So Now You're Back Read Online Free PDF Page B

discussing anything in Paris. Quite apart from the symbolism of her having to come to him, she hadn’t wanted to meet him on his home turf, in an alien city, where she didn’t speak the language. But after the limited communications he’d been prepared to make with Jamie, she’d been faced with the stark choice of either getting into a protracted email negotiation with the man himself or caving in quickly so she could get this farce over with before she developed a new ulcer.
    In other words, she’d had no choice at all.
    That the success of this visit was by no means assured, despite her being forced to give far too much ground already, made the wad of anger and anxiety wedged in her throat only that much harder to swallow.
    Nudging and jostling her way through the sea of arrogantly self-possessed Parisians and foolhardy tourists blocking her exit, she finally found what she assumed was the taxi rank. Although it was hard to tell. Unlike the orderly queue you would find at any main-line London station, here there just seemed to be an extension of the melee inside,with people pushing and shoving as the sound of horns and car engines filled the air in a seething mass of harassed, pissed-off humanity.
    Ignoring the rank, she picked her way across the cobblestoned street in the kitten heels her stylist, Rene, had suggested pairing with a caramel-coloured power suit, after a panicked consultation the night before. As she’d worn the two-thousand-pound designer suit while negotiating her last TV contract, it supplied the dual karma of making her feel both in control and lucky. But Rene had bolstered her confidence still further by pointing out the combo of pencil skirt, loosely tailored jacket and silk blouse made a fashion statement of kick-ass insouciance.
    You are a lean, mean kick-ass machine. Not the girl he abandoned.
    Repeating the mantra went some way to quelling the rioting lava as she reached the main boulevard. She squeezed her eyes shut and thrust out her hand, hoping none of the vehicles barrelling past lopped off her arm. A squeal of skidding rubber had her prising open an eyelid, to find a cab stopped inches from her toes.
    â€˜Bonjour, monsieur,’
she addressed the wiry man in the driver’s seat.
    The cabbie gave a curt nod.
‘Bon matin,’
he corrected.
    Pulling her iPhone out of her coat pocket, she tapped the calendar app, even though she’d memorised the location during the two-hour train journey from London, and read aloud.
‘Le Café Hugo, á la Place des Vosges, s’il vous plait?’
    The driver grunted, nodded, then flicked his head in a surly gesture, which she took to be the Gallic cabbie’s equivalent of ‘Hop in, luv.’
    As they bounced down the street, then swerved into thesnarl of rush-hour traffic, she rehearsed the speech she’d been working on since yesterday.
    She might be famous for her warm, witty, friendly ad-libs to camera on
The Best of Everything,
but she had decided that adhering strictly to the script on this occasion was absolutely imperative.
    There was going to be nothing warm, or witty, or friendly about this meeting. She would be businesslike and direct and completely devoid of emotion. She would present Luke with exactly how much she was prepared to offer to make this problem go away, and that would be the end of it. Because she’d come to the conclusion that’s exactly what this so-called book deal was really all about.
    A barefaced attempt to hold her to ransom.
    She’d asked her literary agent to make some discreet enquiries with his contacts in New York and it transpired there had been no deal signed as yet—just as Jamie had suspected.
    Halle had forced herself not to overreact about this final betrayal. She was a wealthy woman. Why on earth should she be surprised that an opportunist like Luke would eventually seize the chance to hose her for some cash? As long as Lizzie never found out