Kissed in Paris (33 page)

Julien looked thoughtfully into my eyes. “Who takes care of you then? Who cleans up your disasters?”

“I don’t have disasters.”

“No? What would you call your trip to France then? An adventure?”

“Fine. With the exception of the last few days, I don’t have disasters. What about you? It seems like you’re the one who handles everything around here.”

“I am a man. I am supposed to take care of my family. That is what men do.”

“That’s a little old fashioned, don’t you think?”

Julien ran his hand along the smooth wood until his fingers brushed over mine. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it abruptly.

“What were you going to say?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Sometimes you’re just as bad of a liar as me. What were you going to say? Tell me.”

“If I was your fiancé, I would take care of you. Not the other way around.”

My drunk mind zipped back to the wedding daydream I’d had in the vineyard a few hours earlier. And how I hadn’t been able to erase Julien’s face from the place up at the altar where Paul should’ve been standing.

No.
No
. That was ridiculous.

“Paul takes care of me,” I said, trying to sound confident. “It’s just . . . he’s just different. We have more of a modern relationship. You know, where both of us are equal. I have my own career. I don’t need him to provide for me.”

“What if you go to Pennsylvania?” he prodded. “He will not provide for you there?”

I’d almost forgotten about Pennsylvania. “Paul knows I don’t want to go there.”

“Does he?”

I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “So what are you going to do about the painting?”

 “I’m working on it.”

“Looks like we both have some pretty shit problems right now, huh.”

“Looks like it.” Julien held my gaze for several seconds before breaking away and staring past me out the window. “I better go back to the hospital. My mom and Camille will be waiting, and Guillaume should be on his way there too.”

“Of course.” I stood up from the table, feeling a little more stable now that I had food in my stomach, but when another hiccup sounded from my mouth, I knew I was still kind of drunk.

Julien laughed, and I whipped my head around to face him. “What’s so funny?”

“When you go home, I think you should start drinking more wine. It is good for you, you know?”

“Whatever,” I said as I plowed my hip into the corner of the kitchen table. “Ouch.”

“Come. I will walk you back to the house. You can sleep off the alcohol while I am at the hospital.”

“Okay.”

I may have been drunk, but not drunk enough to ignore the way Julien rested his palm on the small of my back as he walked me past painting upon painting of kissing Parisian couples, and out into the fresh, warm air. I also couldn’t ignore the way he kept his hand on me for our entire walk through the vineyard.

What I did choose to overlook though, was the fact that I liked it.

Twenty

“So thees is Julien’s new American girlfriend! Finally, she is awake!” bellowed a plump old man with a black beret barely covering the top of his bald head and a gray mustache hovering over his lips.

I stood in a state of confusion in the back doorway of Julien’s house, still groggy from my four-hour drunken siesta, as a slew of French people sitting at a long table, which appeared to be set for a feast, turned around to look at me—
Julien’s new American girlfriend
.

Oh, God.

The old man smiled a toothy grin before standing from the table, the view of the sun setting over the vineyard just beyond his beret. Then he waddled up to me, leaned in and kissed both of my cheeks. “I am Pierre-François, Julien’s uncle.” He leaned closer and whispered gruffly in my ear. “Julien said you were a beautiful girl, but I did not expect you to be quite thees beautiful!”

Julien had told his uncle that I was beautiful? Obviously it was just part of the act since apparently we were now telling not only his mother, but his entire family, that we were an item.

My cheeks flushed all the same as I smiled back at Pierre-François and glanced out at the others, who were still eyeing me curiously, tossing hushed whispers across the table.

“Come,” Pierre-François instructed as he placed a firm hand on my shoulder. “I introduce you to the rest of Julien’s family.” He leaned in and whispered again, softer this time. “They are a crazy bunch, so do not get scared and run away. Julien will take care of you—he is the most normal one of us all.”

If an ex-con who worked undercover for the government
and
secretly painted portraits of couples kissing all over Paris was the most normal one of them all, this family had some serious issues.

As we walked over to the table, I scanned the relatives for Julien or Camille or their mother, but instead found a mixture of their traits in the faces that waited to greet me—deep brown eyes, dark shades of hair, from chestnut brown to black, and even a few of them carried the same high cheek bones of Julien and his siblings. 

Pierre-François started at the left and worked his way around the table to the right, introducing me to all twelve of Julien’s relatives who’d come by for dinner out on the tree-covered terrace. “Thees is Julien’s Aunt Caroline, his cousin Aurélien, his Uncle Manu, Manu’s wife Coralie . . .”

I lost track after Coralie, so I just smiled politely at each of them and twisted the diamond on my left ring finger around so they wouldn’t see it. I’d forgotten to take it off before I came downstairs. But then again, Julien hadn’t informed me that I would be meeting his entire extended family.

Just as the family took their focus off me and began passing around one of the five bottles of Beaujolais wine that sat uncorked on the table, I felt a familiar hand on my lower back.

Heat flooded up my spine as I turned to find Julien with a wide grin spread across his face, his other hand holding a steaming platter of chicken, rice and vegetables. “I see you have met my family.”

I nodded as Aunt Caroline, or was it Aunt Coralie—well, whatever—thrust a glass of wine into my hands. “
Merci
,” I said with a smile, thinking that I would be hit with a wave of nausea at the smell of it. But as the fruity scent passed under my nose, my stomach growled.

Julien set the dish down on the table in between his relatives, then leaned into my ear. “You don’t have to drink that. I will get you some water.”

“It’s okay,” I told him.

He gave me a funny look then led me over to an empty seat in the middle of the table. “Here, have a seat. Camille and I will be out with the rest of the food in a minute, after we wake
Maman
up. I made a quiche for you, and a salad.” He winked at me before crossing the terrace and disappearing into the house, leaving me amidst a group of jolly, babbling French people.

Why was Julien including me in his family dinner? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just tell me to stay upstairs for the evening?

“Chloe, are you
végétarienne
?” one of the aunts asked me from across the table, interrupting my silent questions on Julien.

I nodded as I took a sip of water, making sure to keep my left hand under the table.

“How interesting. That is a very American way of life, no?”

“Actually, I don’t have many friends at home who are vegetarians. I suppose in France there are even less of them.”

Julien’s Uncle Manu groaned. “A life without meat! I cannot imagine!”

They all laughed as they passed a baguette around and tore pieces off, not caring about the crumbs spilling all over the table. As their warm laughter traveled with the gentle evening breeze, I couldn’t help but laugh with them.

“So, tell us, Chloe,” one of the female cousins said, once the laughter had died down a bit, “How did you meet Julien? He tells us you have only known each other for a short time, but I can tell by the way he spoke of you, he is already in love.”

I choked on my water and began coughing furiously, tears springing to my eyes. What was the matter with me? Julien was just a really great liar. He had to pretend like I was his girlfriend since we’d already told his mother, so whatever he’d told them about me, it was all just for show.

When my coughing fit finally calmed down, I peered around the table to find that everyone’s eyes were still glued on me in anticipation. I opened my mouth to respond, not sure what the hell would come out. But suddenly the crowd’s attention shifted to the back door of the house where Julien and Camille stood with their mother.

Whew.

All of the family members exchanged worried glances around the table as Julien and Camille each held onto one of their mother’s arms and guided her to a seat at the head of the table. Her skin was pale, her hair matted down from being in bed all day, and her eyes weary.

As everyone quieted down, Julien’s mother looked up, smiled a weak smile and said something in French, which got everyone laughing and talking again. Then she stole a glance at me from across the table and winked.

I smiled back at her, then watched as Julien and Camille ran back into the house and reappeared seconds later with four huge plates of food
.

“
Oh la la
!” squealed one of the aunts as she took a whiff of the quiche, its crust just lightly browned, melted cheese drizzled over top. “
Ça sent bon
!”

“
Julien, t’es le meilleur chef de cuisine, tu sais
!” cousin Aurélie whooped as she dished a slice of the quiche onto her plate
.

I thought she’d said Julien was the best chef, but I wasn’t quite sure. They were all speaking so fast it was hard to keep up.

“
Mais bien sûr il le sait! Il est vaniteux, mon frère
!”
Camille called at her brother before taking a big gulp of wine and losing herself in laughter.

Okay, I was totally lost on that one. Julien made his way around the table, his smile the biggest and most relaxed I’d seen since I met him, then took a seat next to me. He wore a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his tan, muscular forearms reaching to the center of the table to pass the food around.

He stretched his arm around my chair and whispered into my ear. “I owe you.”

My stomach fluttered as his hand rested on my shoulder, the skin on his forearm brushing against the back of my neck. “It’s okay. I
did
wreck your car. Do they know about that yet?” I whispered back.

“
Maman
hated this car. She will be happy it is gone. But no, she does not know yet. I will tell her Claude stole it.” He chuckled as he poured himself a tall glass of red wine.

“I didn’t know there was a family gathering tonight,” I said softly through my smile.

The rest of the family was chattering up a storm, forks clanking against plates, glasses clinking with each other, so Julien raised his voice. “You see, we missed our traditional family dinner on Sunday. On our way home from the hospital today,
Maman
told me she wanted to be in the company of her family. That only food and family would make her feel better. So, I cook dinner, and here we are.”

“Did you make all of this?”

Julien nodded. “Camille never liked to cook, so my mother taught me instead. I love to create dishes, to throw things together and see how they taste. Kind of like a painting, you know?”