“Just now,” he said. “From Alexis. You didn’t want her to see us together, did you?”
“I didn’t want her to see me, period. The girls think I’m off meeting a client. They’re not expecting me for another two days.” She withheld the part about Celeste and Paris and memories of their younger selves. “Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?”
He grinned. “They don’t know I’m in town, either.”
“You’re kidding.” She started to laugh. “They really don’t know you’re here?”
“I was in London interviewing a soccer player. It was supposed to take a few days, but he wasn’t exactly verbal. We finished in an hour so—” he shrugged “—here I am.”
“She didn’t see me, did she?”
“Taylor was there, too. I managed to duck out before they crossed the street.”
They locked eyes and burst into laughter.
“The last time I took off like that, I was ten and I’d lobbed a baseball through Mr. Maguire’s front window,” Ryan said.
“I won’t blow your cover if you don’t blow mine.”
“We were always good at keeping each other’s secrets.”
“And there were so many of them.” She gestured toward the street. “Do you think it’s safe?”
“We can’t stay in this alleyway all day.”
“Good point.”
“Stay behind me. I’ll cover you while we check it out.”
It was so absurd that they had to laugh, and once they started they found it impossible to stop. Kate leaned against the wall, crying from laughter, while Ryan made a three-act production of poking his head out and looking up and down the street.
If you have so much fun with the man, why are you divorcing him?
Because life wasn’t all stealing kisses in a Parisian alleyway, that was why. You could love somebody, enjoy his company and still not be able to make it work for the long haul.
Wasn’t that the reason they had given each other when they agreed to part? Funny how it didn’t sound quite so logical right now.
“All clear,” he said, wiping imaginary sweat from his brow. “Not a Donovan in sight.”
They joined the street traffic and started walking toward the Eiffel Tower once again.
“I never thought I’d be ducking my own kids on my first trip to Paris,” Kate said as they waited for the traffic signal to change. “Life is nothing if not surprising.”
He stopped and pointed toward a knot of young women posing for photos alongside the river. “Isn’t that Alexis over there?”
Kate turned to run, but he stopped her.
“Gotcha!”
“Not funny.”
“So why are you laughing?”
“Because I happen to be a sucker for really terrible jokes.”
“Ouch.”
It was her turn to grin. “Gotcha!”
They bantered back and forth as they walked, then settled into companionable silence, breathing the air, taking in the sights, reveling in the fact that they were walking the streets of the most beautiful city on the planet.
“Look at that line!” Kate said when they neared the Eiffel Tower. “That’s worse than the Pirates of the Caribbean ride the time we took the girls to Disney World.”
“I say we ditch it.”
“I agree.” She would come back tomorrow morning when it opened.
“Now what?” He whipped out his guidebook. “The Louvre is over that way.”
“The Louvre?” She arched a brow. “I find it hard to believe that’s your number-one choice.”
“It wasn’t.” He pointed at the Eiffel Tower. “That was. Remember?”
“The Louvre will take hours. Maybe we should just—”
He grabbed her hand for the second time. “Come on!”
They ducked into a pastry shop with seconds to spare. Alexis and her sister and two other members of the wedding party strolled past the window, laughing and looking impossibly young and beautiful.
“Somebody had better tell that girl she has a wedding to prepare for,” Kate muttered. “She has too much time on her hands.”
Ryan, who was checking out a bouquet of warm baguettes fresh from the oven, laughed.
Kate stifled a yawn as Ryan picked a small baguette and handed over some coinage. He broke off a piece of soft, warm bread and handed it to her.
“Heavenly,” she said with a sigh. Once again they stepped out onto the busy street and started walking. “I’m not even hungry, but I can’t resist.” So far the French baked goods she had sampled were a few rungs above heavenly. She yawned again. “I hate to say this, but I don’t think I’m up for the Louvre.”
“Jet lag?”
“That and the fact I haven’t slept for two days. I’m going to go back to my hotel and crash until dinner.” She gave his arm a quick friendly squeeze. “See you at Milles Fleurs.”
It would have been the perfect exit line if he hadn’t fallen into step beside her.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m walking you back.”
“You don’t know where I’m staying.”
“I’ll find out when we get there.”
“You really don’t have to do this. I can find my way.”
“I know you can,” he said. “I thought we could talk about the wedding.”
“I know as much about it as you do. Alexis said it was all going to be a surprise and the only thing I had to do was show up with my dress and shoes. She would do the rest.”
“She told me the same thing.”
“To bring your dress and shoes?”
He pretended to glare at her. “The male equivalent.”
“I’m not so sure our girl will be moving back stateside, are you?”
He shook his head. “Not sure at all. I think she’s more like Aunt Celeste than anyone else in the family.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“How will you feel if she decides to make her home in France?”
“Sad,” Kate said. “Happy that she’s following her heart but sad that we won’t get to see her very often.”
“She’ll only be a plane ride away,” Ryan pointed out.
“There’s a big difference between a transatlantic flight and the shuttle to Boston.” She would pick Boston. “Or D.C.,” she added in a lame attempt to cover up. “You know what I mean.”
“I do know,” he said. “Sometimes Boston feels like the other side of the planet to me.”
His words hit her hard. His big move to Boston two years ago had been a huge success career-wise but was it possible he still had some regrets?
Then again what difference did it make? His regrets were his business, not hers. In ten days they would sign the papers and their divorce would be official. It wouldn’t hurt her to keep reminding herself of that fact every thirty seconds or so.
HE HAD PUT IT OUT there like a trial balloon, but so far she hadn’t picked up on it. The old Kate would have been all over that statement with a microscope, but the new Kate just smiled and continued walking in the direction of her hotel.
She had him completely off balance. The kiss they had shared in the alleyway had been filled with heat and promise, but you would never know it from the cool and distant friendliness she displayed now.
Maybe he was the one with the microscope this time, examining every smile, every word for—
For what? Now that was the question of the hour. What the hell was the point? It was over. All he had to do was look at the way she wasn’t looking at him to know she had moved on, leaving him and everything they had shared behind.
I made a mistake, Kate. I should have listened to what you were saying. I should have understood what you needed. We could have found a way to make it work…a compromise…maybe even one of those commuter marriages if that was the only way….
It took him a second to realize she had stopped walking.
It took him another second to realize they were standing in front of the Hotel S
t. Michel.
“What’s up?” he asked. “Another daughter sighting?”
She shook her head. “This is my stop,” she said, tilting her head toward the entrance.
“You’re staying here?”
“Yes.” She looked up at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m staying here, too.”
“This place isn’t even in the guidebooks. The only way you could possibly know about it is if Aunt Celeste—”
She stopped.
They locked eyes.
She pulled the key to Room 625 from her bag.
He pulled the key to Room 625 from his back pocket.
“Houston,” she said, “we have a problem.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“CELESTE,” Kate said as they rode the elevator up to the sixth floor. “She set us up.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Ryan said, as the elevator doors slid open and they exited into the hallway. “She’s almost ninety. She must have made a mistake.”
“This isn’t a mistake. Aunt Celeste knew exactly what she was doing.”
Her great-aunt was a born matchmaker who had tried to set up the undertaker with the hospice nurse at her husband’s funeral.
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh yes, she would,” Kate said, “and I’ll prove it.”
The elevator doors slid open and they exited into the hallway.
“Okay, here’s a question. Did Aunt Celeste have anything to do with that interview you did in London?”
The look of disbelief on Ryan’s face was starting to be replaced by one of shock. “She put me in touch with the footballer.”
“I rest my case.” She couldn’t keep the smug note of triumph from her voice. “This was a setup.”
“The guy announced his retirement to me. I don’t think your Aunt Celeste had anything to do with that.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Kate said. “When it comes to romance, she’s Patton in pearls. Nothing gets in her way.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions. Maybe the desk clerk gave me the wrong key by accident.”
“Right,” said Kate as she slid the old-fashioned brass key into the lock and opened the door. “And I suppose your bags were put here by accident, too.”
A familiar leather carry-on and a duffel bag had been left in the hallway adjacent to the escritoire.
“Believe me now?” she asked.
He dragged his hand through his hair and whistled low. “I didn’t think she had it in her.”
“That’s because you’re a man. She can work right there in plain sight and you’d never see it coming.”
“Hey, Nancy Drew, you didn’t see it coming, either.”
She stalked across the room and picked up the phone.
“What are you doing?” He had the look of a man who had been dropped behind enemy lines without a battle plan.
“I’m calling Celeste. I want you to hear it from her own lips.”
The phone rang twice at the inn. A woman answered with a cheery “’Allo!”
Kate, cheeks flaming with embarrassment, stumbled through a mixed-up mess of English and high-school French as she tried to get the woman to take the phone to her aunt.
“Non! Non!” This was followed by a stream of rapid-fire French that made Kate dizzy.
“Madame Beaulieu, s’il vous plaît,” she tried again. “Je m’appelle Kate Donovan. Je suis sa niece.”
“Madame Beaulieu away…”
Kate thanked the woman and hung up. She turned to Ryan. “The inn says she’s not there.” She then said something she would have punished her daughters for saying when they were ten years old.
He had been her husband long enough not to laugh.
“You think she’s ducking your call?”
“What else?” She handed him the phone. “You call and say there’s a wedding emergency.”
“Like hell. I like Celeste.”
“Do you like what she did to us?”
Wait a minute! What if he did like what Celeste did? Wouldn’t that be something.
He took the phone from her and dialed 0, which effectively brought that line of conjecture to a halt.
“Je m’appelle Ryan Donovan in six twenty-five. There’s been…une erreur.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “How do you say ‘change my room’ in French?”
She scrambled through her carry-on for her French-to-English dictionary. “Chambre is room,” she offered, flipping through the pages. “Try une chambre autre with a question mark in your voice and see what happens.”
He shot her a “fat lot of good that’s gonna do me” kind of look.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said into the phone. “Une petit…un autre chambre s’il vous plaît.” He looked over at Kate. “He put me on hold.”
“Hang up.”
He didn’t.
“Hang up,” she said again then wrestled the phone from his hand just as the clerk came back on line. “Merci,” she said, “but ma chambre est parfait…bien…au revoir.” God only knows what she had really said to the desk clerk but it seemed to have worked.
Ryan, however, was less than thrilled.
“Now how the hell am I going to get another room?”
“Thanks to Celeste, you already have a room. We’re not children. We should be able to make the best of this situation.” I don’t want you to leave, Ryan. This is the best thing Aunt Celeste ever did for me.
“There must be thousands of rooms out there. I’m going to—” He yawned behind his hand. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay.” She stifled her own yawn. “I haven’t slept in two days.”
“Make it one and a half,” he said, yawning again.
“I’m too tired to argue. Why don’t you at least grab a nap before you go looking for a room,” she suggested, hoping she sounded more nonchalant than she felt. “You’re out on your feet.”
“So are you,” he said. “You look wiped out.”
“You take the sofa,” she said. “I’ll dig up a pillow for you.”
She couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t seem at all unhappy with the suggestion. She also couldn’t help but notice her own delight. Maybe she was more like her aunt than she had ever realized.
“Skip the pillow. I’m so tired I could sleep standing up.”
“There’s only the one bathroom,” she said, pointing to the doorway beyond the bedroom. “If you’d like to use it first…”
“Thanks.” He disappeared into the other room.
If she wasn’t so hideously tired, she would be proud of them for being so adult and pragmatic about the situation, but the truth was the whole thing suddenly made her terribly sad. They had lived together as husband and wife for almost thirty years and here they were as stiff and formal as strangers on a train.
They hadn’t lived together for almost two years. They were the blink of an eye away from signing final divorce papers. You would think she would be used to the idea by now, but she wasn’t. Their secret lovemaking on the night of the engagement party had reawakened feelings she had believed dead and buried, and seeing him today hurt more than she cared to admit.
She liked seeing the light glowing under the bathroom door. She liked the sound of him belting out Motown oldies in the shower even if he was the world’s worst singer. She liked the shoes in the hallway, the comb and wallet and keys on top of the nightstand. It all felt so familiar, so right, so dangerous.
That was the word for it. Dangerous. He was seeing someone else. Some unnamed twinkie who worked at the station and whose only goal in life was to rock his world. Though why her children thought she needed that piece of information was beyond her.
They had had plenty of time to work things out and it hadn’t happened. Look at the incident in the rented Toyota. He could have run after her when she leaped from the car. He could have followed her into the house and tried to make sense out of what had happened. But he didn’t do anything and, to be fair, neit
her did she. The weeks and the months rolled on as they let their lawyers and their daughters do their talking for them.
And now there she was, sitting on the edge of Aunt Celeste’s lovely sofa in the middle of Aunt Celeste’s lovely suite of rooms in painfully lovely Paris, listening to her husband take a shower. She hadn’t been this happy since that night in the rented Toyota when she went temporarily insane.
RYAN STOOD naked in the middle of the luxuriously appointed bathroom and considered the problem.
His clean clothes were in his bag in the hallway, which wouldn’t be a big deal if Kate weren’t out there waiting to claim the bathroom for herself.
What the hell was the right thing to do? It wasn’t that they hadn’t seen each other naked thousands of times over the years. They knew each other’s bodies intimately. Every sweet curve, every slender—
Hold on, pal. This is about your body, not hers.
He regrouped. In another time and place, he wouldn’t have thought twice about walking naked from point A to point B. But those days were long gone. He wasn’t in bad shape for his age but—
Scratch naked.
He was surprised there wasn’t a terry-cloth robe hanging behind the door. That would have made life a hell of a lot easier. So that left the towel. Unfortunately it wasn’t a big towel. Just your average bath towel, the kind you had to hang on to to keep it in place.
Hey, fool, it isn’t brain surgery. All he had to do was stroll nonchalantly through the bedroom, the sitting room, grab his bag from the foyer, then reverse the process with Kate watching every move.
She was an artist. She noticed everything. Those sharp eyes would zero in on the inevitable signs of age, but he knew that her compassionate heart would look the other way.
He was starting to understand why she had fled from him the night of Alexis’s engagement party. Sometimes running was the only option.
He tugged the towel around his middle and held it with a death grip.
Time to face the music.
A STOLEN MOMENT in the backseat of a car was one thing.
Watching a man cross the room wearing nothing but a towel was something else again.
A Wedding in Paris Page 4