Page 121 of Bottles & Blades

I’m jet lagged, fatigue is pulling at my bones, and I’m running purely on the magic of being in this city.

But I’m not an idiot.

I know something is up.

Jean-Mi has barely been on his phone. He hasn’t turned me loose in this beautiful city to wander on my own while he takes care of that emergency business.

Instead, he’s been glued to my side and feeding me treats and showing me gorgeous pieces of art.

I turn and study him closely.

He’s leaned back on his elbows on the concrete steps, wind blowing through his hair, looking handsome (and not jet lagged whatsoever).

But he’s not looking like a man who’s focused on business.

“Jean-Mi.”

He turns his gaze from the gorgeous, recently reconstructed church, and looks down at me, his eyes warm, his mouth automatically turning up into a soft smile.

God, the way he looks at me…

I hold it close.

Never would I have expected it.

Never would I havedreamedit.

“What is it, buttercup?” he asks, stroking his knuckles along the column of my throat. “Need more food?”

“There isn’t a meeting, is there?”

His mouth curves a bit further. “How pissed are you going to be if I answer that in the affirmative?”

There.

That’s the confirmation I knew was coming, the slender thread of knowledge that has grown over the last day.

“Jean-Mi!” I exclaim, swatting him across the chest. “You—I—” I open and close my mouth a few times, starting a sentence, stopping it, trying to figure out what in the word I can possibly say in response to his confession. “Why are we here?” I finally ask, deciding to settle on the most pertinent question.

His smile kills me.

“Where’d you say was the place in the world you wanted to visit the most?”

My heart convulses. “You didn’t.”

“What’s the point of having all that I have if I can’t give someone I love a day like this?”

Tears burn the backs of my eyes, and I blink rapidly, trying not to let them overflow. “Honey,” I say. “This is insane. It’s too much. My parents. Paris. A jet. I—” I can’t even string the words together into anything that reasonably resembles sentences.

Because this man didthis?

How can I pay him back?

How can I accept?

Only, I’m already here, aren’t I?

My brain is going to explode and I’m here and?—

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