Page 40 of City of Love

I just shake my head, because the temptation to bring up the guy on the metro who couldn’t keep his eyes off her is strong, and I don’t particularly want to talk about him. Nor do I want to get into a conversation about attractiveness. That’s dangerous territory.

“Do you work with any women? At your nonprofit gig?” she says. The way she emphasizes ‘nonprofit’ tells me she knows I’m bending the truth with that label.

“None,” I say. “Now,” I add to curb this conversation. “I should get some sleep, and so should you.”

“Fine,” Lydia grumbles, but her smile lets me know she’s not actually upset. She scoots off my bed and stands. “Goodnight.”

I smile. “Goodnight,chérie.”

Chapter 13

Lydia

God bless America, and God bless American air conditioning. Because apparently that is not as much of a thing here, and I am suffering for it.

I toss and turn as I try to sleep, but the heat drapes over me like a weighted blanket until I get up and open the window. Even then I crave the feel of moving air; the next chance I get, I’m buying a fan. I feel like an idiot for not thinking of that when I was out with Noel.

When I finally sleep, I dream about Marcus. Which is sort of the worst. As much as I gripe about Noel being too bossy and overprotective—and I stand by that assessment—I’m also grateful for his support. Because the truth is, Iwouldn’tfeel safe talking to Marcus on my own. And I hate that. I hate everything about the Marcus situation, but what I hate the most is how scared and angry he makes me feel.

I don’t like feeling scared. I don’t like feeling helpless. I’m scared to speak to him, but I’m more scared to turn him in. What if he retaliates? What if no one believes me?

No, it’s better to take care of it myself if I can.

So, when I get up the next morning, I pull on my big girl panties and give myself the pep talk of all pep talks. Then I meet Noel and Mme Marchand in the living room.

Noel’s eyes skate over me before he looks away again, and I fight my smile. He may not be interested in me romantically, and goodness knows he did some serious frowning at my poor lips yesterday, but I can tell that right now he likes what he sees. It’s in the way his eyes linger and the way he clenches his jaw before looking away. He doesn’t want to find me attractive, but in this moment, he does.

To be fair, I look decent. This pair of jeans does great things for my legs—and hides the fact that I need to shave—and I have on a flowy, off-the-shoulder peasant top in light blue. Not present: the color red, because no way am I wearing red after Marcus asked me to.

In fact, I considered wearing my frumpiest clothes—although to be honest, not much of what I have is frumpy. What can I say? I like fashion—but then I realized that would be giving Marcus control over my wardrobe, and that is not okay with me. So here I am, feeling put together, and I one hundred percent do not regret it.

“Are we all ready?” Mme Marchand asks, her eyes going back and forth between Noel and me, and when we both answer in the affirmative, she claps a few times and ushers us to the door. Once again, she strikes me as the kind of woman who just has a lot of energy and is constantly moving.

Noel lets me walk out before him, and I feel the lightest of touches on the small of my back as he says in my ear, “Are you ready for today?”

“Yes,” I say over my shoulder. I turn my head back to look at him, but I jump, because his face isright there. So I turn forward instead, trying to calm my jittery pulse.

Which is a little difficult. His hand stays on the small of my back as we enter the lift, falling away only as the door closes. After that, though, I’m able to breathe more normally. It’s stupid, I know. He doesn’t see me like that. He blatantly said so to Ian last night. But feelings aside, he’s still a very attractive man.

He’s fairly quiet this morning, seeming content to let his mother do the talking, and I get the feeling that he’s deep in thought—distracted, maybe. He does seem to be introverted, and that’s no surprise, but usually he’s more open with me and with his mom. I’m tempted to ask him if everything is all right, but I don’t.

We take the metro to the station nearest the Eiffel Tower—la Tour Eiffel, if we want to be French about it—where we meet up with the rest of my class. Our original number is roughly doubled now, since our pen pals are with us, and it’s interesting to look around and see who my former classmates have been writing to.

They all probably knew the gender of their pen pals from the start.

I take a deep breath as we stand around waiting—for what, I’m not sure—and go over my pep talk in my head. This day is about the Eiffel Tower, not about Marcus. I’m not going to hide from him, because I shouldn’t have to. I have Noel with me, and Mlle Hilliard and Mme Marchand are here as well.

So it will be fine. I’ll be fine.

Once we get to the actual Eiffel Tower, we wait in line roughlyforever.The queue is ridiculous. I mean, I get it—everyone and their dog wants to visit the Eiffel Tower. I’m clearly no different. But no one likes standing in line.

Marcus is here, and I catch him watching me a couple times, but he doesn’t approach me and I’m certainly not going to approach him. I wait with Noel instead, talking and laughing and discreetly sniffing him when he isn’t looking. At one point he takes a call from Luc, speaking French in low undertones, but when I ask him what it’s about, he won’t tell me.

Because he’s sketchy.

Honestly, I’d be concerned if it weren’t for the fact that I trust him completely. I mean, I still worry a little that he’s going to get arrested or something—who knows what for—but I know I’m safe with him.

Which is why, when we reach the summit of the Eiffel Tower, I loop my arm through his in what might or might not be a death grip.

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