by Ava Miles
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I know I’m not going to sleep much between the jet lag and my apprenticeship.”
“But you’re already exhausted from finishing up your job at Don’t Soy With Me and starting Hot Cross Buns.”
“Evan,” she said softly as he maneuvered the Fiat down a side street to her flat, which sat on Boulevard St. Germain. “I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it a long time.”
But he didn’t want her to have to be so stalwart in her independence. “I know you can, but sometimes it’s nice to let other people worry about you and have your back. Promise me you’ll tell me if I can make anything better or easier for you while you’re here.”
Her smile made him think of rainbows. “I will. You’re an angel.”
That was stretching things. Big time.
Since there were no open spaces on the street, he double parked his car in front of her apartment building and put the hazards on. None of the other drivers would like it, but if he got a ticket, he’d simply pay it. After popping open the trunk, he took out her luggage and grabbed the gift he’d made her. Her building was a drab gray stone, three stories tall, with a nondescript black door.
“I’m really happy you’re staying close to the bakery,” he said. “How’d you find it?”
“Brian and Andre asked a couple of their chef friends if they knew of an available place close by. Lucky for me, one of the chefs was going on vacation and offered me his flat. St. Germain is such a great area. How far is your place from here?”
“It’s only a five-minute walk,” he said and felt the internal tug of war inside his belly. Could he show her where he lived? She wouldn’t know he was a billionaire, but it would be obvious that he had money. Penthouses in Paris didn’t come cheap. Play it by ear, he told himself for the hundredth time.
“Let me get the code to the building out,” she said, rummaging in her purse.
When she found it, she keyed the numbers into the call box. The downstairs light turned on as soon as she opened the door, but it didn’t illuminate the first floor much. When he squinted, he could make out a sagging staircase to the back. Like older Paris ladies, this building was old, but she’d retained her beauty well.
“It doesn’t look like there’s an elevator,” she said, stepping onto the cracked tile floor. “Let me have my carry-on.”
“Don’t insult my manliness. I can get both. But you can take this package.” He handed her the present he’d boxed up, and her eyes narrowed in curiosity for a moment.
“Evan, it’s three flights of stairs.” She put her hand on her hip, and even though he didn’t want to argue with her, he had to admit he’d missed her stubbornness.
“It’s Paris,” he said, moving past her with the luggage and starting up the steps. “Most of the old buildings don’t have elevators.”
“Does yours?” she asked.
“No,” he answered honestly. “We have an old dumbwaiter that carries up the heavier items.” It was one of the features that had convinced him to buy the place.
“Let me guess,” she said, her footsteps scraping the concrete steps as she followed him up. “You fixed it.”
He stopped on the stairs and turned back to look at her. “How did you know that?”
Her wink was beyond sexy. “I could hear it in your voice. You sounded like that when you were trying to tell me how you’d made your paint mistress.”
He resumed the climb. “That’s the Paint Prep Mistress to you, Ms. Lancaster.”
She laughed. “Well, excuse me. I didn’t mean to offend her.”
The impulse to drop her luggage and kiss her senseless on the stairs was so strong he increased his speed, needing to distance himself from his own temptation and the cinnamon fragrance in her hair.
He climbed to the third floor, and at the top noticed there was only one other door. Even though it was daytime, the light here was miniscule. “I’ll find you a flashlight. You’re going to be leaving in the pitch dark to get to work.”
“I’ll manage,” she said and edged around him in the small corridor. “Does it say 3A?”
Again, he had to squint to see the markings. Apparently the building was old enough for the ink to have faded. “I believe so.”
She leaned down, giving him a fabulous view of her backside. “Jacques said he’d put the key under the mat. Aha! Wow, this is a really old key.”
It looked like a skeleton key to Evan. He was practically holding his breath in anticipation. What if the place was a dump? She inserted it and had to wiggle it around in the lock before the tumblers caught.
“I’ll fix that,” he said. “I don’t want you getting locked out.”
She opened the door and felt for the light switch. “I’ll be fine. Oh, wow. Look at this place.”
He hauled her bag into the tiny kitchen. To the right was a bedroom. The doorway at the end of the galley kitchen sported a small eating and sitting area. And that was it.
“It’s wonderful!” she exclaimed and then did a little jig in place.
He didn’t see much to dance over. “It’s not very big,” he said, his eyes scanning the old wooden beams above their heads and the cracked plaster lines streaking across the ceiling. Was it safe? So many places in Paris wouldn’t pass a home inspection. “I’ll have to check—”
“No, you won’t,” she said, giving him a playful shove. “No checking. If Jacques can live here, so can I.”
“Where is he, anyway?” he asked.
“In Malta for a long holiday,” she said, tracing the sagging wooden cutting board anchored in the middle of the kitchen counter. “Just imagine how many people have used this surface to cook.”
All Evan could imagine was how many types of kitchen bacteria were living in that ancient wood. “Maybe I should—”
“No,” she said again, this time more firmly.
He held out his hands. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
She gave him a saucy look. “I don’t have to. It involved fixing something. Everything in here is perfect.”
Turning on the water to make sure it worked, he bit his tongue. Okay, at least she had water. She sailed past him through the small door leading to the bedroom. Should he follow her?
“Oh, come see!” she called out.
He ducked his head under the doorway. The bedroom had a small full bed—likely two twin beds pushed together if he knew Paris—and a twenty-foot-tall ceiling again covered with age-old beams and cracked plaster. He had a horrible vision of the whole thing caving in on her while she slept.
“Margie—”
“Oh, look at this bathroom door!” she cried out.
“It’s a hobbit door,” he said dryly, eying the four-foot-tall door cut off at the top in a diagonal line. “One thing is for sure. You can’t run to the bathroom without knocking yourself out.”
She peeked in, ducking her head like an explorer going into a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. “It even has a bidet.”
“Yeah!” he called out sarcastically.
She stuck her head out through the hobbit door and glared at him. “Don’t make fun of me or my bidet.”
His mouth twitched. “I know I’ve been calling you Pocket Venus, but now I think you might have found your home in the Shire.”
“Why am I not surprised you like Lord of the Rings?”
“I pretty much like all things Tolkien.” So sue him. He liked fantasy and magic. Life needed more of it, if you asked him.
“I like those movies too,” she confessed. “Maybe we can watch the first one while I’m here.”
“You’re suggesting we watch TV in Paris?” He clutched his heart. “Hundreds of hardworking artisans just rolled over in their graves. This is not a city to watch TV in, Margie.”
“Don’t you?” she asked, looking so cute in the short doorway, her sable hair curving around her jawline.
“It’s different for me,” he said. “I live here.”
She disappeared
from view again and closed the door on him. He gave her some privacy and meandered through the small kitchen, opening cabinets. At least this room was up to snuff, but since this Jacques guy was a chef, he wouldn’t have expected anything less. As for the dining and sitting room, it was obvious the guy barely lived here. Paris was like New York City that way. Most people spent more time outside their apartments than in them, working and eating and socializing in the streets of the city.
“I know it’s small,” she said from behind him, “but I love it. And it’s free. What could possibly be better than that?”
He was glad to hear Jacques wasn’t charging her to use his flat. He knew money had to be tight for her since she was starting her own business. It would be so easy for him to cut her a check for millions and erase any worries she had about money. He wanted to do it, but she’d hate him for it. She was a woman who needed to stand on her own. That much he knew and respected.
“What could possibly make this place better? How about a full-sized bathroom door?” he asked.
“Enough! Now, I am going to get settled in and take a nap like you suggested. I bought a data pack, so we can text while I’m here. When I’m ready, I’ll text you, and then you can take me to this special place to kiss me.”
Fire erupted in his belly. “I was planning to take you to dinner first.”
She shook her head. “Too long. I want my first-ever Paris kiss before dinner. Aren’t most Parisian dinners like two hours long anyway?”
He cleared his throat, remembering how it had felt to kiss her, imagining how it would feel this time. The kitchen was suddenly three times too small. “The good ones are.”
“Then I’m the one being practical this time.”
She lowered her eyes for a moment and then peered at him through her lashes—a look he found incredibly sexy. She hadn’t looked at him that way in Dare Valley.
“Evan, I can’t wait that long.”
He lost his ability to breathe. It was like the fire inside him had sucked all the gas from his lungs. “I can’t either.”
“Then go,” she said softly. “And thanks for picking me up and making it so easy to begin my time here.”
He grabbed the package she’d set on the kitchen counter. “This is another gift to make your time here easier.”
She gave him a half frown mixed with a smile. “You shouldn’t have.”
Inside the plain box was a lavishly wrapped gift in gold paper with a red ribbon. “It’s so pretty, I don’t want to open it.”
But she did, carefully peeling away the ribbon and paper and setting it aside with reverence. Then her brows knit together as she turned the machine from side to side.
“Okay,” she said, “you’re going to have to tell me what this is.”
“It’s a sound machine,” he told her, “specially designed to mask both real and white noise.”
She blinked at him.
“So you can sleep when all of Paris is outside your windows.”
“Oh!” She hit the red button on the top, her mouth gaping when it turned on. “Can you hear me?” she asked, saying the words slowly.
“Smart ass,” he told her.
“Thank you, Evan. This was really sweet.” Then she took off into the bedroom and returned with a box of her own.
“It’s not wrapped pretty like yours,” she told him, handing it over. “I had to put the rolls into something solid so they wouldn’t get squished in my carry-on.”
When he opened the box, he inhaled the cinnamon and bread fragrance he’d dreamed about since leaving Dare Valley. There were four large rolls inside, oozing with the caramel sauce for which they were famous.
“These look incredible,” he said. “Thank you for bringing them to me. I’ve missed them.” I’ve missed you. I’ve missed everything about you.
His mornings seemed colder now that he wasn’t greeted with her beautiful smile and the tantalizing scent of her baking every time he came into the kitchen. In idle moments, he’d found himself daydreaming about the time he’d caught her dancing to the tango music she liked to play, her red skirt flying through the air with the power of her movements. But perhaps most of all, he missed the way their fingers would brush as they walked together in the park she liked, both of them wishing they could hold hands.
Crossing to her, he didn’t think twice about grabbing her hand now and raising it to his lips. He kissed the back of it gently, looking directly into her emerald green eyes. “I’m really happy you’re here, Margie.”
“Me too,” she said and led him to the door.
Before he could leave, she laid her head on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, and she traced something in the middle of his ribcage before he pulled away.
After closing the door, he realized she’d traced a heart.
Chapter 2
Margie had planned to save her sexy dark green silk dress for a special dinner with Evan. While she hadn’t expected to wear it on her first night in Paris, it seemed like the perfect choice.
He’d planned their kiss.
No one had ever done that before—or thought to buy her a sound machine so she could sleep better. She sighed as she arranged her roses in small kitchen glasses since Jacques didn’t have a vase anywhere in the cabinets.
She finally allowed herself to admit she’d fallen for Evan big time. While she’d known their connection was strong in Dare Valley, it now seemed to be woven with steel threads. And while she still felt he was struggling with something, he was the same sweet, curious, sexy, and sometimes stubborn man she’d come to care about. She’d texted him earlier to say she was ready whenever he was.
Her stomach felt a little queasy from the lack of sleep and jet lag, but her blood thrummed through her system in excitement.
She was in Paris! With Evan!
She did another impromptu jig in the kitchen and laughed. There was a knock on the door. When she opened it, she pressed her hand to her heart.
“You brought me groceries!” She leapt at him and hugged him, not caring that a sprig of parsley was sticking her in the eye.
“The market will be closed by the time we finish with dinner, and you need to have food before you go to work.”
She had to report to work at nine a.m. tomorrow. Andre had given her the night to settle in. He said it would be easier to give her a tour of the bakery when it wasn’t super busy beyond customers coming into the shop to buy their morning croissants and baguettes. Of course, Andre also sold baguettes to a number of French restaurants. She couldn’t wait to learn everything he had to teach her.
“It looks like you brought me a feast,” she said, taking one of the bags from his hands and putting it on the counter.
He set his own bag down. “Let me look at you,” he said in a husky voice.
When he held out his hands to her, she took them and simply gazed into his eyes. He’d worn a simple navy suit with a white shirt underneath. The combination was so sexy and so Paris.
“You have the fashion here down to a T,” she told him.
He chuckled. “I had lots of help, trust me. If you’d seen me before…”
“Oh, do tell!” She wanted to know everything about him, everything from his past experiences to how he’d become the man he was today.
“In a sec.” His gaze ran down her body, and she felt the heat in his eyes curl around her. “First, I need to tell you how ravishing you look.”
“Ravishing? That seems a little thick.”
“Don’t analyze my compliment.”
He raised her hand to his lips again. Man, she could get used to that. Why had kissing a woman’s hand ever gone out of style? Someone needed to bring it back into fashion.
“And you look ravishing too,” she said as he let her hand go. “Like you always do.” Her smile was as coy as she could make it.
“I don’t think guys can be ravishing,” he said, taking out the vegetables, eggs, and cheese from the bag and putting them in the refrigerator. The baguette
he set on the counter.
She followed suit, squealing with delight when she saw the purple raspberries in her bag. “These are so awesome!”
His smile was a mile long. “I thought you might like those. I’ll draw you a map so you can visit the best market to buy produce. It’s a bit more expensive than the Monoprix, but you can find special items there no one else carries.”
“Like purple raspberries,” she said, clutching them to her heart. Then she dashed to the sink to wash them. “I have to try these.”
“You’re going to ruin your dinner,” he chided, leaning against the kitchen counter after closing the refrigerator door.
“I’m only going to have one,” she said and then popped it in her mouth. There was a lushness to the fruit and a floral taste that regular raspberries didn’t possess. “Okay, maybe not one. Thank you for getting these. For all of this. You’ll have to let me pay you.”
His jaw locked. “No way. You’re in my town now. Anywhere we go together, I’ll pay. It’s not negotiable.”
She set the raspberries aside, his stubbornness stealing some of her joy. “Don’t be silly. You’re—”
“I’m not poor, Margie,” he said and kicked at the tile floor with his incredibly fashionable brown loafers. “I—I needed to get in touch with another part of myself in Dare Valley, and it suited me to spend my time there a little more…simply than usual.”
“Kinda like the celibacy thing?” she asked.
His lips twitched. “Leave it to you to remind me. Yes, it was kinda like that.”
“So…you were essentially living like a monk in a communal home, working for barely an hourly wage.”
This time his laugh was loud and deep, from his belly, and she found herself joining in.
“My friend Chase called me Brother Evan.”
His lakewater blue eyes were alight with warmth, and it gratified her to hear about his friend. In Dare Valley, he’d seemed so lonely. It was good to know there was someone looking out for him, someone in whom he could confide.