Saturday

It’s nine a.m. and there’s already a text from Jen on my phone.

“See you Sunday evening?” she asks. “I can’t wait to hear all about the trip. I guess things have gotten serious with Mr. Sexy; I’ve hardly heard from you for the last two weeks.”

I’ve been negligent when it comes to keeping her in the loop, and I can tell that she’s doing her best not to pry. She did warn me about falling in love. No worries, Jen, I’ll be home soon. Single as ever, if a little more savvy about love, sex, and what it is to walk with my head held high.

Today’s the day when I’m going to see the Eiffel Tower. The day when I finally shake off my addiction to Conlon and revert to a fully single life.

I hop on the metro and take it over to the école militaire stop near the Tower, and by ten a.m. I’m walking across the long park known as the Champ de Mars, towards the majestic steel structure. It has to be one of the most photogenic creations in the world. Tourists stand here and there, posing in photographs that make them look as though they’re holding its tip between their thumbs and index fingers. Street vendors waltz around, trying to get people to buy little plastic replicas, but I only have eyes for the real thing.

After paying the seven-euro fee at the entrance gate, I prance over to stand in the lineup for the elevators. There aren’t too many people here, thankfully, and the queue moves quickly. Before I know it, I’ve made my way to the top of the Eiffel Tower, 180 metres above the city. It’s a clear day and I can see every square inch of Paris from this place, which is both a good and a bad thing. I wander slowly along the perimeter platform, my eyes taking in the various places I’ve visited: the Seine, the Louvre, Notre Dame cathedral, the Sainte Chapelle.

Somewhere out there is the building where Conlon Davies lives. It’s possible that the man himself is out there somewhere, too. If he is, I don’t really want to know.

Every inch of this city reminds me of him. As I stare out at the sea of memories, my heart aches in a way that’s indefinable, both sweet and painful at once. So many incredible experiences were born here, and for the first time I seriously wonder how I can ever return to my old life in New York.

Je ne regrette rien, I tell myself. If I never learn any more French, those four words will do. At long last, I know now what I need to write about. I understand the story that’s been unfolding in my mind’s eye this whole time.

I lean on the railing, staring out at Paris’s beauty as tourists walk by me, posing to take selfies in front of the surrounding city. Couples holding hands, families with children. I am a solitary creature at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and I’m surprisingly okay with it. Katherine would be proud of me as I stand here, blond hair blowing about my face in some kind of show of single-womanly strength. “This is the image of a woman in control of her own destiny,” she would say.

Only I’m not. If I were truly brave, truly free, truly independent, I would do what Galen suggested; I’d find Conlon and tell him that I love him.

The only thing keeping me from doing it is fear.

Fuck fear.

I’m going to send him a text.

It’s not romantic, it’s not ideal, but I’m pulling my phone out of my purse. Standing here at the very top of the tower, I’m going to tell the man I love how I feel. Then I can break free; I can get on that plane back to New York with zero regrets. I can make the song come true.

Just as I open up the message window, though, a message comes in from his end. This is the second time our strange psychic link has caused us to reach for each other at the same moment.

“How do you like it?” he asks.

I look at the previous message to see if he’s replying to something I said the last time we communicated, but his response makes no sense.

“Excuse me?” I type.

“The Tower. How are you enjoying it?”

Oh, right. Galen must have told him I’m coming here today.

“It’s nice,” I say. “But it would be nicer if you were here. I miss you.”

It’s the first time since he left that I’ve expressed anything other than a distant thought. The first time I’ve opened myself up. It feels good, even if it might complicate matters.

I wonder if he’ll reply. If not, it’s okay. I’ve said what I wanted to. Sort of.

A minute passes, then two. I’m about ready to put the phone away when it buzzes in my hand again. To my surprise, an entire paragraph comes my way.

“And I miss you. I have missed you, Adriana, since the moment I left you at your place. I haven’t stopped thinking about you for a second, not even when I sleep. Everything reminds me of you, but nothing is as wonderful. Nothing smells as good as you. Nothing tastes as good. All I want is to put my arms around you and hold on for years.”

My heart is ready to burst from some strange, violent emotion that’s just hit me like a freight train. Can this really be Conlon Davies? I’m not sure whether to smile or cry.

“I want that too, more than you know. But you’re far away.”

“Not so very far.”

I’ve begun typing a protest when I feel a hand pressing gently into my lower back. My eyes shut with the sensation.

That’s when the voice comes.

“Not so far at all.”

Turning his way, I open my eyes. Once again I’m on the verge of tears.

“How did you…?” I ask.

He locks me in a gaze, his face serious, his eyes narrowed. “I was standing in the airport in Bangkok, enraged that my flight was cancelled. Enraged that I might not see you before you left. Enraged by everything in the world. Then I remembered that I’m a sodding billionaire, and I chartered a plane.”

This time I really do smile. Huge. I throw my arms around his neck and squeeze, and he squeezes me back. We stand like this for what feels like minutes, just holding onto each other.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” I tell him, my face pressed to his shoulder.

“Well, I’m very sorry to ruin your fantasy.”

I pull away to look into his eyes, tears streaming down my cheeks. “I’m a mess, Conlon.”

“You’re beautiful.”

He kisses me gently on the lips, then again. There’s hunger in the second kiss, and passion, and possession. His tongue finds mine and my head spins.

“I have so much to say,” he tells me when he’s pulled back to lock his gaze on mine again. “There’s so much that I need to tell you.”

“I’m all ears,” I reply.

“First, I’m sorry I left. But not entirely, because now I understand what I didn’t fully grasp before.”

“Oh?”

“You are the most amazing person I’ve ever met. You’re caring, you’re kind, you’re strong and stubborn. Every second of the trip, all I wanted was to see you. To touch you. To breathe you. I wanted to come back, to fix everything. To make myself worthy of you, instead of being a right cowardly prick.”

“Conlon, you’re worthy,” I reply, my heart pounding like a jackhammer against my sternum. “Of course you’re worthy. Things are just complicated…we’ve always known I’d be leaving eventually. I understand why you left.”

“You do, don’t you?” he asks, easing forward. “Adriana, would you come to my place tonight?”

I nod. “God, yes.” One more night. I’ll take it. “But tomorrow I have to pack. Oh, and I should tell you—I’ve made a decision about your memoir.”

“You have?”

“Yes. I’ve decided I don’t want to write it.”

He raises an eyebrow, an amused, inquisitive look on his face.

“I want to write a different book,” I explain. “I’ve already thought about it, as a sort of therapy for losing you temporarily—well, permanently as of Sunday.”

“Oh?”

“A book about us. But with a happy end, where you come to the airport and stop me from getting on the plane.”

“Pfft,” he says, giving me the biggest, sexiest grin. “As if that would ever happen.”

“I know it won’t in reality,” I reply, a little hurt that he’d joke about it. He could at least pretend that he’d consider coming after me. “That’s why it’s fiction.”

“No, you’re not understanding.” He moves closer, his hands cupping my cheeks as he smiles at me. “It would never happen, my beautiful Adriana, because there’s no way in hell I’m letting you get anywhere near the airport.”

Oh, my heart is going to explode. Or melt. Or implode. Or something.

“Wait, what?”

He steps away and takes both my hands in his, as though he’s about to recite wedding vows.

“Adriana,” he says, inhaling a deep breath, “I’ve done a lot of thinking over the last several days. About you and me. I thought I could keep you at arms’ length while we were together. Make love to you again and again, without worrying too much about the intimacy I’ve felt from the beginning. I thought I could let you go back to the United States, and of course I will, if that’s what you want. But the truth is that I never want you to go, not unless I can come with you. Or else I want you here with me. I want to love you. I want to wake up every morning and feel your breath on my skin. I want you to remind me what it’s like to be alive, because I’ve never truly known, not until I met you. I’ve only lived my life, and it was barely a life, at that. You have taught me how to be a man—lessons that my father could never teach me. But I understand him now too, you see. It’s not that he was a disaster. It’s that he lost the woman who was everything to him. He loved her more than he loved himself. There was a time when I thought that meant he was weak, but now I understand that it was strength that allowed him to surrender his heart. I never grasped that until now.”

My heart is beating so fast that I’m not sure how I’m still upright. I’ve never heard such words from any man. And God knows I never expected them from Conlon Davies.

“I don’t know what to say,” I reply, though I want to say everything in the world. I want to pour my heart out to this amazing man.

“Don’t you?” His face is all anticipation and hope.

“I know one thing. I know I love you, Conlon.” The words come out like a breath that I’ve held in for weeks. “So much.”

His arms engulf me.

“I love you too.”