I paced the pavement in front of Laurent’s building for a good five minutes, struggling to get my head around how this could have happened. The only explanation was that Katrina had to have been in Paris for the last few days, and that she’d followed me. Given he hadn’t been opening the door to me, I hadn’t been near Laurent’s for two days, though. So why had she waited? Unless she’d encountered the same thing I had, and just hadn’t been able to get hold of him. How she’d found out I was even in Paris was another mystery.
My phone rang while I was still plucking up the courage to go inside, Cillian’s name flashing up on the screen. He didn’t waste time on greetings. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve got Amrita running a background check on her. She’ll find out what she can, and then she’ll pull some strings if she thinks that’s not all of it. If Katrina’s got form for doing this with boyfriends, we’ll know about it.”
“Thank you, Cillian.”
“Don’t mention it. I meant it when I said be careful. Stay clear of knives or anything else that she could use as a weapon. If she’s that unhinged, you can’t trust her.”
“I think she wants to marry me, not kill me.”
“And Laurent? It sounds like she sees him as a major stumbling block to her plans.”
“Shit! I hadn’t even thought of that. She wouldn’t, would she?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never met her. Maybe you should call the police.”
I thought about it, but it didn’t sit right with me. “Not yet. We might be making wild assumptions. I’m outside Laurent’s building. I’ll go in and find out what’s going on.” I was already jogging toward the entrance, questioning why I’d spent so long outside navel gazing.
“I should have come with you.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. Just… call in the foreign legion if you haven’t heard from me in an hour.” The attempt at a joke fell flat, probably because of the thread of apprehension in my voice.
“Mac. One more thing before you hang up.”
“Yeah?” Laurent lived on the third floor. I took the stairs rather than waiting for the lift.
“I wanted to let you know that you’re welcome to stay with me and Finn as long as you need to. And if you need a job to apply for a work visa, then you can always work for me. Which can be as temporary as you need it to be. I’m not trying to get you to come and work for me permanently. I’m just pointing out that I can help with most things. You just have to ask.”
I passed the sign for the second floor. Only one more to go. “Can you make Laurent like me again?”
Cillian snorted. “Sure. And then, for my next trick, I’ll turn water into wine and go for a run down the middle of the Seine.”
I pushed the door open for the third floor, Laurent’s flat at the end of the corridor. “I’m hanging up now because I’m nearly there. I’ll call you later.”
“Make sure you do.”
And then I was standing outside the door with nothing left to do but knock. I raised my hand to do exactly that before thinking better of it and pressing my ear to the door. Laurent’s flat had a short reception area which led into the living room, the kitchen beyond that.
Not a single sound met my ears. Which meant either they were sitting in silence in the living room, they were in the kitchen too far away for me to hear anything, or something terrible had happened. Damn Cillian and the thoughts he’d put in my head about Katrina wanting to get Laurent out of the picture.
Raising my hand, I knocked loudly, refusing to let the intrusive thoughts take over, even as my heart hammered in my ribcage. Footsteps. The click of the lock. The door swinging open. And then Laurent in the gap. Laurent, who seemed to get more handsome every time I saw him. No smile on his face, but then I hadn’t expected one.
Before I could entertain any thoughts of going in, he stepped out into the corridor, closing the door in his wake. Even with the door closed, he kept his voice low. “A heads-up of the mess you left behind in London would have been nice before she turned up on my doorstep. She did nothing but cry to start with, and I didn’t really know what to say to her.”
“You’ve got this all wrong.” I regretted all the previous lies I’d told. It didn’t leave me in the best place for making Laurent believe me. I grabbed his arm, holding on tight when Laurent tried to shake me off. “Listen to me, please. Think about all the things I’ve told you about her. I told you things had gone sour between us. Sourer than sour. We had an entire conversation about whether there was a word for that, so you must remember.You were the one who asked me about all the calls I got I didn’t answer. Do they seem like the actions of a man who’s asked someone to marry him?”
“They sound like the actions of a man running away from his responsibilities.”
“Shewanted to get pregnant,” I said. “We had a huge fight about it. And the reason we had a huge fight about it is because she came off the pill without telling me. I only knew because I found the packet in the bin. Some sixth sense made me check it, and lo-and-behold, all the pills were still in it. She had plans for me. Plans that she didn’t bother to share. She just had it in her head that I wanted what she did. Marriage. Kids. The whole shebang. So yeah… I made her do a pregnancy test to check she wasn’t already pregnant, ended things with her, and then ran away without telling her where I was going.”
Laurent’s face remained expressionless, and I sought some way of convincing him. Inspiration struck, and I tugged my phone out of my pocket. Haste fueled by knowing Katrina might come looking for Laurent made my fingers tremble as I hammered at the buttons. If I could get him onside, it would make this mess far easier. Once I’d pulled up mine and Katrina’s message history, I passed the phone over.
He gave it a quick glance before raising his gaze to mine with a frown. “I’m not into reading other people’s personal messages.”
Especially not someone I’ve slept with.The subtext was there, but he didn’t say it. “Read it, please.”
Laurent let out a small sigh, but dutifully lowered his head again. I could tell when he got to the ‘interesting’ stuff, his brow furrowing slightly. “She was watching your flat?”
“Apparently. And she must have been watching me in Paris to know where you live, because I certainly didn’t tell her.”
