The Paris Time Capsule Read Online Free PDF

his head.
    Cat shot him a look back, but he turned away.
    “ Yes, yes, is a confusing business. I can help you sort it. We will do that,” Monsieur Lapointe said. Then he appeared to gather himself together. “If you have any claims on Madame Jordan’s inheritance, Monsieur Archer, you need to address them to me. You will come with me now, Monsieur?”
    Loic reached out and shook Monsieur Lapointe’s hand. “If Cat and I need you, we will be in touch. I think we’ll try to work things out ourselves first, don’t you, Cat?”
    Monsieur Lapointe was almost bowing as he retreated down the footpath.
    “Well,” Loic said. “Now we go and find out what the hell my grandmother has been playing at.”
    In spite of herself, Cat let out a smile. Loic Archer did have an exquisite jawline, not that she was looking.
     
    Cat’s heels clacked on the pink marble floors in the entrance to Isabelle’s building. There was a stairway off to the right of the tall main lobby decorated with a gilt bannister. In front of them there was a lift with brass buttons.
    Cat stood beside Loic and waited for the lift to descend. The apartment, Monsieur Lapointe had told her, was number five on the second floor.
    The lift, like so many old lifts all over Europe was not in any hurry to convey them anywhere. It stopped for no reason on the first floor. Cat held the old doors open for a moment and peered out onto the landing. There was a marble floor, with four solid looking doors off it.
    Loic pressed the button again. The doors closed, and … nothing. The lift was not going to move. It was hard to know what to say to Loic at this point. Anything, Cat felt, could be insensitive right now. How he must be feeling was hard to fathom.
    Loic pressed firmly on the button that opened the doors.
    “ Okay, Cat,” he said. “We’ll use the stairs.”
    The top floor was a mirror image of the one below. There were four identical doors, two facing the rear of the building, two facing the front. Apartment 5 faced the front of the building looking over the street. Cat pulled the key out of her handbag and turned to face Loic.
    “ Are you sure?”
    The pause was too long.
    “Just coming to terms with it, Cat.”
    “ There must be another will. You might just have to look through your grandmother’s things.”
    “ No. It’s not that. Cat, if you had watched someone struggle financially all her life and yet, she had this … you know what? I need to take a walk.”
    “ Loic …” Cat said. But he was halfway down the stairs.
    Cat stood and waited until it seemed certain that Loic was not coming back.
    She held the key up to the apartment’s front door. Her phone began to ring. She stopped, key poised. Perhaps it was Loic. He had changed his mind, decided that he should be there after all when Cat opened the door to what should be part of his family’s legacy.
    But it was Christian. Christian. Just the thought of him was more comforting than anything else.
    “ Honey.”
    “ Yes?”
    “ You’ll never guess where I am!”
    “ I probably won’t.”
    “ London.”
    Cat almost dropped the key. “London?”
    “ Yes.”
    “ Christian …”
    “ Thought I may as well come over for some meetings the bank wanted me to attend. I’ll be in Paris tomorrow night. Spend the weekend with you.”
    “ Oh! Oh, that’s fantastic.” Cat walked back up and down the corridor. He was coming to Paris too. Excellent. Well, that was a good thing, wasn’t it? “Right, excellent.”
    “ I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    “ Christian, I didn’t get a chance to tell you in New York. It was your parents’ anniversary, and everything. It was sudden, and I … I just … I’m actually in Paris because of a family thing. It’s complicated. Do you really want … I mean, it’s a bit confusing, not really your sort of thing …”
    “ So, you’re doing that as well as your work, honey?”
    “ Well, theoretically, I suppose I am.” Cat made a face. She had taken