Bottles & Blades (Eagles Hockey: Oak Ridge Vineyards #1)

Chapter 37

Thirty-Seven

Tiff

“What time is your meeting?” I ask as I take a bite of absolutely the best baguette I’ve ever tasted in my life.

“Later,” he tells me.

I set the bread down—and I’ll tell ya, putting down those delicious carbs costs me.

But that’s the third time he’s told me that.

The first was over a spread of fruit and pastries and coffee that was truly inspired.

The second was during lunch at a cozy cafe with soup and salads and a slice of chocolate mousse cake, after we spent the morning at the Louvre, wandering through marble statues, getting lost amongst paintings that fill entire walls, winding through the packed crowd to see the Mona Lisa.

But my favorite was a huge marble statue that graces the top of the stairs. Called Winged Victory of Samothrace, it’s not perfect. The depiction of the Greek goddess, Nike, is missing her head and arms, but she’s beautiful and awe-inspiring. The movement in her clothing, the feathers on her wings—she took my breath away. I swear I must have stood there for five minutes, trying to absorb every single detail.

Jean-Michel hadn’t rushed me.

Just stood close to my back as I took in my fill.

Then we continued on through the rooms, soaking in the art, practicing my French, unable to believe that this is actually my life.

After getting our fill of the museum—not that I could really get my fill of something that would take me a lifetime to properly explore—we stopped at Jean-Mi’s favorite bakery, picking up the aforementioned delicious baguettes, then went to the fromagerie to pick up cheese, the butcher for sliced ham and salami.

And now we’re sitting on the steps opposite the Notre Dame, having a makeshift picnic.

Bread and butter. Meat and cheese. A tiny dessert that Jean-Mi picked up somewhere when I wasn’t paying attention.

But none of this is a critical meeting that warranted getting on a plane and flying halfway around the world.

I’m jet lagged, fatigue is pulling at my bones, and I’m running purely on the magic of being in this city.

But I’m not an idiot.

I know something is up.

Jean-Mi has barely been on his phone. He hasn’t turned me loose in this beautiful city to wander on my own while he takes care of that emergency business.

Instead, he’s been glued to my side and feeding me treats and showing me gorgeous pieces of art.

I turn and study him closely.

He’s leaned back on his elbows on the concrete steps, wind blowing through his hair, looking handsome (and not jet lagged whatsoever).

But he’s not looking like a man who’s focused on business.

“Jean-Mi.”

He turns his gaze from the gorgeous, recently reconstructed church, and looks down at me, his eyes warm, his mouth automatically turning up into a soft smile.

God, the way he looks at me…

I hold it close.

Never would I have expected it.

Never would I have dreamed it.

“What is it, buttercup?” he asks, stroking his knuckles along the column of my throat. “Need more food?”

“There isn’t a meeting, is there?”

His mouth curves a bit further. “How pissed are you going to be if I answer that in the affirmative?”

There .

That’s the confirmation I knew was coming, the slender thread of knowledge that has grown over the last day.

“Jean-Mi!” I exclaim, swatting him across the chest. “You—I—” I open and close my mouth a few times, starting a sentence, stopping it, trying to figure out what in the word I can possibly say in response to his confession. “Why are we here?” I finally ask, deciding to settle on the most pertinent question.

His smile kills me.

“Where’d you say was the place in the world you wanted to visit the most?”

My heart convulses. “You didn’t.”

“What’s the point of having all that I have if I can’t give someone I love a day like this?”

Tears burn the backs of my eyes, and I blink rapidly, trying not to let them overflow. “Honey,” I say. “This is insane. It’s too much. My parents. Paris. A jet. I—” I can’t even string the words together into anything that reasonably resembles sentences.

Because this man did this?

How can I pay him back?

How can I accept?

Only, I’m already here, aren’t I?

My brain is going to explode and I’m here and?—

His hand comes to my jaw, and he tilts my face up. “Seeing Paris through your eyes”—he leans in, rests his forehead against mine—“is beautiful. You gave me that. Spending these last couple of weeks with you, learning you, loving you, is even more so. I’ve been lonely, baby. For so fucking long that I didn’t think I would ever not be. But you made that go away.”

My heart is pounding in my chest and there are a thousand things I want to say to him.

But all I can get out is a soft, “Jean-Mi.”

He’s still talking.

“And you give me more than that,” he says, lifting his head and gently stroking his fingers through my hair. “You give me a smart, sweet, kind, funny, and beautiful woman who sees me as me —not as a checkbook, not as a man with connections to exploit. You give me you, and all you expect is me. Just me.”

“Honey, I?—”

His big hand cups my jaw. “So, if you even think—with you giving me all of that—that I’m not going to do every fucking thing in my power to give you all of your dreams—big and small and in between—then you’re going to learn differently, baby.” His thumb traces along my cheek. “Even if it takes me a lifetime to teach it to you.”

“Honey,” I whisper again, the tears slipping free despite my best efforts, sliding from my lashes, dripping down my cheeks. “You’re being too sweet.”

He wipes them from my skin, leans close, mouth curving. “I love you. From the moment I met you, I knew you were special. I know it’s fast. I know it’s too much. But I don’t give a fuck. You’re it, buttercup, and I’m not letting you go.”

My lungs hitch, but I manage to give voice to the words in my head, the words I feel with every fiber of my being. “I love you too.” I cover his hand with my own. “But I don’t need any of this—the trips, the jet, the beautiful apartment overlooking the city. I just need you—your time, your heart, your words that sing to every part of me.”

“Now who’s being sweet?” he teases softly.

But I see how deeply he’s feeling this.

Because I’m feeling the same exact way.

“You are, Jean-Mi.”

“I know.” He grins, picks up the baguette and breaks off another piece, passing it over to me. “And there’s more to come.” A nod at the bread. “So you’d better fuel up.”