What If It's Love?: A Contemporary Romance Set in Paris (Bistro La Bohème Book 1) (5 page)

Pepe didn’t attempt to flirt with Lena, who was exceedingly grateful this
particular gentleman preferred blondes.

* * *

“Having trouble with the writing?”

Lena looked up. Pepe the Matador stood by her table, shaking his head in
sympathy. “What if your nails don’t grow back?”

“Oh,” she said, jerking her hand from her mouth. “How observant of
you—Pepe, right?”

“Yes, and you are?” Pepe replaced Lena’s empty cup with a steaming frothy
blend.

“Lena. I live in this building, as it happens.”

“I figured as much. Are you a friend of Rob’s? I see him chatting with
you whenever he has a spare moment.” Pepe smiled innocently and gave her a
suggestive wink.

As Lena marveled at how he could accomplish such a paradoxical combo, her
brain registered that Rob was Adonis.

“No, I am not a friend of Rob’s. In fact, I have no clue why he stops to
chat with me.”

“Don’t you?” Pepe gave her an are-you-dumb look. “Let’s see. If I were
you, I’d assume he liked me. But what do
I
know?” He shrugged and headed
to the kitchen.

Lena’s thoughts scattered like beads from a torn necklace. Could Rob
really like her? He did chat with her a lot, almost every time he had a spare
moment. But what did he find in her? With his looks and charisma he could have
any girl—any
gorgeous
girl. Could he have found out she was an
heiress? But then, he wasn’t the kind of guy to pursue a girl for her
money . . .

She blew out her cheeks. This was ridiculous. For one, she had no idea
what kind of guy he was. She tried her best to concentrate on her work. But as
if on cue, Rob walked into
La Bohème
. He wore a basic white T-shirt and
faded jeans. Hidden in her corner, Lena ogled him in a most shameless way. Her
gaze feasted on his narrow hips and flat stomach, then traveled up his
well-muscled arms to his broad shoulders, caressed his firm jawline, and drank
in his intelligent hazel eyes.

Rob sauntered to the counter, his every movement infused with easy
masculine grace. When she finally lost sight of him as he disappeared behind
the door marked STAFF ONLY, she could feel her heart racing and her cheeks
burning.
How stupid!
She should know better than to drool over the first
handsome stranger she met in this town.

He’s just a pretty boy,
offered the familiar sensible voice in her
head.

Boy, he
is
pretty,
retorted a voice she’d never heard
before.

In the face of such blatant sauciness, her sensible self kicked below the
belt.
A pretty boy who will break your heart, given the chance.

Bingo. Lena blinked as her pulse slowed down and color drained from her
cheeks. A broken heart was a messy business
.
Was the pretty boy really worth it?

Nope. Especially not now. She was finally over Gerhard, really over him.
Her soul was filled with a sense of freedom she was beginning to seriously
appreciate. She’d nearly forgotten how it felt to jump at every phone call, and
to spend hours debating if she should make a move, or if her boyfriend was
still into her. Gerhard had never been given to excesses, but a few months ago
Lena started to suspect he cared more for his Labrador than for her. In March
she began to wish he’d just dump her and put her out of her misery. But Gerhard
was in no hurry to end their relationship. And she didn’t have the guts to do
it herself. Which was when the idea of a research trip to Paris turned into a
plan to move there.

Lena closed her laptop and waved for the check. She wanted to leave before
Rob emerged from the staff room and shattered her resolve. This newfound
freedom of hers, this unattached bliss—it was too precious to throw to
the wind. She should protect it at any cost.

Especially when all she had to do was stay away from a handsome Frenchman
named Rob.

* * *

Vanves was one of the Parisian
suburbs where Tsvetaeva found refuge during her long French exile. It was
residential and dull. Lena wandered through its streets, trying to imagine how
they looked in the 1920s when Tsvetaeva lived here. Those years weren’t a happy
time for the poet. She was separated from her friends and her husband,
struggling to provide for her children, and unable to publish her work. She was
stuck in French suburbia, too bourgeois to return to Bolshevik Russia and too
poor to move her family inside Paris. A fish out of water.

It was midafternoon when Lena fetched her laptop and settled in
La
Bohème
to work on the translation she’d started the day before. It wasn’t a
difficult poem, with one notable exception: the word
careless.
In
Russian it implied a bit of recklessness, a touch of irresponsibility, and a
dash of sweet silliness. All at once. Lena hadn’t been able to find a good
French equivalent yet.

She ordered her third café crème—desperate
times required desperate measures—opened all her thesaurus apps and dived
in.

Rob stole a glance at Lena. She sat at her favorite table, her hair
pulled back in a loose ponytail, eyeglasses on her forehead. He rubbed his
neck. Should he finally introduce himself, now that he’d spent over a week
blathering to her about everything and nothing? The dilemma had weighed on his
mind for a couple of days now. On the one hand, he and Lena were clearly
reaching a critical point in their acquaintance when people learn each other’s
names—or go their separate ways. Actually, they were already way past
that point. Had he spent half that time with any other girl, he would’ve found
out not only her name, but also her phone number, her favorite music bands, and
probably the flavor of her lipstick.

On the other hand, this was not a normal situation, at least not to him.

Talking to Lena is a job,
Rob reminded himself for the umpteenth
time.

Sure, and her being cute as a button is entirely beside the point,
a sardonic voice in his head retorted.

He looked at her again. Her hand rummaged through her handbag—no
doubt for her glasses—while she squinted at the laptop screen, oblivious
to the world.

It’s just a job to pay my tuition
,
Rob repeated his mantra.
I can’t screw this up
.

He approached her. “I believe what you’re looking for is on your head.”

Communication had become so easy between them. One little remark would
lead to another, and before they knew it, they would be knee-deep in an
animated discussion about polar bears or Daft Punk. This time round, they ended
up analyzing the latest twist in a TV show they both liked.

“I must say I didn’t find that turn of events entirely plausible,” she
said.

“I agree, but I don’t think the director’s goal was to be plausible. It
was to take everyone by surprise. Including himself.”

“Sorry to barge in on your cozy chat, but your time’s up.” Jeanne made
big eyes at Rob and then turned to Lena. “This young man’s coffee breaks have
been stretching beyond what’s decent since you began to frequent the bistro. He’d
better get a grip before Didier tells the proprietor.”

She held out her hand. “I’m Jeanne, by the way, Rob’s sister in
arms—or, rather, in plates. And you are?”

“Lena. Very pleased to meet you, Jeanne.” Lena shook hands with her and
then turned to Rob. “So you would be Rob, then?”

He tried to sound nonchalant. “Robert Dumont at your service. Sorry for
not having introduced myself earlier.”

Jeanne rolled her eyes. “Aren’t we all incredibly well-bred and
courteous? Please accept my sincere apologies for being such a spoilsport, but
you are expected inside, Rob. Duty calls. More specifically, the mop.”

Rob gave Lena a quick nod and headed to the kitchen. They had officially
met now. It was inevitable and perfect for his purposes, but it somehow made
his little deal with Boris a touch more unsavory.

* * *

In the cab from the train station
to her place, Lena replayed her eventful day. Her meeting with Professor
Rouvier had gone well, and she had left his office with lots of good advice on
how to revise her thesis. After that she had a coffee with two classmates. Just
before she left the university to visit Ivan and Marta, she ran into Gerhard.
They greeted each other and then just stood there, not knowing what to say. The
thing was . . . she didn’t have anything to tell him besides the
academic stuff they’d discussed over e-mail. Lena wondered at how just a month
ago she thought herself in love with him. Her feelings were so completely gone
it was hard to believe they’d been real.

Distance
is
a truly powerful medicine,
she thought. A
little distance and time was all it took to free her heart of Gerhard and wipe
him from her mind. Or was that all? If she was completely honest with herself,
could she vouch that a certain Frenchman had nothing to do with it?

By the time she got home, it was around nine in the evening. After the
mandatory call to her father to inform him she’d returned safely, Lena went
down to
La Bohème
for a quick bite.

There wasn’t a single vacant table, inside or outside. She was about to
leave when she heard Rob call to her.

“Hey, Lena, over here!” He was having dinner with his scrawny pal and a
pretty woman Lena hadn’t seen before.

As she approached them, Rob pulled out a chair for her. “Come join us.
I’m a free man tonight. Started earlier so I could keep them company for
dinner.”

His friends smiled, the guy with enthusiasm and the woman tightly. Lena
began to say she didn’t want to intrude, when Clothes Hanger stood up to
exchange a cheek kiss with her. “Hi, I’m Mat, Rob’s flatmate. And this is
Amanda. We all study together, and these two are poised to graduate top of the
class.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Amanda waved “hi” without standing for a
bona fide greeting. “And you are?”

“Lena. I live in this building.” She mouthed
thank you
to Rob and
sat down.

“That’s it!” Mat clapped his hand on his forehead. “Now I know why you
look so familiar. I’ve seen you here before.”

“You’ve got this tiny
rustic
accent. Are you from Switzerland?”
Amanda asked.

Lena smiled. “You have a good ear. I’m from Russia, but I’ve lived in
Switzerland for the past seven years.”

“Russia! How exotic. And what brings you to France, Lena?” Amanda asked.

Jeanne arrived to take Lena’s order, interrupting Amanda’s questioning.

When she left, Rob nudged Lena to look at Mat, whose gaze was locked on
Jeanne, lapping her up as she walked away. “Mat here has been desperately in
love with Jeanne for—um, let me see—an eternity? But she won’t go
out with him. She prefers her bad boy biker. It’s a very sad story.”

Mat turned to face his friend. “Rob, what makes you think I can’t hear
you when I’m not looking at you?”

“Touché,” Rob said.

Mat sighed. “I must sound like a total loser to you, Lena. I guess I am.”

“Most certainly not,” Lena said.

“Believe me, I’ve tried to move on, like, a hundred times. I try every
day, as a matter of fact. But she’s bewitched me. Must be that lip piercing. It
does something terrible to my brain chemistry.”

“You are so messed up, my friend,” Amanda said. “Have you considered
seeking professional help?”

Lena was looking for something comforting to say, when she saw the old
man sitting at the table next to theirs. She winced. “Oh no, not him again.”

Today, he was wearing cream trousers and a well-ironed blue shirt with a
silk cravat tucked into its open collar. He had pointy shoes and a thin white
mustache. He was dining in the company of a boy in his late teens, probably his
grandson. Lena had nicknamed him GLL—the Geriatric Latin Lover. He was
the plague of the bistro, the harasser of waitresses, and an embarrassment to
whomever he dined with.

Jeanne approached his table, a notepad in her hand. “Has monsieur chosen
his dessert?”

“No, monsieur hasn’t,” he replied, then looked Jeanne over, smiled a
sleazy smile, and winked. “Can we ask the chef to put
you
on the menu?”

Lena couldn’t believe her ears. This was worse than the previous
borderline comments she’d heard him make. And then he winked again, this time
at his grandson. The boy looked so utterly mortified that Lena half expected
him to dip under the table and put his head between his knees.

“Oh, but there’s no need to bother the chef,” Jeanne said far too
sweetly. “I’m already on today’s specials. It’s written on the chalkboard over
there.”

She pointed, and GLL instinctively turned and squinted at the chalkboard.

Jeanne gave him a few seconds then said, her voice full of sympathy, “Is
it too far for you to read? Or maybe too close? You must need a new
prescription for your glasses.”

GLL had now turned to glare at her. His mouth twitched.

Jeanne continued. “What a bummer, old age . . . You hang
in there, monsieur, it will all be over soon. You just wink like that a few
more times, and poof! No more eyesight issues or any issues at all, for that
matter.”

GLL looked like someone had hit him with a sledgehammer.

But Jeanne wasn’t about to give him a reprieve. “So,” she said, all
businesslike. “Will you be ordering now, or shall we continue exchanging
pleasantries while other customers wait to be served?”

“Canwehavethecheck, please?” the boy mumbled. He cleared his throat and
repeated more distinctly, “Can we have the check now, please?”

“Sure—I’ll get it right away! No dessert then, I guess.” Jeanne
produced a disappointed sigh and turned on her heel, finally allowing herself
to smirk.

Mat, who’d followed Jeanne’s repartee as keenly as he would have watched
Jesus walk on water, broke into a triumphant grin. “Did you hear that? Can you
see now why I can’t put this woman out of my mind?” He began to clap.