nine

Nelson was up bright and early the next morning when I stumbled into the kitchen in search of a cup of tea. Judging from the chirpy but flat way he was singing as he made breakfast, the joys of counting the raffle money and bagging up the cash had given him a refreshing night’s sleep. The sun was practically glinting off his halo as he wielded his special omelette pan. The suave Daniel Craig of last night had been replaced by the more standard-issue St. Nelson.

“You look exhausted,” he said. “What you need is a good breakfast to put some color back in your cheeks. How many eggs?”

“Just one,” I said, helping myself to tea from the pot. “Saving myself for dinner in Paris with Jonathan. We’re going to a very nice restaurant.”

“Aha!” said Nelson, doing his fancy one-handed egg-cracking. “That ought to take away the taste of last night.”

“And what do you mean by that?” I said. “I’m not hungover, you know.”

“I know you’re not. I was referring to the mental strain of shepherding that human virus all evening.”

“You and Nicky didn’t hit it off then?” I asked innocently.

“You’re lucky I didn’t actually hit him,” he replied. “Though given time I’m sure it can be arranged.”

“Nelson!” I protested, putting some bread in the toaster. “And I thought you’d like him, what with his sailing and everything.”

“Hardly!” Nelson’s good mood seemed to evaporate. “The showing off! It set my teeth on edge. ‘Our Milan flat this’ and ‘When we were skiing’ that…. It’s just so … so …” He shook his head. Nelson came from the sort of old English family where revealing what you got for Christmas was deemed ostentatious. “And, I have to say, Melissa,” he went on, looking at me like a cross dog, “I was watching the way that oily shortarse was looking at you all evening and I came very near to saying something. He’s just … Ugh.” Again he trailed off and stabbed at some bacon with his spatula.

“He’s just what?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.” Nelson could be like this—most protective of me. It was very sweet, but he did have the sort of standards of gallantry even King Arthur would have found hard to live up to.

“I didn’t like the way he was treating you,” he said, his nose wrinkling in revulsion. “Too much casual touching. And did you see the way he was sliming all over Zara?”

“Yes,” I said. “I told Roger he needed to put his foot down.”

“And too much bloody back chat. Especially with you. Doesn’t he realize you’re doing him a massive favor?”

“Oh now, come on, that’s repartee,” I said, grabbing the toast as it popped up. “I quite like that. It reminds me of how Jonathan and I used to flirt when we first met. I rather enjoyed it, I must admit—it only seems to happen when I’m all wigged up. The magic of Honey, and all that.”

Nelson turned around in his stripy apron, his face a mask of horror. “Oh, no, Melissa. No.”

“No, what?”

“Don’t tell me you fancy this creep?”

“Ha! Of course not!” I buttered the toast.

“Ding!” said Nelson sarcastically.

“I’m serious. It’s just … work.”

“Jonathan was work at first,” he intoned. “And look where that ended up.”

“Quite,” I said, taking a buttery bite. “With an engagement ring. I’m hardly going to fall for someone like Nicky when I’m about to marry a proper man, like Jonathan. So, no, I don’t fancy Nicky, but if I’m going to be spending time with him, I need to be able to find him amusing in some respects. If that’s all right with you?”

“It’s fine with me,” said Nelson huffily, going back to his pan. “I just worry about you.”

I put down my toast and went over to hug him from behind. “I know. And I appreciate that.”

Nelson abandoned his huff long enough to lean back in acknowledgment of my hug, but then he remembered something else. “You have checked this whole yacht business out with the real owner, haven’t you?” he asked. “I mean, it’s one thing you promising my power drill to Gabi for fixing her wardrobe rail, but promising a charity a ninety-foot oceangoing yacht’s something else.”

I narrowed my eyes. “How do you know it’s a ninety-foot oceangoing yacht?”

“I googled the Kitty Cat. She’s … rather special,” he said, his mouth twisting up at the strain of admitting it. “Proper 1920s motor yacht, really stylish. Not that someone like P. Nicky would appreciate it. They’re just floating caravans for rich people.”

“Don’t be all jealous,” I said, reaching for more toast. “Alexander said I could do anything I liked, so long as Nicky started to look halfway decent.”

“If I owned something like that I wouldn’t want that greasy toerag anywhere near it,” said Nelson. “God knows what you’d find down the sides of the bunks.”

Deftly, he divided the contents of the pan between two plates and brought them to the table. I poured him a cup of tea, and we tucked in.

“And another other thing,” Nelson went on, wagging his fork. “I’ve been looking into his family—how come there are hundreds of so-called princes, and never any actual kings? Too idle to step up to responsibility, if you ask me.”

“Nelson,” I warned. “Stop it. You’re starting to sound like Daddy.”

He recoiled at that. It was about the worst thing I could say to him. We’d known each other so long that he knew exactly what I thought about men like my father.

“I just don’t want to see you getting taken advantage of,” he said, his face softening. “You always insist on seeing the best in everyone, but sometimes you need someone there to point out the worst too.”

“Oh, come on. He hasn’t been that bad yet,” I said, conveniently deleting the wrap dress/swimming pool incident. “Give him a chance. It’s not in his interest to give me a hard time.”

“Call his grandfather,” said Nelson. “Just so everything’s out in the open.”

“I’ll speak to him this afternoon,” I promised. “Before I leave for Paris.”

“Ah, Paris,” said Nelson, with a half smile. “Don’t forget my Poilâne bread, will you?”

“I won’t,” I promised.

Packing the remainder of my week into Half-Day Thursday was no mean feat, and checking the time and counting off the minutes until I’d be sipping my G&T en route to the reassuring arms of Jonathan made the time go quicker and slower at the same time.

Finally, I dispatched Corin Burgess after his intensive ironing class and sat down to dial the number Prince Alexander had given me for everyday inquiries. He’d actually given me two; the other was for dire emergencies. It would, he assured me, get through to him directly, or be diverted straight to their lawyer. I got the feeling that it was an arrangement that had been used before.

The phone began to ring at the other end. I slipped my heels back on, sat up straight in my leather office chair, and took deep breaths while I ran through what I was going to say. Obviously, I couldn’t say that I’d offered the prize as a way of stopping Nicky from putting the moves on the organizer’s daughter. And it would be gilding the lily to suggest that it had been Nicky’s own idea.

I glanced at the Swiss cuckoo clock above my bookshelves. Quarter to one. The Eurostar left at ten past three, and got in at seven minutes to seven, after which Jonathan usually whisked me straight off to dinner somewhere….

“Hello?” said a silky coffee commercial voice.

I felt my pulse quicken with nerves, then told myself sternly to calm down. Alexander was just one of Granny’s old friends.

“Hello, it’s Melissa Romney-Jones here. Do you have a moment to talk?”

“Melissa, my dear! Of course!” he said. Alexander really had that knack of making you feel like you were the only person in the world he wanted to talk to. “What can I do for you?”

I explained about the charity dinner, omitting Nicky’s hitting-on-Sophie and the bum-pinching, but throwing in the leaving-early-to-go-home and the smiling-nicely-for-the-cameras.

“… and so we thought it would be a nice gesture to offer a weekend’s sailing and sunbathing as a star prize,” I finished up. “It went down so well with the organizers—they rang this morning to say it’s going into at least two gossip columns this evening, and I made sure Nicky said something nice about the happy holidays he’d had learning to sail on the family yacht.” I paused, as the reality of what I’d done belatedly sank in. I’d taken a bit of a liberty. “Um, I hope you don’t mind.”

“And was this your idea, or Nicolas’s?”

I swallowed. Better to be honest. “Mine, I’m afraid.”

“Melissa!” said Alexander with a delicious, dark laugh. “It’s a delightful idea! I applaud your quick thinking.”

“Oh, good, I’m so glad,” I gabbled. “The dates of the charity cruise would be absolutely up to you …”

“I hope you’ll be joining the lucky winners?”

“Well, yes,” I said. “It was actually my flatmate and his date who won.”

The dark laugh rippled down the phone again. “Even smarter!”

“No, actually, that was just a coincidence—”

“Whatever you say. I am putty in the hands of quick-witted women. If Nicolas had any sense he would be too.”

I blushed.

“Now, maybe you can help me,” Alexander went on. “I wanted to surprise your grandmother with a little present, for her jewelry case— does she have a favorite jeweler, do you know?”

Running through Granny’s favorite jewelers kept me on the phone for another twenty minutes.

Despite my good intentions, it was nearly two-thirty before I was ready to leave. I was doing my final check round the office for the one thing I always forgot, when my mobile rang.

It was Jonathan.

“So, are you set?” he said quizzically. Jonathan was never, ever late for anything. He kept his watch set ten minutes ahead.

“I’m standing on the pavement waiting for a cab,” I fibbed, leaning out of the window for authentic background noise.

“Good, well, I’m just calling to check you’re bringing something smart to wear tonight,” he went on. “I’ve booked dinner at Georges, you know, that place on top of the Pompidou Center?”

“Lovely!” I looked down at the dove gray work suit I’d been planning to change out of in favor of a pretty rose-print skirt and chic black blouse. “What do you mean by smart, though? Smarter than I normally wear?”

Jonathan seemed to be in traffic or something because I didn’t hear the whole of his reply. I just caught the bit about going straight there off the train, and then “pretty important” and “can’t wait.”

“I can’t wait either, darling,” I said happily.

Then, of course, the cuckoo clock had to go and chime the hour.

“What’s that?” demanded Jonathan suspiciously. “You’re not still in the office, are you?”

“No!” I fibbed. “I’m just walking down, um, Ebury Street, and there’s a cuckoo! Ooh! Taxi! See you soon!”

I debated for a frantic few moments, then slipped into my fail-safe black dress, the one Granny had twisted my arm and my Visa card to buy, and stuffed gold flats and red heels in my bag to cover all “smart” bases.

I still got excited by the Eurostar—the chug through London’s suburbs, then whooshing into the tunnel, then the very French flat fields leading up to Paris’s graffiti-tagged outskirts.

When I got into the Gare du Nord, Jonathan was there to meet me on the platform, and I’d barely got my gold flats on when he started babbling happily about the exciting developments on the new job front, as well as the current one.

It was all go on all sides, apparently.

“I’ve been talking to some contacts here about building a client base, and the more I look into it, the more potential this project has,” he said as we walked toward the taxi line. “I thought it would be a good idea to get some wheels in motion, perhaps dry-run a few moves just to see what needs work, and research and so on….”

I gazed out the taxi window, listening to the rise and fall of his voice as we sped through the ratty area around the station toward the center of town. The taxis in Paris smelled different from the London and New York ones somehow, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly how. I really hadn’t spent very much time here at all. It was odd to think that in a few months, it wouldn’t just be my home, I’d be expected to make it home for other people.

“You look great, by the way. Very chic. Have you made a new list for exploring this weekend?” asked Jonathan, breaking into my thoughts. “I know we never get through half of your must-sees.” He nudged me. “Can I trade you two cute little patisseries for a decent wine bar? We can make up for the ones we missed finding while we were in the country with your family.”

I snuggled closer to him. “You know, I have other things I need to make up for besides discovering little shops.”

“Really?” said Jonathan. “You’re not going to learn about Paris if we just stay in all day … and I need you to be my expert!”

I sat up, to check if he was being serious or dry. I decided, disappointed, that he was being serious.

“Anyway, we’re nearly here,” he said, checking in his briefcase for something. He said something quickly to the driver, who pulled up sharply to let us get out.

I realized we were right next to the Pompidou Center—the huge industrial-looking building with its insides outside. Some students were lurking about, possibly demonstrating about something, and tourists were pointing at things I felt I should know about. But Jonathan was striding ahead, and I had to walk fast to keep up.

“I really appreciate you being so understanding about this, Melissa,” he said as the doormen let us into the lift to go up to the top-floor restaurant. “I know it’s a bit of an imposition, but it could be a real opportunity, and there’ll be plenty of other nights out for us. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow.”

“Um …,” I began. Had I missed something here? “What are you talking about?”

Jonathan saw me looking rather blank and stopped walking. “I told you on the phone this afternoon. The couple we’re meeting for dinner? To discuss relocation plans?”

“Oh,” I said. “No, I didn’t catch that.”

Jonathan looked annoyed for one second, as I’d seen him do at work when human error derailed his planning machine. “I did explain. It’s a contact I’ve made—could be the first bit of business for you and me, for our agency. Dom’s in Paris for business meetings tomorrow, and Farrah’s here with him for some shopping, and we managed to find a window for an informal discussion. Just a chat.” He put his arm around me, subtly hugging me and moving me along at the same time. “I knew if they met you, met us, it would make a far better impression than just me talking on the phone. You’re my secret weapon! Half an hour with you and they’ll want to move out tomorrow, so long as you’re in charge.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” I said. But even though I could see his point, a stroppy part of me couldn’t just let our romantic evening go, not just like that. “The thing is, Jonathan, I was really looking forward to it just being us tonight. I’ve really missed you! Can’t it wait until the morning? I’m not feeling very prepared.”

“Sweetie, it was the only time Dom could do,” he said. “He’s a busy guy. I’m sure they’ll need to go somewhere else afterward, so if you want we can take our dessert somewhere different? Get ice cream and walk along the river, maybe. Hey, how about that? Our evening can start over then.”

He squeezed me again, and I felt a churlish desire to stamp my foot, even though I knew how childish that was.

“It’s for you and me,” Jonathan reminded me. “Our business. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said, conscious that we had spent lots of unplanned time with my family recently. He hadn’t made a big deal about that. Fair’s fair, I told myself, but I wished I’d learned some French menu vocab on the train.

The severely clad hostess led us toward a table where two people were already seated. I tried not to let my head swing from side to side at the spectacular décor so as not to seem touristique, but it was stunning: long red roses in the middle of each table, stainless-steel floors, and huge white leather chairs. And the view over Paris was so amazing that I could hardly drag my eyes from it to watch where I was going. Obviously, the clientele was ignoring it.

I looked round at Jonathan, to make a last-minute plea to keep it short so we could be together on our own, but he was already making “Hiiiii!” gestures to the couple at the table.

I battened down my disappointment until later and put on my professional pleased-to-meet-you face.

“Melissa, may I introduce Dom and Farrah Scott,” Jonathan said. “Farrah, Dom, my fiancée and business partner, Melissa Romney-Jones.”

“Hello!” I said, shaking hands and sitting down. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve literally just stepped off the train.”

“Oh, I hate the Eurostar,” said Farrah. She pushed back a thick wodge of toffee-colored hair from her face so I would get the benefit of her French manicured nails. She was, as Gabi would have said, “expensively put together”: highlighted, buffed, tanned. Immediately, I felt as underdone as a damp crepe.

“We flew in,” explained Dom. “It’s pretty quick from Manchester. Where we operate from. I mean, people always calculate time to Paris from London, but I always say, Come on! There are other business centers in the UK!” He gestured to the waiter to hurry up with the wine lists.

I hadn’t been in Paris long, but one thing I had learned was that it was impossible to speed up a French waiter.

“Dom and Farrah are relocating here from Cheshire,” explained Jonathan. “Dom works in venture capital, and Farrah is a PR executive.”

“How interesting!” I said. “Who do you work for?”

“For myself,” she replied. “I have my own company. FSPR. Farrah Scott Personal Redefinition.”

“I’d always go to a woman for PR,” said Jonathan. “You’re just so much better than guys at really knowing how to play things. Melissa has her own management agency in London, but of course when we launch she’ll be coming on board with me to offer that sort of service alongside mine.”

“Yeah?” said Farrah, raising her eyebrows at me. “Like concierging?”

“Um, well, something like that,” I said. It was very hard to explain The Little Lady Agency without sounding like a hooker, no matter how many times I’d been through it. “I act as a sort of free-lance …” I nearly said girlfriend, but stopped myself, just in time. “… a freelance advisor for single men who need a bit of help keeping everything running smoothly. You know, all the things girlfriends do for free!”

Farrah didn’t give me the amused eye roll of recognition I normally got. Instead, she stared at me as if she didn’t know if I was joking or not. Even as I watched, I saw a certain contempt set into her expression.

I swallowed. Dom was already grinning at Jonathan, but I knew I’d hit the wrong note with Farrah. It did sound a bit antifeminist, when you put it like that. “I mean, there’s a lot in that old saying that if men had to pay their wives they’d never be able to afford the overtime,” I stammered, trying to recover my composure. “Which is where I come in, to sort out their wardrobes and streamline their diaries and arrange decent parties and—”

“We don’t need our wardrobes arranged,” she said. “I have a stylist in Altrincham. So does Dom.”

“Melissa’s being modest—she’s more a life coach than a concierge,” Jonathan stepped in. “And her focus in our partnership will be facilitating your move so you can hit the ground running, and not have to worry about where to send the dry cleaning, that kind of thing.”

“Yes,” I said, looking over at him. It wasn’t exactly what I did, but … “I like to find out where the nicest markets are, and which boulangerie has the best croissants, and where you can walk your dog. You know, the sort of things you might not have time to find out otherwise. Things that really make you feel you’re settling in.”

“That sounds sweet, but we don’t get a lot of time for relaxation,” explained Dom. “I think we’ll be flying back to the UK at weekends, if at all possible.”

“But you can arrange grocery delivery and dry cleaning and a personal trainer—things like that, yeah?” asked Farrah. “Because I’m just not going to have the time, and it would be good to know that was being taken care of. Bills, taxes, water rates, yeah?”

Jonathan was looking at me expectantly, and I heard myself say, “Well … yes, I suppose so!”

Groceries? Dry cleaning? Was I going to be some kind of upmarket chalet girl?

“Whatever you need, I’m sure Melissa can find the answer,” said Jonathan smoothly. “She’s an expert in making people’s lives easier.”

I smiled. I was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

The pouty waiter appeared, and I ordered the delicious-sounding duck. Farrah ordered the salade niçoise but without the dressing, the anchovies, the potatoes, any additional salt, and half the tomatoes.

It was going to be a long meal, I could tell already.

We chatted about Paris for just over an hour—or rather, Dom and Jonathan did—and eventually Jonathan had the bill brought over, after Dom had failed to catch the waiter’s eye for fifteen minutes.

Jonathan, I noted, paid, so subtly that it was hard to spot when he’d actually done it.

“Thanks for a really rewarding discussion,” he said, shaking hands as we left. “That’s given us a lot of points to focus on.”

“Us too,” said Dom. “You’ve got a great idea there—the technical and the homely at the same time. Like it a lot.”

“Anything you need to know,” said Jonathan, “you’ve got my number. You too, Farrah.”

She paused in the arranging of her scarf. “Well, actually, I’ll need to find a trainer.”

Jonathan looked at me. “Over to you, Melissa!”

“A trainer?” I repeated. Was she a part-time high jumper or something?

“A personal trainer?” Farrah raised her eyebrows. “I don’t care how much it costs, but whoever Kylie Minogue sees would be good.”

“Um …” I felt floundery. Personal trainers? That was something I knew less than nothing about.

“That’s the kind of insider knowledge that Melissa’s so good at getting,” said Jonathan confidently.

My heart sank. “Um, yes!” I said, in response to a gentle nudge from Jonathan. “Absolutely!”

“Listen, guys, we’ll be in touch,” he said, and we all shook hands again and went off into the Paris evening. Dom and Farrah toward some trendy new bar that I pretended to have heard of, and Jonathan and I toward a coffee somewhere considerably less trendy, I hoped.

True to his word, we headed toward the river, where Jonathan bought me an ice cream, and we walked along the Left Bank, listening to the jostle and gabble of buskers and street sellers, soaking in the fresh spring atmosphere.

I’d have been more soakable if my mind hadn’t been racing, trying to work out how on earth I could find out what the trendy members’ clubs were in Paris.

“That went well, don’t you think?” said Jonathan. Now we weren’t in a business situation, he’d reverted to the familiar off-duty Jonathan I knew and much preferred. By off-duty, I mean he’d taken his cuff links out and rolled up his sleeves a little, revealing fine strands of pale gold hair.

“All thanks to you, though,” he added. “Dom thought you were great. It’s a smart move, you know, letting them feel that no detail is too small. Bills, clubs, cleaners … builds confidence in the whole package.”

“So are you actually organizing Dom and Farrah’s move right now?” I asked.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Oh.” I licked my ice cream. “Does that mean you’ve handed in your notice at Kyrle & Pope?”

He paused. “Not yet. Not exactly. You want another glace?”

I peered at him out of the corner of my eye. It really wasn’t like Jonathan to be so evasive.

“No,” I said. “I’m OK with this one. So when are they moving?”

“It depends. I’m looking at a couple of properties for them, but they’re looking at September now too.”

“And when are you going to resign?” I stopped walking and looked at him. “What’s the timetable? Because obviously I need to resign from my clients too.”

I ignored the little flip in my stomach as the words left my mouth. I kept saying these things bravely as if it would make it seem more real to me, but if I were being honest, it was harder than I thought. I kept telling myself that Jonathan was making sacrifices too, but when grown men yelped at you over the phone because the Little Lady Agency Christmas present service wouldn’t be available …

Jonathan smiled and shrugged. “I hadn’t fixed a date beyond September, but we can if you want. Say … September thirtieth. How about that?”

“Don’t you have to give Kyrle & Pope more notice?” I asked curiously. “It’ll take them ages to find someone who can take over from you.”

“I’m … hmm, playing that one by ear, shall we say,” he said, slipping his arm around me in a distracting manner. “Anyway, that’s quite enough business. Here we are, walking along the Seine—how much more romance could you want?”

“None,” I assured him, as I leaned happily into his side and pushed my misgivings as far away as I could.