Page 94 of Enemies to French Kisses
CHAPTER37
Marc
I hearher coming before I see her. That is, I hear the familiar vroom of the Vespa. Even though I know how far we’ve come in these last weeks, a part of me wants to run and hide.
I intentionally did not wear a scarf today.
It would have been too much, anyhow. This sunshine feeds my soul. It’s hard to believe anything can go wrong when the sun is shining on Sacre Coeur.
This is the place where our story truly began. This is where our new story should begin. If I can’t find a way into her heart here, then… I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, but I won’t. This is meant to be. I feel it. I just have to show her who I am. But that’s the hardest part of all.
The Vespa comes into sight, a red flash at the bottom of the hill.
Suddenly it hits me. These flowers in my hand? That won’t work. What she needs from me, and what we need to become, will not be fulfilled by chocolates, flowers, and dinner dates. I know this now, but it somehow felt right to pick up a dozen red roses… because that’s what one does when one is about to propose.
It’s not a wedding proposal. And there’s no ring, nothing of the sort. Not for the proposal I have in mind.
I have to get rid of these flowers.
“Excusez-moi.” I stop an older woman walking past and hand her the flowers. “Pourvous.”
Her eyes light up and with her cane she hooks me around the neck and offers me an unexpectedly wet kiss on the cheek. She is a sweet sight, walking with a bit more bounce as she cradles her eleven roses.
I slip the twelfth rose into my back pocket.
The Vespa whirs beside me. “Don’t say anything.” Laura holds up her finger to show she’s being serious, but I wouldn’t have dared do otherwise.
She pops the kickstand and hops off, then gestures for me to get on it.
“You want to go for a drive?” She says it like she’s in a Hollywood movie. The gleam in her eye is unmistakable, but I have other ideas for us that only the Sacre Coeur can help make happen.
“I don’t want to go for a drive.” She stands tall like the Eiffel Tower but her wily smile shows a trace of nerves. “I wantyouto go for a drive.” She adjusts her helmet, moves a few paces away and steadies her stance. “I want you to drive into me.”
“What?”
“You heard me.” She braces herself as if I were going to do it this second. “Get on that Vespa and run into me. Not hard. I’ll keep the helmet on.”
I can’t believe my ears, and the volume of my laughter must show it. “What in the name of Napoleon are you talking about?”
“It’s simple.” She paces around to the other side of the Vespa. “We are reliving what happened before. You want to see me for work, I’m here with my scooter. It’s just likethatday. Except we’re going to switch it all around. I’m not going to let you tell me about work, and you’re going to get on that Vespa and gently run me down.”
I must be in a parallel world. “Are you kidding?”
“I’m thinking something not too violent—the wing mirror and a kick to my backside should do it. Hopefully I can avoid the stairs, but I have the helmet just in case—”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I am!” Her eyes light up. “This is how we started out, how we found each other as we really are. We’ve forgotten that as real life came bumping back into view. So…” She walks back to my side of the Vespa. “I figure we can give ourselves a kick start, back to where we were before. And try again.”
She tries to smile, but what I see behind it is a woman desperate for me to agree, to give in to this crazy plan.
“Laura, I am not going to run you over.”
“Why not?” The way she says it with her hand on her hip and insistence which I now know is classic Laura, she could be asking why I won’t increase the timeline of a new project, and not why I won’t take her out at the knee with a motor vehicle.
“Because I am a pacifist.”
“Me too! This is different, I’m asking you to. Because we can’t go backwards. We can’t pretend like none of that happened. We can’t act like I wasn’t your wife, even if it was only for a week.”
