“What about Amanda?” I asked finally.
There was silence and then heavy breathing on the other end of the line.
“You know about that?” he asked in a small voice.
I didn’t bother answering. “You’re such an asshole,” I said instead.
“Oh, Emma, I’m so, so sorry,” he said quickly, his words tumbling out on top of each other. “Emma. Please. Can you hear me? I’m sorry. More sorry than you know. It was just a mistake. A huge mistake. I was trying to get over you.”
“That’s an interesting technique,” I muttered. “If it doesn’t work out with your fiancée, screw her best friend?”
Brett sighed and continued. “Emma. Please. I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am. But I love you. I still want to marry you. I just got cold feet, that’s all.”
It was exactly what I’d wanted to hear five weeks ago. But now his words just made me feel empty and confused.
“Emma, will you come home?” Brett asked. “Please? Give me another chance?”
I walked into the living room and sat down on the sofa, facing the window. Outside, mere yards away, the Eiffel Tower loomed like a reminder of all I had yet to discover in this city.
“No,” I said finally, trying to sound far more confident than I felt. “I think this is where I belong now.”
I hung up before he had a chance to protest.
“Well, it was what he deserved,” Poppy said at work the next morning as she leaned over me to grab a permanent marker from the other side of the conference table. We had arrived early to work on the layout for the cover of the press folder for Guillaume’s London launch. We couldn’t agree on the perfect photo to use; I wanted to use one where Guillaume was holding his guitar and smiling, while Poppy wanted to find one where he had on his signature sexy sulk.
“Are you sure?” I asked as I took a sip of coffee and studied the display of photos we had laid out in front of us. “I mean, maybe it just took him a little while to realize what a huge mistake he’d made. Maybe he did just get cold feet.”
“You were with the guy for three years,” Poppy recapped. She picked up two of the photos and put them in our discard pile. “You’ve been engaged for almost a year. And then suddenly he dumps you and tells you to move out? I don’t care whether he’s changed his mind or not. Is that really the kind of guy you’d want to be with?”
“I guess not,” I muttered. We worked in silence for a few minutes.
I tried hard to concentrate on the task at hand. Guillaume’s single was due to hit airwaves around the world that night, so it was a big day for us. Focus on Guillaume, I told myself. Not on Brett.
“So,” I said lightly, trying to change the subject. “I guess Gabriel was wrong about Guillaume getting into trouble at Buddha Bar last night.”
“I told you he was full of it,” Poppy said.
“You were right,” I said. “How stupid of me to have believed him.”
“Not stupid,” Poppy said. “Just naive. You can’t trust these reporters, though.”
“I’m sure they’re saying the same thing about us,” I said.
Poppy grinned. “Yes, and they’re absolutely right.”
We finally agreed on a photo of Guillaume in a Cuban-looking military jacket with sliced-up sleeves that showed off his incredible arm muscles. In the picture, he was holding his custom-made red Les Paul guitar, which he had nicknamed Lucie, after his little sister, and he was giving the camera one of his signature smoldering looks that was practically enough to make any red-blooded woman melt on the spot.
“Okay, I’ve got to run to that lunch meeting in London,” Poppy said after we’d called the printer and added the photo to the layout we’d already given them for the press pack, which they’d have printed and ready for us by the end of the week. “Will you be okay on your own for the afternoon? You have plenty to keep you busy, right?”
Poppy had a one fifteen meeting in London with the president of the British Music Press Association that she’d spent the past few days preparing for. She’d catch the eleven thirteen Eurostar out of Gare du Nord in time to make it to a restaurant just outside the train station in London for lunch. She’d leave just after three to make it home in time for dinner. It was amazing how quickly you could hop between the two national capitals.
“Of course,” I said brightly. I’d been here a week now, and thanks to eight years of working in the industry, I certainly knew how to handle myself around a PR office. On top of that, I was getting excited about Guillaume’s London launch. It would be one of the biggest projects I’d ever been involved in, and I was proud of the work Poppy and I had already done. I had dozens of calls to make to American music journalists that afternoon, and I needed to verify some things with the London hotel where we’d be holding the event in less than three weeks.