“Then I won’t be.”
“All right. But it still doesn’t count.”
“I bet they have a great time, the people who work for you in your kitchen.”
“May I take that as a compliment or are you being sarcastic?”
“Watch out!” he yelled, yanking her back by the arm as she took a step out into the road. “You’re going to get run over! This is Paris, not London, you know—they drive on the other side here.”
They sat down at an outside table at Café de la Paix.
“I’m actually feeling a bit peckish,” Mia said.
Paul handed her the menu.
“Is your restaurant closed for lunch?”
“No.”
“Who’s minding the store?”
“My business partner,” said Mia, averting her gaze.
“It must come in handy, having a business partner. That would be a bit tricky in my line of work.”
“Your translator’s a sort of partner, isn’t she?”
“She can’t really write my novels for me while I go out to lunch, though. So what made you leave England for a new life in France?”
“I only had to hop across the Channel, not cross an ocean. Why did you come, with your fear of flying?”
“I asked you first.”
“Let’s call it . . . a desire to be elsewhere. To change my life.”
“Because of your ex-boyfriend? Although I assume you didn’t just get here the day before yesterday.”
“I’d rather not go into it. How about telling me why you left San Francisco?”
“After we order. I’m pretty hungry myself.”
When the waiter had left them, Paul recounted the episode that had followed the publication of his first novel, and how difficult he had found his first brush with fame.
“So becoming a celebrity sort of did you in?” Mia asked, amused.
“Well, let’s not overdo it. A writer will never be as famous as a rock star or movie star. But I wasn’t playing a role—I really did pour my guts into that book, metaphorically speaking. And I’m almost pathologically shy. When I was in high school, I used to shower with my underwear on. How’s that for shy?”
“Fame doesn’t last, though,” Mia pointed out. “Your picture is on the front page of the newspaper one day, and the next they use that same paper to wrap fish and chips.”
“Do you serve fish and chips at your restaurant?”
“It’s back in fashion, believe it or not,” she replied with a smile. “Thanks, by the way—now I’m craving some!”
“You homesick?”
“More like . . . lovesick.”
“Wow. He hurt you that badly, huh?”
