The poor man. Lucie slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. “Of course, you stayed. You loved her very much. You did the right thing.”
He was silent for a bit. “After the Germans came, I had another chance to leave.” His voice sounded faraway, drawn-out, pondering.
Lucie squeezed his arm and sighed in the graying light. Grief didn’t end on an ordained schedule. Maybe Paul wasn’t ready for a new romance yet—not truly. But for a man like this, she’d wait.
Paul peered between the trees, then tugged her arm and led her off the path. They passed through rows of trees and into a small meadow.
He led her around the edge of the meadow, glancing out between the trees. “In your store do you talk to your customers?”
An odd thing to ask. “Of course.”
“I talk to mine too, even the rocky ones.”
The Germans. “I’m sure you do.”
“Sometimes they tell me interesting things. So do their friends, the ones I meet at dinner parties and receptions.”
“Oh.” The collaborators. The German officers. Paul was telling her something clandestine, so she joined in his scan of the area, her breath high in her lungs.
At the corner of the meadow, he turned. “It gives me interesting things to tell my friend from home, my friend in uniform.”
Lucie strained to hear his voice. Was he—he was spying?
“That’s the real reason I stayed.” He gave his head a sharp shake. “I shouldn’t have said that much, but I’m only endangering myself. Your store isn’t involved in this.”
“It’s safe with me.” Not only was he spying, but he was also doing something for the resistance that required passing messages. Her opinions and knowledge of Paul Aubrey rearranged in her head, dizzying her, and she clutched his arm for support. “Oh, Paul. Everyone thinks the worst of you. I thought the worst. I’m sorry. I said such horrible—”
“Don’t be hard on yourself.” Paul made another turn and checked through the trees. “You believed what I wanted you to believe, what you needed to believe. If I hadn’t been ordered to use your store today, you’d still believe it.”
“But I was wrong about you.”
“No, you weren’t.” He sent her a little frown. “I sell to the rock-monsters. I make a profit. And I like making money.”
Yet he’d stayed in Paris when going home would have been safer, more comfortable, and possibly more profitable. He stayed for the good of his workers and for the good of his country. As for that profit, surely he used that for good too.
In the dying light outside and the growing light inside, her eyes opened wide. “Paul? For the last few months, someone has been paying my rent anonymously.”
They completed their circuit of the meadow, and Paul checked in all directions. Then he led her into the middle of the meadow, his shoes swishing in the unkempt grass. “One benefit of having money is being able to support noble causes—like the enlightening of minds.”
A few weeks earlier, she would have been furious. Not now. He’d helped her back when she was barely civil to him. He’d helped her anonymously with no thought of impressing her or winning her heart.
In so doing, he’d accomplished both.
With her heart full and warm, she laid her head on his shoulder. “Thank you for doing that.”
“Thankyoufor doingthat.” He folded her in his arms and rested his cheek against her temple.
Her arms encircled his waist, and her heart and mind danced a pas de deux, all she’d sensed about him now confirmed by knowledge. And their breath rose and fell in unison.
“Oh, Lucie.” His voice puffed by her ear. “You have captured me completely.”
Many writers had tried to woo her with flowery words, but none had touched her as deeply as those words from a man of numbers.
She lifted her face and pressed a kiss to his jaw, warm and solid and manly.
His chest rumbled, reverberating in hers, and he nuzzled her cheek.
They met in the middle, lips and hearts and breath joined. And he—he captured her completely.
