Page 77 of From Notting Hill with Love…Actually
“Well, all right,” Sean said, still looking uncertain. “You’d better take this, though.” He held out the map. “You won’t get lost, will you?”
“Sean, I said I’ll be fine. Now just go, please,” I said, taking the map from him.
“Right, I guess I’ll see you later.”
I nodded and watched him while he walked back toward the Metro. It seemed odd to be on my own again. Sean and I had spent so much time together recently that not having him by my side now suddenly felt very strange indeed.
***
Before I descended to the Metro myself, I couldn’t help but pause outside one of the inviting chocolate shops that lined the Champs-Elysées.
They were like nothing I’d ever seen before. The window displays showed chocolate in every flavor and form you could think of, from truffles to marzipan flowers, pralines to ganaches and chocolate sculptures. It was a chocoholic’s paradise.
I allowed my gaze to wander from the window display to the inside of the shop, and it was there that my eyes stopped dead in their tracks and remained on something more gorgeous and more delicious than any Parisian chocolate shop could ever hope to contain: a certain Mr. Johnny Depp buying an expensive-looking box of chocolates.
As I stood staring at him through the window I knew I was probably drooling, but I couldn’t help it—it was Johnny Depp in there, just a few meters away from me, and if that wasn’t enough, he was buying chocolate! I watched while he paid for his purchase and then to my horror I realized he was now walking in my direction as he made his way toward the exit of the shop.
“Ahoy there!” I called as he stepped out onto the pavement.
OhmyGod, what the hell was I saying?
He turned around.
He was just as gorgeous in real life as on the screen. I could feel my knees begin to buckle as his dark-chocolate eyes looked around him.
“Just kids having a joke, I think.” I looked over my shoulder, pretending to spot someone who might be responsible for that ridiculous outburst. I smiled and to my surprise he gave me a half-smile back.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, his voice sounding as sweet to my ears as all the chocolate in the shop would have been to my tongue. “But it’s usually in French over here.”
“So…you’re buying chocolate,” I said as he turned away from me, apparently about to continue down the road.
He paused and turned back. “Er, yes. I do that sometimes. You should go in—he’s one of the best chocolatiers in Paris.” Ithink he thought perhaps he’d get rid of me that way, but still I didn’t take the hint.
“It’s just it seems funny seeing you buying chocolate in a chocolate shop, with you being in that film—you know the one…Chocolat?”
Quizzically, Johnny raised one eyebrow at me, and I nearly passed out right there on the Champs-Elysées. “Er, yes, I do remember it.”
“And…and then of course you were also Willy Wonka so there’s a chocolate link there too.”
OhmyGod, shut up, Scarlett. What on earth are you saying now?
Johnny smiled at me again.
Well, it was more like a grin this time.
OK, he was laughing at me.
“Yes, indeed there is,” he said, his face becoming serious now. “I’d never really thought about it like that. But the thing is I’ve also played the creator of Peter Pan and I can’treallyfly. An astronaut but I’ve never been into space. A man with scissors for hands and a murdering barber, yet I can’t cut hair and I’ve never killed anyone. Oh, and as you so kindly pointed out a few minutes ago, a pirate, but do you know something?”
He walked back along the pavement, then, standing right next to me, he leaned in, his face close to mine.
“You’ve never been to sea?” I whispered, almost unable to speak. He was so close I could smell the aftershave delicately wafting from his oh-so-perfect skin.DavidissogettingsomeofthatforValentine’s Day, I thought, wondering if it would be rude of me to ask what brand it was.
“You got it. However,” he said, now whispering into my ear, “when I played Don Juan, the greatest lover in the world…”
He stood up in front of me now and winked. And while he’d managed to render me speechless for a few seconds, he took his chance and bounded off down the Champs-Elysées as fast as his seafaring legs would carry him.
***
