Page 7 of Marriage (Red, White &) Blues

I winced. “We are now. It’s just I’m not used to kind, handsome men wanting to take me out. I put on that freshman fifteen when I got to college and haven’t been able to get it off. And?—”

“Thank you, Jesus!” he said and I stared at him blankly. “Oh, because you have the most voluptuous curves,” he explained when he noticed me staring. “They’re sexy as hell.You’resexy as hell.”

“You think so?”

“Honey,” he said like he couldn’t believe I was asking. “Curves are beautiful. Especially yours.”

Wow.

Seriously, this guy was way too good to be true.

“Thank you,” I replied, not knowing what else to say. And thankfully, he let me off the hook by holding his hand out to me. We spent hours wandering around the Louvre, sometimes spending twenty minutes or better at one painting before we moved on. He got it. He got me. We weren’t in a race. We had all the time in the world, or until they kicked us out.

By the end of our museum excursion, my stomach grumbled something fierce. We hailed a taxi and in the worst broken French imaginable, he directed the driver to this little out-of-the-way bistro in the middle of an open-ended alleyway. The entrance simply had a sign tacked to the old brick building to the side of the wooden door that’d been stained not painted. A white light fixture over the door illuminated the area. It felt as if we’d stepped back in time.

“What?” he finally asked because I stared speechless.

“How’d you know about this place?”

“A woman at the hotel this morning. She insisted I couldn’t leave Paris without eating here.”

“That was kind of her,” I replied.

“I mean… yes, but she also insisted I eat here with her.” Oh. Well. That probably happened to him all the time given I was pretty sure he’d been created in the gods’ gene pool. “Yes,” he went on bizarrely. When I narrowed my eyes he said, “I see your face.” —I felt my face because I needed to know what he saw— “I tried to be gentle when I told her I already had a date that I in no way intended to break. She didn’t like that answer. It was as awkward as you’d expect.”

“You are…” I stopped myself before telling him how amazing I found him, shaking my head instead, and pressing the side of it to his shoulder. He simply laughed.

The bistro—chef’s kiss. Despite the exterior, when he opened the door, we stepped into a thoroughly modern bistro filled with bright white walls, polished wood bar, tables and chairs and what reminded me of white Christmas lights strung up and twinkling around the entire space. I ate my body weight in chicken confit with diced tomatoes and herbs, served on top of mashed potatoes. The dinner arrived with pan-seared asparagus for my side. And of course, crusty bread with creamy butter.

Blake ordered the steak frites and that came smothered in a peppercorn sauce. We drank wine and talked more. Who knew I had so much to talk about? After yesterday I knew that at twenty-eight, he was a few years older than me.

“Yesterday you said you work for your family’s business, but you never really explained what you do.”

He wiped his hands on his napkin, then folded them on the table in front of him “I liked hearing about you more. We have our hands in a lot of different pots. Mostly stock holdings and foreign investors. That’s my department.”

“Are you good at it?” I asked.

“Well, it’s our highest-profiting department, so I’d say I’m fair. Plus, it allows me to travel.”

“So that’s what brought you to Paris. We kind of got sidetracked yesterday, didn’t we?”

“Kind of,” he replied. “I haven’t taken a vacation since I came home from Harvard. I told my father that I was taking an extended leave to decompress a little.That’swhat brought me to Paris. He didn’t like it. Robert Parker is all about making money and closing deals. But as I said, I make himloadsof money, so he doesn’t push too hard when I come up with hairbrained ideas like backpacking across Europe. What about you?”

“Well, I told you yesterday that my dad died almost five years ago. But I didn’t tell you that I stayed home for my mom because she didn’t want to be alone. Now she’s got herself a boyfriend, which in and of itself, I don’t mind. But she didn’t even bother to tell me—sneaking around for a year. How could she not tell me? I took a job that I didn’t want and lived with her because she asked me to. I gave up major opportunities for her, and thenthat?”

“Harsh.” He shook his head before taking a sip of his water then said, “Tell me again about your friends.”

“Of my two best friends, one recently got married to the love of her life and so they’re in that newlywed,getting naked as often as possiblephase.”

“Right. I remember now. And your other best friend started hanging out with friends from her work.”

“Yes. So, I quit my job and flew to Paris.”

“You just quit and got on a plane.”

“Pretty much.”

“I’m so in awe of you. What did your mom or friends say when you told them you were leaving?”

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