Over the course of the next week I tried to keep a low profile. People were still coming in and out of the perfumerie to look at the property, and while I could have stayed at the villa (or better, skipped town and avoided disaster), I couldn’t quite stay away from the place I loved so much.
“You and those flowers,” Madame Lepage laughed as I said goodbye to her for another day. I’d spent another afternoon tending to the front garden of the perfumerie and I was pretty proud of my work. It looked a million times better than it had.
“I love it,” I grinned, giving her a kiss on each cheek and heading back to the villa.
I knew I shouldn’t stay there too long, but I couldn’t help myself. Everyone in town thought I was meant to stay there and it was free. Plus, the place was just too perfect to pass up. It wasn’t like Jake was just going to suddenly show up. Right?
That week I’d spoken to both my mother and my fiancé, telling them about my good fortune in finding a place to stay in Eze. I didn’t tell them how I’d stumbled upon the place because I knew if my mother found out that Jake was involved, even though he didn’t know, she’d flip out. And Michael had no idea that Jake and I had ever even been a thing… best to keep that quiet.
Despite my efforts to make my situation sound as positive as possible, both my mother and Michael still thought I could do better in New York. They thought I was running away from my problems instead of facing them head on. But maybe the best way to face my problems was to distance myself from them? As far as possible, perhaps? Because maybe, just maybe, the life that had been set out before me wasn’t the life I was intended to live?
--
Once back at the villa I changed into my bikini and went out to the pool for a little bit of late afternoon sun to help my pretty weak tan. Madame Lepage had leant me a French novel and I was trying my hardest to pick through it, a translation dictionary beside me. While I’d done French in university I’d quickly lost it again, and now I hoped I could get it back, at least a little.
Feeling my stomach growl I pulled on my cover-up dress and wandered inside to make a light salad to eat out on the back terrace for dinner as I continued to push my way through the book. Carefully I began to prepare my meal, cutting leafy greens and pan-frying some chicken, and then I turned to grab a large mixing bowl down from the cupboard to mix everything in.
Hearing a huge crash I nearly shrieked my head off. Juggling the bowl as it fell straight down at my face, I turned to see what had caused the noise, only to be met with a shocked look and a huge suitcase tipped on its side on the floor having clearly just fallen over.
“The fuck?” we both said at the same time.
I put my hand to my heart, hoping it would slow down a bit from the shock as I stared straight at someone I hadn’t seen in almost ten years… Jake Swift.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.
“I… Um…” I started only to be stopped when I heard sputtering from the stove behind me, a burnt smell going through the villa, “Shit, hang on.” Turning quickly I tended to the chicken I was making to top my salad. It was completely burned and I had to dump the whole thing in the sink to stop it from smoking up the entire ground floor.
“You know what,” Jake said, defeated, “I’ve been traveling for eight hours. I need something to eat and a shower. Why don’t you make something new for the both of us while I go rinse off and we’ll go sit out on the terrace and you can explain to me what the hell you’re doing here.” His tone was authoritative but not overpowering. Like he didn’t quite know what to do with the situation and this was his best solution.
