For some reason she was unable to tear her gaze away from his lips. She wanted to kiss him, be kissed by him. Know what it was to feel that gorgeous body against hers. The words ‘Show me’ hovered on her lips. What would he say? It would be embarrassing if she’d read him wrong. What if he were just flirting with her? This was the problem with having only slept with one man. One you’d known for months before finally one drunken night out you ended up in his bed. She felt so out of her depth.
‘This fish is so well-cooked. I’m always nervous about cooking fish. It’s easy to overdo it, isn’t it. I’m guessing this has been pan-fried. I like the crispy skin. I don’t normally like skin.’ She was talking utter rubbish, determined to change the subject. ‘How’s your pork blanquette?’
‘Excellent. Try some.’ Luc didn’t seem fazed or was perhaps kind enough to overlook her turning into a babbling idiot. He forked up a piece of pork loin in a creamy sauce and held it out to her.
Grateful for his sang-froid, she took it. ‘Oh, that is really good. I might have food envy, except mine is just as good.’
‘Just as well, this is my favourite here. You’re very honoured I shared even that little bit,’ he teased and Hattie relaxed a little, grateful that the buzz of sexual tension had been dialled down. Luc discomfited her. He was so sophisticated, with that enviable, effortless savoir-faire, that next to him she felt like a gauche schoolgirl. But he had said she took life too seriously and she should have some fun. Maybe she should just throw caution to the wind and go for the adventure she said she was looking for.
‘I think I might just burst out of these jeans,’ complained Hattie as they wandered after lunch along the ancient streets of the city. She laughed. ‘Sorry, that’s too much information.’ Hardly the thing you said to someone you wanted to fancy you. ‘Oh my.’ She stopped dead, all thoughts of her waistband scattered, when she saw the façade of Notre Dame Cathedral. With the tiny carvings and elaborate details, it was like a highly decorated wedding cake. Three huge gothic arches, layered with traceries of carved stone, dwarfed the enormous wooden doors. The gigantic scale of everything made Hattie’s mind spin. How on earth had men built this?
‘It’s breathtaking,’ she whispered to Luc, a little overawed.
‘It never gets old,’ he said, taking her hand, just as he had in the cellars at Pommery. ‘Come on, let’s go inside. You must see the stained-glass windows.’
They wandered into the cool serene space and Hattie wondered anew what it was in humans that had the capacity, against the odds, to build something so spectacular in the name of something they believed in. This had been built before cranes and mechanical engineering, although much of it, she learned, had had to be rebuilt after the First World War.
For the next forty-five minutes, they walked through the dappled stained-glass reflections on the floor, hand in hand, absorbing the still atmosphere, without saying a word to each other. Every now and then they would look up at something, catch each other’s eyes and smile. Luc was so easy to be with. It was one of the most restful, peaceful afternoons Hattie had experienced in a very long time. Now she understood what Luc meant about slowing down and taking the time to savour things. When they moved back outside into the heat of the day, it was as if she’d stepped out of time for a while and all her problems had melted away.
She turned to Luc to thank him and as she looked up at him, he took her other hand and pulled her towards him. Their gazes met. Her breath caught in her chest and she couldn’t help herself. She leaned up and kissed him.
As soon as her lips touched his a burst of sunshine lit up inside her, the slow warmth of his kiss powering up every cell with a battery charge of its own. Her pulse fizzed in her veins and her breath stuck in her chest and she never wanted to let go of him, ever.
Wow, Luc could kiss. What had she been missing all her life? Was this a French thing?
However, when he pulled back he looked every bit as dazed as she felt.
‘Uh,’ he said, staring at her.
‘Uh, back at you,’ she said, reeling a little but also feeling a delicious thrill of feminine power. No. This was just… Kisses weren’t that electric, that heart-squeezingly tumultuous. A kiss was just a kiss. Yeah, poems and songs were written about them but it wasn’t real.
Luc was still staring at her. Maybe it was real.
‘Do you want to try that again?’ she murmured.
He pressed his own lips together and nodded.
This time this kiss didn’t take them quite as much by surprise. The sparks had dulled but there was still that delicious slow slide into each other, a sense of ease and a heart-stopping something. Unable to help herself, she wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself closer to him even as he pulled her to his body. She could feel … she could feel definite signs of mutual attraction.
It was only the over-excited cheers of a group of schoolchildren that broke them apart.
Luc’s eyes were filled with wonderment and Hattie felt sure hers looked exactly the same.
‘That was…’
‘It was,’ she agreed.
He took her hand and by unspoken agreement they began to walk, their fingers interlinked. The street was busy, which, Hattie decided, was just as well, because all she could think about was kissing Luc again. Judging by the sidelong glances he kept giving her, he wanted to do the same.
As they squashed together against a wall to accommodate a coachload of tourists following a man with an umbrella held aloft, Luc whispered in her ear, ‘I want to kiss you again.’
‘Me too.’
He grinned. ‘Fancy going home?’
‘Absolutement.’ She grinned shyly back at him, even though she wasn’t sure if she’d just made up a French word.
ChapterSixteen
