Paris.

They were in. Freaking. Paris.

Eating breakfast at a sidewalk café on a street overlooking the Seine, which was a pale and languid jade color beneath a cloudless indigo sky on this unseasonably warm day. Cars zoomed by. French-speaking people walked down the sidewalks and across the bridge catty-corner from them. If she turned her head left, what did she see on the Left Bank, which was on the other side of that bridge? The tops of Notre Dame’s two towers. If she looked right? The Conciergerie, with its distinctive round towers and pointy blue tips. And if she craned her neck just a bit? Why, she could see the Eiffel Tower, of course. Itty-bitty at this distance, but still.

Paris.

And she’d thought she’d pulled off a decent surprise by throwing Baptiste a dinner party and smuggling Mrs. Smith into the house? Ha! She glanced over and watched him sip his coffee while idly flipping a page of the paper. Sunlight shone on the top of his head, streaking his wavy dark hair with gold and copper highlights. His cheekbones were covered with a longer than usual five o’clock shadow, but the harsh planes seemed relaxed, and his full lips turned up in the beginnings of a smile as he read.

As though he felt the weight of her attention on his face, he turned and caught her in that bright green gaze, the one that always stopped her heart. Much as she wanted to return his smile, the moment was far too powerful for that.

“Êtes-vous content, ma reine?” he asked quietly.

Was she happy?

Was Paris the most beautiful city in the world?

“Oui. Très content.”

“Bien,” he said with a tiny wink. He put a hand on her thigh—she automatically covered it with her own—then went back to reading the paper.

She felt deliriously happy.

Crazy, stupid happy.

That was what scared her.

Because this was all too good to be true.

The man.

His mode of travel.

“Could we maybe go to a musical while we’re there?” she’d asked late last night, when he drove the Tesla into a small private airport on the outskirts of Journey’s End. “Do you like musicals? I’d love to see Hamilton. If we could get tickets.”

He made a noncommittal noise that made her suspicious.

“What?” she demanded.

“We’re not technically going to the city.”

“Oh.” She tried not to let her disappointment show, but it’d been awhile since she’d spent any time in Manhattan and she’d had her heart set on a slice of Junior’s cheesecake with strawberries. “Well, where are we going, technically?”

His lips twitched. “Paris.”

A beat passed while her brain keeled over in a dead faint.

“Paris?”

“Yes.”

“France?”

He snorted. “Yes.”

He parked and killed the engine, which was a good thing because she could no longer hold back her shrieks of excitement.

He laughed with her, at least until she grabbed his forearm with one hand and pointed her index finger in his face with the other.

“Are you messing with me, Jean-Baptiste Mercier?” she snarled. “Because if you are, I swear to God—”

He held his hands up, still laughing. “I would never mess with you about something like this.”

“Oh, my God,” she cried, teary now as she rained kisses all over his face. “Oh, my God, you wonderful man—oh, no, I can’t go!”

He frowned. “Why not?”

“We have work on Monday, and the gala’s coming up in two weeks.”

The sudden tension eased from his face. “I’ve already cleared it with Daniel. Don’t worry. We’ll be back Tuesday.”

She brightened. “We will? I mean…” She took a deep breath and tried to look stern. “I thought I told you not to interfere with my boss.”

“Yes, yes.” He flapped a hand. “Feel free to yell at me later. In Paris.”

“Oh, but I don’t have my passport!”

Without a word, he reached into the breast pocket of his leather jacket and produced…her passport.

It took a great deal of effort to scowl as she snatched it and whacked him over the arm with it.

“What?” he cried. “It was sitting right on your desk for me to see.”

They grinned at each other. Samira shook her head, incredulous.

“Regular people don’t fly out whenever they want to, Baptiste. They go online and book a flight.”

“I’m irregular?”

“You’re very irregular.”

Baptiste shrugged. “Perhaps. And now you’re irregular as well.”

Samira wasn’t so sure about that.

She turned and gaped at the sleek white jet that idled outside a hangar on the other side of a chain link fence. Lights blazed. The ground crew scurried back and forth, as though they were awaiting the arrival of Oprah, Tom Cruise or some other luminary. And Samira absolutely could not get her lower jaw off her lap.

He kept chuckling. “Will you be okay?”

“No! You may have to sedate me!”

“Then you’ll miss the experience.”

“How am I going to fly coach again after this?”

His eyes glowed with warmth.

He opened his mouth. Hesitated. Seemed to rethink his words.

“I don’t see that as an issue.”

A cold wind blew across her heart now as some unexpected memories barged into her brain. Like how her parents had scrimped to take her and her sister on a few vacations growing up, all of which involved loading up the cramped car for a long road trip, one-star hotels and beaches with plenty of souvenir shops selling T-shirts and shot glasses.

That was Samira’s real life.

This wasn’t.

Then came another unwelcome thought.

Daphne—and countless other women—had probably flown on Baptiste’s plane before.

They’d probably believed, as Samira did, that they had something special with Baptiste.

And yet none of them were with him now, were they?

They’d no doubt had nasty crash-landings back to earth when Baptiste dumped them. They were probably all back in their real worlds, flying commercial and not enjoying buttery leather seats that reclined into extraordinarily comfortable beds, gourmet food and wine and having the cabin—and the flight attendant—all to yourself.

Because this man and this life were too good to be true.

Other examples? The croissant—well, croissants, to be honest, because who could eat just one? —they’d just enjoyed for breakfast, which were exponentially better than the ones she occasionally picked up from the bakery section at the grocery store. And the hot chocolate, which was like a bowl of warm pudding and bore no real relationship to the instant packets she kept in her cabinets for cold winter nights.

She picked up her china cup, sipped hopefully at the dregs, sighed and put it down again.

“Would you like another?” he asked, looking up from the paper.

“I’ve had two croissants with butter and jam and probably seven hundred empty calories in a cup. I think I’m good for now.”

He laughed and set down the paper. “So where should we start today?”

Her heart leapt because she had a lot of art to see, and not much time to see it.

“The Louvre? Musee D’Orsay? Are they near here?”

He looked pained. “Sorry. It’s best to do that tomorrow or Monday. Not so crowded.”

She adjusted her game face. “Oh, that’s okay.”

“We’ll roam around for a bit. So you can get oriented—hang on. This might be my business manager.” He pulled out his phone, checked the display and stood. “Yes, it’s him. I’ll make it quick, and then we’ll go. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He leaned down for a sweetly lingering kiss on her mouth— “Delicious,” he said in her ear, “more chocolate-y than usual”—then a quick peck on her cheek when she laughed. After that, he strode away, a strikingly tall and broad-shouldered figure among the other pedestrians, already speaking rapid-fire French into the phone.

Leaving Samira to be the recipient of daggered looks from several of the men and women nearby.

Her chest tightened with a sudden wave of anxiety, and her stomach roiled a vague protest at being the recipient of so much chocolate, sugar and butter this early in the day. Still, she dredged up a placid smile and stuck it on her face. And when one particularly bold woman a couple of tables over continued to glare, Samira raised a brow and stared her down until she had the decency to flush and look away.

With nothing else to do, Samira snatched up Baptiste’s paper and flipped through it with grim satisfaction.

So they were jealous that she was with such a handsome man? Well, screw them.

She was a pretty woman and a good person. She deserved Baptiste as much as the next woman did, and even the beauteous and Caucasian Angelina Jolie would probably receive this kind of negative attention if she were here with Baptiste.

Samira’s brain objectively knew this.

But her belly continued to churn. Probably because she could see the bewilderment behind the jealousy. The way people’s wheels spun as they tried to figure out the math, as though Secretariat had mated with a muddy barnyard sow.

Samira wanted to be a strong and confident woman. She wanted to think that maybe—just maybe—Baptiste could truly fall in love with her, and their whirlwind romance could magically become something lasting.

But that was so much easier to accomplish in her safe little enclave back in Journey’s End, where Baptiste fit so seamlessly with her parents, friends and house. Where she could pretend he belonged with her.

But here?

Here, they were on his turf. She was the one who didn’t fit.

She was the fish out of water flopping around with a special breathing apparatus strapped over her gills while she tried to blend in.

Baptiste spoke French here, and she only understood some of what he—and everyone else—said. She couldn’t read the newspaper or the menu without help. Didn’t dress like everyone else, with their fringed scarves, tight jeans and funky shoes.

She was the one who’d acted like a damn fool when they first arrived at his apartment earlier.

He’d said the apartment was in a nineteenth-century building, which in no way prepared her for the stately old-world elegance as they rolled up and parked on the street. Oh, and by the way? Baptiste’s Paris car? A sick black Mercedes coupe with blackout windows that looked as though it had rolled off the assembly line that very morning. A car that probably cost more than her parents had just received for the sale of their house.

She’d climbed out and tried to keep her lower jaw attached to her face rather than dragging along the cobblestoned street. Said a pleasant bonjour to the uniformed doorman, who raced down the sidewalk and all but vaulted to the trunk in an effort to help them with their luggage. Ridden in the gilt-edged and mirrored elevator that looked like it had been used to ferry Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette up and down the floors at Versailles.

But the apartment!

All she could do was press her hand to her heaving chest to try to regulate her breathing and then, when that failed, to her mouth to hold back all her Oh, my Gods! while Baptiste tipped the doorman and the man left.

And to think she’d had the gall to worry about her parents acting like the Clampetts.

Hell, she was Ellie Mae!

Never in her life had she been in a private residence like this. If he’d announced that, say, the exiled Duke and Duchess of Windsor or Shah of Iran had lived here before their deaths, she would not have been at all surprised.

She stood there like an idiot, frozen in the middle of the room, afraid to sit her unworthy ass down on any of the silk-covered antique sofas or fragile Louis-whatever chairs, or even to move off to an unobtrusive corner lest she brush up against some priceless figurine and break it.

There was more gleaming gilt. Endless windows overlooking the river. Double doors. Soaring ceilings. Marble. Velvet. Chandeliers. Satin drapes. Persian rugs. Sculptures. Paintings. Possibly even a Picasso sketch, although she didn’t want to embarrass herself by peering too closely at it.

And human beings lived here?

Baptiste had grown up here?

Jesus. She actually felt dizzy.

“Say something,” he said quietly, coming up behind her.

There was a funny note in his voice. Turning, she discovered that it matched the funny look on his face.

He looked…diminished somehow. Uncertain. Unhappy.

She dropped the hand that was holding in all her oh, my Gods.

“It’s glorious. I don’t even have words. I can’t believe this is your home. I mean”—she added quickly, seeing his face tighten at her inappropriate use of the H-word— “I can’t believe you grew up here. Where did you play?”

“In the nursery. I wasn’t allowed in most of the other rooms until I was older.”

“Probably a good policy. I probably shouldn’t be allowed here, either.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged, his gaze sweeping the room.

“My mother left it to me. I haven’t changed anything since she died. I doubt anything’s changed here for fifty years.” He scowled. “Sometimes I stay at a hotel when I’m in town.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t stand the memories. Maybe we should have done that this time.”

“A hotel works for me.” Her heart ached for him. He seemed much less grown man all of the sudden, much more lost little boy. “I don’t want to be anywhere that makes you uncomfortable.”

He met her gaze, his expression bleak. “I thought you should see it.”

“Why?”

“So you can understand me.”

“I think it’s working,” she said darkly. “Are you even allowed to sit down around here if you’re not wearing a tux?”

He laughed. “According to my mother? No. She always sort of draped herself over the sofa. Just there. Very elegant.”

“I’d better keep standing. I’m not very elegant.”

“But you’re human. That’s so much better.”

They smiled at each other, the moment stretching between them and filling with quiet empathy. Lately he seemed lit from within when he looked at her, as though her presence made him glow, and it would be so easy for her to abandon her defenses and allow herself to believe that he did love her. That, unlike Terrance, he would still love her a year or ten years from now. During moments like this, she didn’t feel so foolish for thinking (knowing?) that maybe she loved him, too.

That was the most insidious aspect of being with Baptiste, to be honest. These moments together felt so right. As though the fact that they’d only known each other for a few weeks didn’t matter, and their economic, racial, geographical and background differences were no more consequential than one of them preferring yellow mustard and the other wanting Dijon.

His smile faded. He took a step closer, opening his mouth.

Her heart thudded in anticipation.

“Samira…”

“So you should do something with the apartment,” she said quickly, desperate to steer the mood back onto safe ground before her spiraling emotions got the best of her. If he told her he loved her again, which seemed like a real possibility, her foolish heart would force her out there on that limb with him, and she wasn’t ready to fall all the way. Not yet.

That light inside him clicked off as though she’d unplugged a lamp. But he blinked and recovered quickly, much to his credit.

Too bad her aching heart couldn’t say the same.

“Do something?” he echoed with polite interest.

“Yeah. You could…I don’t know. Sell it. Remodel it. Donate the contents to charity. Or maybe have an auction. Or keep the stuff and mix and match it with new stuff. Switch the furniture here with the furniture in your other houses. You could rent it out to a long-term tenant. Or list it for people who just need somewhere to stay for a week while they’re here. A fantastic apartment like this shouldn’t just sit here empty most of the time.” She paused. “Surely you’ve thought of some of these things.”

But the dumbfounded look on his face told her he hadn’t.

“This apartment has been in my family for decades.” He sounded incredulous. “My mother would spin in her grave if she knew I’d changed one thing about her precious apartment.”

Samira shrugged. “That’s why you should do it.”

He gaped at her. “To stick it to my dead mother?”

“No, silly. To prove to your mother—and to yourself—that the past doesn’t own you. You’re moving on. You’ve had enough of this shrine to a dead woman who never treated you right. Why does she get to screw with your head even from the grave? You’re not spending any more of your life dreading walking into an apartment. Because it’s just an apartment.”

His gaze drifted out of focus. He opened his mouth and started to say something. Snapped his mouth shut again. Frowned. Laughed shakily as he looked at her again.

“And it’s just that easy, is it, Wise One?”

“Yeah,” she said firmly, a sudden surge of ferocity getting the best of her. But she sure as hell was not going to stand quietly by while someone or something made Baptiste feel bad. “It’s exactly that easy. Screw her. This is your damn apartment. You’re a grown-ass man. You do what you want.”

He stared at her, his expression shadowed but otherwise indecipherable.

She froze, wishing she’d kept her big mouth shut, just this once.

Maybe she’d gone too far. Time to backtrack.

“I mean…It’s up to you. I probably don’t even know what I’m talk—”

“You make me fall more in love with you every time you open your mouth,” he said quietly. “Do you mean to do that, or is it an accident?”

She’d faltered, paralyzed with the effort of holding back her own feelings. But it was a good thing she had, wasn’t it? Because it was about time she got real about her situation.

She blinked and looked around—at this fabulous city, so far from her home; at the sexy man speaking breakneck French she couldn’t understand while turning every head in his direction—reminding herself about who and where she was.

Her heart sank.

She was a brown girl from a lower middle-class family losing her head about a rich French guy who normally dated European models and actresses.

She’d never had a successful relationship with a man.

Actually, it was worse than that.

She’d never had a relationship with a man that hadn’t ended in disaster.

What the hell made her think—even for one second—that the most amazing guy she’d ever known would want to stick around for long?

No one else in her life ever stuck around.

She felt clammy suddenly, with all that chocolate, butter and sugar surging to the back of her throat. The chair scraped as she grabbed her purse and lurched to her feet, disturbing all the elegant French folks, who shot vague frowns in her direction. She hurried inside the restaurant, desperate to reach the bathroom before she really embarrassed herself.

“Where’s the restroom?” she asked the first server she encountered. Shit. There she went being a rude American. She scrunched up her brain, trying to recall the phrase. “Sorry. Où sont les toilettes?”

“Oui, madame,” he said, pointing.

“Merci.”

The bathroom was, naturally, through a trapdoor in the floor and down a winding stone staircase that rightfully belonged in the Bastille’s dungeon. Only sheer force of will kept her from spewing her lovely breakfast down half the steps.

But by the time she made it into the bathroom and leaned over a toilet, she was over herself.

She was in the City of Light for a romantic weekend with a fantastic man who was wild about her. She was not going to let her fears about an unknown future drive her to the point where she puked her guts out in this dark little bathroom.

So she took a deep breath…and another…and another.

There. Better.

She left the stall and splashed water on her face. Found a candy in her bag and felt reborn when the soothing taste of peppermint hit her tongue. Stared into the wild-eyed face in the mirror and talked some sense to her as she reapplied her lipstick.

It’ll be okay, Samira. One way or the other. It’ll be okay.

By then, she’d been gone for several minutes. She hurried up the Staircase of Death and back out to the table, where Baptiste was off the phone and finishing up with the check. He looked around, his features tight, and brightened when he saw her.

“What happened to you? I was a little worried.”

“Too much hot chocolate.” She kept her smile firmly in place. “You should have warned me.”

“French chocolate is very powerful,” he said gravely. “Never underestimate it again.”

“I won’t.”

He stood, slung his camera over his shoulder (it was a monstrous thing with a long lens that he’d been using to take pictures of her all morning) and took her hand. “Are you ready?”

“Do Parisians like scarves?”

Laughing, they set off down the street as it ran parallel to the Seine, heading in the direction of the Eiffel Tower. They walked in silence for a while as Samira tried to take it all in.

“So what happened at the Conciergerie?” she asked, pointing across the river. “Wasn’t Marie-Antoinette imprisoned there?”

“She was. We can check it out later, if you like. Sainte Chapelle is also there on that little island. Île de la Cité.”

“Yeah, let’s check it out. I’m dying to see the stained glass. I hear it’s glorious.”

“It is.”

“Oh, and I love all these vendors with their dusty books and postcards.”

“We’ll have to get something for your parents and Melody.” He took off his lens cap and snapped some shots of the river. “Did you tell her about our adventure?”

“I did.” Samira laughed. “You should have heard her squealing. Do you ever get used to all this? Being in Paris?”

He looked off over her shoulder, at the bridges and the river. The Eiffel Tower in the distance. Breathed deep. Smiled down at her. “I think I was used to it, to tell you the truth. I’ve been here for so long and I work so much. I keep my head down. But now?” He leaned down for a quick kiss. “It’s good to see it through your eyes.”

“So what’s this long building on the right? Man, it’s huge.”

“What, this?” He frowned vaguely at the tan old building they’d been walking alongside for the last several blocks or so. “It’s an old fortress, as I recall.”

“Ah,” she said as he steered her to the right and through an archway that ran through the fortress.

“So, listen,” he said very seriously, still holding his camera at the ready as they entered a massive courtyard lined with more tan buildings on all sides and teeming with people. “I hope you don’t mind that we’re not going to the Louvre today. I know you love your art, but it’s too much with all the tourists on a Saturday.”

“I understand,” she said glumly. “I’ve waited my whole life, so I think I can wait another—”

Off in the near distance, just on the other side of another long tan building that had been blocking their view, rose the glass pyramids of the Louvre.

She gasped and clapped a hand to her mouth, her heart soaring. Looked back to the “fortress” she’d just asked Baptiste about and discovered that, yes, it was part of the whole massive Louvre quadrangle. Frowned and swung back to him for an explanation only to discover him taking pictures of her, green eyes glimmering with amusement behind the camera.

“I thought you said we couldn’t go today!” she cried, punctuating her remarks with shoves to his broad chest.

He lowered the camera and burst into laughter, completely unraveling her with his thoughtfulness and boyish delight.

“What kind of monster do you think I am? I would never bring you to Paris, then keep you from your one true love.”

It was all too much for her.

With a choked laugh-sob combo, she threw her arms around him, held on tight and prayed he hadn’t seen the tears in her eyes as the realization hit:

There was just no protecting herself from this man and the way she felt about him.

Art wasn’t her one true love. Not even close.

Baptiste was.