I knew from Jake’s reaction that this Madame Gerard woman was someone important, but as he explained to me that she was from a family of keen property developers who owned resorts around the world I began to feel a bit queasy thinking about the pickle we were in. If she figured things out, she might reveal them to the whole town and have both Jake and I kicked to the curb.
“Just, please keep a low profile,” Jake said, “Or I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Course,” I said, a bit defeated by everything. I loved the perfumerie and everything about it, and now I was finding out I had to stay as far away as possible or risk disaster? It was going to be a rough rest of the summer in Eze…
By this point we’d finished off the wine and I could feel exhaustion coming over me. I really needed to turn in for the night and then think all of this through. I wanted to stay, but I was starting to think it was best that I go and find myself somewhere else.
“I saw you took over the master bedroom,” Jake said as I grabbed the plates to take inside.
“I couldn’t resist the balcony.”
“I know.”
I smiled faintly at him, putting the plates in the sink to clean the next morning.
“You don’t mind do you?” I asked.
“It’s fine,” he said, “If all goes according to plan I’ll only be here for a few days and this whole deal will be sorted.”
“Oh, right,” I replied, trying to hide a frown. I didn’t want to see the perfumerie go that fast!
“I’m going to bed then, night Lauren.”
“Night,” I said.
I watched as he turned to head upstairs and then stopped, looking back towards me, “It’s good to see you again,” he added.
“You too,” I smiled.
I filled a glass with water and then headed upstairs myself, my head a total mess. I’d always sort of thought if I ran into Jake again it would devolve into a huge argument, but really things had gone well between us. We’d got on like we’d never parted.
What made me feel uneasy was that it had been so simple. There was no attempt to revive the spark we had or any overtly sexual interaction. In fact, it didn’t feel like we’d ever been a thing in the first place, we were just two adults talking. And for whatever reason, deep down, I didn’t like that. I wanted this guy who’d been so important to me to miss me. To want to fight to get me back. But he just wanted me to stay out of his way, not caring that I was encroaching on his space at the villa.
Of course this was all ridiculous, it was just hard to stomach that he could move on. I mean I definitely had. I was engaged to someone else and hadn’t spoken to Jake in almost ten years. But there was just this pride, and the fact that he was my first love, that made it hard to come to terms with the fact that he was so not interested in me any longer. I guess first loves are the hardest to truly let go.
Damn.
I was restless that night, trying to force myself to sleep even though I had a lot on my mind. I wasn’t even sure what I was thinking about, it was more just that so much had changed over the last ten years and in my heart I’d wanted everything to be as it had been on my first gap year. But it was never going to be that way again. I’d grown up.
--
The next morning I woke up and pulled on my bikini again. Jake had told me to stay away from the perfumerie so I figured I’d tend to the gardens at the villa and then lay out by the pool. At least it would keep me occupied and I could work on my tan a bit. Maybe I’d even venture into Nice in the afternoon for a bit of shopping and wandering around?
