Instead, she’d had:
A one-night stand with a beautiful man who you’ll never see again.
She’d done it.
She’d done one item on the list.
Dree hunted through her duffel bag lying on the floor, which held three changes of workout clothes that needed washing, some random make-up products, her hospital ID badge, a set of clean scrubs, a curling iron with an American-style plug that wouldn’t work in France, and a cheap ballpoint withGood Samaritan Hospitalstamped on the side.
Dree uncapped the pen and carefully drew a line through the itemA one-night stand with a beautiful man who you’ll never see again.
One item down, about fifty to go.
She perused the rest of them idly because not all of them were sexual in nature.
Do fun and wonderful things.
Dance in a parade on theChamps-Élysées.
—London, Amsterdam, Monaco, and Nepal.
The countries were a list of places she should visit or, ideally, live for a while.
Dree couldn’t even imagine going to or living in those places, but maybe.
Maybe today she would make a plan so that it would be possible.
It was funny how losing everything had opened her up to new possibilities like living in London or Amsterdam, maybe.
She continued reading down the list.
Buy a beautiful Hermès scarf.
Buy a Coach purse.
Eat at these restaurants: Le Cinq, Le 39V, Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée.
See the Louvre.
Dree sighed. Those would have to wait for her next trip to Paris. Those few euros in her wallet had to last her the whole trip. She needed to eat and, if she wanted to see the rest of Paris, buy Métro tickets to get there. She hadn’t realized that Francis had booked their FlyBNB room quite so far from the middle of the city.
She wished she could have done some of those things, though.
She drank enough coffee to feel human, brushed her teeth, and stepped in the tiny corner shower.
One of the complimentary soaps had been unwrapped and was lying in the soap dish, and it was clean. One of the room’s pink towels was damp where it hung over the towel bar.
Augustine must have taken a shower before he left, which she certainly didn’t begrudge him. That incredible body of his must require maintenance.
She only wished she’d gotten a good look at the huge tattoo covering his broad back before he’d left last night.
Or the one on his arm. That one seemed intricate.
Dree scrubbed herself raw and used some of the shampoo in the tiny bottle to wash her hair, which flipped around her head while she lathered it. She’d never had short hair before. If she’d had enough money, she should have had somebody even it out after her hasty chop job with surgical scissors right before she’d fled from the hospital to the airport. She pulled on an oversized gym tee shirt that, upon sniffing, didn’t need washing too badly.
When she got out of the bathroom, her phone was ringing an odd, octave-scaling ring.
That was weird. Dree didn’t even have cell service in Europe. She’d tried to get her phone to work when she’d been in the airport, but it had just roamed and refused to connect.
