“Yeah. People see my mom in me, but everyone else has the Blackthorne look.”
“Weird how genetics works,” Mia mused. Then she flashed him a smile as she returned the phone. “We’d call you a duck with the swans if you weren’t already so handsome yourself.”
“In any case,” he said, ignoring her compliment to indicate the sketch. “You’re very talented.”
“Does that mean you want me to draw you?”
“Hell, no,” he said, the denial automatic. “You’re too good. I don’t want to see myself through your eyes.” But then he hesitated, because damn, he had to admit that image she’d drawn of his father—essentially him, thirty years forward, including briefcase and phone—had unsettled him.
A familiar headache was already throbbing at his temples.
Perhaps she heard the hesitation in his voice or sensed his disquiet. “Give me a chance,” she cajoled, flipping the page of the sketchbook. “I may surprise you.”
He surprised himself by nodding.
As her hand began to move again, he exchanged his phone for the box of cards. He took them out and began overhand shuffling them, busying himself while she worked.
The movement soothing, he continued with it, his gaze lifting to the magnificent view. Paris, as he’d never seen it, despite the times he’d been to the Blackthorne international offices in the 8th arrondissement. All business offices felt the same even if they didn’t look the same and had better coffee and pastries, he decided. What other parts of the world had he never really, truly seen or appreciated in all his travel for Blackthorne Enterprises that had taken him from the American South to Scotland to Singapore?
More than that, how many years had it been since the family place in King Harbor, Maine, had lost its enchanted kingdom status in his eyes? When was the last time he’d sat down at the property and just…looked at the view of the Atlantic Ocean and lived in the moment, being grateful for all he’d been given through the luck of fate and blood? No wonder his mother had lost her mind at her sixtieth birthday party when she realized that her husband—and by extension, Trey—had turned the celebration of a beautiful life and a toast to its next chapter into an opportunity to further a business deal.
It proved they’d lost their understanding of what was most important, right? But he wasn’t sure how to regain perspective—or merely gain perspective, he thought with dismay.
“Trey?”
At his name, his hands faltered, and the cards scattered around his feet. He stared down at them, struck by the notion that the universe was slap-in-the-face reminding him he didn’t have every aspect of his life under control. That even a Blackthorne could find himself at the mercy of events or people or emotion.
Certainly this trip to Paris proved that, with his inability to corral his wandering mother and her mysterious secret.
“Trey?”
As well as his inability to curb his attraction for one artistic urban mermaid on a mission.
The idea made a man long to smother that knowledge, to run from it by reaching for his cell phone and immersing himself in emails detailing quarterly projections and long-rage strategic plans.
“Trey?”
At the third iteration of his name, he finally looked up. There she was, beautiful, desirable, distracting.
“What do you think?” she asked, and held up her sketchbook.
Transfixed, he gazed on the image she’d wrought with simple pencil strokes. Definitely him, with his short hair and slash of dark brows. But this Trey sat casually, elbows on his knees, his hands loosely linked between them. With a half smile on his face, he stared into the distance, looking faintly bemused and all the way…relaxed.
Content.
A man without the weight of the family mantle on his shoulders.
A man without a care in the world.
A man who wouldn’t think about business for the rest of the day and probably for all of the next as well as the one after that.
Hell. He thought he kind of envied that man and…yeah, wanted to be that man too.
The next afternoon, Mia told Trey they needed to wear black for what she had planned for the evening. He stopped on the sidewalk, another paper-wrapped, half-eaten crêpe on its way to his mouth.
The man couldn’t get enough crêpes.
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
She thought about breaking into a little tap dance. Maybe a song. Anything to distract him from that wary look overtaking his face.
Kiss him, Nic said.
Uh, no. No way was Mia going off-task by locking lips once again with the dark-haired, dark-eyed, and totally delicious Trey Blackthorne. There was the list to pay attention to, not to mention her innate caution when it came to men. She’d had them in her bed of course, but she’d kept them out of her heart, and instinct told her that her Paris companion could be sneaky that way. Better to double-barricade herself and keep the fooling around limited to un bisou or two, already in the past.
What’s wrong with more kisses or even a quickie fling?
Mia ignored both questions put to her and pointed across and down the street. “C’mon. See the building topped with the red windmill? That’s the Moulin Rouge.”
Tourists crowded the sidewalk around the famous building and Trey circled his arm protectively at her waist while she rummaged in her backpack for the box. Silly, she knew, but before she crossed a Paris sight off the list, she brought the ashes into the open air.
Trey peered in the direction of the cabaret’s long bank of doors. “Are we going to see a show?”
“No tickets available for tonight,” Mia said.
“Let me make a call and perhaps—”
“We have other plans.” She didn’t need a Blackthorne pulling strings, because cozying up to Trey in a dark venue with half-naked dancers traipsing across the stage might create the wrong mood between them. Though since their kiss at the Sacré-Cœur, he hadn’t kissed her again, despite his promise.
She’d deemed her disappointment as ridiculous and decided to be happy enough with his continued companionship. He’d been patient with the lines at the Eiffel Tower and praised the hot chocolate from the famous place on the Rue de Rivoli. A stroll along the shopping avenue of the Champs-Élysées had left them both baffled, since most of the stores were ones that could be found in the States. The Arc de Triomphe impressed them however, bringing to mind images from history and film.
Now she returned the ashes to her backpack and tugged Trey around the corner. She’d done a little homework and knew what she’d find in the Pigalle neighborhood. No longer the den of iniquity it had once been, there were still glimpses of it on the side streets. “We have to get ourselves that black clothing for our evening’s adventure,” she said.
He took a firm grip of her hand, pulling her close to his side as they passed a sex shop and then a scary looking bar with rough customers standing outside, staring at them narrow-eyed against the bitter smoke from their cigarettes.
At the small mouth of yet another business, she stepped inside and it opened into a space filled with rows of shelves stacked with folded clothing organized by color.
Used clothing.
She sneaked a peek at Trey, trying to gauge his reaction. He so didn’t seem like a previously worn-wardrobe kind of man. “Vintage,” she said, lying through her teeth. “It won’t take long to find what we need.”
According to him, he had a pair of black jeans in his luggage, so they only had to find a black sweater—moth holes no extra charge, the beanpole-sized clerk said, in his peg leg pants and flowered silk kimono—and a black vinyl jacket that surely would insult the French fashion world with its complete inability to pass as leather. She picked up nearly the same, including a pair of pants in dark denim that had ragged hems. To cover her hair, she grabbed a wool beret with a crudely darned rip at the top.
As reward for not insisting they stop at a department store like Le Bon Marché or Galeries Lafayette, she didn’t fight too hard
over him paying the tab, but stuck some tightly rolled Euros in his back pocket when he reached for the bag on the counter.
“I felt that,” he said.
“You’re welcome then,” she returned with a cheeky smile, and sashayed out of the shop. Then she glanced over her shoulder. “I really am impressed you didn’t make a fuss over buying, uh…”
“Used clothes?”
“Well, yes.”
He raised a brow. “I seem so snobbish then?”
Devilish, she thought, with that sardonic expression on his face. Still delicious, in the way of dark, near-bitter chocolate. Addicting stuff. “Well, yes,” she repeated, hiding behind another sassy smirk. “Or maybe a better word would be stuffy.”
“I’m going to wipe that smile right off your face,” he murmured, then he had hold of her elbow and towed her inside yet another tight doorway, so quickly she didn’t get a chance to take in the signage outside or the display in the dusty front window.
“Eeek.” She threw up one hand over her eyes, then immediately brought it down when he whispered, hot in her ear, “Who’s stuffy now?”
“I’m no prude,” she told him with a frown, and took a slow perusal of the merchandise. Sex-related merchandise. Racks and shelves of potions, lotions, gadgets, devices, and clothing conspicuous for the fabric missing in crucial areas. Though her neck burned with heat, she marched over to one display and held out the first item she grabbed, something with straps and rope and a couple of metal pieces, all shrink-wrapped.
“Shall we buy this, darling?” she asked Trey, innocent as apple pie.
He didn’t blink. “What would you say that is, my love?”
“Dear.” She gamely gave it a glance. “A badminton net?”
With a shake of his head, he pressed his lips together and then a laugh escaped, and another, until the clerk across the room, with colorful facial tattoos and piercings along the length of his upper lip, sent them a glower.
“We can leave,” Trey said, reaching for her hand.
“Absolutely not.” Mia avoided him and began a slow browse. “We’re in Paris.”
“You can find all of this in Paris, Texas,” he said. “Or Boston or Tacoma for that matter.”
Mia touched a fingertip to a pair of crotch-less panties hanging on a rack and set the lace swinging. “But here we don’t run the risk of bumping into anyone we know.”
Trey leaned forward, his mouth to her ear again. “Unless that’s Sterling and Isabelle Caine exiting the back room, right under big triple-X in red lights.”
His laughter followed her speedy exit from the boutique, and she stood on the sidewalk, glaring at him, hands on her hips. The man had duped her, damn it. “You’re mean. And what if that truly had been the Caines?”
“Who would be more embarrassed—them or you? The four of us would be guilty of the same thing after all, if you want to feel guilty over something so harmless.”
But what didn’t feel harmless was that laughter on his face or the way it warmed her inside. Then there was all that…that merchandise on display that had made her embarrassed and—oh, fine—a little aroused. “We’d better get back to the apartment building,” she said quickly, before Nic could start chattering in her head. “We have to rest up for tonight.”
At nine p.m. they met in the foyer and set out, she leading the way to the nearest Métro station. Her role as navigator now unquestioned, he kept to her pace without comment. They descended to the tracks, rode a couple of trains to take them outside the city center, and then ascended more stairs, finding themselves on darkened, quiet streets. Looking about, Mia shivered.
Trey put his arm around her waist, and after a moment, she leaned into him.
“Hey,” he said, glancing down at her. “What’s wrong?”
“Goose walked over my grave,” she said automatically, then bit her lip. “By the way, how, um, adventurous are you?”
He pulled her around so she was fully in his embrace, but with inches still between their bodies. His head bent toward hers and the streetlight washed across his handsome features. “What’s this about?”
“Um…” She hauled in a breath. “Next question. What’s your feeling about cemeteries?” Without waiting for his answer, she described the task ahead.
His fingers tightened on her waist. “You’ve got to be kidding. Who does that?”
“It’s a thing!” she said defensively. “Nic heard it from a friend and read about it on the internet. I researched it too. People do it all the time.”
With a groan, he tilted back his head to stare up at the sky, as if seeking aid there. “Mia…”
“It’s on the list, Trey.”
“Have I lost my mind?” he asked, addressing the scattering of stars. “What kind of crazy has she brought into my life?”
His despairing tone awoke her sense of humor. “Oh, c’mon, it’s not so bad. I bet there are lots and lots of American women wandering about the city with their BFF’s ashes.”
“Probably so,” he said, in a weary tone. “But how many of them insist on taking said ashes into an old cemetery in order to locate a certain grave statue and then kiss its feet?”
“Rub its wing, I told you,” she said, keeping laughter out of her voice with great effort. “It’s a fairy and it will bring good luck.”
“Good luck,” he muttered. “Good God.”
“Look on the bright side.” She pinned on a winning smile. “This is the only really daring item on the list.”
He sighed, then his eyes narrowed. “What else aren’t you telling me, wacky mermaid, new plague of my life?”
She decided to leave “wacky mermaid” and “plague of my life” untouched. Maybe it was good he appeared to be irritated with her because his arms around her felt secure and…and…right. Just right.
Clearing her throat, she looked him straight in the eyes. “I don’t know what you’re so worried about, Mr. Graham Wallace Blackthorne the Third. Surely you can handle anything.”
“Appealing to my place in the family won’t make me forget about the words ‘adventurous’ and ‘daring.’”
“Please.” She rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you ever challenge your younger brothers and cousins to feats of bravery? Dare them to, I don’t know, see who could hold their breath the longest underwater or keep their hand over a candle flame?”
“I warned them against passing out and stood on watch if rescue was needed,” he said without expression. “And if they played with fire, I told my mother.”
It was too much. Mia burst out laughing. “That does it. It’s absolutely imperative that we break into the cemetery and find that statue. You definitely need to bend some rules.”
Then she slipped from his hold to scamper off, hearing him curse followed by the thud of his footsteps in her wake.
“Break into the cemetery?” he stage-yelled.
She smothered another snort of laughter and kept on running.
But it wasn’t as bad as all that. Because it couldn’t really count as breaking in, and she told him so, as she stopped beside the gap in the memorial park’s surrounding iron fence, just as had been described on the Graveyard Groupies website. Here, one of the twisted pickets had been somehow bowed toward its neighbor, leaving a space large enough for a body to slip through easily.
Her body, anyway.
Trey’s emergence into the burial grounds required quite a bit more maneuvering. Plus a few quiet curses.
“You did it,” she finally said with muted exuberance, patting his arm. “You made it look easy.”
He tugged on the bottom of his cheesy jacket and even in the darkness she could feel his quelling look. “My mom loved the game Twister.”
Before she could start laughing at the idea of dignified Trey Blackthorne willingly pretzeled, she murmured, “Right foot, green,” and started off in the direction indicated by the instructions she’d downloaded to her phone. She used the flashlight function to illuminate their way and they passed headstones and
raised crypts and crosses of all designs. There were statues here and there as well, angels and saints being a popular choice, but none the one they sought.
A rustling in a nearby shrub made her jump and Trey laid a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Don’t chicken out on me now,” he said. “I’m establishing some serious street cred with this caper.”
She barely managed to smother her snort and gamely carried on. Right here, left there. Past the soldier on a horse and beyond the headstone shaped like a cello. Then, finally, she saw the fairy. Like something from an art nouveau illustration, it was human-sized and standing on a twelve-inch-high column, with a willowy form, a serene expression, and outstretched wings.
“Beautiful,” she breathed. Really, it was, the lines delicate, the folds of its gown lifelike and the figure’s flowing hair twined with tiny leaves and blossoms.
Gripping Trey by the arm, she pointed. Before they could make a move though, a pair of teens darted out from behind a nearby crypt, their excited voices carrying in the night. Crap, she thought, slipping her phone with its betraying light into her pocket. There were guards on the prowl all night long, according to the website. It advised extreme quiet.
“Shh,” she whispered, but they either didn’t hear her or paid her no mind. More likely, they were adolescents and thus wholly absorbed in themselves.
The kids cavorted closer to the statue while she and Trey stayed in the shadows under a pine tree. The giggling pair finally got close enough to run their hands over one wing, then they embraced with a fervency that made Mia blush. It was only worse when they began kissing ravenously and she dropped her head as Trey whispered in her ear, “And for extra good fortune, be sure to inhale each other’s tonsils.”
She clapped her hands over her lips and kept them that way until she heard the departure of the couple. “Whew,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I was just about to yell ‘get a room.’”
That tickled her funny bone and she swallowed another snort even as she approached the statue and slipped her backpack off her shoulder. With the small box of ashes in one hand, she stroked the edge of the angel’s wing with the other, finding the marble worn where she imagined hundreds of others had sought the rumored outcome.
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