by Mia Sheridan
I stood, jostling Charlène, who let out a high-pitched sound of annoyance. “Next up is the john.”
“It’s called the ‘loo’ here in France,” Annette offered.
I ignored her, looking at the reporter who’d infiltrated our group. Not that it would have taken any effort. Half the time I had no idea who the people hanging around me were. “Do you want to come along and see if you can get a picture of my dick while I’m pissing?”
The reporter appeared to consider that briefly before shaking his head. I made a disgusted sound in the back of my throat, teetered momentarily, and walked toward the dark hallway at the back of the bar.
Jesus. I’m drunk. Too drunk.
I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and fumbled with it for a minute as it snagged on a thread. I finally pulled it out, squinting at Nick’s picture just as my voice mail picked up, causing his smiling face to blink away. He was probably calling to congratulate me on the award. I paused in the hallway, watching my phone until it indicated I had a voice mail. When I pressed play, Nick’s familiar voice filled my ear.
Hey, buddy, I just saw online that you won that award. Nice fucking job. I’m proud of you, man.
I returned my phone to my pocket, vowing to call him later, knowing he’d be disappointed in me if he could see me stumbling around drunk in a dark hallway to escape the shallow people surrounding me. People I’d made a bigger part of my life than him, my closest friend and the only person I could truly trust.
This is not you, Cal, he’d say. Only it was. It was.
I tried a door but saw that it was a utility closet filled with shelves of cleaning supplies and paper products. I pulled the door shut, looking for another door or a sign with a picture that would indicate where the damn bathroom was but didn’t see anything. I turned the corner and spotted a door at the end of the hall and stepped through. I was on an empty outdoor patio that was either closed for the season or the night. I started to turn back but decided to take a moment to shut out the fake laughter and the idle chitchat, just to breathe.
Take care of yourself, okay, Cal?
Why did that seem like such an impossible task lately? I walked to the chest-high wall that surrounded the rooftop patio and put my elbows on it, bending my neck forward and raking my hands through my hair as I pulled cool air in through my nose. I felt better, a little less drunk, a little less…angry, annoyed. Who knew what the fuck I was feeling anymore? It’d been so long since I’d stopped to really consider it. I only knew that I wasn’t happy.
I heard a noise behind me and turned around to see the brunette waitress standing in the doorway, the door closing slowly behind her. Her eyes were wide and her lips parted in surprise, as if she hadn’t expected to find anyone out here. When the door hit her butt, she let out a small gasp as it propelled her forward.
For a second we just stared at each other across the deck. I tried my damnedest not to sway on my feet.
“I…ah…sorry. I think I took a wrong turn.” I raised my arm, making a movement that indicated the outdoor patio and that it wasn’t where I’d meant to end up. I hoped she spoke English. My French wasn’t very good. Actually, it was awful.
She opened her mouth to speak, but then seemed to change her mind. She stared at me for another moment before saying softly, “I’m here to save you.”
I frowned, leaning back against the wall as something raced through my mind, something I tried to grasp, but it eluded me. She bit at her lip and fidgeted, and I realized she must have been making a joke. She was obviously shy, and I’d just made her feel uncomfortable. I smiled and then chuckled softly, raising one brow. “I appreciate that, but I think I’m beyond saving, sweetheart.”
She let out a breath, and instead of looking relieved that the awkward moment had passed, she looked…disappointed. “Didn’t you see the sign?” She nodded toward the door.
Yes, I had seen the sign. “I don’t read French.”
Her lips tipped up. “It’s in both English and French.”
“I must not have noticed.” Her brows came in slightly, and I moved toward her slowly, drawn to her in some inexplicable way.
She didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t even really look surprised, and when I stepped up to her, she tipped her head back to look at me. The disappointed expression was gone, and now she looked soft and sort of breathless. Expectant.
“You’re American,” I said, realizing suddenly she hadn’t had any trace of an accent when she’d spoken. She only nodded.
My eyes moved over her face, and from up close like this she was more than merely pretty. Her skin was smooth and creamy, and I could see a very light dusting of freckles across her nose. I wanted to kiss those freckles, each and every one, to touch them with my tongue and know if they tasted like innocence. I almost laughed at myself. Innocence. When had innocence ever been appealing to me anyway?
Her large hazel eyes widened, framed by dark, sweeping lashes. Her upper lip was fuller than the bottom and turned downward in a way that gave her a natural pout. Christ, from where I’d sat watching her earlier, I hadn’t been able to see how soft and tempting her mouth was. I very suddenly needed to feel those pink, parted lips on my mouth, on my skin, more than I needed anything else on the face of the earth.
I leaned in, expecting her to stop me at any moment, but she didn’t. My lips met hers, and she let out a whimpering sound that shot straight to my cock. I hardened as I swept my tongue between her lips, tasting her, exploring. Her tongue met mine shyly, tentatively, and though she was obviously unskilled, her kiss set fire to my blood in a way no one else’s had in a very long time, maybe ever. God, she tasted so damn sweet, so fresh and pure.
My cock swelled and pressed against my zipper, causing me to groan and move against her, to pull her closer and thread my fingers into the back of her hair. I felt her ponytail come loose as her hair spilled over my hands, the faint scent of her shampoo filling my nose, something light and clean.
Light and clean.
I wanted her. I wanted her so badly I was shaking with it. What is this? I was almost tempted to pick her up and carry her to one of the deserted tables, to lean her over it and relieve the terrible ache between my legs. Somewhere in my bleary, muddled mind, it even seemed possible that this girl could soothe the deep, dark, pained places inside myself that I had no idea how to access.
Just for tonight—just one damn night—I wanted to lose myself in the sweetness so clear in this girl’s eyes, the pure innocence I could feel emanating from her.
There was no place for sweetness in my life. And definitely no place for innocence.
But, ah, I wanted it so badly. And on that starlit deck on a cool Paris night, I admitted how much, even if only to myself. It beckoned like a sleepy lover. Like a muse that promised to stay longer than a brief moment or maybe two. And I didn’t deserve it, but I didn’t care.
I broke the kiss, trailing my mouth across her cheeks, feathering my lips over those angel kisses scattered so delicately on her skin. “Come home with me,” I whispered, unable to disguise the neediness in my voice.
“You’re drunk,” she whispered back. “I’ve been watching you drink all night.”
“Yes.” I didn’t deny it. “It won’t affect my performance. It never does.”
She stilled in my arms, and I realized how crass my words must have sounded, how common I must have just made her feel. And yet wasn’t she? When it came down to it, wasn’t that exactly what I wanted to make her? Common? Could I really pretend she’d be any different from the rest? Different from the myriad women I was with for a night and never again? I had nothing to offer a girl like this, so why did it feel like something that had been blooming a moment before had just withered inside me? I didn’t know what it might be, but it felt like something. I’d felt something…
“You’re different,” she said, and sadness laced her voice. It had been a long time since anyone had wasted sadness on me.
And what did she mean by different? Ah, she knew who I was. She’d recognized me. Maybe she had some fantasy that Callen Hayes was someone different from who they reported me to be. Maybe she thought I was just misunderstood. For a crazy second, looking down into her soulful eyes, I wanted to believe it was true. But I knew it wasn’t. I opened my mouth to say something, to try to correct my mistake maybe, or perhaps just to apologize, when suddenly the door swung open behind us. I let go of the girl, and we both stumbled, turning at the same time.
Charlène stood in the doorway, her arms crossed under her small, round breasts, one eyebrow raised and a sardonic tilt to her shiny red lips. “If you’re done feeling up the help, can we leave now? You did ask me to come home with you, oui?”
I cringed internally as the girl’s shoulders drooped. Jesus Christ. I’d said those exact words to her. She glanced at me—her pretty mouth swollen, her hair hanging loosely around her shoulders—and I saw deep disappointment in her expression. For the first time in a long while, I saw myself through someone else’s eyes, and I hated what I saw. She pulled her shoulders back and stepped away from me, past Charlène and through the door. Just like that, she was gone.
CHAPTER TWO
Jessica
“How’d it go?” my roommate, Francesca, asked as I came in the door.
I threw my purse down and went straight to the refrigerator directly off the living room, removing a bottle of water and taking a long sip. “Fine if being officially unemployed is a good thing.” I offered Frankie a rueful smile, taking another sip of the cool water. The apartment was stifling, and I felt a bead of sweat roll down my back.
“I’m going to change and then I’ll be right back.” I went to my tiny room and began peeling off my skirt and blouse, hanging them both carefully in my closet. I didn’t have many professional work clothes, and I needed to treat the ones I had gently, given I now needed to apply for a new job.
Throwing on a pair of cotton shorts and a loose tank top and gathering my hair into a high ponytail helped cool me off before I headed back to the living room.
A pop startled me, and I laughed when I saw that Frankie had just opened a bottle of champagne and was pouring it into two champagne flutes.
“Santé, mon amie,” she sang as she handed me one of the flutes and raised her own glass. I grinned and took a sip of the cheap bubbly. “This is the first step on the road to a wonderful career.”
“Merci.” I plopped down on the couch, putting my flute on the coffee table and bringing my legs under me. Frankie sat down on the other end of the couch, taking another sip of champagne and screwing up her face.
“The best I could afford,” she said.
“As soon as I find a job, the champagne is on me. Let’s hope I’ll finally be able to afford something decent.”
She smiled. “You will. I’m proud of you for taking this leap.”
“Yeah, yeah. But if I end up in the poorhouse, I’m blaming you.”
“Fair enough. Although I don’t think there are poorhouses anymore. It’s the cold, lonely street you’ll end up on, my little cabbage.”
“Great.” I smiled at the term of endearment, our familiar joke. She’d heard the term ma choupette somewhere and asked me what it meant, and I’d translated it literally. It was now Frankie’s favorite nickname. Despite her Italian first name, Frankie wasn’t fluent in any of the romance languages, and when we’d met she’d spoken only a few words of French. I’d met her at an Internet café when I’d first arrived in Paris, heard her fumbling her way through an order for coffee and a croissant and helped her out. We’d struck up a conversation after that and hit it off. We’d both been looking for a roommate, and it felt like it was meant to be. Thankfully, simply living and working in France had improved her French. Frankie worked at the fashion house of a hip new designer named Clémence Maillard. She loved her job, but her salary wasn’t much better than mine.
Actually, I reminded myself, everyone’s salary was now officially better than mine. I no longer had a salary.
“How’d Vincenzo take you quitting?”
I sighed. “Fine. He’ll have no trouble replacing me.” I picked up my glass and took a sip. Vincenzo had probably already filled the spot. Lounge La Vue was one of the most popular, swankiest hotel bars in Paris, and the tips were usually great. But I’d spent enough time as a part-time cocktail waitress.
A year ago, I’d graduated from Cornell University with a major in French and a minor in French medieval history, moved to Paris, and started applying for jobs. When the only offer I received was from a small newspaper that didn’t pay enough for me to eat three meals a day, I’d taken the serving job at Lounge La Vue and fed my brain with short (unpaid) internships in museums. My most recent internship had just ended, and quitting Lounge La Vue was going to force me to get out there and find something in my field that paid real money. Frankie was right—it was time to take a leap of faith.
Through my studies I’d found that I had a particular talent—and affinity—for translating old French. If I managed to find a job where I could put that skill to use, it would be a dream come true.
I could have asked my father for help, which would have allowed me to get started on my career faster, but I was bound and determined not to ask him for anything. He had decided the French school in my hometown offered the best education, and it’s where I had first discovered my love for the study of language and all things French. For that I was grateful to him, though there was little else. My mother had passed away from cancer when I was twenty, and given that the diagnosis had come when she was already stage four, it seemed she was there one day and gone the next. Four years later, I still mourned the loss of her, but I was also sad about the life she had accepted for herself. She’d lived for only forty-eight years and had spent more than half that life living with a man who treated her like she was no one special. I wanted more for myself. I would never accept a life like that. My father had promptly remarried, to a girl only a year older than me. I was sure he was already cheating on her, too. It’s not as if I would ask. Or care. We’d never been close to begin with, and now we barely talked.
Thank goodness for Frankie. I had a small circle of friends in Paris—girls I’d met at Lounge La Vue mostly—but Frankie was more like the sister I’d never had. I’d created a family of my choosing here in France.
I leaned my head back on the couch. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and the champagne was already causing me to feel sleepy and languorous.
“He never came in to the lounge again, did he?” Frankie asked, eyeing me. I almost pretended I didn’t comprehend who “he” was, but she’d know very well I was just being bitter and purposefully dismissive.
“No.” I’d returned to the tiny apartment I shared with Frankie after the night two months ago when Callen Hayes had come into Lounge La Vue, kissed me senseless, and then left with another woman. Not that he shouldn’t have…He had clearly arrived with her. I’d seen her sitting close to him at the crowded table, but he’d been staring at me, and I’d hoped…
Well, I had hoped he would recognize me at the very least. But he hadn’t. He had no idea who I was, other than a barmaid who he probably thought had been making googly eyes at him all night. Which I had been, sort of, but it was more a case of disbelief. After all those years, my Callen had walked back into my life. Although, he had never really been my Callen. And, well…he never would be.
But at the time I hadn’t been able to help the low-simmering thrill that had sparked inside me at the possibility he would remember me as the little girl he’d sat with in a boxcar on a deserted stretch of train track long, long ago. The little girl he used to go on adventures with, play games with, and indulge her overactive imagination.
He’d kissed me on the patio, and he hadn’t tasted like warmth and hope, not like I’d remembered. He’d tasted like alcohol and sin. He wasn’t the boy I’d known—not even close—and it had broken my heart just a little bit. I’d come hom
e and cried on Frankie’s shoulder, telling her the whole story from the beginning. It was the second time in my life he’d kissed me and left. And never returned.
She knew who Callen Hayes was, of course. I figured any female between the ages of fifteen and fifty must. The first time I’d seen him on Entertainment Tonight, I’d almost fallen over. I’d first been mesmerized by the gorgeous man on the television, and although he looked familiar in a way I couldn’t quite place, when they said his name, I’d known immediately who he was. I’d put my hand over my mouth to contain the loud gasp of surprise and sank down on the couch, watching in a daze as he effortlessly charmed the simpering female host.
That smile. He’d been a handsome boy, and now…he was devastating.
I’d taken the old, torn piece of paper out of my copy of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table and run my finger over the faded notes, wonder flowing through me that the famous man on TV was the boy who’d once drawn them. I’d downloaded all his compositions and recognized a piece of one from that boxcar so many years before—the melody he’d finally figured out how to finish. I listened to it over and over on my iPod, my headphones in my ears, as I closed my eyes and traveled back in time. I swore I could feel his boyish, calloused hand in mine. Silly. Stupid. Yet oh so true.
I’d followed his career since then, watched his star rise, his fame grow, and I was…proud. I had so many questions about why he’d disappeared without a goodbye, but I couldn’t deny the pride that filled my chest whenever I saw a glowing article about him. Not that he wasn’t also featured in the tabloids for his so-called bad-boy antics. He had a reputation, one the media seemed to find fascinating and women found alluring. I’d wondered how much was reality and how much was manufactured, but seeing him at Lounge La Vue had answered that question. He was exactly who they reported him to be, or at least pretty damn close. He drank, he partied, and he…kissed stupid girls on patios just because he could. Because I—they—were putty in his hands.