One Christmas in Paris Read online

  One Christmas in Paris

  The perfect feel-good Christmas romance

  Mandy Baggot

  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

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  A Letter from Mandy

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Mandy Baggot

  To Paris,

  Beautiful. Vibrant. Strong.

  Liberty. Equality. Fraternity.

  1

  Up-Do Hair, Kensington, London

  Leo: I’m sorry. Can we talk?

  Ava Devlin swiped the email hard to the left and watched it disappear from the screen of her iPhone. That’s what you did with messages from liars and fakes who had whispered one thing into your ear, as they wrapped their arms around you, and did the complete opposite when your back was turned. She swallowed back a bitter feeling. She had always worried that Leo – successful, rich, good-looking in a Joey Essex kind of way – was maybe a little bit out of her league.

  ‘Boss or boyfriend?’

  The question came from Sissy, the hairdresser who was currently coating Ava’s head in foils and a paste that felt as if it was doing nuclear things to Ava’s scalp.

  ‘Neither,’ she answered, putting the phone on the counter under the mirror in front of her. A sigh left her. ‘Not any more.’ She needed to shake this off like Taylor Swift.

  Giving her reflection a defiant look, she enlarged her green eyes, flared the nostrils of her button nose and set her lips into a deliberate pout she felt she had never quite been able to pull off. With her face positioned like she was a Z-list celeb doing a provocative selfie on Twitter, she knew she was done. With men. With love. With everything. Her ears picked up the dulcet tones of Cliff Richard suggesting mistletoe and wine, floating from the salon sound system. Her eyes then moved from her reflection to the string of tinsel and fir cones that surrounded the mirror. This rinky-dink Christmas crap could do one as well. Coming right up was a nation getting obsessed with food they never ate in the other eleven months – dates, walnuts, an entire board of European cheeses – and a whole two weeks of alterations to the television schedule – less The Wright Stuff and more World’s Strongest Man. And now she was on her own with it.

  ‘Well,’ Sissy said, dabbing more goo on Ava’s head, ‘I always think Christmas is a good time to be young, free and single.’ She giggled, drawing Ava’s attention back to the effort Sissy was putting into her hair. ‘All those parties... people loosening up with goodwill and...’

  ‘Stella Artois?’ Ava offered.

  ‘You don’t drink that, do you?’ Sissy exclaimed as if Ava had announced she was partial to Polonium 210. ‘I had a boyfriend once who was allergic to that. If he had more than four it made him really ill.’

  ‘Sissy, that isn’t an allergy, that’s just getting drunk.’

  ‘On lager?’ Sissy quizzed. ‘Doesn’t it mix well with shots?’

  Ava was caught between a laugh and a cry. She swallowed it down and focussed again on the mirror. Why was she here having these highlights put in? She’d booked the appointment when she’d had the work do to go to. Now, having caught Leo out with Cassandra, she wouldn’t need perfect roots to go with the perfect dress he’d bought her. She didn’t even like the dress. It was all red crushed velvet like something a magician’s assistant might wear. Like something her mother might wear. But Leo had said she looked beautiful and she remembered how that had made her feel at the time. All lies.

  ‘Stop,’ Ava stated abruptly, sitting forward in her seat.

  ‘Stop?’ Sissy clarified. ‘Stop what? Talking? Putting the colour on?’

  ‘All of it,’ Ava said. She put her fingers to the silver strips on her head and tugged.

  ‘What are you doing? Don’t touch them!’ Sissy said, as if one wrong move was going to detonate an explosive device.

  ‘I want them off... out...not in my hair!’ Ava gripped one foil between her fingers, pulling.

  ‘OK, OK, but not like that, you’ll pull your hair out.’

  ‘I want a new look.’ Ava scooped up her hair in her palms, pulling it away from her face and angling her head to check out the look. Nothing would make her jawline less angular or her lips thinner. She sighed. ‘Cut it off.’ She wanted it to come out strong, decisive, but her voice broke a little at the end and when she looked back at Sissy, she saw pity growing in her hairdresser’s eyes.

  ‘Well... I have to finish the tinting first.’ Sissy bit her lip.

  Ava didn’t want pity. ‘Well, finish the tinting and then cut it off,’ she repeated.

  ‘Trim it, you mean,’ Sissy said, her eyes in the mirror, looking back at Ava.

  Ava shook her remaining silver-wrapped hair, making it rustle. ‘No, Sissy, I don’t want it trimmed. I want it cut off.’ She pulled in a long, steady breath. ‘I’m thinking short... but definitely more Bowie in his heyday than Jedward.’

  ‘That short.’ Sissy was almost choking on the words.

  ‘You did say a change was good,’ Ava answered. ‘Change me.’ She sat back until she could feel the pleather at her back. ‘Make me completely unrecognisable even to my mother.’ She closed her eyes. ‘In fact, especially to my mother.’

  With her eyes shut, she blocked out everything – Cliff Richard, the tinsel and fir cones, Leo. A different style was just what she needed. Something that was going to go with her new outlook on life. A haircut that was going to say, You can look, but if you set one eyelash into my personal space, suggesting joy to the world, you will be taken down. Nothing or nobody was going to touch her.

  Ava’s phone let out a bleep and she opened one eye, squinting at the screen. Why didn’t Leo just give up? Why wasn’t he suctioned to Cassandra like he had been for God knows how long? She was betting Cassandra had never had to use Clearasil.

  Sissy leant forward, regarding the phone screen. ‘It says it�
�s from Debs.’

  Cheered considerably, Ava reached for the phone, picking it up and reading the message.

  I know I said not to bring anything, but I totes forgot to get something Christmassy. Can you get something Christmassy? To eat... like those crisps that are meant to taste like turkey and stuffing or roasted nuts and cranberry. And bring red wine, not white, because I got three bottles of white today. And if you’ve completely forgotten all about coming to mine tonight for neighbourly nibbles before I leave for Paris then this is your reminder. Debs xx

  Debs texted like she was writing a dissertation. There was no OMG, FFS or TMI with Ava’s best friend. And Ava had forgotten about the ‘neighbourly nibbles’. That was what having a break-up on your plate did to you – addled your brain and fried the important relationship circuits. Well, she was taking control now – elusive and aloof to anyone but her best friend – and the only frazzled motherboard was going to be the one with wires connected to men.

  Ava looked into the mirror at Sissy. ‘After you’ve cut it, Sissy, I want you to make me blonder,’ she stated. ‘And not the honey kind.’ She smiled. ‘The Miley Cyrus meltdown kind.’

  2

  Hotel Oiseau Rouge, 4th Arrondissement, Paris

  Julien Fitoussi squinted as the shards of light from the crystal chandelier at the entrance to the ballroom pierced his retinas. He closed his eyes, floaters cascading like winter rain. He should have stayed at home. His compact, functional apartment overlooking the Seine. That view of the river changing and warping into anything he wanted it to be. In the summer the rippling water could be full of light and hope, now, in the winter it was the deep, dark pit of despair he needed it to be.

  Opening his eyes, he adjusted the lapels of his jacket and moved his shoulders a little. Ruffling a dark head of hair he took in his surroundings. ‘Christmas opulence’ would be the title if this were an exhibition. All that glitters is... completely unnecessary. There were two Christmas trees here, not green but gold, covered in lights and bling that could have been borrowed from Busta Rhymes. A string quartet was playing carols at the far end of the function room and, all high on free drinks, the people from his father’s world buzzed together like rich worker bees layering up the hive. Lauren would have hated it. He swallowed. He hated it.

  ‘Ah! Here he is!’

  His father’s voice, followed by the man himself, broke into his space and Julien forced a smile as Gerard approached. The love he had for his father, not the world he did business in or the free drinks, was the only reason he had forced himself out of bed and into a tuxedo at seven p.m. on a Friday.

  Gerard kissed him on each cheek in turn then whispered in his ear, ‘You’re late again.’

  Julien gritted his teeth as a wave of emotion rolled through him. Anger mixed with guilt, swirling together like one of the expensive drinks his father’s employees were currently sipping.

  As Gerard stepped back, Julien saw his step-mother-to-be, Vivienne, and a large woman wearing a hat of fruit and octagon-shaped spectacles. He widened his smile at the ladies, moving forward. ‘Bonsoir.’

  ‘Bonsoir, Julien,’ Vivienne said, kissing him. ‘This is Marcie, the lady I was telling you about... Marcie, this is my step-son, Julien.’

  Julien arranged his face into an expression of understanding but he really had no idea who this woman was or when his step-mother-to-be had mentioned anything about a woman with half a pineapple, a guava and several satsumas on her head.

  ‘From Parisian Pathways magazine,’ his father hissed like an angry king cobra.

  ‘Ah, of course,’ Julien said, none the wiser. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you.’ He didn’t mean it. She was now another irritation who had kept him from covering his head with the duvet and wishing the night away.

  ‘I have seen some of your work, Monsieur Fitoussi,’ the walking, talking greengrocery display said.

  Vivienne was nodding her head up and down almost eagerly. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say but he knew exactly what he was going to say.

  ‘I am not working at the moment.’

  That felt good. And, directing his eyes into the thick of the ballroom where guests were milling around a champagne fountain and a large waterfall of chocolate fondue, he could see his words hadn’t prompted the world to stop turning. That felt even better.

  ‘What he means is... he’s taking some time out and... redirecting his focus... waiting for his new muse,’ Vivienne jumped in.

  If that statement hadn’t been so utterly tragic he might have laughed. Was that what Vivienne thought? Was that what his father thought? He smiled at Marcie and her fruit bowl. ‘What I mean is’ – he plucked a glass of champagne from a passing waiter – ‘I am not working at the moment.’

  Marcie shook her head, pushing her octagon-shaped glasses up her nose. ‘I understand,’ the woman said. ‘I have to say our thoughts have been with you all.’ She looked directly at Julien then.

  ‘Really?’ Julien asked abruptly.

  ‘Yes, it was such a tragic loss for everyone concerned. We all felt it.’

  ‘Although it got only a tiny column in the newspaper.’

  ‘Julien—’ Vivienne started.

  ‘You were injured, weren’t you? Going in to rescue people.’

  The heat invaded his cheeks instantaneously. He wanted to step away before he felt the urge to grab her and her citrus display and hurl them both into the fondue.

  ‘Thank you, Marcie, but Julien, he was one of the lucky ones,’ Gerard answered.

  Julien snapped his head round to view his father. ‘Lucky.’ The word almost didn’t make it past his lips.

  Gerard didn’t engage, just continued to focus on Marcie, a pious look on his face. ‘It has been a terrible time for all of us as a family.’ Gerard picked an olive-festooned canapé from the tray of a passing waiter. ‘Everyone is still bearing the loss.’

  Everyone is still bearing the loss. Julien didn’t believe what he was hearing. His sister Lauren, and twenty-five others, had been trapped in a burning apartment in the city centre just a year ago, and twelve of them never made it out again. Lauren and the others who had died in the fire hadn’t made headline news. Did they not count? This woman dressed as a healthy-eating advert had no idea just how black things had been. Lauren was dead, she wasn’t coming back and Julien’s life had never felt so empty and pointless. And that was the real reason why he wasn’t working at the moment.

  ‘Her name was Lauren,’ Julien said, staring at his father who was chewing up the canapé. ‘You do remember your daughter, don’t you?’

  His eyes went to Vivienne and she gave him a sympathetic look. Not complete understanding maybe, but sympathy nonetheless.

  ‘So, Marcie,’ Vivienne started, taking a good grip on the woman with the five-a-day display. ‘Why don’t we go and speak to Jean-Paul? He’s the actor I was telling you about. Up and coming. Gerard and I saw him last year in a production in London.’

  Julien took a step into their path, ignoring all his future step-mother’s warning signals and anxious looks at his father. He addressed the woman. ‘So, you want me to take photos I assume. Smiling, happy people? Celebrities perhaps? Fodder for your magazine? Fantasy pictures to tell people everything is always wonderful in Paris?’ He put his hands both sides of his mouth and shouted. ‘All is well! We have great cafés and Gerard Depardieu, non?’

  Suddenly his father’s fingers were gripping his forearm and pulling him away from a retreating Vivienne and Marcie, the women shifting up the room in a glimmer of sequins and a sway of citrus. When he met Gerard’s gaze there was pure white fury written in his father’s expression.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Gerard seethed. ‘You are here to show support to the company. Vivienne thought it would also be a good opportunity for you to re-engage, get a new job.’

  ‘Why would she think I want to do that?’ Julien asked, folding his arms across his chest.

  ‘Because you haven’t fucking worked for ov
er a year!’

  ‘So fucking what?!’ Julien fired the words at his father’s face, anger and hurt spiralling through his body. He was breathing hard now, more pain and heartache reaching his chest than air for his lungs. He shook, his body trembling as Gerard simply plucked a handkerchief from the top pocket of his suit and wiped his face, as if Julien’s words had tainted his skin.

  ‘Go home, Julien. If you’re going to be like this then I don’t want you here,’ Gerard stated coolly. ‘Get yourself together.’

  Julien bunched his hands into fists as the string quartet started to play ‘Vive Le Vent’. Was there a time limit on grief? Was there a moment, perhaps one morning, when you woke up and suddenly everything was all right again?

  He focussed on his father, shaking hands with a tuxedoed clone, reaching for another expensive tiny canapé.

  ‘Monsieur?’ a waiter asked, offering a tray of champagne glasses towards him.

  Julien looked at the white alcohol fizzing in the tall, slim glasses. Bright effervescence bursting with every bubble that popped on its surface. It sparkled and shone. Just like his sister had.

  He shook his head quickly at the waiter before making for the door.

  Bursting out of the hotel, Julien hit the cold air of the centre of the fourth arrondissement and grounded himself on the pavement, willing his anger to subside. He closed his eyes and breathed in. The aroma of garlic, sizzling meats and tobacco hit his nose as he let himself get caught up in the street sounds – mopeds, laughter, dogs barking. Slowly he opened his eyes, adjusting to the dark, the only light coming from the wrought-iron lamps each side of the road. A café opposite – Deschamps – was bursting at the seams. Its clientele sat outside, in the French way. Now, in December, there were no floaty dresses or tailored shorts – all the customers were enveloped in winter coats and scarves, barricaded against the harsh wind that threatened snow, gloved hands gripping small cups of café or tumblers of beer.

  Had Julien had his camera with him and if he hadn’t still been grieving for his sister, he might have snapped a shot of this perfect portrayal of French winter life. Lauren had adored the café culture of their homeland. They’d meet up on a Friday night like this, after work, drink copious amounts of alcohol, just remembering to order food before the kitchen of their chosen brasserie closed for the evening. Over something with chicken or just a large portion of pommes frites and bread they had talked about their week. He smiled now. Lauren had always been so full of stories about the department store she worked in. A picky woman she had had to help dress for a wedding, or a badly behaved child she had pulled a face at when his mother wasn’t looking. His sister had been a whirlwind in life. But, just like a whirlwind, she had spun fast and furious and then... was gone... leaving nothing but memories and her family’s broken hearts.