Page 23 of Ice To Meet You

I picked up my phone. It lay on the top of Esmé’s desk. Had I spent some time sitting in her chair this morning?

Yes, I had. I liked to think I was keeping it warm for her. As I breathed in the faint smell of her scent, I smiled. I was a terrible liar. I just liked to exist in her orbit, plain and simple.

Antonio’s name flashed on the screen, and I picked up the call, leaning back in the chair. “Ciao, Antonio. Is everything okay?”

He huffed a breath down the line. “Apart from me not knowing where you are these days, or where your head’s at?”

“And the Oscar goes to …,” I said, shifting on the leather chair with a creak.

“I’m not joking. I feel like I’m always chasing you down. Where the hell have you been? And don’t tell me, Paris. That, I know. But I expected you on a video call yesterday at five p.m., and you didn’t show.”

Invisible fingers crept over my shoulders, skipping across my tense muscles like they were dancing a military two-step. I’d been in the gallery, staring at my boss, studying the way she gripped her bottom lip with her teeth when she concentrated.

“Sorry,” I said. That word was becoming my new catchphrase. I’d said it to Esmé, repeatedly, after my spontaneous gallery tour with Marianne Rossi a few days ago.

Now it was Antonio’s turn, and only last night I’d delivered a gushing apology to my grandfather. He called, asking me why I was missing in action. He wanted to check in with me twice a week. So far, I only called once.

“You’re always sorry, Matteo. You’re lucky I keep you around.”

I chuckled. We both knew that without me and my reputation, we’d struggle to make our venture a success.

After a long beat, he spoke again. “Is there something you’re not telling me?” His voice dipped, lifting the hair on the back of my neck. “Look, I know this gig at the old woman’s gallery is something youhaveto do, but you seem to spend an awful lot of time doing it … whatever ‘it’ is.”

At Antonio’s description of Esmé as an old woman, I closed my eyes.

I hadn’t clarified the situation. He didn’t know how beautiful she was, how maddeningly smart and sensible, or that she was anything but old.

“Hey, are you still there?”

I sighed. “Yes, I’m still here. I’m sorry. I’ve been preoccupied.”

At that moment, Claudette jumped onto the desk with a clatter of claws. The two of us had hung out most of the morning. Esmé was out meeting her friends for coffee.

Luc du Comtois and his wife had arrived that morning to prepare for his exhibition. That left me, Lola, and Maurice to hold the fort. Lola had spent most of the time on her phonewith friends and grinning at me over the top of her computer. Maurice sulked in the back somewhere as a result. He was completely in love with his co-worker.

“Preoccupied? With what? What could be more important than our business?”

I pulled a hand through my hair. How about pleasing my new boss?

“That gallery owner must have you working hard. Is she a ball breaker? A little eccentric?”

A smile played at the corner of my lips. Esmé was eccentric, alright. Now that I’d observed her for a week, I’d discovered three things about Esmé Laurent:

Number one—she was ridiculously organised. I could set my watch to her.

Number two—she was very careful about how much of her personality she allowed others to see.

And number three—outside of my actual gallery work and the plans for my business, she was all I could think about.

Seeing her every day, her formal facade fully in place, drove me crazy. I lived for those moments when our eyes would meet across the gallery and the tiniest blush of pink would hit her cheeks. Or the way she let her guard down when she thought others weren’t watching. The other morning, I’d even caught her singing as she opened her mail.

“Let’s just say I’m pretty busy.”

Silence greeted me from the other end of the line. Finally, Antonio spoke. “Is there something you’re not telling me? Are you seeing someone?”

At his question, all the moisture left my mouth. Antonio couldn’t know—shouldn’t know—the hefty crush I had on my new boss.

“I’m waiting …,” he said.

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