“Could you put a shirt on please?” I asked crossly. I took another sip. After all, if I was going to have to sit here with him and dispose of half his champagne, I would appreciate us both being fully clothed.
But Guillaume only laughed. “It’s hot.” He shrugged. “Does my body offend you?”
No, I wanted to say. It’s making me feel attracted to you.
“No,” I said. “It just seems weird that you don’t have a shirt on.”
Guillaume laughed again, shrugged, and made no move to go put more clothes on. Instead he topped off my glass again. Obediently, I took another sip. I was starting to feel the alcohol, but not enough to worry about it. Just enough to relax me a little. Besides, it was all for the greater good. Every sip I drank was one less that Guillaume could consume.
After a moment of silence, Guillaume tried again. “So? Are you going to tell me what is bothering you? I want to help.”
I studied his face for a moment. He certainly appeared genuine. His usual smirk was gone, and he simply looked concerned.
“Fine.” I sighed and glanced away. “Look, it’s just that I’m confused, you know?” I turned back to Guillaume and found him listening to me carefully. “I mean, Poppy offered me a permanent job in Paris, working with you, and I think I want to take it. I really do. But I’m just not sure it’s the right decision.”
“Pourquoi?” Guillaume asked, leaning forward with interest. I took another sip of my champagne and glanced away. Really, I hadn’t intended to share so much.
I hesitated. “Because there’s a guy at home whom I just ended an engagement with.” The words came pouring out. “Well, I didn’t exactly end things with him. He broke up with me. But now he thinks he made a mistake. He says he wants to try again. And we were together three years, you know? I’m really confused. But I don’t know that I want to go home. I love Paris. I love almost everything about it. I even love the job, even if you make it difficult for me sometimes.”
I stopped, embarrassed. What was in this champagne—truth serum?
Guillaume smiled. “I’m sorry I make your life difficult,” he said.
“No, it’s not that you make my life difficult,” I amended. “And you will never hear me say this again. But really, I prefer working with you to working with the boy-band boys I used to deal with. There was nothing exciting about that job.”
I hadn’t realized until that very moment how true the words were. I did like working with Guillaume, despite—or perhaps even because of—the fact that I never knew what was going to happen next with him. How could it be that I preferred talking my clients down from ropes suspended in midair to making excuses for prepubescent boys gone wrong?
I looked down at my glass. Somehow it had become empty. Had I really sipped it all while embarrassingly pouring out my heart? I glanced guiltily at Guillaume. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at my glass. Which he was presently refilling. Why did I have the sudden sense that I was the one drinking the majority of the champagne? Somehow, my pour-it-in-the-shrubbery plan seemed to have derailed.
“Well, I’m glad I can make your life more exciting,” Guillaume said, refilling his own glass as well. He upended the bottle in the ice. We seemed to have finished it all. He reached for the other bucket, which held a second bottle of champagne. “So,” he continued smoothly. “Do you still love this guy back home? The one you just ended your relationship with?”
I blinked a few times and studied my glass of champagne intently, as though an answer to the question might appear on the surface courtesy of the constantly rising stream of bubbles. No such luck.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled. I took another sip of champagne as I contemplated the question. “I don’t think I do. No. Not anymore. It’s confusing. I don’t think you can love someone for three years and then just turn it off.”
“Probably not.” Guillaume nodded supportively.
“But I don’t think I’ve been in love with him for a long time,” I continued, still wondering vaguely what was possessing me to confide so much in Guillaume when I had barely even admitted these things to myself yet.
Satisfied with my honesty, at least, I leaned back into the comfortable cushions and watched as Guillaume popped the cork on the second champagne bottle and poured us each a fresh glass. The liquid seemed to be disappearing with surprising speed.
“Plus,” he added nonchalantly, leaning back and taking a sip from his glass, “you have a crush on a certain UPP journalist.”
“What?” I sat up so quickly that I sloshed a bit of champagne onto my jeans. But I was more concerned at the moment with the fact that my cheeks felt like they were on fire. “No I don’t! I don’t know what you’re talking about! I don’t have a crush on him!”
Had I really been that obvious? I’d hardly realized it myself until just a few days earlier, although I suppose I’d been attracted to him since the moment I’d first spotted him in the H?tel Jeremie press corps crowd.
“Yes, you do,” Guillaume said simply.