Twenty-One Nights in Paris: Chapter 40

Ren was exhausted and emotionally spent, the following afternoon. Only those words, from the kind doctor, had any meaning for her.

‘The merger must be announced as soon as possible and Ren’s position also clarified, were… something to happen suddenly,’ Livia said from her place propped up in bed. Ren gripped her grandmother’s hand more tightly, but said nothing.

‘I’ll work on a succession plan, but the merger will take the pressure off her in terms of decision-making. I’ve already got the solicitors drawing up the documents today and Gina and Manny are happy to move things forward quickly. At least we have the investors on side as a result of our meetings at the chalet,’ Ziggy added.

Was it wrong that she was proud of that frightening moment in the car yesterday, where she’d ripped open her grandmother’s Chanel gown and slapped on the electrodes with a confidence she’d rarely felt before? Was it wrong to feel vindicated that, if it had been the end, some of her last words to her grandmother would have been ‘I love you’?

Her grandmother hadn’t only had a heart attack. On the way to the hospital, Livia had gone into full cardiac arrest, and the defibrillator and the first aid training Ren had taken religiously since she was fifteen had kept her alive. Holding her grandmother’s frail hand in hers was so much more important to her than the investors, the merger and her place in the company.

‘Did you release another statement about the theft?’ Ren interrupted.

‘First thing this morning,’ Ziggy assured her. ‘But no one is asking about that any more.’

‘And you made it clear that the police are still searching for the culprit? That there are no suspects?’

‘Yes, exactly,’ Ziggy said in a tone that filled Ren with doubt. ‘Really, that story has been forgotten already. The break-up with Charlie is old news, too. We can move on. Your position in the business is a bigger issue – and Livia’s health, but I think I’m speaking for your grandmother when I say that sorting out succession plans will reduce her stress.’

Ren’s throat closed in fear at the thought of something happening to Grandmama. But there was another alarm bell ringing in the back of her mind, something about Ziggy’s false tone that she couldn’t un-hear. Ziggy was using her own guilt against her.

‘I’ve arranged a medical plane to return Livia to the private hospital in Surrey tomorrow. You’ll need to be here at eight, but, in the meantime, I suggest you go back to the Ritz and clean up.’

‘Ren,’ Livia said suddenly, ‘you look exhausted.’

‘I’m fine,’ she insisted.

‘You’re not. You’re still in your gown from yesterday!’

‘I didn’t want to leave you in case…’ This time, when Ren met her gaze, her grandmother looked suddenly weaker.

‘Ziggy, give us a moment,’ Livia said, some of her usual strength returning. Ziggy left reluctantly, with a deep frown. To Ren’s shock, her grandmother lifted a frail hand, stroking her fingers through Ren’s tangle of ginger hair in a halting gesture of affection. ‘He was right, wasn’t he?’ she said, her usual curtness unable to disguise the enormity of what she was saying. ‘About you? God knows he was right about a lot of things.’

Ren was speechless, watching her indomitable grandmother’s expression crumble. ‘Don’t get upset, Grandmama. I’m here and I’ll stay with you.’

‘Humph,’ she said with her accustomed sneer. ‘An Asquith-Lewis doesn’t roll over so easily.’

‘What?’

‘I always thought it was a weakness. You cared about . I was afraid you’d go through life being hurt, over and over and I… I know I haven’t expressed myself very well, but you were the reason I’ve kept going all of these years. I’m not… sentimental, but I love you, in my way.’

‘I think I knew that, deep down.’

‘And now that you know the consequences of my poor choices twenty years ago? After everything I did to you, you can still believe it?’

‘I can believe it.’ It wasn’t even difficult.

‘I should have trusted in you, and I owe you an apology and an explanation. I thought I was invulnerable and… I’m not. When they brought you home, it… destroyed me and I realised what my stubbornness had cost you. I should have reacted differently, but I was terrified of the consequences for the company, for our family.

‘I want to provide a lifestyle for you that equals the luxury I’ve enjoyed, but not only that. I do want you to be happy. I just haven’t always been certain how to do that.’ She glanced away. ‘I see, now, that I passed on my anxieties to you. I thought I was doing the right thing. I can only… hope to do a better job for whatever time we have left.’

Ren clutched Livia’s hand, careful of the cannula still strapped in place. ‘This honesty is all I ever wanted, and we’ll have time. I won’t lose you yet.’

‘So… tender. That’s the word he used, isn’t it? He’s… a fascinating man. I’m not surprised he fell in love with you so quickly.’

‘It… we never quite got that far,’ she muttered. ‘But this is quite a turnaround. Ziggy convinced you he was a thief.’

‘Yes, well… perhaps I need to examine Ziggy’s position in the new company after the merger. You were right, I made myself far too easy to manipulate. But whatever she is planning, nothing will be agreed unless you are happy with it. And I don’t mean you will be in charge of the business. I mean if you want to step back, if you want to be a silent investor, it will be done. If you want to set up a charitable foundation, I will be your first donor. I have failed you for too many years and it shouldn’t have taken a heart attack for me to realise it, darling.’

Tears poured down Ren’s cheeks, making Livia humph again, but the familiar reaction didn’t make Ren feel chastened. It made her smile fondly at the grandmother who had been the only fixture in her life, who had made mistakes, but was willing to mend things.

‘Thank you,’ she said softly.

‘It is only what you deserve.’

‘Love isn’t about what you deserve.’

‘Which is fortunate for me, after everything I’ve done. Will it help if I… apologise to him?’

‘I don’t know. You got him investigated by the police and called a thief in the press.’

‘If he’s put off by a few inconveniences, then he doesn’t deserve you, anyway.’ Livia lifted her chin.

‘A few inconveniences? You were quite clear that you would never approve of him for me.’

‘Yes, well… we are all wrong on occasion. Now go and get some rest. I hate to see you looking so dishevelled. Oh, and I expect to take that flight tomorrow morning alone with the doctors. You have business to attend to.’

‘Business?’

‘Yes,’ Livia said with her usual steely tone. In terse sentences, she outlined her instructions and dismissed Ren with a simple turn of her head. Then she closed her eyes – to rest or feign resting, Ren couldn’t tell. Ren couldn’t help watching her for a moment, basking in the power of the words they’d exchanged and the hope she held for the future of her relationship with her grandmother.

‘Stop looking at me with that sappy stare,’ Livia snapped, and Ren grinned and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek.

As soon as she was out in the corridor, she rummaged in her bag for her phone. She’d plugged it in occasionally, discouraged each time to find that Sacha hadn’t called again, even though she had told him call.

She was surprised the phone screen lit up without needing another quick charge. But when she peered at the device through her tired and scratchy eyes, her confusion grew. Was that a different swirl of colour in the background?

She tapped her code and it worked, but she was sure the phone was slimmer. She opened a social media app with trepidation and when her own account appeared – the account that the marketing team from Asquith-Lewis also curated – her stomach dropped. Ziggy had swapped her phone.

‘I asked the team to restore it from your cloud back-up. All back to normal,’ Ren heard in her ear and whirled to find the woman herself heading back into Grandmama’s room. ‘That cheap thing you’d bought wasn’t worth the lithium in the battery, so I sent it for recycling this morning. The sooner you can get back on Instagram, the better for all of us.’

Not all of us.

‘Did you at least copy my contacts?’

‘Why? Which contacts could you have that weren’t backed up from your old phone?’

Ren swallowed her reaction with difficulty, but Ziggy didn’t matter any more. She’d only ever made decisions with herself in mind anyway. Losing Sacha’s number wouldn’t stop her.

An Asquith-Lewis didn’t roll over so easily.

‘Et alors? Her phone’s been off every time I’ve called.’

‘Wasn’t she supposed to call you?’ Malou’s voice on the phone was infuriatingly reasonable. Just as Nadia’s smile was infuriatingly amused. She’d even brought Joseph and Raph to witness his utter inability to do anything useful until he’d seen Ren.

They’d all spent St Stephen’s day encamped in his living room, alternately demanding drinks, complaining of boredom and reading a few pages of the books. Aside from escaping briefly to free his bike from police custody, he’d done little but pace since he’d woken up that morning.

‘It’s been nearly a whole day,’ he grumbled to Malou.

An amused snort sounded down the phone. ‘

day. You can wait a bit longer for her, can’t you?’

‘Yes, but what if she needs me?’

‘Not you, too? Everyone underestimates Ren.’

‘You’re right,’ he admitted. ‘It’s not her I’m worried about. It’s me. What if she doesn’t want to call me? I’ve read the news. She’s expected to assume more responsibility in the company.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about that.’

‘That’s easy for you to say. I didn’t tell her I love her!’ he blurted out. He was an imbecile who hadn’t recognised the best thing in his life until it was possibly too late and was now blabbing the truth to everyone the woman in question.

Nadia guffawed into her beer and Joseph was watching him with the same glint in his eye that he’d had the first time Sacha had drunk wine with dinner at eighteen and got a little too happy.

‘Écoute, I have very little doubt that she’ll contact you when she can, but if you’re that worked up, then I’ll call my manager. He might know more.’

‘Merci bien, Malou,’ he said, his voice rough.

‘It’s no problem. But I expect to be the godmother of your children.’

He spluttered some kind of reply, pretending he wasn’t imagining for the first time a future opening up before him where he and Ren could be the happiest parents on the planet. But he didn’t even care if children weren’t in their future, he was just fixated on turning his nose up at fate and making this the love story of a lifetime.

A gruelling half-hour later, Malou finally called back, and her tone immediately alarmed him. ‘All I found out is that Livia is being transported back to the UK tomorrow morning. You’re right, Ren’s phone is off. I don’t understand. Perhaps she’ll call tonight?’

He glanced out the window at the gathering dusk. ‘I can’t take the risk. Is she at the hospital now?’

‘Either there or at the Ritz, I think. Ziggy is staying at the Ritz and I hope Ren hasn’t been losing sleep at the hospital.’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’

‘You start at the Ritz and I’ll try to find out which hospital Livia is in.’

Barely stopping to mumble a farewell to his family, Sacha ripped his coat off the hook and ran for the stairs. Halfway down, he remembered his helmet and bounded back up to grab it. Memories flooded him as he unlocked his bike in the courtyard and pushed it through the doors into the damp evening.

Three weeks ago, almost to the hour, he’d done exactly the same thing, never expecting he’d be knocked down on the cycle path and his life would change.

He pedalled hard, flicking his lamp on when it grew darker. He hurtled along the boulevards, weaving between delivery cyclists and commuters, pushing miserably through the sleet. He burst out onto the Place Vendôme and came to a skidding stop in front of the Ritz, to the disapproving gaze of the doorman. Sacha glanced frantically up at the windows of the grand hotel, wondering if she was in the same room.

The doorman informed him in no uncertain terms that he was not allowed to lock his bicycle in front of the hotel. He nearly did it anyway, but he caught sight of a familiar black Mercedes slowly making its way around the square on the other side. Could it be…?

He threw his leg back over the saddle and took off after it. A glimpse of a red-headed passenger in the back made his heart leap. But where was she going?

The Mercedes accelerated away, but the pattern of straight boulevards and the usual Paris traffic allowed him to keep it in sight. He had a moment of panic outside the Opéra Garnier, searching for the black roof amidst a sea of slowly moving cars while also ensuring none of those cars ran him over, but he was fairly sure he caught sight of them skirting the opera house and heading north.

Pedalling along the cycle path of the Rue La Fayette, he suddenly realised they were headed for the Gare du Nord. She was leaving? Without saying goodbye?

He pushed himself to pedal faster, sweat breaking out on his forehead. He wasn’t too late yet. The sleet caught him in the eyes and his fingers were freezing inside his gloves, but he stared desperately ahead at the car and kept going. Skidding around a frozen puddle, he nearly took out a pedestrian and had to put his feet down and apologise.

The glittering lights reflected off the footpath and the headlights of the cars blinded him. He’d followed them nearly to the end of the long street and the train station was just ahead. At the intersection with the Boulevard de Magenta, he couldn’t stop himself glancing to the right, his eyes searching for the place it had all started.

That moment of inattention was all it took.

A guy on a delivery bike cut in front of him and Sacha swerved to avoid the enormous box of pizza on the back. But he lurched straight into a turning car and, with a twisted sense of déjà vu, his front wheel bounced off the door and the asphalt raced up to meet him.