Carly’s visit to the Musée de l’Orangerie was nothing short of amazing. As she absorbed her fill of the blue-green beauty of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies that surrounded her, she glanced at Jeff, who was waiting patiently on a bench, and saw him grinning at her with an adoring look the likes of which she’d never experienced before.

She made a secret wish that she could have this man forever, but then she scolded herself, and told herself that look on his face was what good sex did to a man and she put any thoughts of things like love out of her mind.

Meanwhile, that day and the next and the next Carly walked around in a cloud of giddy wonder. She and Jeff explored museums—of course The Louvre and the Rodin, and their hotel wasn’t far from the Musée du quai Branly. They hit the shops in the Palais Royal, and went cafe hopping, including to one cafe that had opened in the late 1600s and another where Hemingway and Sartre had hung out.

Carly was thrilled when Jeff invited her to attend the lecture he gave at the research foundation and to come along to a luncheon with him and his colleague. Carly immediately liked the man because the talk he’d asked Jeff to give was the reason Jeff still needed to travel to Paris despite his fiancée’s betrayal.

She told herself not to think about his fiancée and what might happen when they returned to the States. Instead she let herself savor the happy moments she had with him now.

Like when they shared a kiss on the Pont Neuf and took a boat ride down the Seine. Add in monuments and churches and gardens, and by dinnertime they were usually exhausted.

But after a little horizontal recreation, they’d regroup and head out to try yet another restaurant. One night Jeff took her to the Paris Opera Ballet, another night to a cabaret show, but mostly they’d either come home after dinner or hit a piano bar. At first she had put up a fight over who was paying the tabs, but Jeff—whose yearly income was about twenty times more than hers—finally convinced her not to be ashamed or afraid of any label or worry about her female pride. And, oh, that man could be so convincing.

The week sped by and tonight was their last night in Paris. They sat in a piano bar on the Left Bank, Carly drinking a diable rouge, Jeff, the beer on tap, while they nibbled a pear panne cotta. It was too crowded for her to see the pianist, but he or she was pretty good.

Although she was feeling mellow from the liquor and the dinner they’d had earlier, Carly couldn’t deny the nervous questions buzzing around in her head, the main one being—would she and Jeff continue seeing each other when they returned home? Which of course depended on the other question—would Jeff go back to his fiancée?

They hadn’t discussed this subject at all, both of them carefully avoiding the subject of their “real life” and instead indulging in a fairy tale vacation that was like a dream come true.

Carly had been so ecstatically happy this week, but the voice inside that always warned her not to dream of things she could never have was screaming loud and clear that this couldn’t possibly last. Carly didn’t want to ruin their last night by bringing it up. So she told herself that if everything fell to pieces when they went home, she would just find a way to go on, as she always did.

“Carly Kuper?”

Carly turned toward the voice speaking her name and saw a tall guy with cocoa skin and mischievous brown eyes smiling at her. A smile she knew so well.

“Andre! How great to see you.” She sprang to her feet and rushed over to hug him.

“Do you live here now?” he asked, still with that slight Caribbean accent he had when she knew him during her year in New York City.

“No, in fact I’m leaving tomorrow. Do you live here?”

He nodded. “I’ve been living here for a couple years. Ben is here too. We’re still together. I’ve been playing clubs. Got involved in a few theater projects. How about you? What are you doing?”

It was a question that made her shoulders slump. But she smiled at Andre and said, “Still in my hometown. Working as a bartender. Just getting by as best I can.”

Carly noticed Jeff’s curious look and took Andre’s arm, pulling him to their table. “Jeff, this is Andre Patou, my old friend. Andre, this is Jeff Rocklyn, my…” My what? Obviously not husband. And she couldn’t say he was her boyfriend. She wasn’t sure how to label what they were to each other. They were certainly more than friends.

Maybe lovers. Yes, maybe lovers fit best.

But before she could figure out what to say, Jeff spoke up and invited Andre to join them for a drink.

“Thanks, but I can’t,” he said. “I’m working.” He faced Carly. “You didn’t see me at the piano?”

“It was too crowded for me to see, but I told Jeff whoever was playing was really good.”

Andre laughed, then said, “Come do a song with me.”

Jeff’s eyebrows shot up and Carly said, “Oh, I don’t really—”

“Have you ever heard her sing?” Andre asked Jeff.

“Nope. And I’d love to.”

Carly shook her head. “But I…”

Andre gripped her elbow and led her to the corner where the piano stood. He adjusted the mic for her and gave her that same encouraging but teasing look he used on her in the days when they used to play downtown clubs in New York.

Could she do this? Butterflies whirled in her stomach. But when Carly told Andre her choice and he played the opening chords, she closed her eyes and went to a place in her heart she hadn’t been in a long, long time.

Seeing Carly walk off with her friend, Jeff realized he really didn’t know her very well. He’d forgotten that. They had such an easy rapport and had so much fun together—and the sex, well, that was just plain mind-blowing. The best he’d ever had. These things made him feel so close to Carly that it seemed as if he’d known her for years.

But it had only been a couple months. And most of that time she was a bartender and he was her customer. Sure, he’d been super attracted to her from the start, but he’d reined that in because he was engaged during that time.

This thing between them came on so fast that he hadn’t stopped to think about it.

Peyton was texting him daily and the idea of her no longer being a part of his life hadn’t fully sunk in.

And Carly—so sweet and wonderful, bright and beautiful. But what just happened with her friend smacked him in the face with the reality that they hardly knew each other.

The piano began and even the choice of song surprised him—the thirties Gershwin classic “They Can’t Take that Away from Me.” Carly’s voice was stellar. And apparently there’d been a time when she took it seriously.

As he listened to the words, it occurred to Jeff that she was singing about him. About treasuring what they shared this week and thinking that it might be over tomorrow.

Would it be? He hadn’t let himself get that far in his thoughts. He’d been so enraptured with the great sex they had and the joy of taking her around Paris and seeing her eyes light up. He’d gotten lost talking with her for hours, and was equally pulled in during the silent moments they shared, somehow communicating in a way he never had with any other woman he’d dated. Certainly not Peyton.

When Carly finished her song, the applause was deafening with calls for more. She did two more songs, but Jeff was in such turmoil inside that he couldn’t fully pay attention. He was too spun around by what he’d fallen into this week with her. Where had he thought this would go?

The truth was—he hadn’t thought at all.

For the first time in his life Jeff did what Tucker had been telling him for so long. Think less and act more. Stop using your brain all the time and start doing things that feel good.

Well, that was exactly what he did and now he was in territory so foreign he didn’t know up from down.

Could he possibly be falling in love with Carly? Or did this thing with her happen because he was hurt by Peyton? Which parts were real? He’d never fallen this fast for any woman and the fact that he was half gone for Carly freaked him out.

He had a methodical nature. Cause and effect. Diagnosis and treatment. Lab tests and MRIs. He was a scientist at heart, and suddenly this artist—and Carly was an artist with a capital A—well, she’d somehow burst into his life and made him do and feel things so differently that he was almost having a panic attack.

That was when he noticed the silence. And he knew what did it. Or rather who. The innocuous little bartender had just rendered everyone in this place speechless with her last song. Too bad he missed it.

As she walked back to the table, a roar of appreciation followed her.

Jeff stood and pulled out her chair, giving her a quick kiss. “You are outrageously talented.”

“Thanks.” She practically whispered it, and he could see something going on in her head, something painful. Was it all about him? Or was it about her singing? She’d been reluctant when Andre first asked her to perform.

A waiter brought them both fresh drinks on the house and gushed over Carly in French. She did a good job of pretending she understood, just nodding and saying a quiet “merci” when he finished.

Then another dude showed up. Good looking and dressed in jeans and an Armani silk shirt. Jeff knew it was an Armani because he’d considered buying the same one and decided he didn’t need to spend over eight hundred bucks on a shirt.

Without giving either of them a chance to say no, the guy slid into the extra seat at their small square table. He leaned toward Carly. “You’re an American, right? You live in the US?” he said, his speech making it clear that he was American too.

She nodded but said nothing, just looked a bit curious.

“Dex Landon. Do you have an agent?”

She shook her head.

“Give me a call. I’ll be back in the States next week.” He handed her his card. “Really liked your delivery.”

“Um, thanks.”

When he left the table, Jeff let out a quiet laugh and touched her hand.

Carly looked up at him and he could see she had as many crazy, painful, and confusing questions churning inside as he did. “Let’s head back,” she said. “We have a long traveling day tomorrow.”

She stopped at the piano on their way out and exchanged hugs and contact info with Andre, and then they stepped out into the night—two people preoccupied with thoughts they didn’t want to share.

Unlike every other night the past week, Carly and Jeff did not make love when they got back to the hotel and she was relieved when he did not make any move to seduce her. Instead, they both wandered around the suite quietly collecting belongings and packing up for the return flight. The hotel had 24/7 room service, so they ordered coffee and sandwiches.

Carly set out one of her dresses to wear on the plane and zipped up her carry-on bag. Between her uncertainty around Jeff and the experience of singing in public again tonight, her emotions were running wild.

Jeff sat at the table and poured her some coffee. “Come and eat. I didn’t want to be obnoxious, but I did manage to get two shots of you and Andre on my phone.”

Carly smiled, glad she’d have a remembrance of this night, even if it brought up painful things. She sat and he handed her his phone. “Ick. I am not at all photogenic.”

“Are you kidding? You’re gorgeous.”

She scrolled to the next one but apparently went the wrong way because it wasn’t of her. The photo was of a woman, one she recognized. She’d seen her often while working at her second bartending job. She had never met her or waited on her, but the staff at Sarvinger’s By The Sea in Montauk all knew her. They weren’t sure if she was a hooker or just a slut, but they all saw her a few times a week strolling through the bar-restaurant to the elevators, taking men into a room she maintained at the inn. Occasionally they’d see the same man with her again, but most of the time she had a new guy on her arm.

How would Jeff know this woman? Could he have hired this woman for sex? Was that something he did regularly? Had Carly unwittingly pawned herself off as a whore this week in exchange for her Paris vacation?

I really don’t know Jeff all that well, do I? In fact, the two of them were practically strangers. She glanced up at him realizing he might be someone totally different from what she thought. But her intuition wasn’t usually that far off.

“Who is this?” she blurted out before she could hold herself back.

She saw him go pale. “Sorry. I forgot that was there. For some reason my fiancée has been sending me photos of herself all this week. Guess it’s her way of trying to communicate that she’s sorry.”

“That’s your fiancée?” Carly tried to control the shrill tone that crept into her voice.

“Yeah, that’s Peyton.”

“Oh, uh, she’s really pretty.” And she was. Beautiful, in fact. But…was it the same woman that frequented the inn to have sex with various men? Luckily Jeff got up and went to the bathroom, no doubt feeling weird about Carly seeing his fiancée and wanting to avoid talking about it.

Before Jeff returned, Carly quickly scrolled to find more photos of Peyton. Yep. Same woman. Should she tell Jeff? He obviously didn’t know, since he’d been so upset when he discovered her with a man, acting as if it were the first time she’d done it.

When he came back to the table, he took his seat with a heavy expression. “I’m sorry about the photo, Carly. I know this whole situation is awkward for both of us.”

He must have seen her disturbed reaction. If only it were just that she was jealous and confused. And, yes, she was both. But right now she was mostly upset for Jeff. If she told him the truth about his fiancée, it would hurt him even more than he’d already suffered. She couldn’t do it. Better that he break up with the woman and never find out how the bitch was playing him.

“Um, yeah, it is kind of weird. Guess we’ll just have to take it day by day and see where things go.”

He nodded. “Right.”

Right? Hello, Jeff, this is the place where you are supposed to say you want to keep seeing me when we get back.

But maybe he doesn’t.