The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan Read Free Book Online Page A

spring evening. Claire, looking behind from the back window of the taxi cab, glimpsed the huge French windows of the apartment, flung open to the night, exuding a glow and the noise of music and chatter and cigar smoke drifting upward into the hazy night.

D ad never came up to my room, not since I was about twelve or so. It was my sanctum, my escape from the boys. Also, he just isn’t the kind of dad that goes in for long chats. He’s the kind of dad that makes really awful jokes to your friends and makes sure your bike chain is oiled up and gets a bit pink in the face at Christmas and doesn’t remove his party hat all day. I doubt he’s said “I love you” in his entire life, not even to Mum. I know he does, though, so it totally doesn’t matter. He also spends his life calling the boys buggers, but I knew he was proud of me when I got promoted at Braders.
    Anyway, my mum had been rabbiting on about what I was going to do and what I was up to and what my future was going to be, and even hearing it was so exhausting—I’d lost two toes. I wasn’t paralyzed or in a wheelchair; I didn’t even qualify for a blue parking badge for my dad’s car (much to Mum’s evident disappointment, seriously).
    Then Mum read something in one of her magazines and decided I was “depressed” and started muttering about seeing someone and that was annoying too, because depression is a horrid illness that people get and not a way to describe feeling a bit sad when you’ve lost a bit of you off the end, which, in my opinion, is a totally natural way of thinking and doesn’t need to be talked through: “I’m sad because I’ve had my toes chopped off.” “Oh yes, quite right, that’ll be sixty pounds please.” Or, heaven forbid, put me on drugs or something. But then again, I couldn’t deny that I didn’t really feel myself. Have you ever had a really bad hangover that’s gone into a second day? Well, it was like that second day. I just couldn’t summon up the energy to do the million and one things I knew I needed to do. There were just so many things.
    Dad knocked quietly, which was interesting, as Mum never knocks and the boys never drop by, just holler from the bottom of the stairs.
    â€œHello, love,” he said, proffering me a cup of tea. I wouldn’t say we were a really old-fashioned family, but one thing was for sure: Dad never made the tea.
    â€œDid you make this?” I said, eyeing it suspiciously.
    â€œYes,” said my dad quickly. “Two sugars?”
    He must have asked Mum.
    â€œCan I come in?”
    â€œIt’s your house,” I said, surprised. He looked nervous. Worse than that, before he sat down, he carefully removed two wrapped chocolate cookies from his pocket. I looked up at him.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?”
    â€œNothing’s wrong.”
    â€œSomething’s wrong, if it needs a chocolate cookie. Tell me, quickly.”
    My dad shook his head. “I just thought you’d like a chocolate cookie.”
    I just stared at him, unconvinced.
    â€œListen,” he said. “I got a call from your teacher friend…”
    â€œShe’s not my teacher anymore,” I said.
    â€œSounds like she’s been teaching you a few things,” he said, sitting at my white vanity unit. He looked strange there. The back of his head reflected in the mirror; he was getting really bald back there.
    I shrugged.
    â€œJust something to do, you know.”
    He glanced on my bed, where there were several French books Claire had lent me that I’d been puzzling through with the help of a massive dictionary. It was a slow, boring business, but light was beginning to dawn.
    â€œWell,” he said, “she says she’s offered you a job.”
    I shook my head. “She hasn’t really. She just knows someone…or she used to know him. It was ages ago. She reckons I might