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21 " But also, I watch. I see everything. And it gives me a strange kind of power, even if I’m the only one who’s aware of it. "
― Lucy Foley , The Paris Apartment
22 " Crazy to think there was a heatwave only a few weeks ago. I need a proper coat. But there’s always been a lot of things I need that I’m never going to get. "
23 " The lights are on in the concierge’s cabin. Of course: that nosey old bitch never misses a trick. Creeping out from shadowy corners. Always watching, always there. Looking at you like she knows all your secrets. "
24 " I’m pacing the apartment. Wondering: are the rest of them still up there, in the penthouse, drinking wine? Laughing at my stupidity? "
25 " That’s her fucking wine you’re pouring,’ he muttered, under his breath. My mother’s was an old family: old blood, old wine from a grand estate: Château Blondin-Lavigne. The cellar with its thousands of bottles was part of her inheritance, left to my father on her death. And since her death, my brother, who has never forgiven her for leaving us, has been working his way through as many of them as possible. "
26 " That ridiculous place meaning: Cambridge, one of the top universities in the world. But the great Jacques Meunier hadn’t needed a college education, and look where he’d got himself. A self-made man. "
27 " Papa and your English pal. Thick as thieves, aren’t they? You know it would be just like him, right? Disinherit us and leave it all to some random fucking stranger? "
28 " Not a thirty-something loser forced back to his father’s house because he lost the shirt off his back. "
29 " I don’t like strangers. I don’t like change. Change has always been dangerous for me. "
30 " was part of that connection between us, the one I’d felt since the first time I saw him. We were both outsiders. "
31 " This was it, I knew it. This was why I’d waited so long. I was different to Camille. I couldn’t just screw around with random guys. It had to be something real. Un grand amour. I had thought I’d been in love before. "
32 " He laughed. ‘She could eye-fuck a statue. And it was convenient for me to be able to distract your husband from the fact that I was lusting after his wife. "
33 " Partly because I like the whole minimal aesthetic. Partly because I still feel like I haven’t really moved in, because I like the idea that I could up and leave at any moment. "
34 " As I revealed the lingerie that had been bought at great expense but hardly ever seen by eyes other than my own. Revealed my body, denied so much pleasure, kept and kempt for a man who barely glanced at it. "
35 " Let’s just say I’ve had my share of run-ins. And even though he had it coming, what I did to that arsehole is, I suppose, technically still a crime. Right now I don’t want to put myself on their radar unless I absolutely have to. "
36 " A strange feeling, knowing they can see me but I can't see them properly "
37 " watched as Nick’s friend plucked a sprig of rosemary from one of the bushes, tearing hard to wrench it free. How he crushed it to his nose, inhaled. There was something presumptuous about the gesture. It felt like an act of vandalism. "
38 " Look. Can anyone say they’ve really never wished their family were less embarrassing, or different in some way? That they’ve never wondered what it might be like to be free of all those familial hang-ups? That baggage. "
39 " How none of Ben’s neighbours seem prepared to give me the time of day – more than that, seem actively hostile. How it just feels like something here is wrong. "
40 " The wealthy husbands with their cinq-à-sept affairs, the grand apartments and white, shuttered holiday homes on the Île de Ré. Born here, bred here, from old French money – or at least so they would like you to believe. "