A Friend in Paris Read online

  Copyright © 2018 by Jennie Goutet All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review .

  Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2018

  Cover Design and Layout by Plumstone Covers

  www.plumstonecovers.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Letter to the Readers & Acknowledgments

  A Noble Affair

  A Regrettable Proposal

  In memory of Barb Kase Velasquez – I’m so glad I got to hug you in Paris.

  Chapter 1

  I need to end things with Christelle. Victor Deschamps came to that decision in the short time it took to travel from the restaurant where they’d had lunch with his dad to the apartment he owned on Avenue Hoche. Sure, Christelle was pretty enough, but his father’s subtle barbs had hit home. Her language was coarse, and her family flaunted their newly acquired wealth. Ironic coming from his father, these reproaches, since his dad’s money was new as well.

  Nevertheless, there was some truth to his father’s criticisms. Money could buy life’s elegances, but it couldn’t buy elegance itself. It couldn’t buy that confidence that came from old money, old families, sprawling apartments on Boulevard Haussmann, country manors in Normandy. Margaux had all those things. She had them in spades, so he supposed it was no surprise she’d broken up with him. Christelle was fun, but it was never meant to last.

  The conclusion brought Victor relief, but not for long. He would be the one to end things, and Christelle always liked having the upper hand. It wouldn’t be pretty. If only he could hire someone to tell her. Victor arrived at the building and hit the door button to enter, stepping over the metal door frame and walking through the cobblestone entrance that led to the courtyard. The trees in the open space were already beginning to bloom.

  He didn’t expect to see anyone because it was after the lunch hour and, by now, the professionals had returned to their offices on the first floor. So the sight of a brown-haired, disheveled woman crouched in the courtyard made him clench his jaw. They couldn’t have beggars here, and apparently no one thought to ask her to leave. He’d have to deal with this one.

  His impatient strides slowed once he got closer and saw an easel in front of her and a palette in one hand. She didn’t hear him, so he had time to assess her ripped jeans and grubby sweatshirt, the stool she perched on, and the movement through her thin torso as she applied her brush. Her long brown hair that glinted in the sun was tied on top of her head with chopsticks poking through the knot. Of course there would be chopsticks.

  Her appearance didn’t matter, though. The fact that she was here without permission did, and Victor opened his mouth to send her away.

  The painting on the easel in front of her, however, gave him pause. This was not one of those touristy sketches of a Parisian building façade. It was the portrait of a girl, sitting with her hands looped around her bent knees, her face radiating innocence and hope. Separating the girl from the building façade was a jagged green shoot with spring flowers intertwined around the thin branch, up into the girl’s hair, and across the canvas like a wisteria vine. The artist had painted the façade with precision and was clearly trained in realism. There were the four stone steps leading to the mirrored glass entrance, the large beige stones, the white shutters on the tall windows, flanked by black iron grates. It was perfect. Until your eyes were drawn back to the girl’s hopeful expression, and your own hopes skittered off the canvas and up into the sky.

  Okay, that was too fanciful for a man of twenty-eight years—a businessman, and a confirmed bachelor to boot. He needed to say something. Victor stared at the volume of curls, miraculously pinned up by those two chopsticks. The hair was the same texture and color as the girl in the portrait. Was this her?

  “Excusez-moi, mademoiselle. This is private property. Who gave you permission to paint here?”

  The girl turned, and Victor caught his breath when he beheld the same innocence, the same hope, with only a few years to add wisdom to the expression. She didn’t have the worn features he’d expected from someone who looked like they lived on the street. The bones of her face were delicate, her brows perfectly arched, and her nose a cross between imposing and pert. She turned away from him without responding and threaded a thin line of white on one side of her building where the afternoon sun made the stones gleam. Belatedly, he realized she must have had permission from someone to have nearly completed her painting. Unless she snuck in regularly on the off-hours, like now.

  “I live here.” She turned her head again, back straight, and met his gaze over her shoulder. “Monsieur.” Her lush mouth settled in a straight line.

  So the girl was American. Her accent was heavy and not cute like American accents could be. So thick, it was barely understandable. Quite atrocious, in fact. And it explained the outfit, though she was probably more authentic than the teens who wore down the streets of Châtelet-les-Halles with their imitation bohemian-chic. Americans most likely didn’t know any better.

  “Where do you live?” He knew his question sounded accusing, and that he was overstepping his bounds. Except this was his home, and he’d never seen her before.

  “Une chambre de service,” she said. “Attached to apartment number four.” She faced her painting again.

  The chambre de service was a simple room on the top floor that once was used as maid’s quarters. Each apartment in their building had one, except his had been sold separately from the apartment before he purchased it. The number four apartment was owned by a lifelong resident and her no-good grandson. He was a couple years younger than Victor, and as much as Victor was a playboy, and not fit for much except work and partying, according to his father, Lucas was worse. Lucas’s natural expression was an ugly sneer, and the girls on his arm—never the same one—he treated with a condescension bordering on hostility. Victor had no idea what these women saw in Lucas.

  Victor wasn’t really sure what women saw in him either. Unless it was his money.

  This one was ignoring him, still intent on her work, and her hand moved automatically to capture the sunbeams angling off the stones, silver on top of white.

  “How long have you lived here?” Victor asked.

  “A month,” she replied, and looked at him again, this time with a smile. “And I don’t speak much more French than that, so if you have any more questions for me it will have to be in English.” At least that’s what he thought she said. Her French was abominable.

  “I speak English,” he said. “All educated French people do. Not all Americans who come to our country have managed to learn French, though.”

  “Perhaps they are not unwilling,” she replied, her eyes teasing. “Perhaps they need more time than just a month.”

  Victor was momentarily silenced, struck by the truth of her words and the ungraciousness of his own. Yet she had not taken offense.

  “W
hat’s your painting called?” he asked, as she turned toward it again.

  “April à Paris,” she replied, again with that atrocious accent. He could hear the grin in her voice.

  “I think you mean, ‘Paris en Avril’—it’s a common mistake for English-speakers. April is avril in French.”

  “Yes, but my name is April. So April is April in French too.” Her lips turned up to match her smiling eyes.

  Struck, he blurted out, “A pretty painting to match a pretty girl.”

  Her smile disappeared. “If my painting is ‘pretty’ I have not succeeded.” She frowned at the canvas as he came to stand at her side.

  The crease in her brows made Victor want to reassure her. “It’s more than pretty. I just lack the vocabulary to describe it. I know nothing about art.” He furrowed his brows. “Which probably doesn’t make my compliment worth very much.”

  Her smile flooded back, and the vague point of tension in his chest lifted. “More than pretty is high praise from an art critic. Didn’t you know?” April teased.

  It was her colors, he decided, that made her so physically attractive. Light-brown hair set against pink-hued cheeks, lips as ripe as a peach, green eyes under long black lashes. She looked like the Snow White princess he’d imagined when his babysitter read the story to him as a child—if you focused on her face and not the grubby clothes.

  “My name is Victor,” he said, surprising himself because he never had to introduce himself to women. They usually asked for his name. And his number. “I live in apartment number three. You can knock if you need anything. It must not be easy to be new in a country where you don’t speak the language.”

  April raised her brows slightly, but the surprise vanished quickly from her face. “Where I don’t speak the language yet.” She pointed her brush at him and he stepped aside, worried she might accidentally flick paint on his jacket. “Thank you, Victor.” She stood and held out her hand, another unexpected move. He’d heard Americans did not have good manners, and he didn’t expect courtesies from Bohemian painters. He looked at her fingers and decided the risk of getting his own smudged in paint wouldn’t be that high.

  “I’d better go,” he said, with some reluctance. “I have work to do.” That last part was not precisely true, but he didn’t mind if she believed it.

  April turned back to her painting. “See you around.”

  She was clearly more interested in her painting than him, and he stared at her profile another moment, feeling strangely dismissed. Then again, he reminded himself, she had every right to paint here, and he would only make a fool of himself if he hung about, protesting her presence. Victor crossed the courtyard toward the entrance, catching a whiff of spring flowers. The scented breeze brushed his cheeks, and he noticed how pretty the sun was, reflecting off the building. It did have a hint of silver in it.

  His eyes adjusted to the dim interior when he entered the carpeted foyer. He was about to take the stairs when he saw Lucas exit the elevator—the good-for-nothing grandson and landlord to the pretty American out there. Victor nodded and gave a curt “bonjour.” Lucas responded in kind before heading out. They never bothered with more than bare civility, not since Lucas had followed one of Victor’s girlfriends all the way to the train station and terrified her so much she broke up with Victor the next day. When the door closed behind Lucas, Victor peered out the glass panes to see how April greeted him. Let’s see whether she’s telling the truth and really does rent their room, he thought.

  They did appear to know each other, but April flinched the minute she saw Lucas. Though she gave him a fleeting smile, her reserve could be felt through the glass. As Lucas leaned in to inspect her painting, April’s eyes focused ahead and met Victor's through the glass door. He’d been caught. Embarrassed, he was about to turn away when Lucas reached out to finger a brown tendril of April’s hair that had come loose from her chignon. She darted away from his hand, lifting her canvas off the easel in one motion before he could touch her, and Lucas backed off.

  Victor relaxed. She was in no danger. And he was acting like an idiot. What business did he have watching her talk to other men?

  April packed up her art supplies with that tight smile, her shoulders squared. With a smirk, Lucas dug his hands into his pockets and sauntered to the large wooden door that led to the street. Victor watched it close behind Lucas and turned to leave before April saw him again.

  Mon Dieu. What was I thinking, about to act the hero for a girl I barely know? And an American, no less. He climbed the carpeted steps to his empty apartment. I’m glad she brushed off Lucas, though.

  Chapter 2

  “Your eyes are a really pretty light brown.” April leaned forward and painted short lashes, thin strokes that cut into the whites of eyes that jumped off the page. She studied her subject again, who was facing her with his own canvas perched in front of him.

  “You mean a really masculine light brown. That’s because I’m from the part of China where men are extra handsome.” Ben peered around his canvas, face deadpan.

  April laughed. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  They were silent, studying each other, then reproducing what they saw on the canvas. It was Ben’s turn. “What’s that scar from? The one along your hairline.”

  “Not many people notice that.” April paused before explaining, but it was not so much to paint as to formulate the words. “It’s from a car accident that took my mother’s life.” She saw Ben’s face and was quick to do what she always did. “No, it’s okay. I was only six, and I barely remember anything from before then. My dad raised me, and he was an awesome dad.”

  “The scar is tricky,” Ben said. “I’m not sure I have it right. I’ll have to ask Françoise. It’s so subtle you almost miss it, but if you don’t add it, something isn’t right.” He was studying the painting, then her face, with a critical eye.

  “There’s Françoise. You can ask her now.” April was relieved only one other paired portrait class remained before they had to hand in their work. She didn’t like the teacher’s instructions to voice the observations as they painted. It felt too intimate.

  However, she did feel calmer now than when she’d arrived. Painting always did that. Lucas’s advances had felt more threatening than usual this afternoon, and she’d wondered if he was going to let her go when she said she had class. He always managed to approach her in a way that gave the appearance of friendliness, while actually invading her space, and he hadn’t stopped asking her to go out since she signed the rental agreement to his grandmother’s apartment.

  Most chambres de services were bedrooms only, but hers had a skylight and a built-in bathroom with a tiny shower, toilet, and even a kitchenette. April knew she was lucky in her find, but Lucas was nuisance enough to make her rethink her decision about living there. If it had only been that one thing, she would leave. But it had proved much more difficult to get an apartment than she imagined without a steady salary or someone to guarantee she would pay the rent. April didn’t know why Madame Laguerre had been willing to take a chance with her, but it wasn’t something she could easily turn away. She had been homeless for two months before landing this apartment.

  Lucas was someone to watch out for, though. Her instinct told her it was best she not be caught alone with him. April began cleaning her brushes, and her thoughts turned to Victor. The other resident she’d met today for the first time. Whoa. He was dangerous too, but in a different way, with those high cheekbones and Mediterranean skin tone, unfairly paired with hazel-olive eyes. She had rarely seen such perfect features on a man. And I’d better stick to the clinical observation of a painter if I want to remove myself from temptation. The man was good-looking and he knew it.

  Actually, she reasoned, I’m not tempted. I don’t even know what his teeth look like (behind those full lips) because he didn’t smile, not once. The man is so full of himself he’ll have no room in his heart to care about anyone else, and my father loved me too well for me to fal
l into such a stupid trap. “You find someone who recognizes your value and don’t settle for anything else,” her dad had often said. April scrubbed her brushes harder before realizing she was ruining the horsehair bristles. “Shoot!”

  “Françoise said I’m close. A little more lapis mixed with white will do the trick,” Ben said. “But you’ll have to wait to see it. Coffee?”

  April smiled back at him. Ben had no problem showing his teeth. He smiled all the time. “How about a cheap place to eat?” she said. “I skipped lunch, and coffee is not going to do it for me.”

  Ben’s idea of cheap was not the same as hers. She usually ate at Flunch for her one hot meal a day, but with him it had to be a traditional brasserie. “I didn’t come to France to eat at Flunch,” he said, as they headed down the broad street. “Or McDonalds, so don’t even think about it.”

  “I don’t eat at McDonalds,” she protested. “Well, not often. Just those times when only hot, salty fries will do.” April grinned at his look of disgust. “You really should get more distinguished friends than me.”

  “I like you,” Ben said. “Come on. This place looks good.” He reached for the brass handle of the door, and she just had time to glance at the menu posted outside the restaurant. Okay, she could have a croque monsieur and salad for eight euros. She could afford that.

  Ben ordered the full menu with appetizer, main dish, and dessert. When he saw what she was having, he chided her. “You said you were hungry.”

  “I am.” April looked at him with wide eyes. “This will fill me right up.”