of over a thousand people how to make choux pastry during a live cookery show at London’s Olympia, she could bloody well manage it in front of the man who had lobbed her heart into a blender a lifetime ago.
‘Vingt-cinq euros, madame.’
Halle passed a fistful of notes through the grille, pleased when her fingers barely trembled, and waved off the change before stepping out of the cab. She shielded her eyes against the watery sunlight and absorbed the majesty of the palatial garden square that had emerged like an oasis from the rabbit warren of narrow cobblestoned streets they’d bulleted through to get here from the Gare du Nord. As the cab drove away, her gaze landed on the Café Hugo across the road, and the line of tables nestled under the arches of the grand sixteenth-century facade.
She scanned the bunches of customers huddled at the tables away from the spitting rain but saw no sign of the man she had come to meet. She let out a sharp sigh as it occurred to her she might not even recognise him after sixteen years. After all, she never would have expected him to choose somewhere so highbrow and sophisticated for this meeting. The Luke she’d known had been much more at home at the greasy spoon round the corner from their flat—or the local pub—than an elegant pavement café in Paris.
She dismissed the observation. Obviously, she had never known that Luke, either, or he wouldn’t have managed to sneak the fact past her that he didn’t give a shit about her, and she certainly had no intention of getting to know the new Luke now. Once this short, sharp shock was over with, she would never have to set eyes on him again. So what did it matter if Luke had become a sophisticated man of the world who could tell the difference between a pint of Stella and a glass of Pouilly-Fuissé?
She crossed the street, skirted the outdoor tables and headed towards the glass doors at the café’s entrance, employing the breathing technique she used while they were taping the show, seconds before the green camera light clicked on. The only thing she hoped about the new Luke was that he’d improved his timekeeping—because if he was as fashionably late as he’d once been, the volcano in her stomach was liable to blow.
She entered the darkened café interior, to be greeted by the comforting scent of roasting coffee, sautéed garlic and fresh baking. High-backed leather booths and stained-glass panels coupled with the low lighting from the handblown chandeliers made the bustling inside of the restaurant seem more intimate but no less elegant than the outside.
Her stomach did another uncomfortable flip-flop.
Terrific, intimacy, just the ambience I want for this meeting.
The maître d’ stood by a lectern talking to a tall man wearing a long dark blue mac with his back to her.
The spike of recognition at the man’s hipshot pose sprinted up her spine just before he looked round and a pair of painfully familiar sky-blue eyes located her standing behind him like a muppet.
‘Luke!’ The name popped out on a shocked whisper.
How can he have gotten better looking? The sneaky bastard.
She studied the high angles of his cheekbones, the heavy-lidded eyes, which always looked as if he’d just climbed out of bed, the flat place on the bridge of his nose where he’d broken it in a fight and the deadly dimple in his chin, which had made her the envy of every girl in class 10C when they’d started dating. Then did a quick survey of
