The Art of French Kissing (19 page)

“Uh-huh!” I nodded nervously, and off we went, swept away in a tide of skaters.

For the next hour and a half, we barely said a word to each other, although Gabe kept looking down to make sure I was with him. I was—and I spent the entire skate in awe. It was the fastest and the hardest I’d ever bladed, but it was next to impossible to fall behind with a tide of thousands to sweep me forward every time my energy faltered. My rib cage vibrated with the gentle, steady roar of the thousands of wheels around us, and I marveled as we made our way toward the river, passing the Eiffel Tower far off to the left, then up past the impressive Opéra on the Right Bank and through the ninth up to the Gare du Nord, the station I’d be returning to tomorrow morning to take the Eurostar to London. We snaked through several neighborhoods I didn’t recognize, and everywhere we went, people stood along the sidewalks, cheering and waving as we roared by. I felt like part of a parade.

By the time we arrived, breathless and drenched in sweat, in the Place Armand-Carrel, a big park in the nineteenth on the opposite side of Paris from where we’d started, it was eleven forty-five. I scooted onto the grass and, like thousands of other exhausted skaters, collapsed onto my back.

“That was amazing,” I breathed to Gabe, who was standing over me, looking down in amusement.

“I’m glad you liked it,” he said. “But you realize we’re only halfway done.”

I sat straight up. “What?”

He laughed. “This is just the halfway point. We take a break here before we skate back through the Place de la République and over to the Left Bank again.”

I stared at him for a moment. “Oh,” I finally said. I flopped back down on the ground and closed my eyes. I couldn’t imagine another hour and a half of this.

“We can stop here and just take the Métro back if you want,” Gabe said. I cracked open an eye and looked at him. He was still gazing down at me in amusement.

“I’m not a quitter,” I said.

“I didn’t say you were,” Gabe said. “It’s just pretty overwhelming the first time. I would completely understand if—”

I cut him off. “No.” I sat up. “We’re going to finish this course.” I struggled to my feet, but my legs felt like jelly. Gabe grinned and helped me up, taking my hand in his to steady me. His fingers were rough and warm as they folded through mine.

“You sure you want to do this?” he asked.

I looked him in the eye and nodded, my heart pounding. “Yes.”

We stood there for a moment, looking at each other. I was standing just fine on my own now, but Gabe hadn’t let go of my hand. Nor had I pulled away. For a moment, as we stared at each other, I had the crazy feeling that he was about to kiss me. But just as he leaned a little closer, the whistle blew, and the stampede of twenty thousand skaters began again.

“Ready?” Gabe shouted over the din. He squeezed my hand, and I felt a little tingle run through me.

“Ready whenever you are!” I shouted back.

For the next hour and a half, as the tide of skaters swept us south through the eastern edge of the Right Bank, through the Place de la Bastille, over the Pont d’Austerlitz, and then for miles west along the Left Bank of the Seine before heading south back toward Montparnasse, Gabe didn’t let go of my hand.

And, to my surprise, I didn’t want him to.

“That was amazing,” I said as we walked up to the front door of my apartment building just past 2 a.m. Every bone, every muscle, every tendon, and every joint in my body ached, but somehow I felt better than I had in years.

“Yeah, it’s pretty fun, huh?” Gabe said, grinning down at me. He set our skates down on the ground and touched my left forearm with his right hand. My skin tingled. “I’m glad you came with me.”

“Thank you so much for inviting me,” I said. I couldn’t believe this was the same Gabe Francoeur who had made my professional life tense and tenuous for the past few weeks. When he wasn’t wearing his journalist hat, he was . . . normal. And very nice. Not to mention surprisingly attractive.

“I’m glad I did,” Gabe said. He took a step closer. I suddenly realized that I wanted very much for him to kiss me. “You’re amazing, Emma, you know that?”

In what felt like slow motion, he put both his arms around me and gently pulled me closer. Then he dipped his head and touched his lips softly to mine. A bolt of electricity shot through me; it felt perfect. His lips tasted salty and sweet, all at the same time. He lingered for a few seconds and then pulled away. He quickly straightened his glasses and cleared his throat.

“Well,” he said. He coughed and smiled at me.

“Well,” I echoed, feeling suddenly awkward. It had been the perfect kiss, but it had lasted only a few seconds.

“I, uh, probably shouldn’t have done that,” Gabe said, glancing away.

I felt my heart sink. “Oh,” I said.

“I mean, I wanted to,” he amended quickly. “It’s just that with work and everything . . .” His voice trailed off.

Feeling foolish, I hurried to agree. “Of course. It was totally unprofessional of both of us.”

“Totally,” Gabe agreed. He paused and glanced down at me. “But do you mind if I say it was nice?”

I cracked a smile. “No.” I felt relieved. “Not if you don’t mind me saying that I thought it was nice, too.”

“Well,” Gabe said. “Good.”

“Good,” I agreed nervously.

“So, um, I’ll see you tomorrow evening, then?” he said. “In London?”

“Um, right.” I nodded, trying to look professional. “Yes, definitely. We look forward to introducing you to Guillaume’s music.”

He smiled. “Right. Well. I’m sure I’ll love it.”

“I hope so.”

Gabe studied my face for a long moment. Then he nodded. “Good night, Emma,” he said.

Then he bent to pick up the skates from the ground, and without another word he strode quickly away.

And despite the fact that I knew I had a long day ahead of me in London for the opening day of the junket, I barely slept at all that night. I could still feel Gabe’s fingers woven through mine.

Chapter Fifteen

I
snoozed on the train to London the next morning. Although I was supposed to be keeping an eye on Guillaume in first class to make sure he didn’t moon any passersby or go streaking through the dining car, I figured that Edgar and Richard could handle him for once. I was too exhausted to care.

“Late night, Emma?” Guillaume asked with a suggestive smirk as I settled into my seat.

“I was just skating, Guillaume,” I said wearily. “Nothing more salacious than that.”

He arched an eyebrow at me. “I don’t know. Skating can be pretty hot and heavy.”

I rolled my eyes. Clearly our definitions of
in-line skating
differed in some fundamental ways.

Every time I began to doze off, I thought of Gabe’s lips pressed against mine and felt a mixture of pleasure and guilt. The kiss had been perfect, but publicists weren’t supposed to go around kissing journalists, were they? I felt like I had violated some important code of ethics.

Somehow Brett was back in my mind, too, lurking at the borders of my conscience. Sure, I’d kissed a few guys since I’d been here, at Poppy’s insistence. But Gabe was the first I’d actually felt anything for. Even though I knew it was crazy, I felt a little guilty, like I was being unfaithful to Brett.

Three hours later, when the limo that had picked up the four of us at the station dropped us off at the Royal Kensington Hotel, I stared in awe for a moment before letting the valet help me out. It was one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen. Stately and enormous, lined with marble columns, its exterior was softened by lush window boxes and a bevy of flapping flags that soared over the marbled drive. Dozens of bellhops and valets in tuxedo jackets and top hats rushed around outside, opening car doors and effortlessly extracting luggage. If the journalists at the junket were half as impressed as I was, we were already off to a good start.

After I checked in, I went to see Poppy, whose room was beside mine. We did rock-paper-scissors for who would go check on Guillaume and make sure his suite was to his satisfaction (and that he hadn’t managed to sneak in any teenage girls during the thirty minutes since check-in). Poppy’s rock crushed my scissors, which meant that I had to go.

“I’ll just be here taking a nice soak in the tub!” Poppy singsonged as I rolled my eyes and put my shoes back on. She didn’t realize that I’d recently become the skating champion of Paris and would have given my left arm for a soak in a hot bath. “I’ll think of you while I’m relaxing in the bubbles, sipping cava and reading
Glamour.
”

“You’re lucky I like you,” I muttered as I slipped out the door and into the hallway.

Poppy and I were in nice enough rooms, but of course our rock star was staying in a suite on the top floor. I couldn’t imagine that it
wouldn’t
be to his liking, but keeping him happy, especially prior to the press junket, was a vital part of my job. So off I went.

I knocked on his door twice before I heard a rustling inside.

“Who is it?” came Guillaume’s muffled voice through the door.

“It’s Emma!” I yelled back, attracting a scornful look from a bellhop delivering several Louis Vuitton suitcases to the suite across from Guillaume’s. Evidently yelling didn’t fit with the decorum of the hotel.

“Just a moment!” Guillaume yelled from inside. I heard footsteps, and a second later he pulled open the door. “Hi there,” he said, looking down at me with a smile.

I hadn’t been sure what to expect when I knocked on his door, but I’d been relatively sure that there would be some form of undress involved. To my surprise, though, Guillaume was fully clothed and actually looked relatively normal in a long-sleeved green T-shirt and a pair of dark jeans. Had I not known he was a lunatic, I might have assumed he was simply a normal, good-looking (okay, Calvin Klein–billboard-perfect) guy.

But alas, he was a crazy person. And my client.

“How are you, Emma?” Guillaume asked, stepping aside and gesturing with his arm. “Come in, come in.”

“No, I think I’ll just stay out here,” I said. After all, I’d seen the kind of thing that went on in Guillaume’s hotel suites. And I was really bad at poker.

“Whatever you want.” Guillaume shrugged and moved again so that his body filled the doorway. “How can I help you?”

It was the most normal, civil conversation I’d ever had with the guy. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay and that everything with the suite is fine,” I said uncertainly.

“It’s better than fine,” Guillaume said. “It’s perfect.”

“Well, good.”

“Good,” Guillaume repeated.

“Is there anything I can get you?” I asked. “Or anything you need?”

“No, I’m fine.” He studied my face for a moment. “But can I ask you a question?”

“Um . . . sure.” I braced myself for the worst. He was probably going to ask if Poppy and I were interested in a threesome. Or if I knew where to buy good crack in London. Or if I knew of any monuments he could get naked in. I thought I’d suggest Big Ben.

But his question wasn’t anything like that.

“Emma, I just want to know if you’re okay,” he said slowly.

I could feel my eyes widen. “What? Yes, I’m fine,” I said quickly, flashing him a bright smile. “Why?”

Guillaume shrugged and looked a bit uncomfortable. “I don’t know. You just haven’t been yourself today. And you looked upset on the train.”

I was startled. “Thanks,” I said, forcing another confident smile. “But I’m fine. Really.”

“Are you sure?” He looked genuinely concerned. I didn’t know what to make of him.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. I was getting uncomfortable.

Guillaume looked at me for a long time. “You know, I’m not such a bad guy,” he said. “I mean, I know I can be a bother sometimes. But I’m not so bad underneath.”

Where was he going with this? “I know,” I said, my heart hammering a little.

“I just mean—” He paused. “Well, if there’s anything you want to talk about, you can talk to me.”

I think my jaw actually dropped. How could this be the same person I’d performed a death-defying duet with while hanging from a rope strung between two buildings just last week? How could this be the same guy who kept twenty-eight hundred euros in his briefs, just in case?

“Um, well, thank you,” I said. “That’s . . . really nice of you.”

“Yeah, well.” Guillaume shrugged and glanced away. “Anyhow, try to feel better. About whatever it is.”

“Thank you,” I said, still in partial shock. Guillaume gave me an awkward little hug and a peck on each cheek and closed the door to his suite.

I stood in the hallway for a long time wondering what had just happened.

Six hours later, Poppy and I had briefed a staff of twenty assistants, most of them from a British temp agency specializing in media and public relations. They would all be providing various functions at the cocktail reception that was due to begin in half an hour. A blond girl named Willow and a brunette named Melixa, for example, had been stationed in the lobby to help streamline media check-in. Two brunettes who looked as if they could have been sisters were upstairs in the media suite, handing out press packs, while two guys were manning the small continental buffet of fruits, pastries, sodas, water, and coffee that sat in the adjoining suite. A girl named Gillian was working as a sort of page, running back and forth between the lobby, the media suites, and the ballroom, alerting Poppy and me to any problems. (So far, knock wood, there hadn’t been anything more serious than an entertainment writer from the
New York Daily News
being put in a room with two double beds when she had requested a king.) And several of the assistants were running around backstage in the reception room, making sure that everything was all set for Guillaume’s performance tonight.

“I’m really nervous,” Poppy said as the two of us settled into seats at the check-in table outside the reception room. In ten minutes, TV and print journalists would begin arriving for the opening-night cocktail party, which would culminate in a surprise three-song set from Guillaume. He’d open, of course, with his hit single, and he’d also be debuting two other songs, including my favorite, “La Nuit,” a haunting ballad about unrequited love, sung half in English, half in French.

“Me, too,” I admitted, rifling through the stack of papers in front of me until I emerged with tonight’s media list. Most of the journalists on the two-day junket had arrived tonight, and although I knew that some would skip the reception in favor of wandering around London (not realizing, of course, that Guillaume would play), I figured that 90 percent of our reporters would be there, which added up to just over a hundred guests.

Poppy and I were both wearing black cocktail dresses, something we had debated about for some time last week while shopping at the Galeries Lafayette. I’d said we should wear suits in keeping with our roles as the business leaders of the evening. Poppy had rolled her eyes at me and said that it was a cocktail party, and we should dress accordingly.

“More than half of the journalists we’re inviting are men,” Poppy had reminded me with a wink. “There’s nothing wrong with giving them something to look at while Guillaume sings his love songs, yeah?”

By seven thirty, nearly all of the journalists we’d invited had checked in at our table, where Poppy and I welcomed them warmly, made sure they had everything they needed, and then sent them inside to a room whose decor Poppy had been planning for months.

The reception room was lined with enormous photos of Guillaume in various outfits and poses, interspersed with blown-up
Riche
album covers. The lights were dim, and disco balls dangling high above cast sparks of light that almost looked like falling snowflakes around the room. Poppy had even taken care of ordering aromatherapy scents to be piped in, so the vague smell of French lavender permeated everything.

“Are you ready to go in?” Poppy asked me at seven forty-five, folding in half her list of checked-in journalists and putting it in her handbag. We hadn’t had an arrival in ten minutes, and inside, we could hear enough conversation and laughter to know that the party was in full swing.

I looked at my watch. “Maybe a few more minutes out here,” I said.

“But we have to go on in fifteen minutes, to introduce Guillaume. Don’t you think we’d better have a glass of champagne first?”

I shrugged. “Just give it a few more minutes,” I said. “Not everyone is here.”

Poppy looked confused for a second. She glanced at the list. “We’re only missing five people.”

“I might as well wait.”

Poppy looked at me strangely and shrugged. “Well,
I’m
going inside. Suit yourself.”

Ten minutes later, Gabe still hadn’t arrived.
Surely he’s coming
, I thought in frustration.
But where is he? And more important, why is it bothering me so much
?

I sighed and got up from the table, leaving one of the PR assistants in charge in case anyone—like, for example, Gabe—showed up late.

Inside, the reception was in full swing, and it looked even more perfect than I had anticipated. I grabbed a glass of pink champagne off a tray that went by on the arm of a tuxedo-clad waiter and drank half of it down in one sip, trying to relax. There were roughly a hundred journalists in the room and, glancing around at their faces, I could see that most of them looked content. And why shouldn’t they be? There were endless trays of hors d’oeuvres being carried around the room by a fleet of servers, and there were flutes of pink champagne, glasses of Beaujolais, strong mojitos, and Riche-tinis—a specialty drink of champagne, vodka, crème de cassis, and Sprite that Poppy and I had created for the event.

I shook a few hands as I made my way toward the stage to find Poppy. None of the reporters knew they were in for an impromptu concert in a few moments, and I could hardly wait to see their faces when the man of the hour took the stage.

“Were you waiting for someone in particular?” Poppy asked quietly as I slipped behind the curtains to the backstage area. She was standing by herself with her glasses on, reading over the scribbled remarks she planned to make later.

I shook my head and tried not to blush.

“You’re not developing a crush on one of the journalists, are you?” she asked.

“No!” I exclaimed defensively.

Poppy looked at me carefully. “I told you to be careful with these French guys,” she said. “They’ll just break your heart.”

I nodded and tried not to look guilty. It’s not like I was
falling
for Gabe or anything. “I know.”

Poppy took off her glasses and slipped them back into her case. Then she ran a hand through her hair and shoved her notes into her bag. “You ready?” she asked.

“Ready when you are.”

She nodded, and together we walked out in front of the curtain onto the small stage.

“Hello, everybody, and welcome,” Poppy said into the microphone. The chatter around the room quieted, and a hundred pairs of eyes came to rest on us. I smiled politely as Poppy continued. “Thank you so much for being here today for an event that we at KMG are very excited about. We’re thrilled to launch Guillaume Riche to the world with the debut of his new album,
Riche
, which hits stores Tuesday.”

There was a smattering of applause, and Poppy looked momentarily troubled. I assumed she’d been expecting more.

“Of course you’ve all probably heard ‘City of Light,’ the debut single from Guillaume’s album,” she continued. There was more applause this time, and a few whoops and catcalls to boot. Poppy smiled at this. “Of course as you all know, one-on-one interviews with Guillaume begin tomorrow. Print journalists are in the morning; TV reporters are in the afternoon. You should have received your interview time in your check-in packet. Please plan to be in the media suite thirty minutes prior, and make sure you check in with either Emma or me.”

There were nods around the room, and the buzz of chatter started up again softly, as if some of the reporters had decided that Poppy wasn’t saying anything of real value. I shot her a look, and she nodded.