Christmas Reunion in Paris Read online

  Then their eyes had met.

  He’d caught her as she’d swayed, felt her breath on his cheek, his lips. Could still feel the warmth of her hand where he’d grasped her fingers. Still, in his mind, feel the warmth of lips that had, for just a moment, been his to take.

  Instead, scarcely able to believe his eyes, he had hesitated, unsure, and she had run.

  Did she believe that he had rejected her?

  ‘Never!’

  Jerking himself out of shocked immobility, he wrenched open the door but wasted seconds had given Chloe time to disappear.

  She wouldn’t have waited for the lift and he raced to the staff stairs, which led straight down to a part of the hotel that guests never saw. He was down two flights before reality brought him crashing to a halt.

  If he burst into Housekeeping, chasing a woman who’d run from him, he knew exactly what they’d think. Bad enough, but he’d won a major television show, was the youngest chef ever to win a Michelin star for L’Étranger, the restaurant he’d founded on the back of his television fame.

  His face had been on the cover of enough lifestyle and food magazines to make him recognisable, especially here in Paris where food was a religion.

  He didn’t care what they said about him, but speculation would be all over social media by morning.

  Until he knew why Chloe was working here, in Housekeeping, he needed to exercise discretion because something was wrong. Badly wrong.

  The Forbes Scotts were old money. The kind of people who lived behind a security cordon on their estate when they were in the country. In a penthouse apartment accessible only from a private lift in the city. Who spent their vacations on the private islands owned by their friends.

  Powerful, rich as Croesus, they could, as he’d discovered when he’d tried to contact Chloe, throw up a wall of silence as impenetrable as their security systems.

  He hadn’t seen or heard from her since she’d been whisked away while he’d been on the other side of the county, bored out of his mind, sitting out the game as twelfth man on the sidelines of the pitch.

  After all the publicity about the Michelin star he had, for a while, lived in hope that Chloe might walk into L’Étranger one day; take in the clubby atmosphere of the ground floor, order a cocktail, ask to meet the chef. Or maybe arrive for the fine dining on the floor above with friends, a partner...

  At least send him a card offering her congratulations.

  Something. Anything.

  Pie in the sky.

  She might have smiled to see his success, perhaps remembered a doomed, youthful passion, but she would have moved on, married someone approved by her parents.

  She would definitely not want to have her life complicated by him turning up and demanding answers.

  Clearly, whatever had happened in the years since she’d disappeared from school, it couldn’t have been that.

  Did she marry someone her parents disapproved of? That wouldn’t be difficult. She’d warned him how it would be. Money spoke to money and anyone short of a multimillionaire would have been viewed as a fortune hunter.

  Did she have a family now?

  He leaned back against the wall, swept up in the memory of the anger, the pain of the young man he’d been. He’d had no illusions about the likely outcome of a youthful pregnancy caused by the urgency of their need for one another. His ineptitude.

  He pounded a fist into the wall.

  Did she think that he’d blame her? She’d warned him what her parents were like, how controlling they were, but with the arrogance of youth he’d dismissed her fears. He’d had the money his father had left him. A pittance compared to her family’s wealth, but enough to live the life they had talked about.

  He’d promised he would take care of her and their baby. Promised that they would be a family.

  He swore as his phone pinged a warning that it was time to leave for his meeting with the chef he hoped to recruit for Harrington’s. He turned to walk back up the stairs and paused as something glinted on the steps above him.

  He reached out and picked up a piece of crushed silver. It was, or had been, an art deco silver hairpin. He knew that because he’d bought it for Chloe’s seventeenth birthday, and it seemed likely that he’d stood on it on his rush down the stairs.

  He did not want to leave but Chloe was, for the moment, beyond his reach and time was short if Hugo was to have the hotel open for Christmas Eve.

  Louis Joubert was an old friend, but even so it was going to be a hard sell and he had the dramatic temperament to match his flair. He had squeezed in this meeting before starting service and keeping him waiting would not be a good start.

  James slipped the piece of silver into his pocket to deal with later.

  It was a crazy busy time of year for everyone and he should be in London, in his own kitchen, but he wasn’t leaving Paris until he’d talked to Chloe.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sally, I’ve just arrived in Paris and I’ve seen Chloe! She’s working at my hotel as a housekeeper. She ran away when I recognised her. I couldn’t follow her and now I have to meet Louis before he starts work. I’ll find her tomorrow, try and talk to her then, but I had to tell you. How is Singapore? J x

  OMG! What on earth is she doing working as a maid in a hotel? Her family is minted. I’m not surprised she ran. She must have been mortified to have you see her like that. Do be careful, Jay. You’ll be ripping a plaster off an old wound for both of you. S x

  THERE WAS A second text a few moments later.

  Singapore is a lot warmer than Paris, btw. And totally inspiring.

  Sally had added a smiley face to her second text, which suggested that she at least was enjoying the break, which after the last few weeks was a relief. But his twin knew Chloe, knew what her disappearance had done to him.

  Losing people had been a big part of their lives. It had defined them. Made them into the people they were.

  ‘Jay! I’m sorry to be late. The traffic...’

  Lost in the memory of the week that he and Chloe had stolen to be together, Jay was jerked back to the present by Louis’s apologetic arrival but it took a moment to gather himself before he stood and greeted his old friend with a hug.

  Chloe had told her parents that she would be staying with a school friend for the summer half-term break. No one had cared where he was.

  It had been blissfully hot that week and her skin had been silky gold as they’d swum naked in the sea on their last evening, unaware that the clock had already been ticking down on their last moments together.

  ‘No problem, Louis. It’s good to see you.’

  ‘Is it? You were far away, my friend,’ he said, sitting down. ‘I had to say your name twice. Or maybe you are now so grand that you only answer to James?’

  ‘No,’ he said quickly. Only two people had ever called him that. His mother and Chloe... ‘It’s still Jay.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve a lot on my mind. It’s a crazy time of year in this business.’

  ‘In any business,’ Louis replied, ‘but forgive me for doubting that you were contemplating the deconstruction of a figgy pudding for your Christmas menu. That depth of introspection usually involves a woman.’

  Jay managed a smile. ‘You have rather more experience in that department than I.’

  Louis lifted his hands in a wordless gesture before proving Jay’s point by reducing the waitress to a blushing mess with no more than a lift of an eyebrow to gain her attention.

  ‘So? Who is she?’ Louis asked, after ordering coffee.

  Jay shook his head, but said, ‘A girl I knew a long time ago. It was a shock to see her in Paris.’

  ‘A pleasant one?’

  ‘Pleasant?’ That was far too bland a word. ‘It was something of a bombshell if I’m honest.’ He was still struggling to believe it... ‘It was a long time ago. We were
very young.’

  ‘The bittersweet memory of first love?’ Louis’s shrug was a masterpiece of Gallic appreciation. ‘Your heart is broken, but you become a man.’

  ‘How very French.’

  Louis grinned. ‘What can I say? The world is full of beautiful women and food is the most seductive of life’s pleasures. It gives to all the senses. Scent, taste, touch... Well, I do not need to spell it out for someone who is the master of his art,’ he said, his grin fading as he remembered some past pleasure of his own, or maybe pain.

  ‘No...’ And Jay was the one reliving that moment when he’d held out a spoon for Chloe to taste some treat he’d made for her. Eyes closed, she had sighed with pleasure as she’d licked it, then melted as he had kissed it off her tongue.

  ‘Why are you wasting time talking to me when you could be with her?’ Louis asked, after a long moment when they were both lost in the memory of that first—and for Jay only—love.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ he said, forcing himself to focus on the reason he was in Paris. ‘And pinning you down to this meeting was too difficult—’ too important ‘—for me to bail at the last minute.’

  London might be the hottest place to eat right now but Louis was French to his marrow and the Harrington Park Hotel had been on the slide for years.

  He’d promised Hugo he would find him a chef capable of bringing one of the fabled Michelin stars to the restaurant. He’d worked with Louis in Paris when they were both at the bottom of the ladder, fighting to be noticed, and he was top of a very short list, but James had no illusions that persuading him to take the necessary leap of faith was going to be a piece of patisserie.

  Tomorrow he would find Chloe, talk to her, find out what had happened all those years ago. Find out why she was working as a maid in a hotel. Why she had never contacted him.

  He scarcely dared believe that she would be free. Had there been a ring on her finger?

  That brief touch was seared into his brain and, despite Sally’s warning, he was clinging to the edge of hope.

  Aware that Louis was regarding him thoughtfully, he launched into details of Hugo’s experience in running a highly successful chain of boutique hotels in New York, before outlining his brother’s ambitious plans for the Harrington Park Hotel.

  ‘So, what is your vision for the restaurant?’

  Louis’s very casual question did not fool Jay. As he’d hoped, the chef’s entire body language had sharpened at the mention of a New York connection. The possibility that London might be the stepping stone to even bigger things.

  He’d cast his line, now he needed to give it a little tug.

  ‘It won’t be my vision, Louis,’ he said. ‘It will be yours.’

  ‘I would have total control?’ he asked, finally losing the casual pose. ‘Surely you will be Chef Patron at your family hotel?’

  ‘The hotel is Hugo’s passion, Louis. I’m delighted that it’s back in family hands and I’m happy to help where I can, but I have my own ambitions.’

  ‘More restaurants?’

  ‘I’m working on a couple of ideas,’ he admitted, ‘but in the immediate future I’m going to be writing a food column for one of the lifestyle magazines and I’m working with a publisher on a book adapted from the blog I’ve been writing since the beginning of my journey.’

  ‘Your blog...’ Louis raised a hand in admiration. ‘It reads like a love letter to food.’

  Close... He’d begun the blog that first winter in Paris, after he’d fled London. It had been a way of talking to Chloe, telling her where he was, what he was doing without invoking the wrath of her family.

  ‘You are going to be very busy, my friend.’

  He’d spent two years in the city before getting his break on a television show. His shrug, as Gallic as anything Louis could throw at him, suggested that time was not a problem, but he wasn’t about to confess to the total lack of a social life.

  It wasn’t for the lack of opportunity. He was driven to succeed, to show the world, to show Nick Wolfe, Chloe’s parents—as if they cared—that he was worthy of their respect.

  Hugo and Sally were equally compelled. It was their legacy.

  Taking the hint, Louis moved back to the purpose of their meeting. ‘Who else are you seeing while you’re in Paris?’

  It was time to reel him in.

  ‘I told Hugo I would find him a chef de cuisine who would give him a star within twelve months. The competition in London is red hot right now but I believe you are the man for the job, Louis. The question is, are you up for that challenge?’

  He didn’t wait for an answer but swiftly laid out the terms of the very generous package Hugo was offering and, while Louis was still taking that in, said, ‘When can you be in London to start recruiting your team?’

  ‘You are that sure I’ll say yes?’ Jay didn’t respond. ‘It’s a big step, leaving everything here.’ When he still said nothing, Louis said, ‘You did it when you were far younger than me.’

  ‘I had nothing to lose, everything to gain.’ For him the move had been an escape, a chance to leave behind everything that reminded him of the people he’d lost. ‘This is a rare opportunity, Louis. A chance to make your mark internationally, but time is of the essence and I will need an answer by tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll have to give notice.’

  ‘Speaking from experience, I think you’ll find that a chef with his mind elsewhere will not be encouraged to linger.’ He relaxed a little, sure now that he had his man. ‘Don’t you have a sous chef stepping on your heels? Someone who is always coming up with ideas for new dishes, encouraging you to take a day off? Go on vacation?’

  Louis responded with a rueful smile. ‘A precociously talented brat who reminds me of you. I feel his hot breath on my neck every day.’

  ‘Then this is his big moment as well as yours.’

  ‘Maybe. He’ll be cheaper than me and times are tough. I’ll talk to my boss after service. Whatever happens, I’ll call you tomorrow with my answer.’

  ‘By midday.’ He was reassured by the fact that Louis wasn’t prepared to walk out on his commitments, but there was a time pressure. ‘Hugo plans to open the hotel with a party on Christmas Eve. He’s going to recreate what was always a special event for guests, staff, family...’

  He could still see his father lifting Sally up so that she could hang her new decoration high on the huge tree in the entrance hall. Could still feel the prickle, the smell of the pine as he hung his own ornament. His mother’s smiling face as she watched Hugo do the same before the switch was thrown and the tree was lit up in a shimmer of a thousand tiny white lights...

  ‘That’s pushing it, Jay. Creating and testing an entirely new menu takes time.’

  ‘What? Oh, yes, but you won’t be on your own. My staff will offer you every assistance until you’ve had the time to recruit your own team.’ The Harrington siblings were reclaiming part of their lives they had thought lost for ever and it had to be a success. ‘But if you’re half the chef I believe you to be, you’ll have a notebook full of ideas.’

  ‘Thank you, Jay.’ Louis stood up and offered his hand. ‘I know that this is a huge opportunity and I appreciate your faith in me. If I’m released, I won’t let you down.’

  ‘How long will you need to wrap up things here?’

  ‘There is nothing to keep me. My mother will take care of subletting my flat.’

  ‘You can stay at the hotel until you’ve had time to find somewhere,’ he said, leaving cash on the table and walking with Louis to the door. ‘You’ve met Sally?’

  ‘She came to visit when you were working here. You are twins, yes?’

  Jay nodded. Twins, but she had been so much more fragile, battered by a series of devastating losses. It had been down to him to take care of her when their stepfather had shown his true colours, changing their status at St
Mary’s from day pupils to boarders when the ink was barely dry on their mother’s death certificate.

  And then he’d left her, too, walking out of school when he’d discovered that Chloe was gone.

  There had only been staff at Chloe’s family estate in Hampshire, at the flat in London, none of whom had been talking. He hadn’t known if he would have been allowed to return to school. He hadn’t gone back, but instead had begged a job in the kitchen of a hotelier who had known his father while he’d continued to search for her.

  He was just minutes older than his sister, but at times it felt like years.

  ‘Sally is an interior designer now,’ he said. ‘Very talented. Hugo has asked her to take on the restyling of the hotel and she’s in Singapore seeking inspiration. No doubt you will want to work with her so that the dining room and menu are a match.’

  ‘You’re thinking fusion?’ Louis asked, with a frown.

  ‘I’m thinking international with inspiring vegetarian and vegan dishes. Will that be a problem?’

  ‘It is the way the world is moving,’ Louis agreed. ‘I have a great many ideas that I haven’t been able to introduce to a restaurant serving classic French cuisine. Many inspired by you. How long are you staying in Paris?’

  That had always depended on whether Louis accepted the offer. It was a busy time of year and he was needed in his own kitchen, but he wouldn’t leave until he’d talked to Chloe.

  ‘I’ll take the chance to look at a few restaurants while I’m here,’ he said. ‘Is there anywhere interesting that you would recommend?’

  They paused in the doorway, while Louis suggested several places, then put a hand on his arm. ‘Life is more than work, Jay. Forgive me, but you look like a man who needs a holiday. Paris is a city made for love. Find your girl, revisit old times.’

  Jay watched him stride away. Louis was right. He was tired, drained by an excess of emotional angst, late-night meetings with Hugo and Sally, but he knew he wouldn’t sleep. Instead of returning to the hotel, he began to walk, oblivious to the cold, pausing only to watch the lights dancing on the Eiffel Tower as a bell in a nearby church tower chimed the hour.