Chapters (45)
- Cover
- Blame Iton Paris
- Copyright Notice
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Book One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Book Two
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
I didn’t say anything at all for half the walk back to the RER station. We walked by the canal. Earlier, couples of all ages had filled this path, walking their dogs, carrying home groceries, watching the speedboats on the water. Now everything was dark and quiet. I tucked my hands into my jacket pockets instead of holding Sébastien’s.
“Éric actually does speak English pretty well,” Sébastien tried after a bit. “He just exaggerates his accent to make fun of himself. He’s always making fun, Éric. He doesn’t mean any harm by it.”
“Kilométrage? That’s not a very reassuring joke.” I shoved my hands deeper in my pockets. “What are you doing with me?”
He sighed. “I’m going to kill Éric. I think he said all that on purpose to give me an even bigger challenge. As if you aren’t complicated enough.”
“Is that all I am? A challenge?”
His mouth tightened. “I’d like you to name one thing I’ve done since we’ve met that gives you a basis for that accusation.”
I hunched my shoulders.
“Look, I went through a really bad year after Claire broke up with me.”
Great, she had broken up with him. And he’d taken a year to get over it.
“And then, after that, I went through a phase.”
“Have you had a real girlfriend since?”
“Yes, several.”
Several. Well, I guess I’d been reading too much into the fact that he called me his girlfriend. I’d given up Cambridge for this? Oh, that’s right, I was leaving soon anyway, so it didn’t really matter how long he stayed with his girlfriends. “How long did you stay with the last one?”
He took a long draw on his cigarette. “Six months. We broke up a couple of months ago.”
So when I’d first seen him, he had been with someone else. “If I’d listened to my friends and asked you out in February, would you have gone out with me?”
He looked at me. “Probably not,” he said gently. “Since I had a girlfriend then.”
I suppose I should appreciate that, since he considered me his girlfriend now. I didn’t. “Were these other girls a lot prettier than I am?” Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He shook his head. “This is not a discussion I’m going to have.”
I bet they were. Look at him. I’d always known he was too cute for me. Why couldn’t he have just said, “No, you’re gorgeous,” damn it? “Why did you go out with me?”