The Last Kiss: A Standalone Romance Novel (The Notting Hill Sisterhood Book 1)

by Anna Bloom

  Too late, too slow, I spin and turn away, my cheeks so hot I think that they might melt off my face.

  “Julianna?” His call is laced with total disbelief.

  I keep walking. I can’t run… because I nearly die, literally.

  Although I’m pretty close to dying with total mortification anyway.

  What the hell have I been thinking? We never made any promises to one another, we never even had anything set in stone to see one another again. The leggy blonde is his reason enough.

  This whole insane love affair is all in my head. Of course, it’s in my head.

  I shudder as he grasps his fingers onto the bare skin of my elbow. My eyes are so hot with tears I can’t see through the blur.

  “Am I dreaming?” His nose skims my cheek, his sunshine and mint filling my senses.

  I try to pull away, self-respect and all that, but he has me firmly by the arms. “Pretty sure I’m in a nightmare,” I mutter.

  His lips brush mine and my traitorous body liquifies at the touch. “Where are you running to, ma petite fleur?” And just like that he has me.

  It’s what I’ve been craving. What I’ve been living for, forcing myself on for; one more petite fleur.

  I’ve heard it now. I can leave.

  Or I can let his tongue steal into my mouth, seeking me out as I gasp into his embrace, hot tears stinging down my cheeks.

  “Why are you crying?” Henri shifts back, thumbs brushing away my overwhelm.

  “I thought... I thought... I’m sorry I came. I just… just wanted to see you.”

  Lowering his forehead, he rests it on mine. “I’m so sorry, Julianna, I hoped to come back by now. Things have been difficult.”

  I’m loosely holding onto the fact that difficult might not mean a blonde. But then he just had his tongue in my mouth. Unless that’s a French thing I haven’t been made aware of. No, they definitely do the two-kiss thing, three if they really like you. I think tongue rates above that.

  Those midnight eyes shine in the sun. “I can’t believe you are here.” He’s stepping back now, cool air scented with flowers rushing between us as he shakes his head. “This is crazy.”

  I wince and pull a face. “Do I get a stalker award?”

  “You get the best gift known to man award.” His face, which seemed shadowed with lines as I saw him walking towards me brightens, a luminosity directed straight at me like I’m the moon to his sun.

  “Bonjour?” The blonde woman: immaculate cut shift dress; hair running like honey hanging down her shoulders, steps between us. “Henri, tu as les manières d'un porc.” Her accent is lyrical like his. “You must be Julianna?” she adds in English. Sexy English too.

  “Uh, yes.” I have nothing else. I can’t hazard a guess who she is, apart from maybe my arch nemesis.

  Henri chuckles. “She just said I have the manners of a hog. She could have said it in English, but I guess she didn’t want to scare you off.”

  “Oh,” I smile up at her and instantly hate her on the spot. She has cheekbones you could ski off-piste off, long thick eyelashes, and that natural golden glow that looks like she jogs down the beachfront every day dressed only in a thong bikini.

  “Odile is a family friend.”

  She links her arm through mine, leading me away from Henri. “We were just going for lunch to discuss his dear maman.” Her English is faultless. I hate her even more.

  “Oh, no.” He grabs me back. He’s so tanned and bloody gorgeous. How have I been missing this? His hair is longer, just a fraction, enough for it to curl around his ears and wave across his forehead. The suit, cut to fit his skin, is missing. Instead, he’s wearing Henri a la Casual, a delectable and almost dreamy combination of pale-blue cotton shirt and navy chinos. On his feet are… are… leather sliders.

  Who is this man? Where’s the man mountain in the suit?

  “Sorry, Odile, but it’s been weeks since I’ve seen Julia. We will catch up with you later.”

  “What will we do?” I breathlessly whisper.

  His eyebrow arches and it stabs me down deep in my stomach how much I’ve missed it. “What we do best.”

  “Henri!” My cheeks scorch, while Odile looks on with a wide and gleeful smile and holds her hands up.

  “Well, I am not getting in the way of that,” she laughs. “I’ll head back, Henri. See you this afternoon?” She clicks her tongue and gives a small shake of her head, turning and waving over her shoulder. “If you can manage it.”

  His eyes are on me. “Honestly, I don’t know what you two think I mean. I was proposing lunch, that’s all.”

  “That’s good. We can’t go back to my hotel. The woman on reception is a dragon.”

  “You’re here?” He grabs me again and I fall against him, breathing properly in what feels like the first time in weeks.

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “I’m never going to let you leave.”

  “Well, now that makes you the stalking weirdo.” I don’t get to say anymore because his mouth is on mine, weeks’ worth of kisses raining down on me with the power of a fire storm.

  19

  Chocolate

  Our hands are merged like lovers, fingers sliding into grooves, palms pressed tight. “So, tell me about this hotel with the dragon?”

  He doesn’t ask me why I’ve come, what I’ve been doing. Days and weeks have disintegrated into dust as we’ve stepped in to being side by side. We could still be walking the path from Liv’s house after Paige’s birthday. Admittedly the weather is a damn sight better.

  An inbuilt intuition can sense his perceptive gaze as it subtly reads me, and I know he can see the changes even if he’s not mentioning them yet. I smile widely to try to make the dark shadows of exhaustion disappear from my face. Wishful thinking maybe, but worth a keen shot. “Henri, I can’t believe you live in a place as beautiful as this.” I’m still looking at the crowded buildings, the cramped streets with blasts of sunshine that hit you right in the face as you walk, turning from shade to heat in one step of footfall. Walking down these paths, Henri’s hand in mine seems on the verge of familiarity, like possibly I’ve done this before, in a different life. I can only hope that life wasn’t as tragic as this one.

  “It’s more beautiful now than it’s ever been.”

  A grin stretches my face, chasing off more of those shadows. “Oh, my goodness, look at that.” I point at the window of a patisserie. Macarons are stacked high around perfectly glazed cakes with surfaces like mirrors. My stomach gives a pitiful growl.

  “You’d like cake for lunch?”

  God, yes. I think I would. I nod eagerly and bite on my lower lip. “Would that make me an uncultured heathen, no salad first?”

  “Ma douce, Julianna. There is nothing heathen about you.” He leans in closer, breath brushing my earlobe. “Apart from maybe what you make me want to do to you in bed.”

  My body lights with the whoosh of a rocket launching for space, and he chuckles, running the tip of his finger across my cheekbone with a delicate touch and a small shake of his head. “You’re really here,” he says, his lips lowering to mine, body pressing flush into my curves causing me to tingle all over.

  “I am. I hope that’s okay.”

  Pulling back slightly, stealing the kiss away, he holds my face still. “You have no idea. No idea how much I’ve wanted to see you. Teasing telephone calls only made me more despondent.”

  “But you didn’t come though?” There’s a pathetic edge to my question. “The last time we saw one another, we…”

  “Took a step?” His eyes dance and I want to fall into their rhythm and get carried away like those girls in fairy books who follow the tune and never come back to mortal life again.

  “Yes.”

  “We did, but Maman, she’s been...” His expression darkens. “There is so much on my shoulders, Julia.” I lay my hand on his chest, willing to take the burden he carries despite not being strong enough to carry my own.

  “It�
��s okay, you don’t owe me any explanation. We didn’t make any promises.”

  With a small step he clears space between us. “Julianna, you’ve stolen my heart and you don’t even realise it.”

  My chest rises and falls with a ragged unevenness: part the act of dying, part emotional splintering.

  I’ve stolen his heart too late to enjoy it.

  But I came here to live and live I will. One week of high octane, full sensory living.

  “Henri, I…” I’m going to tell him, going to be honest, but he’s looking at me like a goddess, like I shine brighter than anything else in existence, and I can’t stand for him to see me as broken instead.

  My stomach gurgles and he laughs, tucking me into his side and pressing a kiss on my forehead.

  “You need cake, ma petite, and cake you shall have, just like Marie Antionette.”

  “Didn’t she lose her head because of the cake?” I giggle, snuggling deeper, rightfully home in this strange land with flowers and sunshine and him.

  “Maybe you’ll lose your heart.” He shrugs and my eyes meet his. Yep, it’s way too late for that. It’s been signed, sealed and effectively delivered by easyJet.

  “Close your eyes,” he demands.

  “You can’t keep doing this every time we eat. It’s embarrassing.” It’s not embarrassing, it’s sexy as hell, but a girl has to keep some pretence up to hide the fact that she needs to go back to the hotel ASAP.

  “We’re in France, this is practically pre-approved date behaviour.”

  “And we’re on a date.”

  “Belle, Juliette, every moment between us is a date of perfection.”

  Well, when he says it like that. Acquiescing, I close my eyes, popping open my mouth gently. Henri has ordered the most decadent chocolate cake and dutifully I wait for him to plant a small taste in my mouth. Obviously, I can feed myself, being a grown woman and all, but hell if this isn’t some sort of foreplay that should be passed down in folklore, from one man to another. Forget the bases, go for food porn.

  A blast of bitter chocolate hits my tongue first and I start backwards, my tastebuds almost fighting against the bitterness that I thought would be sweet. The sugar comes second from the sponge; moist and sweet, it counterbalances the dark cocoa creating a perfect marriage in my mouth.

  “Oh my god,” I mumble around the mouthful of heaven.

  “Now swallow and sip your coffee.” I crank an eye at the word swallow only to find him smirking. God, I’ve missed that slightly lopsided smirk, love that lopsided smirk.

  I swallow the cake and lift the small espresso cup to my lips, waiting for the bitter hit of the strong beans, but it doesn’t come, the sweet sponge still lingering on my tastebuds swipes it clean away.

  Lowering the cup, I meet his gaze. “That’s heaven.”

  “And watching you is sheer torture. You’re the most sensual creature I know.”

  I snort a laugh, which is not sensual in the slightest. “That’s a lovely thought but not true.”

  “You really think that?”

  “There is nothing sensual about me at all.”

  He reaches for the curve of my neck and gently brushes along the skin making me shiver. “The curve of your neck.” The fingers drift higher to my lips which he gently pops open. “The plump edge to your mouth that begs to be kissed.” Uncaring of other people sitting on the bistro style chairs at tables around us he sweeps his finger inside my mouth. “Your tongue that I’ve been fantasising about on my skin the whole time we’ve been apart.”

  “You have?” I ask as a gust of air squeezes from my lungs.

  “You, ma Julianna, are in my head, my senses, under my skin.”

  Stupid tears sting my eyes. “I thought it might just be me who felt like that.”

  Lowering his hand, he tangles his fingers with mine, making me hot and needy for tangled limbs and kisses.

  “Want to come and meet the dragon at the hotel?” I cock an eyebrow.

  “Ah, but ma petite, I don’t want you to think I just want you for your body.” God, I love that smirk.

  Picking up my fork, I shove the chocolate cake in my mouth as quickly as I can. I might want Henri, but I’m not leaving this behind under any circumstances.

  He snorts when he sees the hotel I’ve chosen, kissing me on the cheek as his arm tightly winds around my back. “What?” I exclaim, holding back my giggle. “It looked pretty in the pictures.”

  He glances at the signboard swinging from a wrought iron arm in the gentle breeze and silently arches a sardonic eyebrow, while I pull my best whatever face in response.

  The dragon watches us walk in hand in hand, lips in a tight line. I’m about to open my mouth to ask for my key when Henri launches into a volley of French which makes her argue back, shaking her head, and pointing her finger at the computer on the desk. He speaks again, words faster this time, his free hand gesticulating in circles and talking too.

  Eventually, and when I’ve started studying the patterns in the marble floor, she hands over my key and he fires off a few remaining words. Silently, we walk for the stairs. As soon as we’re out of sight, I turn. “What on earth was that about?”

  “I told her you were checking out,” he tells me with a classic Henri shrug.

  “What?” I stare at him aghast. “No wonder she’s annoyed. I’ve booked for a week.”

  Another shrug. “You don’t need to stay here when you can be with me.”

  “But your mother?”

  He shoots me a heart blistering smile. “Don’t worry about that. Anyway, I live half an hour away from the city. It will be too far to have you away from me.”

  “Henri, I don’t want to put you out.” We are outside the door to room fifteen. “I’m just on holiday, but you are working. I’ll just fit in around you, do tourist things if you’re busy.”

  “Non. Now I’m on holiday too.” With a wicked grin he opens the door to the room. “Starting right about now.”

  “Henri! Haven’t we got to get my stuff and check out?”

  He kicks the door shut. “You must have a lot of stuff to pack, no, ma petite?”

  We both glance at my sprawled suitcase on the bed. The double balcony doors are still open, the curtains fluttering softly. From outside, the shouts and chatter of provincial French life continue, but within the room a weave of magic courses around me. His breath on my skin, the power of his body stood so close to mine, humming its energy in time with mine.

  “I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you,” he whispers against my neck. “You’re all I think about, dream about. You must be a witch because the way you make me behave knows no bounds.”

  I turn, circling my arms around his neck. “The way I make you behave?”

  “I’ve been fighting my conscience. My desire to be with you at war with the responsibility I know I have.”

  “Shh.” I press my mouth to his, the bliss of surrendering to a kiss turning me soft and pliable. He really wants to be with me? The reality of that, the huge source of intensity that hits me knowing that fact, it thunders through my body.

  “I’m here now,” I whisper. “And I’m yours.”

  His lips seek mine, gentle at first but then gnawing with a hunger. His fingers wind into my ponytail pulling at the elastic and freeing my hair down my shoulders. I gasp a breath though when he pulls away.

  “Non.” His eyes are dark, drawing me in. “No more hotels. Now you’ll come home with me.”

  “I have no problem with hotels.” I start working on the buttons of his shirt. There’s nothing more I want to do than to be lost in his arms with this new version of the sun streaming through voile, and the shouts of the world below. Heaven would exist in the moment like a perfect snowflake or grain of sand, and I’d get lost in the moment too, forever scoring it into my memory for the dark days ahead.

  “Non, ma petite. I want to take you home. Show you who I am.” He grasps my fingers, pulling them away from his shirt, and I angle my best po
uty lips up to his face.

  “I know who you are, Henri Carré, man of secret cheese exploits.”

  His broad laugh sparks through my veins. “It seems I need to show you more than I thought.”

  “You don’t have to,” I mutter, always seeking a get out of jail card for either of us to use when we need.

  He chuckles against my lips: warm breath, lingering notes of coffee, chocolate, and my kisses. “I want to. I want this.”

  My kiss seals my lie. I want this too even though it’s not really mine to have, so I do what any woman would who found themselves in an embrace as perfect as this would do. I block the negative and focus on living. It’s all I can do.

  20

  Cheese Dynasties

  The wind blows my hair, streaming it like a scarf behind me. Henri’s hand is on my knee as he weaves his vintage convertible around sun-drenched roads. The fresh scents assaulting my nostrils hit me over and over: sweet flowers, evergreens, deeper more earthy scents like farms, and then a blast of salt brine from the sea, mixing with aged leather of Henri’s car. Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply, as deep as my chest will allow. Over and over, I scorch the smells into my brain. My stupid lungs won’t open enough though, my breath not deep enough.

  Damn you body.

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  “Remembering the smell.” I don’t bother to open my eyes.

  There’s a low chuckle mixed with the whip of the wind. “I can understand it smells slightly better than Fleet Street.”

  My heart sinks at the mention of work and my conversation with Rebecca. She’d been so pleased to grant my emergency request for holiday leave. Had sat through my futile attempts at training on the print run. But in my heart I knew my request for my more permanent leave would be coming.

  “What are you thinking of? Please not work, no?”

  “No.” Reopening my eyes, I find him half-watching me, half-watching the road. My fingers find his on the bare skin of my knee and I give a squeeze.