First Paris treat! Thank you, hubby! Don’t mind if I do.
My throat tightens as I hit Share. I’d never actually call Olivier “hubby.”
Still silent, he props down on one elbow as I polish off two of the macarons—a strawberry one and then a salted caramel. They’re sweet, crunchy, and flavorful. Delicious. I keep eyeing the box, debating about eating another one. But then something strange happens. I feel bad. Ihaveput Olivier through the ringer lately. Pushing the guilt out of my mind, I lift the box in his direction, a silentWant some?
He shakes his head. “No, you enjoy. This is for you. All of it.”
I bring another macaron to my lips—pistachio this time—my eyes never leaving his.
Olivier sits up, facing me, and sighs. His features soften—his jaw goes slack and his shoulders relax. Heishandsome; that has not changed. Not very tall but nicely proportioned, with broad shoulders. I wasn’t sure about the goatee at first, but it does suit him, especially since he keeps it perfectly trimmed. The package is nice; I wasn’t completely out of my mind when I decided to go to his place that night after we met three months ago.
I force a smile. “I was going to call the front desk and order room service, but maybe we could go down and eat at the restaurant?”
“Let’s not,” he says, so quickly it takes me aback.
“Well, um, I need to eat.”
Why do I sound like I’m justifying myself? I can go there and order whatever I want. I can. And maybe I will. Still, I don’t move.
“We’ll go out,” Olivier says. “Les Deux Magots is just around the corner.”
Should I know what that is? Actually, shouldheknow that I don’t know?
He checks his watch. “If we leave now, we might beat the lunch rush and get a table.”
I feel my shoulders soften. Right, of course. I may not know a lot about my husband, but I do have the bare bones facts. He lived in Paris before moving to New York last year, which means he knows this city better than I ever could. Besides, eating at the hotel restaurant is probably a tourist move.
“Right, sure. And then what?” Planning ahead isn’t really my thing, but I wish I’d at least googled the top Paris attractions. “What should we do this afternoon?”
Olivier gets up and looks down at me, his gaze unreadable. “It’s a surprise.”
A tiny voice tells me to beware.
“Come on, let’s go,” he says, holding out his hand.
“Will you at least give me a hint?” I try to sound lighthearted, but sometimes I feel like he can read through me, like he’s always two steps ahead no matter what I do.
“Nope.”
He walks over to the door, ready to leave. I snap a pouty selfie before following him.
Hubby has a surprise planned for our first day in Paris. Am I lucky or what?
But the truth is, none of this has to do with luck. You know when people say they met the right person at the right time? That the stars aligned and it was all meant to be? We were the wrong people coming together at the worst time, and the sky must have been pitch-black.
Chapter 3
Olivier
Three months before the honeymoon
Let’s be clear about one thing: Cassie came on to me first. At the hotel, women often did—I was manager of customer relations after all—which felt nice until I realized I never got to do the choosing. They choseme, flirted with me, cooed about my “cute” accent, as if I were a child showing off a trick and not a thirty-two-year-old man with a serious job in one of the world’s most thrilling cities. Some also invited me back to their room, and I always politely declined. It was tempting, of course, but I’d never do anything so stupid as to compromise my job.
Cassie was different. Sheliterallycame to me, as in I met her in front of the apartment I rented in Brooklyn Heights—a small but functional one-bedroom on the basement level of a sprawling brownstone. It’s a thing I discovered quickly about New York City: the rich lived on top of the poor, crushing them into the darkness. Here there was no pretense of equality. Though I wasn’t poor per se. Not yet anyway.
When I spotted my landlady in front of the house, my first impulse was to hide in the corner bodega. I’d procrastinated telling her I had to break my lease, and now that her husband had died so suddenly two days earlier, I was seriously considering packing up my few belongings andgoing without a word. By the time Ms. Crowes noticed the apartment was empty, I’d be back in France. But then, I saw that she was busy chatting to a young woman and figured I was safe.
“Oh, Olivier!” Ms. Crowes said as I approached, seeming overexcited to see me. “This is Cassie, Tim’s daughter.” Then she turned to the young woman. “And this is Olivier, our tenant. Well,mytenant now, I guess. Olivier rents the downstairs unit.” She talked so fast that her cheeks were flushed by the end of the sentence.
