Lindsey Kelk - I Heart Paris

Copyright Copyright Dedication CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER NINETEEN CHAPTER TWENTY CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Acknowledgements About the Author By the Same Author About the Publisher

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

A Paperback Original 2010

FIRST EDITION

Copyright © Lindsey Kelk 2010

Lindsey Kelk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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EBook Edition © JUNE 2010 ISBN: 9780007368679

Version: 2017-08-10

Dedication Dedication CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER NINETEEN CHAPTER TWENTY CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Acknowledgements About the Author By the Same Author About the Publisher

For Mabel, Kara, Joel and Chloe – hope you’re

not too ashamed of me when you’re old enough

to read this

Title Page I Heart Paris Lindsey Kelk

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

New York hadn’t even attempted to cool down in the three days that I’d been away. When my friend Erin had suggested we get away to her beach house for a long weekend, I almost threw myself out of her eighteenth-storey office window to get there quicker. But three days beside the seaside only made it harder to be back in the sticky city. I’d only walked two blocks to the subway and my heel had slipped into the melting, sludgy tarmac between the paving slabs three times already. Ick. It almost made me long for a wet summer Saturday in Wimbledon. Almost.

In this cloying heat, the only way I could cope was to wear as little clothing as possible whenever I had to be outside, and spend as much time worshipping at the altar of the air-conditioning unit as humanly possible. Today’s survival ensemble was pretty much nothing more than a really long pale pink vest from American Apparel and a bangle. The bangle was to show I had actually put some thought into getting dressed and hadn’t just wandered out in my underwear. Back in London, I would never, ever have left the house in something so skimpy, but it was just too hot to worry about bingo wings. When I left the house, I didn’t feel as if I’d forgotten to get dressed. Right now, I was one towelling headband away from the crazy lady that liked to sit outside the twenty-fourhour deli opposite my apartment in her dressing gown and bra.

Once I was safely on the air-conditioned train, I flailed around elegant as ever, hanging from the pole in the centre of the carriage and swapped my shoes for the ever-present flip-flops in my Marc Jacobs satchel. I thought back to the precious moment when the bag had come into my life. I had treasured it more than anything else I’d ever owned, I never put it on the floor, always checked that pens had their lids on, lip glosses weren’t leaking and there was no way on God’s green earth, I’d have ever put a pair of dirty street shoes in it. Rummaging around for my left flip-flop, I wanted to shed a little tear for the unravelled stitching and the used subway cards, crumpled napkins and dozens of half empty packs of chewing gum that now littered the lining. Classy.

Changing from the Six train onto the L at Union Square, I felt myself begin to smile. The same nervous flutter started to pick up in the pit of my stomach that always attacked me when I stepped onto the train towards Brooklyn. So, maybe there was an upside to being back in the city. Alex. Of course, I wouldn’t have the L train flutters nearly as often if I would just move in with him, like he kept asking. According to my friends, it was ridiculous that I was keeping our relationship ‘bi-coastal’. I’d spent an awful lot of the weekend trying to explain to uber-Manhattanite Erin, who didn’t even venture below 14th street unless she positively had to, that Murray Hill to Williamsburg wasn’t exactly bi-coastal. And besides, I just wasn’t sure I was ready to take that step just yet. Yes, I loved Alex, yes, I wanted to spend time with him but did that mean I should shack up with him right away? No.

After I’d shuffled off the train and hauled myself up the stairs to the street, I paused for a moment to let my eyes readjust to the sunlight. As always, Alex was propped up against the corner of Bedford and North 7th, bobbing his head to whatever was coming out of his iPod, his thick black hair pushed back off his face, messed up at the back, as though he’d just got up. Which, given that it was only one in the afternoon, I guessed he probably had. Sticky August weather or not, Alex’s wardrobe never changed. Skinny black jeans clung to his legs, his T-shirt was tight to his chest and he was sipping from a steaming cup of coffee.

I shook my head. How could he drink anything hot on a day like this? Just looking at the cup made me break out in a sweat. Just looking at Alex made the flutter in my stomach graduate into a full-body shiver. I ran my ring fingers under each eye, clearing any potential mascara smudges – not even the most waterproof of mascaras could survive ninety-five degrees of New York City heat – and pulled my sunglasses out of my handbag before I started over.