One Week With The French Tycoon. Christy McKellen

the waiter who was busying about nearby. ‘Non,’ was all he said, picking up his slice of pizza and taking a large bite.

      ‘Oh.’ She tapped her toe gently against the plastic leg of the table, then picked up her own slice and studied it, uncomfortably aware that she’d lost her appetite now.

      ‘Well, it’s really nice to be here, anyway,’ she continued, to cover the now rather prickly silence. ‘I haven’t had a holiday in a couple of years—if you don’t count the four days I spent at my oldest brother’s house over Christmas, which wasn’t exactly a relaxing break. Three of my brothers have kids—one of them has four boys—so it was more like staying in a soft play gym crossed with a zoo.’

      Picking up his beer, Julien took another long pull. ‘You don’t have your own kids?’ he asked.

      There was a sharp spasm in her chest. She’d fantasised about her and Gavin having kids, once upon a time. Another thing to mourn the loss of. ‘Not yet. Hopefully one day. I’m sure it’ll happen when it’s the right time.’

      He grimaced as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. ‘The right time,’ he repeated flatly.

      ‘Yeah, I firmly believe that kids turn up when you most need them to.’

      Looking over the top of his sunglasses, he gave her a withering stare.

      Irritation pricked at her skin. ‘So I’m guessing you don’t have kids either?’ she asked, determined to ignore his negativity.

      ‘Non.’ The word was terse and had a definite full stop at the end.

      ‘But you’d like to, one day?’

      ‘Can we change the subject?’ he said levelly, but with an undertone of steel.

      ‘Um, sure.’ Clearly she’d hit a nerve.

      Perhaps it was for the best that they talk about something else anyway. The subject wasn’t exactly an inspiring one for her now that she was single.

      Indigo nibbled at the crust of her pizza while she thought of a new topic of conversation.

      ‘Your English is very good. Where do you live?’

      ‘In Paris, but I conduct a lot of business in the English language.’

      ‘Oh, yeah?’

      For the first time that night he seemed to relax, pushing his sunglasses up on to his head again and sitting back in his chair. ‘Oui. My business acquires and renovates high-end holiday homes in France for clients all over the world. We also source and maintain corporate Parisian apartments for executives to live in whilst they conduct business in France.’

      ‘Nice.’

      ‘I enjoy it.’

      ‘Lucrative.’

      ‘Oui.’

      ‘Good for you.’

      ‘What about you? What do you do?’ He took another large bite of his pizza.

      ‘I run a café that uses mostly surplus and past best before date food from supermarkets and restaurants. We sell affordable meals for people on low incomes so they can come and get a square meal at least a couple of times a week. Since we opened, we’ve had a lot of elderly gentlemen come in who’ve lost their wives and have no idea how to cook, so I started running cookery lessons in the evenings aimed specifically at people like them, to give them a grounding in making basic, healthy meals for themselves at home. It’s going well so far, but it’s been hard work. We rely a lot on donations and public grants so there’s loads of form filling and face-to-face negotiating, and quite a bit of pleading on bended knee.’