By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс
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All the aromas made her mouth water. Though ravenous after her scant breakfast, she was mindful of the upcoming lunch. It would be a serious social solecism not to eat at Laraine’s on this occasion. So she confined herself to selecting only tea and a miniature tarte aux pommes from the pastry counter. Luc ordered coffee.
Sliding into a booth in the upper room at a window overlooking the street, Shari spread out the information pamphlets and selected one, only raising her head when the food was delivered.
The tea was weak and watery, but these days that was how she liked it. She cut the pastry into two pieces and shoved one across to Luc. While perusing a screed about suggested dietary modifications for pregnancy, she bit into her scrumptious flaky pastry. Luckily there was nothing on the forbidden list about butter, apple a squidgin on the tart side, or rich heavenly custard.
The entire tarte was the sheerest bliss. She felt so sorry for all the people in the world who weren’t in Paris with Luc. She eyed his untouched piece.
‘Are you sure you want that?’
Without looking up the gorgeous man passed it back to her.
‘Thank you. This one’s in French only,’ she murmured, applying her paper napkin to the corner of her mouth. ‘Though I can manage most of it. You know, if I’m going to have this baby here I’ll have to enrol in some French lessons.’
Luc glanced up from the booklet he’d been perusing. ‘If? What is this if?’
‘Oh.’ Jolted, she met his sharp gaze. ‘Well … It’s just a figure of speech. I’ve booked into the clinic now so—I guess I’m—having the baby here.’ She grinned reassuringly. ‘If I can fix my visa.’
He glanced away from her. When he looked back again his eyes were veiled. ‘And you’re content—with that?’
‘You mean—am I content with tu?’ She smiled at his searching gaze. ‘I am. I’m quite content.’
He returned to his reading. Glancing at him a couple of times, she noticed his brows edging closer and closer together. Was it something she’d said?
The next time he spoke, he sounded his usual calm self. ‘Why were you thinking about this amnio needle test? Are you concerned there might be something wrong?’
‘Oh, no.’ She sighed, then pressed her lips together. ‘I don’t even want to think about anything like that.’ She hesitated, then blurted something that had been nagging at the edge of her mind. ‘The thing is, apart from checking for abnormalities, the test can also determine the baby’s DNA.’
‘So?’
She gazed at him. ‘Maybe we should have it. Just to—settle any tiny little doubts you might have.’
His eyes glinted. ‘I don’t have any doubts.’
She could feel her pulse beating a little too fast, but she disciplined her voice to stay serene and reasonable.
‘Still, the question has been raised between us, and I—I—well, just for my own peace of mind—need to know that if I’m staying here with you, if we are together in this, you have no reason to doubt me.’
With a rueful expression, he reached across the table and grabbed her hand. ‘Chérie, I don’t doubt you. I don’t doubt you at all.’
She covered their clasped hands with her free one. ‘That’s lovely of you to say, Luc, but I’m thinking ahead to when this baby is born. What if he or she doesn’t immediately resemble you? Or what if I can see the resemblance, but you can’t? Don’t you see? I’m quite an affectionate person. By that time I’ll have spent nearly a year of my life with you, and I could probably end up being really quite—attached to you by then. If that happened and you doubted me, I wouldn’t be able to bear it. The ending would be bad. Big time.’
He concealed his lowered gaze behind his dark lashes, frowning deeply. The moment stretched and stretched until her nerves nearly snapped.
Finally he said, ‘If you think it will bring you peace of mind …’ He threw out his hands. ‘D’accord.’
D’accord? Just like that?
Like a sandbagged zombie, she poured more milk into her tea and made it even weaker. If coffee wasn’t recommended, tea probably shouldn’t be either. And if a man agreed to having a DNA test to verify his paternity without a fuss, surely that was for the best.
N’est-ce pas?
Even if the test had the barest, most infinitesimal possibility of endangering the child’s very existence?
‘YOU’RE very quiet.’ They were crossing the Seine en route to chez Laraine. ‘Was it all too much? Are you feeling well?’
‘Sure. I’m feeling great. Just—thinking, is all.’
Thinking about what an idiot she was. Why had she done it? She’d set up a trap and walked straight into herself. She didn’t want that ghastly test unless the doctor specifically recommended it.
It only served her right for angling for reassurance. And how useless that had been. If a man wasn’t in love, he wasn’t, and nothing would ever make it happen.
At least he wasn’t lying to her. She supposed she should respect his implacable resistance to swearing undying love he didn’t mean.
With a sick feeling she realised that if she didn’t take the test, Luc would assume she was scared of the outcome.
‘This may not be the best time for you to go to lunch when you have had such a strenuous morning,’ he said apologetically, ‘but on any normal day I’ll be at work. I’m not sure you’re ready to visit Maman on your own. What do you think?’
Shari glanced quickly at him. Her? Visit Maman on her own? Had he been eating the wrong mushrooms?
‘You may be right,’ was all she said. But her mental cogs were whirring like crazy. Was this to be her lot from now on? Regular visits into the jaws of hell? Not that they were unkind to her there. It was just that her status with them was so uncertain. She wasn’t quite a cousin, nor yet a fiancée. Perhaps she was a girlfriend, although surely Frenchmen loved their girlfriends.
‘What am I?’ she said.
He looked sharply at her. ‘Comment?’
‘How do I explain myself to your family? I mean … it’s hard to know where I stand there. Am I a friend of the family?’
‘Of course you are a friend. You are—my …’ Seemed he too had trouble finding the word. ‘It will be easier for you when you learn more French,’ he said suavely. ‘Everything will be easier.’
After twice making an exhibition of herself before his entire family, she seriously doubted that. It would take some magnificent achievement, like saving France from invasion, or reconstituting Napoleon, to correct the impression she’d made.
‘Exactly how much does your mother know?’ she said lightly as he backed the Merc into an impossibly tight space in the vicinity of the building.
‘She knows nothing. Or …’ He lifted his hands from the wheel. ‘She is Maman. She could know everything.’ He flashed her a grin.
Great.
‘Think of it this way,’ he said smoothly, urging her up his mother’s garden path. ‘Now you are staying in Paris you will need to know some people. When I am at my office all day, you might need a friend to talk to. Here are some people who are willing to know you.’
Shari broke into a laugh. Her heart warmed