My blood ran cold. None of this was making sense. The only thing that was becoming crystal clear was that Antoine believed I’d murdered his sister.
Antoine leaned forward in his seat, the intensity in his gray eyes burning right through me. “Tell me, Ruby, how was your necklace found underneath my sister’s body?”
“Ruby would never kill someone,” I declared, my gut instinct telling me to protect this woman I’d become overnight, this woman who, in another life, I had already been.
Antoine tossed me a strange glance, and after his expression morphed to one of complete confusion, I realized my mistake.
I had talked about Ruby in the third person. Damn.
Antoine leaned over the table, his heavy breath deepening as he inched toward me. “Come closer,” he whispered.
I eased toward him, wondering if he was going to smack me across the face or kiss me.
But he did neither. Instead he dropped the necklace onto the table, then cupped my chin in the palm of his hand and gazed pointedly into my eyes. “They’re blue,” he said, the shock in his voice sending a chill down my spine. “Bleu comme la mer.”
Blue like the ocean.
“My eyes?”
He nodded slowly, the confidence he’d shown just moments ago draining from his face. “But your eyes aren’t blue, Ruby. They’re green. They’ve always been green.”
Antoine dropped his hand from my chin and stared at me like he’d seen a ghost.
“You’re wrong,” I told him, my cheeks flaming up. “My eyes have always been blue.”
“You’re lying. Who are you?”
“What are you talking about? How would you know the color of my eyes, anyway?”
“You’re not Ruby. You talk differently than she does. More refined, more sophisticated. Gentler, even. Are you her sister? Does Ruby have a twin? Did she run after the murder and send you in her place?”
Ruby could’ve had an identical twin or a whole brood of siblings back in the States for all I knew. But I couldn’t come up with any more excuses, and I couldn’t tell Antoine the truth. I had to get out of here.
“My name is Ruby and I have blue eyes. That’s all I know right now. I don’t know who that necklace belongs to, and I don’t remember anything more about your sister’s death. I’m sorry.” I threw my napkin on the table, shot up from my seat, and ran out of the café, the frigid air smacking me like an unexpected slap to the face.
ELEVEN
I ran back past Les Deux Magots, then swung a left on rue Bonaparte. I knew this wasn’t the way to my apartment, but I didn’t want to go back there. I didn’t want to risk seeing Jean-Pierre again or having to face this mess of a life I’d found myself in.
I needed air. I needed to breathe.
Squeezing down the narrow sidewalks of this chic neighborhood, I raced past fancy art galleries, ritzy hotels, chocolateries, and quaint bookstores, librairies. As I pushed past a classy Parisian couple all dressed up for a night on the town, I thought of Antoine, of his incredibly handsome face, those smoky eyes…and instantly wished I was in Paris on different terms.
Ruby’s young body had much greater stamina than I’d ever had as Claudia. I reached the quai of the Seine River only slightly out of breath, my legs still keeping their fast pace, my lungs sucking down the cool air like water.
As soon as I spotted a break in traffic from the long line of Renault, Peugeot, and Citroën cars—their classic styles and bizarre-sounding horns an ever-present reminder that I was so far away from home—I jetted across the street and turned right toward the Pont des Arts.
My heels pounded onto the hard wooden planks of the bridge, the yellow glow of the tall lampposts lighting my way. I stopped when I reached the middle, realizing I was the only pedestrian crossing on such a bitterly cold evening. The river, which stretched out before me, was black and choppy, and just like my mind, the water spun in circles, an endless pool of unanswered questions drowning in the chaos.
The striking sights of Paris lit up the dark night—the Île de la Cité straight ahead and Notre Dame Cathedral off in the distance, its gothic towers reaching far up into the ominous night sky. The Palais du Louvre loomed to my left, and a riverboat passed underneath the bridge, its guide most certainly telling the tourists about all of the glamour the City of Lights has to offer.
The words I’d spoken to Édouard the last night we’d danced shot through my head, their irony so thick I could’ve choked on it.
I can only imagine how glamorous it must’ve been. I’ve never even been to Paris.
Leaning against the ledge, I curled my hands around the frosty railing and squeezed my eyes shut. I breathed in the smell of the icy water as the freeze traveled up to my brain, soothing my spinning head.
And just as the numbness set in and I could feel the air and the water sucking every last worry from my mind, I heard a voice. It was so soft, I thought I was imagining it. But as I remained on the bridge, my eyes still closed, my fingers wrapped around the ledge, I heard it again.
“Ruby.”
My eyelids shot open as if a blast of ice water had woken me up from a bad dream. I turned and scanned the bridge, but no one was there.
He wasn’t there.
That voice. It belonged to the man with the scarred hand. The man from New York who’d given me the scars on my back and stomach. I was sure of it.
The hairs on the back of my neck and arms stood on end, and despite the tension between me and Antoine and the fact that he believed I’d had something to do with his sister’s murder, he was the only person I wanted to see.
I shot back across the bridge, my legs acting on muscle memory, adrenaline, and fear. I retraced my path to rue Bonaparte, praying that the man who’d whispered my name hadn’t followed me to Paris. Praying I would make it back to Antoine, back to Ruby’s apartment, unharmed. Alive.
Just as I rounded the corner, I plowed right into someone, our heads colliding in a cold, hard crash.
“Where did you go? I came looking for you, but I couldn’t find you.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding when I realized it was Antoine.
“Ça va, Ruby? Why are you running so fast? What is going on?”
“I…I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why I’m running or who I am or what has happened to my life. I just want to go back,” I said as a tear streamed down my cheek, its warmth painful on my cold, raw skin. “I just want to go home.”
Antoine didn’t respond. Instead, he wrapped his arms around my shivering body and pulled me into his chest. “I’ll take you home, Ruby. I’ll take you home.”
Antoine put on the teakettle and rummaged through Ruby’s tiny kitchen as I sat on the couch, shivering inside the wool blanket he’d wrapped around my shoulders only moments before. I knew after what had happened at the café that it was stupid of me to bring Antoine back to my apartment, but I couldn’t be alone right now. Not after hearing that blood-chilling whisper on the bridge.
What if that man was here in Paris, following me? Just waiting to strike again?
I shuddered once more, trying to erase the memory of his deep, haunting voice from my mind, but it wouldn’t budge.
Antoine handed me a steaming mug of tea. “Here, this will help,” he said before taking a seat opposite me in the armchair.
Closing my eyes, I poured the hot liquid down my throat, hoping it would calm me down. Make me feel safe again. But the truth was that the only thing making me feel safe right now was having Antoine next to me.
“What happened back there? What were you running from?” Antoine asked, his intense gaze fixated on me.
“I…I can’t tell you. It’s going to sound crazy,” I said through chattering teeth.
“Crazier than your eyes changing color? Crazier than your speech, your personality, and your entire demeanor changing overnight?”
When I didn’t respond, Antoine stood up from the chair and sat down next to me on the couch, forcing me to look
into his eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you, Ruby. I only want to know the truth. The truth about who you are, what or who you were running from back there, and why you are refusing to admit that the necklace found underneath my sister’s body belongs to you.”
“I still don’t understand why you think that necklace is mine. It belongs to my…I mean, it belongs to Titine,” I blurted, immediately regretting my words. Why would I want to implicate my young grandmother in Gisèle’s murder?
Antoine reached past me, grabbed a framed black-and-white picture off the coffee table and thrust it into my hands. “If it belongs to Titine, why are you wearing it in this photograph?”
I glanced down at the photo of Ruby and Titine, all dolled up for a night out on the town in their chic black hats, white gloves, and dark lipstick. And sure enough, Ruby was wearing the heart-shaped pendant around her neck, just like Antoine had said. Damn.
So the necklace had belonged to Ruby, and at some point, Ruby must’ve given it to my grandmother. And the night I was zapped back in time to this insane life, the old woman in the dance studio put that very same necklace on me, and somehow, it had landed me here.
I shook my head, the confusion and the improbability of it all rattling me to the core.
“Tell me the truth,” Antoine urged.
Puffing out a frustrated breath, I shoved the framed photograph back into his hands. “I told you, I don’t remember everything! And just because my necklace was found underneath Gisèle, that doesn’t make me a murderer. After I found her, it must’ve slipped off my neck and gotten caught in her costume.”
“When you found Gisèle’s body, did you move her around? Did you turn her over?”
“I…I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Then why would the necklace have been underneath my sister if it just slipped off your neck as you are saying? What aren’t you telling me? And why are you suddenly so different from the Ruby I spoke with just yesterday?”
Shoving past Antoine, I shot across the living room to get some cool air by the window.
I couldn’t handle the heat of his gaze, the way he made me want to admit everything. The way he made me want to tell him who I really was: that beneath this façade of a gorgeous dancer who sold her body—and her soul—for money, I was really a woman who desperately wanted to find a way home, to my real life and my baby.
And that this necklace he was questioning me about had more of a story to it than he could possibly imagine.
I leaned my forehead against the chilly windowpanes, searching for that glimpse of La Tour Eiffel I’d seen earlier, but a cold, black darkness had swept over the Parisian skies. “Why are you giving me a chance to explain? Why didn’t you just tell the police the necklace doesn’t belong to Gisèle? Why didn’t you have them arrest me?”
Antoine’s footsteps bounded through the apartment, stopping only once they’d reached me. “Because, Ruby, I don’t think you murdered my sister. But I think you know who did.”
Antoine laid a palm on my shoulder, sending a jolt of electricity down my spine.
“Let me see your eyes again.” His voice came as a deep, raspy whisper behind me. The urgency laced into his tone was palpable. He needed more than I could give him.
But still, I couldn’t say no.
My arms fell to my sides, leaving me vulnerable as I turned to face him.
He took a step closer to me, our bodies now only inches apart. His other hand found my shoulder before I could break his gaze. “I know they were green. I’m positive.”
I froze, unable to mutter a single word as I looked up at his sincere gray eyes and rugged face, feeling the weight of his palms on my shoulders. My cheeks flushed at his touch, my hands and my whole body tingling and warm.
And again, there was that familiar feeling. That comforting yet exhilarating sensation I’d felt when he’d taken my hand earlier in the wings. When I’d smelled his cool, masculine scent. The same feeling that had surged through me when I’d watched him from a distance in the café.
I remembered Antoine. This moment, his expression, his touch. I remembered all of it, but just in the same way I’d remembered everything so far in this life, it was like a lightning flash through my mind. And as soon as the blast hit the ground, the memory was gone, leaving me standing there, breathless and dizzy.
“It’s not just the color,” Antoine said, his deep voice resonating through my body, jarring me from my déjà-vu. “Your eyes are softer now, more naïve. And you are too.”
“People change,” I said softly, hoping against all reason that Antoine wouldn’t take his hands off of me, that he would stand here and look at me this way forever.
He shook his head slowly, his eyes searching my face, his hands lingering on my shoulders. “Not in this way, though.”
“You should go,” I told him, the warmth and comfort I felt from his touch draining at the sound of my own words. I didn’t want him to go. But this was an impossible situation. He wanted information I couldn’t give him. About Gisèle. About what Ruby had really been doing the night of her death. And about me—the me who stood before him tonight, a changed woman from the one he’d spoken to only a day earlier.
Antoine flinched just the slightest bit before his hands slipped from my shoulders, his pained gaze telling me he didn’t want to leave. He wanted answers, he wanted justice for his sister…and maybe he wanted more.
But I couldn’t give any of that to him.
I took a deep breath in an attempt to shake off the tingling, the burning, and the need that had manifested in my body over the past few minutes, and I stepped past him, showing him to the door.
On his way out, he turned and lingered in the doorway, the grief emanating off of him like a thick fog, engulfing us both in its haze of confusion, secrets, and lies. I wished I could take his pain away. I knew what it felt like to lose a family member, to lose someone you loved more than anything.
I only hoped I hadn’t been the one who’d taken her away.
“Thank you for coming back here with me,” I said softly, trying to mask the desire and the need in my voice. “And thank you for not saying anything to the police about the necklace. I know it’s probably impossible to trust anyone right now, let alone me, but I’m telling you the truth about my memory loss. I’m so sorry about what happened to Gisèle. I wish I could help you more, I really do.”
Antoine’s smoky-gray eyes blinked down at me underneath long, thick lashes. “Will you be okay alone here tonight? Whatever you were running from on the bridge…are you safe?”
“I…I think so. I hope so.”
Antoine nodded, but the concern in his eyes showed me that he was still worried. He reached inside his coat and pulled out a white business card. “If you need anything, or if you remember anything, anything at all, please call me. The hospital where I work is close by, so I can be here quickly.”
“Thank you,” I said, knowing that as soon as his hand let go of mine and he left my sight, I would already want to call him. Tell him to come back. Because no one I’d met so far in this crazy day as Ruby had made me feel as safe as I felt standing here with him.
He squeezed my hand. “Take care of yourself, Ruby. And please, be careful.” With one last wistful gaze, he let go of my hand and disappeared down the stairwell, the scent of pine and cold air lingering under my nose, making me wish that I hadn’t let him leave.
TWELVE
Alone in my apartment, I dead-bolted the door and forced myself to breathe.
What a day.
I turned around to face the cluttered apartment that was, for the moment, my own, and remembered the reason for the clutter.
François Lefevre. My frantic search for his contact information. I needed to ask him if we had been together during the murder, and if he would confirm my alibi with the police to clear my name from this investigation.
Antoine had merely been a distraction, I told myself. The feelings I’d felt for him were not real. I didn’t even
know the man. Closing my eyes, I wished away the tingling and the warmth that had flooded me the moment he’d first laid his hand on my arm, the moment he’d first said my name.
But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t ignore the fact that I’d felt this feeling only once before—in Édouard’s arms.
What did any of this mean?
I opened my eyes and scanned the apartment for answers, for something that could help me. Again, where was the silver-haired woman when I needed her?
All I had to go on were my gut instincts.
And right now, those instincts were telling me to forget about Antoine and Édouard and find François Lefevre.
I ran to the desk and searched once more through the mess of papers scattered around and underneath it. When I didn’t find any mysterious phone numbers or notes leading me to François, I ripped open the desk drawer. There, on the top, were my journal and the People magazine with Édouard’s and Solange’s faces on the cover—still faded, just as they had been earlier. A shiver ran down my spine as I gazed a little too long at her icy smile and cold eyes, and found myself wondering how Édouard could be with her.
I pulled the faded sonogram photo from my coat pocket then tucked it inside my journal before my hands instinctively ran over my stomach. Disappointment flooded me yet again as I remembered that my baby wasn’t there anymore. That I didn’t even know if she would survive.
I couldn’t stand here and be sad about it, though. I had to act. I had to get her back.
I tossed my journal and the magazine back onto the desk and resumed my search, refocusing my efforts in Ruby’s cluttered bedroom. I picked once more through the plethora of gowns and high heels bursting from the closet, the piles of lacy lingerie shoved into the dresser drawers, and the empty shoe boxes and hatboxes that littered the floors.
But still, nothing.
I ransacked the hall closet, the bathroom, and the kitchen, my desperation rising with each opened box, each empty drawer, each dusty cupboard that yielded not a single piece of useful information.
Dancing with Paris (A Paris Time Travel Romance) Page 9