The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [28]
“You didn’t leave Paris. What did you do? Where did you go? The hotel today—” Laurent tugged at her arm. She slid out of his grasp without slowing, leaving him struggling with the cart and trotting to catch up.
It was another block to the flower shop. She toyed with the idea of continuing on to avenue des Champs-Elysées. Can’t a girl do a bit of shopping, she would say. But then where would she go? Her shoulders sagged as she realized she didn’t have the energy to lie. Not after this afternoon. She thought back to the moment on the street. The last wheezing breath. Grey’s expressionless face. She turned and stared Laurent in the eye. “What was Grey doing?”
Laurent looked uneasy. He rooted in his coat pocket for a cigarette, a move Claire remembered. He lit a half-smoked Gauloises and took a long drag.
They stopped in front of the flower shop. He glanced up, expression puzzled, as though he had just noticed where they were. She waved toward the awning that read La Vie en Fleurs.
“This is where I’ve been.” Claire straightened her shoulders, head up. She would not be ashamed. “I’m a florist.”
Laurent’s eyes widened. His mouth relaxed into a surprised grin. “Ah. You work with Madame Palain?” He shook his head and took a drag off his cigarette. As he chuckled, a trail of smoke escaped his lips. “You were making a delivery today?”
“Yes. It amazes you that much I can be useful?” Claire snagged the cart from his hand and rolled a tire over his foot as she opened the door.
His mouth crimped in pain and he shifted his weight on his heels, but he still struggled to answer her question. “No. It is Madame. She is very . . .”
“Proper, Monsieur Olivier.” Madame stepped from the door and pulled her sweater tighter over her shoulders. “I imagine you were going to say proper.”
Laurent blushed deep scarlet. “Yes, Madame. I was going to say that.”
Claire looked back and forth between them.
Madame smiled at Laurent then at Claire. “I have offered suggestions to Monsieur Olivier in the past. I don’t believe my opinion has always been welcomed.”
Laurent chuckled, his head hanging like a guilty schoolboy.
Claire held back a snort. The florist was even more powerful than she knew.
Laurent looked up from his shoes. “Perhaps I can atone for some of my less refined days. I am having a small party. It would be my deepest pleasure to invite you both to dinner tonight.”
A trace of excitement bubbled in Claire’s chest. Another chance with Laurent? Then an equally fast quashing. A cavalier dinner invitation was hardly an offer, compared to the ones he’d whispered so long ago. “No. It would be impossible.”
“Oui, Monsieur. It gives us great pleasure to accept your invitation,” Madame said.
Claire glared at the florist, her lips biting back a protest. Madame didn’t deign to notice. She extended her hand to Laurent, palm down, the way, Claire had learned, either an aristocrat or Madame Palain exited a conversation.
Laurent leaned down, a soft kiss with the propriety befitting a knight and his queen. “Perhaps you could find yourselves at my apartment at eight thirty this evening?”
“Of course. That will be perfect,” the florist said.
Laurent looked back to Claire. “I can’t believe you were here all along.” He took one last drag from his cigarette and carefully snuffed it out with a finger and thumb, then replaced it into the tin in his coat’s hip pocket. He stepped forward, lips pursed as though to offer Claire la bise, a kiss on each cheek.
She leaned away from him, her face nonplussed. “Au revoir, Laurent.”
“Until tonight.” He inclined his head to her then turned on his heel. “Here all along.” He shook his head as he walked away down the street.
The florist hummed a tune as she maneuvered the cart against the wall in the back room. Claire marched straight to her.
“Madame, why did you say we would go?” Her voice was shrill to her own ears. “I can’t eat his food. You don’t know what went on between us. Before.”
“If you knew Monsieur Olivier before, it is not hard to imagine what went on between you. He has spent a great deal of money