When The Stars Align

by Jeanette Grey

  She arched a brow. “Am I going to need that?”

  Nicely played. “Not if you take me home tonight.” He threaded his arm through hers. “Come on. The masterpieces await.”

  “Are you sure we’re still even in the museum?” Kate spun in a circle, looking around in awe. “How can this place be so huge?”

  The vaulted archways seemed to soar above her, and the ceilings were almost as gorgeous as the paintings. The whole place smelled of art somehow, even though the works were all hundreds of years old, the oils dry and the varnishes cracking. The figures within the canvases glowed with how masterfully they’d been rendered, and something inside of her felt like it was glowing as well.

  She’d thought the Met had been amazing the first time she’d been there. But she’d had no idea. No clue.

  She finished her slow circle, coming around again to face the center of the room. To face Rylan. He stood there, arms crossed over the expanse of his chest, gaze hot and heavy on hers, and a tremor coursed its way down her spine.

  Then again, she’d also never wandered around the Met with a man like him by her side.

  To think she’d been worried when she agreed to let him take her here. She hated being rushed through museums, and she’d been resolved to take her time. But Rylan had stood by patiently as she looked her fill, had been waiting to take her hand at the end of each set of paintings. Big, strong fingers curled firmly around her palm, and the warm, male scent of him mingled with the wood and polish of the gallery, making her head spin.

  Swallowing hard, she checked herself. He was practically a stranger—it shouldn’t be so easy to fall into step with him like this. And yet she felt more comfortable with him than she had doing this with any of her other friends. Definitely more comfortable than she ever had with Aaron. Maybe because he was a stranger. There was no point pretending to be anything she wasn’t. She never had to see him again if she didn’t want to. So she had nothing to lose.

  Catching her eye, he tilted his head toward the next room, a silent invitation, asking her if she was ready to continue. She nodded, moving into his space again. The heat of his hand seeped into the base of her spine, but she didn’t flinch. Ridiculous how quickly she was getting used to how much he liked to touch her. What had it been? A couple of hours?

  A couple of amazing hours.

  They’d seen a bunch of the highlights already. The sweeping statuary of Winged Victory, which had been so much bigger and more imposing than she’d expected. Tiny, lovely Venus de Milo. And much to Rylan’s frustration, they’d even stood in line to see the Mona Lisa nice and close. She’d shoved him when he’d asked with that odd mixture of amusement and derision if she was satisfied. She’d known going into it that that particular piece had a tendency to underwhelm, but she hadn’t cared. She’d seen it. In real life.

  In her head, she was rearranging all her plans for the week she had left in Paris. She had to come back and spend a whole day here alone with her sketchbook and her pencils and pastels.

  “You are having a total art-geek-gasm, aren’t you?” he asked, releasing her so she could get closer to one of the paintings.

  At this point, they were in one of the more remote galleries, one he’d insisted they make the time to visit, full of big, classic pieces done in vivid colors, depicting scenes from legends and myths. None of it was what she’d really come here to see, but she found herself getting lost in them all the same.

  She was about to tell him as much when she glanced over at him, and he had that expression on his face again. It made her pause.

  She didn’t have any illusions that he was here for any reason other than to humor her. He was going above and beyond as far as the amount of time and energy she expected any guy to put into a pickup, but it was still a pickup.

  Only, he kept looking at her like this. Like somehow, despite his worst intentions, he was seeing more than just her breasts.

  She let a grin curl her lips as she turned her attention back to the walls. “It’s amazing.”

  “It gets even better.”

  Hard to believe, but how could she resist?

  “So the thing that really gets me,” he said over his shoulder as he meandered into the next gallery, “about European museums is the scale.”

  She followed, craning her neck as she passed through the archway and—wow. He wasn’t kidding. The whole room was full of paintings that stretched from floor to ceiling. The canvases must have been twenty feet tall, some of them maybe double that in width.

  “Holy crap.” In awe, she turned, trying to take in everything. She pointed to a painting at the end of the room. “That one is bigger than my apartment back in New York.”

  It might have been a tiny studio apartment, but still.

  “Don’t see this kind of thing in museums in the States, huh?” he asked.

  He was standing behind her now, his breath warm against her ear. It felt… nice. But not nice enough to distract her from trying to memorize the images surrounding her.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it, anywhere.”

  She stepped forward, away from his heat and toward the painting on the opposite wall. He let her go, walking backward to perch on the bench in the center of the room. He sat with his knees spread, his elbows on his thighs. She turned her back to him, but she couldn’t help but be aware of him—his presence that felt so unreasonably large in such an enormous room.

  “That used to be one of my favorites,” he said, gesturing at the canvas she’d been drawn to.

  “Oh?” It was arresting, the composition and the arrangement of the figures drawing the eye in. Bringing her hand to her mouth, she read the placard beside it. “Zeus and Hera?” She took a step back and tilted her head.

  The two figures were seated in a garden, staring into each other’s eyes. A smile colored the edge of Zeus’s lips.

  “They look happy.” His shrug came through in his voice.

  Really? The king and queen of the Roman gods weren’t exactly known for their perfect marriage. How many people had died on account of their fits of jealousy and pique? She furrowed her brow. “Not exactly how I usually think of them.”

  From behind her, he chuckled. “No. Not usually.” He paused, then added, “I think maybe that’s why I liked it so much.”

  She hummed, asking him to elaborate.

  “It was just a reminder. No matter how awful things were between them most of the time, they still had their moments. Their good times.”

  A sour taste rose in her throat. “Doesn’t change the fact that he’d knocked up half the pantheon.”

  If her mother hadn’t fallen for all the good times with her father… if the good times with Aaron hadn’t blinded Kate…

  “And the better part of the mortal realm, too,” Rylan agreed, a wry twist to his tone. “But still. I always used to imagine that at one point they were like this.”

  “Used to?”

  He chuckled wryly. “We all have to grow up sometime.”

  They were silent for a minute as she tried to take the whole thing in.

  When he spoke again, it echoed in the space. “The first time I ever came here, I was… maybe eight? Nine?” A shade of memory colored his voice. “A few years before my parents got divorced.” He cleared the roughness from his throat. “My mother brought me to this room, and I remember finding this picture and not being able to look away from it.” He gave a little rueful laugh. “My sister gave me so much shit for ignoring all the giant battle scenes to look at two people who weren’t even naked or anything.”

  Kate glanced over her shoulder at him. That was… kind of a lot of information, actually, considering how evasive he’d been while they’d been trading histories earlier. Turning back to the painting, she cast about for something to ask him more about. Not the divorce—not with the way that topic always brought her own hurts to the surface—though she tucked that away for later. After a moment’s indecision, she landed on, “You came to Paris when you were a kid?
”

  “The whole family did. My dad’s work had us doing a bunch of travel.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Finance stuff. Very boring. And a very, very long time ago.”

  She frowned. “It can’t have been that long ago. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven. Don’t try to tell me nineteen years isn’t a long time.”

  He made it sound like a lifetime. For her it nearly was.

  “Believe me, it’s a long time. I’m only twenty-two.”

  “That’s not so young.”

  She considered for a moment. “It’s old enough.”

  “Old enough for what?” Suggestion rolled off his tongue.

  His flirtation made her bold. “For knowing better than to be taken in by men like you?”

  “Men like me?” His tone dripped with mock offense. “Men who take you to beautiful museums.” He was off the bench and at her side again, pushing her hair from her face. “Men who want nothing more than to show you their big, huge—”

  She made a noise of half laughter, half disgust and shoved him off.

  “Paintings! I was going to say paintings.”

  “I’ll bet you were.”

  “I was.” He held his arms out to indicate the whole of the room. “Do you like them?”

  And she couldn’t lie, not even a bit. She spun around another time, nice and slow, taking in everything. As she twisted back toward him, something inside of her softened. All the innuendo and playfulness had fallen from his lips, and he was simply standing there, waiting for her opinion.

  Looking for all the world like he actually cared what it would be.

  Impulsiveness took her close to him. “I do.” And this was stupid. But she did it anyway—leaned in and pressed the quickest, lightest kiss to his cheek. “I love it. Thank you.”

  He grinned as she danced away before he could reel her the rest of the way in. “Does that mean you’re ready to agree for me to walk you home?”

  A little thrill shot through her. How nice would that be? He’d been trying so hard, and she’d enjoyed every minute of it. After months of being on her guard, nursing her bitterness, it was tempting to just let go. To say yes for once. He was funny and smart, charming and gorgeous. She could do a lot worse. But she wasn’t entirely sure she couldn’t do better.

  And besides, she’d never known it could be so much fun to watch a guy work for it.

  She started toward the exit from the gallery, a little bounce in her step. “Let’s start with you walking me to dinner.” Glancing back at him, she smiled at the look of smug satisfaction on his face. “No promises for after.”

  “I would never dare to assume.”

  “And it had better be something good.” She slowed down so he could catch up, and she didn’t bother to stop him when he moved to interlace their fingers. She’d already let enough of her inhibitions go, lulled by the ease of his smile and his touch. Why not accept this, too? Especially when it felt so good. “Off the beaten path. Nothing I could find in a tour guide.”

  “Don’t you worry.” A sly grin made his eyes sparkle, and his hand squeezed hers. “I have just the thing in mind.”

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