The Paris Secret (30 page)

‘How’s it  going? Or  do I  even need  to ask?  It looks terrible over there. Another day of rain, I see.’

She walked back to the bench and, laying the painting down on the counter, began removing the fixings on the back. ‘Ha! You can talk. Where are you now? The Hamptons again?’

‘Working!’ he protested. ‘This is where the market is in the summer. There’s not a living soul left in Manhattan.’

‘Not a rich one, anyway,’ she smiled, expertly popping the painting carefully from its gilded frame so that she could examine the sides of the canvas.

‘How’s it going there? I was getting concerned I hadn’t heard from you.’

She glanced up at him. ‘It’s all fine. Just putting my head down and trying to make some progress on this lot.’

He watched as she squinted at the brushworking around the artist’s signature. ‘Amazing that they want to sell after all,’ he said.

‘I guess there’s no reason not to now,’ she murmured. ‘Everyone knows the truth anyway.’

‘Well, I got your email. It’s a great idea, giving the money to charity. Very philanthropic.’

Flora stopped what she was doing and smiled. ‘You think it’s a great idea because
we
still get our commission, regardless of where the profits go.’

Angus shrugged happily. ‘Tomayto, tomahto. So what’s the latest?’

She sighed and put down the canvas. ‘Well, I’m working my way down from the top – so orange dots first, then yellow, green, blue. For the orange, everything’s now
inventoried and photographed and I’m pretty much done on the condition reports. So next up’s provenance—’

‘Your specialist subject.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘Found anything so far?’

‘I haven’t even started although Jacques is hoping that placing that ad will mean we herd the heirs to us. I’m not so sure. I have a nasty feeling we’re only going to end
up trying to weed out chancers and hoaxers. Angus, it’s going to be a nightmare. You do realize I’m going to have to go into the
catalogue raisonné
of every single artist
to get the title and date and start from there?’

Angus thought for a moment. ‘Or you could go straight to the Von Taschelt ledgers. You said they’re kept at a gallery in Saint-Paul anyway, right? What’s that? Half an hour
from there?’

‘About that. But they’ve only got papers from before 1942.’

‘Great. That could still net a haul. Go there and see what info they have first. They might have photos or descriptions of the pieces he bought – that would save you having to
individually consult the
cat rais
of every single artist and then trace it outwards from the beginning.’

‘That’s a good idea, actually.’

‘I have been known to have them once in a while,’ Angus smiled. He paused. ‘And everything else OK over there? Clients behaving themselves?’

‘They’re fine.’ Even she could hear the change in her voice.

He paused a beat. ‘Look, I know it can’t be easy for you living in the grounds with them. You’re doing a great job,’ he pressed. ‘They’re not exactly the
easiest family to rub along with at the best of times and things are obviously pretty intense at the moment. Are the press laying off?’

‘A little,’ she shrugged. ‘Listen, don’t worry. I’m keeping a low profile and just getting on with the job. I think they’ve mostly forgotten I’m here,
to be honest.’

‘You reckon?’ he chortled, the smile fading away as he saw her expression. ‘Well, look, just let me know if you have any trouble off them. I know Jacques is aware of what his
kids are like and he wants to keep you happy.’

She swallowed and kept her eyes down, reliving her character assassination in the study. ‘I’m fine,’ she mumbled. ‘How are you getting on with the Faucheux? Any
progress?’

‘It’s in with your chap at the Courtauld at the moment. They’re examining the paint.’

‘Good luck.’

‘I think we’re going to need it. I’m drawing blanks on it left, right and centre. There’s no mention of it in the
cat rais
, so I’ve put a request in with the
Wildenstein Institute to gain access  to  their  records. Apparently  they’ve  got  his diaries. I’m hoping there might be something in there that alludes
to paintings he was working on.’

Flora didn’t reply. He didn’t need her to point out how minuscule those chances were. ‘Oh, by the way,’ she said, walking over to the coffee machine that had been
installed especially for her and popping in a cap. ‘I’m taking this afternoon off if that’s all right.’

‘Sure. I don’t think anyone can point the finger at you for shirking off recently. Doing anything nice?’

‘My friends are down from Paris for a few days. I’m just going to hang with them for a bit, try to relax.’ She pressed the button for the coffee, steam billowing in clouds
around her. She walked back to the bench with it.

‘Good, that’s good,’ he frowned. ‘I’ve been worried about you. You’ve been looking very stressed recently.’

‘I’m fine,’ she sighed.

‘So you keep telling me. You’re sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me?’

‘I’m sure,’ she replied, rolling her eyes and trying to smile. ‘Bye, Angus,’ she said, disconnecting the line.

She walked to the open doors and sat on the step, her coffee in hand, looking out at the immaculate garden. It had a parkland feel to it, with large, mature trees dotting the grass, orange and
white flowers framing the borders.

The sound of a splash made her look up. Someone was in the pool. From the high-pitched shriek that followed, seemingly owing to the temperature, it was a girl. Natascha?

Another person – Xavier surely – was standing on the side in slim black swimming shorts, looking down into the water. They were talking. Flora watched, feeling sick at the sight of
them both, as Xavier raised his arms above his head and dived in – easily, elegantly, no big show.

It was too far away for Flora to make them out clearly but the buzz of their conversation drifted on the breeze that swept in from the ocean, only two roads from here. There was a lilt to their
voices – happy, excited. From her vantage point, the water droplets caught the sunlight as they became airborne, glinting like shattered glass over their heads. Bitterly, Flora wished it
was.

‘Hey.’

The voice made her jump. She jumped again when she saw that it was Xavier standing on the lawn just a few feet away. He was wearing jeans cut off at the knees and another of his signature
bleached linen shirts that always seemed to be trying to fall off him.

He blinked at her, as calm as she was unsettled, and she had to look over to the pool again to check there was still someone in there with Natascha. Who was it then, if not him? Her latest
boyfriend? Today’s love interest?

He followed her gaze, looking back at her questioningly.

‘What do you want?’ she asked, but her voice sounded thick with emotion. She looked away quickly. ‘Actually, whatever it is, I don’t care what you want. I want you to
go.’

She turned away, dismissing him, and walked back into the room, over to the sink where she ran cold water over her wrists; but when she turned back, she saw he had come in too, one hand on the
counter as he watched her. He wasn’t a big man – not like Noah, not like his father – but he was tall and although lean, finely muscled. He seemed to fill the space, squeezing the
oxygen out. She caught her breath. Was he trying to intimidate her? ‘I said—’

‘You’re right to hate me.’

What? She swallowed, trying to work out his game. Was this some sort of trick? ‘Damn right I am. You’ve been a bastard to me from the moment we met.’

His fingers tensed, pressing down into the wooden surface. ‘That was my intention, yes.’

His words had a brutality to them that took her breath away. It was his
intention
? Did he know what he was saying? Perhaps his English lacked the subtlety of a native speaker’s
– but no, what other possible interpretation could there be?

She looked back at him, feeling herself tremble with a wildness she hadn’t felt before – rage and fury and indignation welling up in her that he not only felt entitled to behave
badly but then casually admitted it too. A taunt.

He looked away, perhaps seeing the storm build up in her, his eyes alighting instead on the paintings that surrounded them, their silent witnesses – and she saw him flinch as the sheer
scale of the stories and histories bore down on him. His reaction was similar to his father’s: his shoulders slumped a little, his mouth slackened.

But she didn’t care.

‘Just get out.’ Her voice was low, almost a growl. She hated him. She hated him with an intensity she’d never felt for anyone before. She couldn’t even stand to look at
him, to be in the same room as him.

She went to walk out into the garden but he sidestepped into her path, blocking her way. ‘How dare you!’ she hissed, feeling the emotion begin to erupt now. She wouldn’t
tolerate this. Him. She wouldn’t. ‘I am working here. You have no right to come in and—’

‘You’re not nothing.’ The words hung in the air like fireworks, leaving their glorious impression long after the bang. ‘Things with Natascha are . . . complicated.
She’s not what you think.’

‘Oh, really?’  she asked  sarcastically,  folding her  arms over her chest and staring right up at him, refusing to let him think he intimidated her in any way at
all. ‘And
you
know what I think about her, do you?’

‘I can guess.’

She gave a derisive snort, refusing to look away, back down.

‘And what about you?’ she asked with a sneer. ‘Are you what I think too?’

He looked taken aback by the question and for the first time, she saw storm clouds pass through his eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘Really?’ She laughed contemptuously, quite sure his own high opinion of himself precluded the possibility of realizing how very low her opinion of him really was. ‘So –
the drugs, the cars, the women . . . ?’

‘Yes.’

His unflinching honesty wrongfooted her. She upped the ante. ‘And you don’t care that other people regard you as spoilt and vain and shallow? An expensive waste of space? A loser
playboy with more money than is good for you?’

‘No.’

She watched him closely, his body completely still, betraying nothing, but she had seen that look in his eyes a moment ago, his answers just that bit too quick . . . He wasn’t as
comfortable with this line of questioning as he wanted to suggest.

‘Or maybe you’re lying. Perhaps you do care,’ she suggested, determined to fight him, to find the crack in his armour, dismantle his arrogance . . .

‘Why should I lie?’

She shrugged. ‘I really don’t know.’

Scorn furrowed his brow but as he stared down at her, she felt it again – that imperceptible shift, his black eyes pulling at her like quicksand, making the ground fall away beneath her
feet. She felt her breath catch and he looked away quickly. Had he noticed it too?

She stared at his profile, seeing now the tension in his jaw – his entire body, in fact – as though he was holding himself in check.

‘Why have you really come here?’ she asked.

He stepped away, his eyes back on the canvases on the counter again. Did he find it easier to be confronted with his family’s shame than to stare at her? ‘It was wrong what happened
the other day, that is all. You did not deserve it.’

‘Didn’t I? But I thought you said it was all my fault.
I
put your family through this.’ Her words were pushing him now, she could see. Suddenly she had him on the
retreat. The air between them had become tight, thin.

He looked back at her. ‘I don’t know what you did or didn’t do, but my father trusts you.’

‘But
you
don’t.’ Her words snapped at the heels of his, her temper thin. He was playing games, trying to be oblique, vague with her, avoiding her even though he had
sought her out.

‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’

‘Doesn’t it? Don’t you count? Is everything in your family always about your sister?’

‘Don’t!’ In an instant, he was bearing down on her, his hands on her arms, pinning them to her sides.

She gasped, having to bend back for some space, his face just inches away, and as those angry eyes burned on hers again, his body as tensed as a boxer waiting for the first punch, she suddenly
understood exactly how good his English really was, why he’d even needed to have an ‘intention’: in a flash she remembered the way he’d held her on the steps as his
girlfriend stormed past, his face in the rain as she’d rejected his kindness, why he’d bid in Chantilly as Noah stroked her hair . . .
‘What the hell are you doing to me,
Flora?’

She saw the fight in his eyes, could tell from the pulse in his jaw that he didn’t want to want her.

‘Xav—’

‘Don’t,’ he repeated. The word was a wall, stopping her in her tracks, and after another airless silence, he turned and walked away, crossing the room in three strides, out of
sight in six.

Flora watched him go, her heart pounding. She had never felt more confused. She wanted to hate him . . . hated to want him. He was more trouble than she could handle, she knew that, and yet to
her shock, her surprise, her horror, she
wanted
him to be the stereotype, the man in the headlines, the one Ines kept warning her about. He might be no good for her, he might be the biggest
mistake she’d ever make, he might be fire . . .

But she still wanted to play.

Ines had bagged the best sunloungers, white-and-gold-striped ones on the jetty which, for the hire price, got you valet parking too. They jutted out from the beach over the
shallow sea, away from the hubbub on the sand. It was a perfect day. The water was like bottle-bottom glass and every so often, she could see shoals of tiny silver fish shimmy underneath the
decks.

It was an intense scene, not one for naturists or peace-seekers. All around them, with not more than a foot between the beds, were bodies, beautiful ones admittedly – tanned and slim,
decked with Melissa Odabash bikinis and waterproof Rolexes. Flora shifted position and stretched out, admiring the delicate silver-and-turquoise anklet Ines had brought her as a surprise gift and
wondering where she could get a pedicure around here that wouldn’t require a mortgage. Bruno was off SUP-boarding somewhere but Ines was lying on her tummy beside her, reading her book. She
was wearing the purple crochet Kiini Bea bikini that had been sold out since March, her skin bronzing before Flora’s eyes.