Rosa Temple - Playing Her Cards Right

I was looking forward to Paris but secretly wishing I could combine the trip with a romantic getaway for me and Anthony. It was too perfect that I was going to be in the city of love for two days and not take advantage of it. But when I put the idea to Anthony he’d said no. He had his painting.

‘You’ll have meetings, anyway,’ he’d said. ‘But my residency finishes in spring. How about a week away then?’

‘That would be wonderful,’ I’d said dreamy-eyed.

I’d keep the trip all business and I’d have a lovely romantic trip to look forward to with Anthony.

‘I turned off the sauce.’ Anthony was in the doorway of our bedroom. ‘It was bubbling over.’

‘Shall I put on the pasta?’ I looked up at him as I closed the phone.

‘Not yet.’ Anthony pulled my case off the bed, laying it on the floor. He took the scrunchie from his hair, wavy locks curtaining the sides of his face. He gave me a cheeky grin before slipping his T-shirt off over his head and tossing it to one side, and then pulling me onto him on the bed.

‘Glad to see you’ve stopped growling at me for five minutes,’ I said.

‘Five minutes? I think I can do better than that.’

I was going to miss Anthony for the next few days but I’d told myself that a Paris with Anthony in it would be a fabulous thing to look forward to.

When I saw the rain pouring down as we landed at Orly airport, and how grey and miserable the sky was, I was happy the trip was solely for business. The flight had been slightly delayed and I’d sat next to someone who kept slapping his lips every time he sipped coffee, which seemed to be non-stop. Of course, my case was the last one off the conveyor when I was desperate to get to my hotel and relax for the evening.

Finally, coming out of customs, I shrugged, heaped my man bag up onto my shoulder, and searched the last few people waiting at arrivals for my driver.

I saw my name written on a small piece of card and looked up at the face of the person holding it. It was a woman in her thirties with shiny, chestnut-coloured hair and liquid liner ticks at the sides of her eyes.

‘I’m Magenta Bright,’ I said, smiling.

She didn’t smile back. ‘And so we go,’ she said and marched towards the exit.

Hopping along after her and trying to lug my suitcase higher to stop it banging on my knees, I exited the airport. I followed my driver’s military march to the short-stay car park.

‘Boot?’ she said.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You are sorry? Sorry for what?’ she replied.

‘I mean, I’m sorry. What did you say?’

She patted the boot of the car. The expression on her face told me I was acting like an absolute imbecile.

‘Oh, yes,’ I spluttered. ‘Suitcase in the boot. Got you. Yes, please.’

She clicked the remote central locking on the key fob, grabbed my case from me, and dumped it into the boot of the car before stomping quickly round to the driver’s side. She bobbed her head at the rear door and I obediently jumped in.

I heard skidding, the beep of a car horn beside our car, and then my ears went blocked. My driver had zoomed off, going from zero to eighty miles per hour at warp speed, screeching to a halt at the exit barrier and then racing out of the car park onto a roundabout. I was pinned to the back seat. The landscape surrounding Orly airport went by in a flash. Parisian suburbia crashed past the window in a blur, my cheeks flapping with the sheer velocity, and I wished I had a religion. Only prayer could stop us crashing. We hurtled towards the southern Arrondissements of Paris. I began to pray to every god I knew to deliver me to heaven if I didn’t make it out of the car alive.

I couldn’t really be sure how quickly we got to the hotel. I’d closed my eyes and had tried to block everything out. All I knew was that my driver hit the brakes and I was flung forward into the back of the seat in front of me and thrown back again so that my neck whipped half off my neck with a crack. I nodded several times, involuntarily, before my head rocked back into place. I rubbed the back of my neck, picking my man bag up off the floor.

‘Boot,’ she declared and leapt out.

This time she opened the door for me to get out. I tried to catch her eye as I tentatively stepped onto the forecourt outside my hotel, hoping I could at least give her a dirty look. As I tried to straighten my coat and adjust my bag over my shoulder I noticed she was smiling as she got out my suitcase. Well her teeth were showing – she could have been in pain.

‘Enjoy your hotel,’ she said. She held up my suitcase. I took it and she dropped the weight of it into my hand so that I toppled forward.

‘Er,’ I stuttered. ‘You’ll be here at nine tomorrow morning?’ I had a breakfast meeting with my first designer.

‘For sure,’ she said.

In my heart of hearts I wished she’d said: There’s been a big mistake and I should have picked up the other Magenta Bright. Your proper driver will be here in the morning. But no, this Lewis Hamilton wannabe would be there the next day.

I limped to the reception and checked in. I called Riley, hoping she’d still be at the office. Maybe she could arrange a new driver in time.

‘Oh, hey, Riley,’ I said.

‘Magenta, hi, how’s your hotel?’

‘All good but I was wondering if you could sort a new driver for me.’

‘Is he no good?’

‘She. She seems like a lovely person but she must have broken every speed limit from the airport to the hotel. I’m seriously frightened for my life. Could you sort it out?’

‘Of course I will. Leave it to me.’

My fingers were crossed; in fact everything was crossed when I went to bed that night, hoping Riley could be relied on to put this right. I didn’t sleep a wink.

Chapter 6

The Bag

I showered in tepid water to try to revive myself for the impending meeting with my first women’s handbag designer. I hoped Riley had come good on the chauffeur swap and had found me someone less Sandra Bullock in Speed and a bit more Driving Miss Daisy . But my heart sank as I left the hotel and spotted the same driver from yesterday. Her eyes were bright and she looked eager. I took a deep breath.

‘Good morning,’ I said in a shaky voice. ‘I mean bonjour .’

She showed her teeth and reached for the passenger door. ‘ Bonjour. Allons-y ?’

‘Um, yes. Let’s get going.’ I hadn’t climbed in yet. ‘I didn’t get your name yesterday,’ I said to her, offering my hand. She looked surprised but gave my hand a tightly gripped shake.

‘Nadia,’ she said.

‘I wonder, Nadia, if you could drive a little slower this morning. I’m nice and early and I don’t think we’re too far from my meeting.’

‘Slower?’ Nadia’s brow was twisted into several deep lines. I could tell this didn’t compute.

‘Yes, don’t drive too fast. I’m a bit of a nervous passenger so go slower.’ I made a gesture with my hands, moving my palms slowly up and down towards the ground.

‘Drive too fast?’ she said. ‘I will.’

‘No, I mean don’t drive fast.’ I shook my head side to side. ‘No fast. Slow.’ I hated it when Brits spoke like Tarzan to foreigners but my life was at risk and I wanted to see my family again.

‘So,’ said Nadia, ‘my instruction from the boss was drive very fast; the client like the speed to be quickly, non ?’

‘ Non !’ I shook my head. And then the penny dropped. Riley. She told me she spoke fluent French. What on earth had she told the chauffeur company I needed from a driver when my instructions were I needed to be timely? I dreaded to think.

I grasped at what little French I could muster to try to make Nadia understand that I didn’t need to be anywhere at breakneck speed and that being on time was good enough.