Blame It on Paris. Jennifer Greene
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been eating her up.
A few moments later, he wrapped her hands around a glass of wine. A Syrah from the Rhone Valley, red as a ruby in the fading daylight.
She took a sip without looking, likely without tasting.
The boat had just started moving, the buzz of Paris traffic and tourists fading away. The other cruisers fell silent, too. No one could seem to help it on these Seine riverboats, even the Parisians. Paris really was the city of lights…and as dusk fell and the monuments lit up, so did all the ancient bridges. Those diamonds of light glittered in the Seine.
They passed the Musée d’Art, but all the good stuff was a distance away yet. The guide would do his tourist thing, identify the Jardin des Tuileries and the Louvre and all the usual great historical stuff…but that was later. Dinner was now. Wine. The lights. The textures and sounds of Paris.
At some point he accepted being in just a wee heap of trouble. Denial wasn’t doing any good. You couldn’t pretend you weren’t in a swamp if you were knee-deep in mud. He wasn’t in mud. He was just suffering from a mighty, mighty pull toward her.
He’d get over it, he assured himself. He’d just met her, for Pete’s sake. What was the harm in an evening together? So he liked looking at her. Liked the itchy charge of chemistry. Liked those liquid brown eyes of hers. So?
Once they were seated for dinner, she did all the tourist-sucker oohing and aahing for the Tour Eiffel, Jardin des Plantes, the Louvre, Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
Notre Dame was on Île de la Cité, though. And he knew she’d get into Notre Dame because of being a South Bender. But by the time they’d passed the real Dame, he’d ordered a second bottle of wine, a Puligny-Montrachet from 2002, and they were almost finished with the fabulous flammenkueche.
“What is this dish again?” she asked.
“Well…it’s kind of a cross between a pancake and a pizza. It’s got cream and herbs and ham and cheese. You like it?”
“You’ve watched me gobbling it down and you have to ask? It’s to die for. Like nothing I’ve ever tasted before. But I think one taste of escargot is enough for me.”
“Hey, you came all the way to France. You might as well try all the French things you can.”
“True,” she murmured.
Everyone on the cruise was more dressed up than them. They’d never had a chance to change. Hell, Will hadn’t even come up with the impulsive idea to do the cruise until late in the day. But now, as they wandered back on deck—Kelly wanted a clearer view of the cathedral on shore, and God knew, they were both stuffed from dinner and needed a walk—she shivered in the sudden damp night breeze.
Her pants and thin V-necked sweater weren’t warm enough. Her throat was bare, no jewelry at all, just her skin glowing in the moonlight and distant city lights.
He didn’t put an arm around her, but he shifted closer. Close enough so their shoulders and arms touched, a way of simply offering some of his body warmth. But his heartbeat thought there was an implication because his pulse leaped like a pole vault.
Or maybe the leap was caused by the way she suddenly looked at him.
Music from the live trio playing inside drifted back to their part of the boat. He heard it, but like the buzz of other passengers’ conversation and bursts of laughter, all sounds seemed to be coming from miles away. Every nerve ending in his body focused on her.
“I can’t believe I’m really here, really seeing this.”
“You mean the real Notre Dame?”
She chuckled. “The one in South Bend is real, too. Which is funny, because we’re here, yet this is the one that seems like a fantasy. It’s all so…magical.”
The old cathedral wasn’t remotely magical, he thought, but she was. And when another spring breeze whisked at her hair and made her shiver again, she didn’t fight his arm scooping around her shoulder, nudging her closer.
He knew at that instant they would sleep together.
“You said you’d been in France around four years now? So all these monuments and museums are old to you. You’ve probably been inside Notre Dame a zillion times.”
“Museums, yeah. But Notre Dame, I’ve never been there.”
“Really? But it’s so beautiful.”
“Yeah, well, might as well get this right on the table. I’m allergic to churches. Especially Catholic churches. My dad had two career goals for me. One was to become a priest, which he must have realized was highly unlikely when he found me sleeping with the babysitter when I was fourteen. I’m pretty sure that incident set off my Recovering Catholic phase. I’m still in it.”
“Hard work, this recovery?” Humor glinted in her eyes.
“You can’t imagine. I’ve had to be really vigilant. Guilt sneaks up on you when you’re not looking. You see a nun, you get this instinct to stand up and recite catechism. You have to fight it all the time.”
“You’re so funny,” she murmured.
“Yeah, so they say.”
She cocked her chin. “I’m a rebel in a different way.”
“Yeah? What way?”
“I stayed with the Catholic fold. Have to admit that. But my senior year, I was suspended from school, almost didn’t graduate. Kind of staged a party at a friend’s house. The party got a little out of hand. Ended up with a car in the swimming pool in the backyard.”
“Uh-oh.”
“A major uh-oh. My friend was the dean’s daughter.”
Will winced on her behalf.
“Yeah,” she said. “So don’t be thinking I’m a saint.”
“Oh, no,” he assured her. “I took one look at you and thought, Now there’s a wild woman. A hard-core rebel.”
“A lot of others don’t seem to recognize it.”
“Imagine that.” A strand of hair drifted across her cheek, mesmerizing him, for no reason that he could imagine. “I attended Notre Dame, actually. The university. Since we’re confessing sins and all.”
“That’s quite a biggie.”
“It was my dad’s choice of school. Naturally. Played tight end.” He added, “That’s an offensive football position.”
“Like there could be anyone raised in South Bend who didn’t know that. Only darn, we can’t talk anymore now that I know you’re a god.”
“Not. Team didn’t do well in those years.”
“Ah. And that was all your fault?”
“Probably. I know it’s sacrilegious to admit it, but I wasn’t that into football. It was just a way to get a scholarship, so I could pay my own way.”
“A scholarship? To Notre Dame? There’s another wow. I’m impressed.”
“Good, good. No one else is, so I’m glad you are.” He still hadn’t brushed away the silky strand of hair on her cheek, but he was thinking about it nonstop. The moonlight. Her cheek. Her eyes. That strand of hair. “It was an athletic scholarship, not an academic one.”
“I get it. You don’t want to take credit for having a brain, just brawn.”
“Actually, the only thing I wanted credit for was paying my own way, however I could do it. Didn’t have to jump for anyone else’s strings that way.”
“Who was trying to pull your strings?”
“Are you always this nosy?”
“Always,” she warned him. “It’s what