LOVE IS IN THE HEART: Verne Estate Series, Book 4

7. ROMY

My dear? Is it really… Sabrina he’s talking to?

Simon stands up and places a kiss on her lips. On her lips? He then steps aside to let her sit on the seat next to him. I’m speechless, trying to put together the elements that have occurred in the last seconds.

I’m totally in shock. I assume Sabrina is ordering something, as the waitress materialises next to us before disappearing a few seconds later. Then Sabrina smiles at me and puts her hand on Simon’s thigh.

“Did you have time to tell her the good news?”

“I was just getting started.”

He lets out a nervous chuckle.

“I guess you must be a little lost, Romy.”

No kidding…

“Are you...are you together?” I asked in a flat voice.

They exchanged a knowing look.

“I know it must sound crazy…” began Simon.

“Yes, we’re together,” Sabrina concluded.

“Since when?”

The first thing that comes to mind is the conversation I had with Sabrina a few weeks ago. She was the one who told me that I should try to talk to Simon and confess my feelings to him.

“We had already met at the bakery,” explains Simon, “but we really had time to talk at your birthday last month.”

“On my birthday,” I repeated, as if to take in the information.

Sabrina smiled at him.

“A real love at first sight,” she adds.

“Really…”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Simon interrupted me. “It’s been a while, but you see, I think I’ve reached a point in my life where I’m able to know what’s good for me. I’m no longer overwhelmed by my insecurities. And strangely, I was never a great romantic, but I now understand all those who say that when you meet true love, you know it instantly. Because nothing is more obvious to me today than the power of my feelings for Sabrina.”

They once again exchange one of those cutesy looks. Sabrina had tears in her eyes. In any case, I’ve known Simon for years and I wouldn’t have thought him capable of such a statement.

I’m about to say something. What? I’ve no idea. But once again, they don’t give me time. It’s Sabrina who continues:

“I understand that you must be surprised. Especially since you and Simon used to…”

She has trouble pronouncing the words.

“…spend time together, you might say. But I want you to know that we talked about it a lot, him and I, and I totally accept that he had a past. Especially since, if you hadn’t known him, I probably never would have met him.”

I stared at my employee. The sweet girl that I thought was innocent and that I considered my friend. She suddenly looks different to me. How did I not notice her sudden confidence, her new haircut, her more mature appearance?

“You... you advised me to confess my feelings!” I blurted as the power of betrayal washed over me. “You gave me hope! You told me…”

I can’t finish. Sabrina tilts her head to one side and looks at me like a lame puppy she would pity.”

“I was just trying to get you to have a conversation with him so that you finally understood that there was nothing to look forward to. I told Simon about it, he insisted that you didn’t feel anything for him. You were both in denial, it was my job to help you.”

She makes a little exasperated face as if this whole conversation annoys her more than anything. She has no right to do that! Not when she’s tearing my life apart, my hopes!

Simon observes us like two phenomena that he can’t quite grasp. He lets out another one of his nervous chuckles and says:

“Rom, you were never really in love with me…”

And in front of my furious gaze which must burn his face, he adds:

“Right?”

I stare at this man with whom ten minutes ago, I thought I would spend the rest of my life: his blue eyes, his fleshy mouth, his hair worthy of a shampoo commercial. How did I get here? I feel the sobs rising in my throat.

“I’m really stupid,” I said, shaking my head. “And you too.”

He looks shocked, but I don’t know if it’s because I’m belittling myself, or because of the insult directed at him.

“I’m sorry if I misled you…”

That’s too much. I raised my voice again:

“All these years you told me I couldn’t fall in love with you because of your work. You know what, Simon? These things cannot be ordered! You knew that every time you came home, I would be there waiting for you! If you really wanted me to be happy, you would have stopped me from doing that! You wouldn’t have slept with me and maintained this unhealthy relationship! But you’re selfish, Simon, you only thought of yourself!”

I feel a few eyes turn in our direction, but I don’t care.

“Romy, Simon isn’t responsible for the fact that you fell in love with him,” Sabrina said, putting her left hand on the table. “He warned you.”

And that’s where I see it. On her ring finger, the brand new sparkling solitaire. All the air seems expelled from my lungs, I’m suffocating. And this f*****g girdle that prevents me from breathing properly!

“You... Tell me it’s a joke?!”

Except that the expression on Simon’s face tells me this isn’t a joke.

“We’re engaged. I asked Sabrina to marry me, and she said yes. That’s why I wanted to see you tonight. Nobody knows yet. I wanted you to be the first to know because you are a friend to both of us.”

“We also wanted to ask you if you would agree to make the cake!”

I look at each of them as if they had grown a second head. There are dozens of reasons why the idea of this wedding is just ridiculous. But I shouted the first thing that came to mind:

“But you’ve been together for like five minutes!”

“Three weeks and four days,” Sabrina says.

“But, you don’t marry someone you’ve been with for less than a month!”

I don’t know which of the two I’m trying to convince is wrong, but the look of pity they give me ends up pissing me off.

“Romy, I know you’ve never had much luck with men, but believe me, when you meet the right person…”

“Please, spare me the rest!” I snapped at Simon.

I turn to Sabrina:

“And you... how could you not admit even once that you were seeing Simon? You let me ridicule myself…”

I can’t continue because of the knot in my throat. I feel betrayed, humiliated. I get up, I can’t stay a second longer in their presence. I need to clear my head.

“I know it’s a lot to take in all at once, but I hope that over time you’ll understand and be happy for us,” Simon said.

“So, will you agree to make the cake? No one makes Italian meringue like you,” adds Sabrina, who clings to Simon like spandex.

It was at this moment that the waitress chose to come to our table with, balanced on her tray, a colourful cocktail topped with a small parasol.

“Who was it for, the…” she begins.

I grab the glass and a second later Sabrina’s doll face is covered in a sticky pink mixture dripping onto her white cashmere cardigan. Her horrified face would look great on the cover of a Stephen King book.

“Never, never, do you hear! I won’t make you my Italian meringue recipe! It’s mine!” I shouted.

This time there’s silence in the restaurant. I take two steps toward the exit, then turn back to Simon and Sabrina, who are frozen in amazement.

“And it’s not worth showing up tomorrow at the bakery, you’re fired!”

I turned around again and realised that there isn’t a person in this room who wasn’t watching me with an expression that ranged from pity to bewilderment. I was tempted for a moment to retreat to the bathroom, but that wouldn’t help my problem. So I gather what little dignity I have left, raise my head and head for the exit, taking care not to meet anyone’s gaze. Fortunately, they all had the good idea of getting out of my way. It’s only after I’ve walked a few yards outside the restaurant that I realise my face is soaked. But even though the tears started to run down my face, it was the rain that was the main cause.

Of course, I didn’t take an umbrella with me and my coat didn’t have a hood.

The downpour intensifies, I find refuge in front of the door of a store. I watch the water wet the street, this depressing atmosphere does nothing to cheer me up. I sob. There aren't many passers-by at this hour, and the few who walk the sidewalk are in too much of a hurry to take shelter to pay me any attention.

I don’t know how long I stayed there, crying over my fate. I don’t even really know why I’m crying. Is it because of the mourning of my relationship with Simon? Of my vanished family dreams? Or simply the fact of having, once again, been rejected by a man?

After a while, my tears dry up, unlike the rain that falls harder. How am I going to get home? I’ll be soaked to the skin in less than five minutes. I took my phone out of my bag. I could call Ben. After all, he was at the Café de la Place earlier. Chances are he’s still there, or not far away. I know that he, as much as Jeremy, would hate me going home alone, at night, and even more so in the rain. But as I press the unlock button on the device, I notice that I have no more battery. There’s no way I’m going back to the restaurant to see if they’re still hanging out there!

I then think of my bakery which is only a few hundred metres from where I am. Problem: To look more chic, I ditched my purse and settled for a bag just deep enough for a pack of tissues and my bank card. Suffice to say that I didn’t bother myself with a bunch of keys which I thought I had no use for.

However, I had already entered the shop without a key. At the back of it, I have a door that opens with a keypad. All I have to do is climb the perimeter wall or the gate – something I’ve already done – and voila! So I leave my refuge for my shop. I can’t run, my pair of shoes, although of a modest height, aren’t suitable for running on wet pavement.

Once in front of the wall, I realised that it didn’t seem so high in my mind. But I’ve already done it, right? Admittedly, the last time, it wasn’t pouring rain and I was wearing a more suitable outfit, but this time I have additional motivation: I have no choice.

I put my foot closer to the wall, and my arms on top of it. I quickly find that in this way, I won’t have sufficient strength to pull myself up. I remember that the last time, I had gained a little momentum. So I back up and rush forward, throwing my arms up and... here I am clinging to the top of the wall, my bust partly lifted by it. My feet no longer touch the ground, and I try to use them to boost myself higher. But between the fact that my pumps are pointy and the surface is slippery from the rain, that doesn’t help much. I then tried to pull myself up with my arms. But I lack strength. The dozens of offers that Guillaume made to train in his gym come to mind. In a circumstance like this, I regret it bitterly.

The more I strive to climb up this wall, the more difficult it seems to me. The cold rain hammers my back, seeps into my neck, freezes my hands. But it’s my breath that’s becoming more and more difficult to control because, to make matters worse, I’m still wearing this cursed girdle that compresses my stomach! How many times must we tell women that suffering to be beautiful only attracts trouble! The proof: I risk dying of pneumonia because I failed to climb a damn wall! All because of microfiber underwear that crushes my rolls as well as my rib cage!

Here lies Romy, her obsession with a flat stomach was fatal to her.

I hope at least that I’ll serve as a lesson for future generations.

As I was on the verge of bursting into tears – but this time from fatigue and nervousness – I heard a man exclaim behind my back:

“But what are you doing there, buttocks in the air?”