Page 95 of Enemies to French Kisses
A couple walking by gives me a very dirty look. This is one of those situations where you definitely had to be there.
I clear my throat and lower my voice. “I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Then there’s no other choice! Come on, get on it.” We’re gathering a crowd now, though they all pretend they aren’t listening. I wish I could tell them there’s nothing to see here, but the woman of my dreams is asking me to run her over, and that is not an everyday occurrence, not even in Paris.
“Run me over, Marc! I’m ready! Can’t you see?” Her arms drop to her sides as the Vespa idles. “There’s no other way we can make this work. And Marc,” she walks to me, the sunshine glaring off the helmet and temporarily blinding me, “I want this to work.”
This is my chance.
“I do too, Laura.” She couldn’t have set it up better for me if she tried.
Her bottom lip juts out as I take her hand and pull her over to the stairs. She’s more hesitant than I’d expected. Does she think I’m going to throw her down them? I walk slower, just in case.
The crowd follows behind her.
I move down a couple of stairs so that she has the view of the Paris skyline behind me.
She is all I see, with the Sacre Coeur rising behind her.
Her, and approximately fifty people who sense what is coming next.
“Laura, ever since you ran me over, I have seen myself in a new light.”
She cocks her head, as that must not be what she was expecting to hear.
“I mean, you have opened my eyes to myself. The things that used to wallow deep inside me, the parts of myself I kept most hidden—or so I thought—were the parts that you wanted most. I thought I was putting on a show for the world. I thought they saw me the way I wanted them to see me. But it turns out I was not as good at hiding as I thought. Laura…”
The sunshine bursts from a reflection behind her, like she’s half angel-half treasure and all human. She takes my breath away.
But I have more to say.
“Laura, we can’t go backwards. We can’t be who we were before, because that would just be hiding again. We’ve already been so much more to each other.”
“That’s right,” she reaches out and touches my cheek, “we have.”
A shiver runs down my spine.
“And that’s why…” I pull the single rose from my back pocket, the thorns catching on the fabric, making the move less smooth than I expected, but what matters is the look in her eyes. “Laura…”
Fifty phones are suddenly behind her as the crowd wants to capture this intimate moment between strangers.
I hope they get her face.
“Laura…”
“Yes…”
“Will you not marry me again?”
The crowd murmurs.
“What did he say?” “Il a dit PAS se marier?” “That can’t be right.”
But the smile erupting across Laura’s face says that she knows exactly what I mean.
“Yes!” she cries and throws her hands in the air. “I will definitely not marry you!”
“So hedidsay not marry!”
