The Virgin Society Collection

22. All The Other Things

22

ALL THE OTHER THINGS

Finn

The next morning, I’m sitting at a sleek black metal table in a conference room in the offices of a luxury goods marketing partner. Several stories below us, Rue Saint-Honoré bustles with shoppers and expensive cars, with the nearby Opéra Garnier just visible at the corner of the floor-to-ceiling windows.

But the city’s not what’s distracting me. Thoughts of a woman are.

I’m doing my damnedest to pay attention to the presentation the brand is giving my team and me about the superior quality of their luggage and the way their advertisements will reflect The Rendezvous .

But my mind is half here, and half on Jules.

“When we run this campaign, we can show the snippets of the characters with their luggage,” Henri says, gesturing to the image projected on the wall—a mockup of one of the scenes from the show.

It’ll be set in the character’s flat in Le Marais. Did Jules arrange details for that flat? Did she set up the shooting schedule for that day? Is she there right now?

“So we’ll integrate the travel aspect of the series into all our marketing, just as the show is slated to integrate our goods,” Henri says with a professional smile, tinged with hope that this deal will come through.

And it probably will, if I sign off on these plans that were ironed out by the prior majority owners.

Plans—the things I didn’t make with Jules yesterday when I took her back to the hotel. She was yawning the whole time in the car, struggling to stay awake. When we reached the lobby, her eyes fluttered closed and I said a chaste goodnight, not the words go out with me tomorrow that were on my lips.

But it’s a good thing I resisted. I’m not in Paris to see her. I’m in Paris for business. Even though I have a marketing team who’ll oversee these brand sponsorship deals, I need to make sure this flagship show launches on Streamer without a hitch. That means I need to put the finishing touches on some of the deals I inherited.

“When would you want the campaign to begin?” I ask.

“We can work on the creative as soon as we sign the contract,” he says.

I shove all thoughts of the kiss I shouldn’t have given Jules far, far away. “Great. But let’s chat about the terms though. I have some concerns,” I say, shifting firmly into negotiation mode, and out of romantic mode.

A little later, I say goodbye to Henri and to my international colleagues at Streamer, who can handle the rest of the deal.

There. I made it through that meeting without revealing that my head is elsewhere. When I leave, I’m focused on my agenda for the rest of the day, mentally reviewing my meetings and my goals as I stride by elegant artwork, pushing past the double doors out to the street.

But once I’m outside, the distractions hit me in full force.

Paris. Paris is the goddamn distraction. I could wander down a rain-soaked street with Jules, duck into a brasserie with her, kiss her under a streetlamp.

It’s like she’s everywhere in this city.

I check my watch. I’m free for an hour and a half, and that’s annoying. My assistant built time in my schedule to get around the city, but I don’t want it right now. I want something to do. Somewhere to be, so I can stop thinking about where Jules is. What she’s doing. How close she is to me.

I was doing so great for the last few weeks in New York. Resisting her had become easy enough.

But one afternoon with her in Paris, and she owns my thoughts. One kiss, and I’m replaying it on a loop. It was slow and passionate yet fleeting, like it didn’t even happen. That has to be why she’s all I thought of last night in my hotel room. As I got into bed, I imagined spending the hours till dawn making her cry out in bliss, then taking her to breakfast, seeing the wonder in her eyes as she watched the city wake up and come to life.

When I pass the Mandarin Oriental, I tear my gaze away from the sleek hotel so I don’t fixate on what I’d do with Jules in a hotel room.

When I turn toward the Tuileries Gardens, that’s no better. Of course I’ll think of her if I walk past another set of goddamn gardens.

I grit my teeth, trying, valiantly trying, to walk off these thoughts. But the more distance I log, the more persistent my mind becomes. We’re thousands of miles from home. The distance is like a permission slip. I’d wanted to run into her yesterday. I’d known when her plane landed. I’d hoped to see her, engineered that moment.

But I can’t keep seeking out chance encounters. The more time I spend with her, like I did at the diner in New York with Zach, like I did at the café and gardens yesterday, the more time I’ll want to spend with her.

Trouble is, I have to see her this afternoon at the photo shoot and I’m more excited about her than I am about the flagship show of my new acquisition.

I arrive at the studio in Le Marais that afternoon and remind myself I’m here to make an appearance, meet the executive producer, and say hello to the cast.

That’s all.

I take the stairs to the third floor then turn into a wide, concrete corridor that echoes loudly on the way to the studio. Then, it echoes in chorus as someone else turns the corner.

Two someones . One is a woman in khaki pants and a pink Oxford, clutching a phone and a tablet. I recognize her crisp businesslike appearance from photos and research—she’s the show’s executive producer.

The other someone? My obsession.

The producer stops and offers a closed-mouth smile before she says, “You’re the new boss.”

Jules answers, gesturing to me. “Solange Marina, this is Finn Adams. He runs Streamer now, as you know. And Mr. Adams, this is our EP. Solange is from Montreal and has produced a handful of award-winning shows on Webflix and LGO, including Unfinished Business .”

I take her hand and we shake. “That show was terrific. I was glued to the ending, and Jamie made the right choice when he moved across the country with Zoe.”

Solange’s lips twitch, but she doesn’t quite smile. Instead, she gives an approving nod. “Ah, well, I might like you now and then. Might .”

“Now and then works just fine for me,” I say. Being well-liked is not my work goal.

“Then you’re welcome here as long as you don’t meddle,” Solange says dryly. The comment is meant to land as a joke, but it’s clear she means it. She doesn’t want me to interfere.

“I only meddle in my brother’s projects.”

Her expression softens slightly. “Good to know.” Before she can say anything more, her phone rings. She peers at it. “My daughter. I need to take this, Jules. You can handle…” She flaps a hand toward me. “Anything.”

“I’ve got it.”

The executive producer pushes on the door to the stairwell, disappearing and leaving me alone with the woman I can’t stop thinking about.

Jules wears her glasses today, black pants, and a short-sleeve red blouse. The outfit is professional but trendy and young. Fitting. “She knows she’s in good hands with you,” I say, not surprised Jules has made such a good impression already.

“She is. And Solange is great,” Jules says, and damn. That’s some sexy confidence. I like that Jules knows she’s good at her job.

I should let her go wherever she was heading. But I don’t. “How did you sleep your first night here? Were you up in the middle of the night?” I probably shouldn’t think of her in bed, but it’s too late for that.

“Melatonin worked its magic, though I was up before the sun. I watched it rise from Sacré-Coeur.”

I don’t know what I was expecting her to say but it wasn’t that. “From the steps of the basilica?”

“I was awake,” she says easily, like why would I do anything else . “The early morning light was streaming into my window. How many times am I going to be in Paris watching the sun rise?”

I’m jealous of the church steps for getting to spend the dawn with her. “What else is on that bucket list?”

“You figured out I have a list?” she asks with a quirk in her lips that says she’s impressed.

I don’t need to pat myself on the back. I do need to know what she wants, what she needs. “Yes. Tell me what’s on it.”

“So demanding,” she teases.

“Yes. I am.”

“Since you’re so insistent…” She checks the time on her phone, then, satisfied, she answers. “I plan to sit at a café by the Seine and read a good book, to try something I’ve never had before at a restaurant, to wander down a quiet street where I feel like I can get lost. Among other things ,” she adds, and I bet I’d like other things .

But this conversation is not helping my resolve. “You have six more days to do them,” I say, but what I mean is I can help you with the restaurant one, and the wander down the street one, and all the other things .

“And I’m on pace. I checked one off yesterday. But I didn’t even know it was on there.”

I’m confused now. “What do you mean?”

Her lips curve up. “Find a hidden gem where you least expect it.” She glances down the hall. “I should go.”

And I should go say hello to the cast. That’s why I’m here. Not to obsess over her Paris list.

But when I return to the hotel that night, I do obsess over it. And over her. I’m wondering what she’s crossing off that list. What room she’s in. What she wears to bed when she’s alone.

And in the morning, I wonder whether I’d find her on the steps of Sacré-Coeur.

“Fucking idiot,” I say, cursing myself as I get ready for the day’s meetings. She’s not going to do the same thing the next day, and I’m not going to stalk her.

Besides, I have back-to-back appointments all day, so once I’m up and out of the hotel, I refuse to look back.

If I can just make it through the next five days without bumping into her—or engineering opportunities for that to happen—that’d be great.

When the first meeting of the day ends, I tell my team I’ll see them later then I take a breather to reset. Exercise has always helped me focus. When I was younger, soccer gave me tunnel vision, along with the hope that the sport would pave my way in life. Later, the triathlons I started running centered me as I grew my business. I can’t go for a run along the river in my tailored slacks and button-down, so instead I drop on aviator shades and get a little lost in the city like I did yesterday, walking past boutiques, souvenir shops, and chichi restaurants, thinking about my meetings for the week—my goals for the year—when a scent stops me in my tracks.

A trace of honeysuckle tickles my nose, and I turn, helplessly, in its direction, the open door to a perfume shop. La Belle Vie is written in rose-gold script on a white sign above the store.

Are you kidding me? Everything in this city is a temptation. I don’t stand a chance.

I stop fighting and go inside, flashing back to the night at my home when Jules asked about the honeysuckle outside my window, a rarity in the city.

What does it remind you of? I’d asked.

Wanting. It reminds me of wanting, she’d said.

I feel the same. This sweet, heady smell reminds me of wanting. It reminds me of her.

Like a man in a trance, I walk to a nearby display of bottles, delicately carved and with old-fashioned spritzers and pumps. There are crystal ones with gold etching, purple leaves, pink and glass. It’s all so feminine, so alluring. I stop at the one that’s been calling to me, then read the display card next to it.

Come What May, made by a perfumer here in Paris. An American named Joy Danvers. There’s a description, too, and it reads: “The smell of the first kiss and a last kiss. It is the promise that somehow, someday, we will meet again.”

All at once, a pang of longing digs into my chest. I lift the bottle, bring it to my nose, and inhale, picturing Jules.

Each time I see her, she shares carefully, ever so carefully, bits and pieces of herself. Every time I talk to her, I learn a little bit more about who she is and the layers she contains, like a trunk you take your time opening so you can savor the letters, the notebooks, the photos you find inside.

She’s so different than Marilyn. So very different that I’m standing in a shop here in the First Arrondissement, inhaling a perfume like a man obsessed.

Like a man wanting.

But I don’t simply want another night in bed with her. I want to explore her. Understand her. Know her .

“Excuse me? Can I help you with something?” A soft, French voice breaks my daydream.

Can you help me get my best friend’s daughter out of my every waking thought?

I don’t say that. Instead, I say to the shopkeeper, “I’ll take this and can you please send it to this hotel?”

Even though there’s no room in my life for an obsession, I begin one anyway.

Or really, I continue one.

The perfume does the trick for a couple hours. That afternoon I’m pure focus as I meet with a European-based mobile company that we’re wooing. My hope is that they’ll carry our service on their phones. We want to give big shots like Webflix a run for their money, so deepening our partnerships will go a long way. I keep my blinders on during those meetings and I don’t let thoughts of honeysuckle or garden kisses win.

When I say goodbye to my colleagues at the end of the day, I feel accomplished, despite my earlier distraction. I check my watch. All I need to do now is stop by the nearby set in Le Marais for a quick meeting with Solange to keep her apprised of the marketing plans. It’s a few blocks away, and I head through the artsy, fashionable arrondissement.

I pass Place des Vosges, the central square filled with trees and ivy-colored buildings. Is visiting that on Jules’s Paris list? No. That’s too pedestrian for her. But maybe spreading out a blanket somewhere nice in the evening, sipping champagne, eating olives and cheese has made the cut.

Or maybe it’s just on a new list I’m writing in my mind.

Get it together, man.

I snap my gaze to the sidewalk in front of me and keep it there till I reach a quieter street with white flats boasting planters in their windows. One of them is the location for the heroine’s flat in The Rendezvous .

Already, there are signs of the show—some permits for shooting are plastered outside the apartment. After I check in with security, I head into the building. The crew in the lobby are finishing up their pre-production work for the day. I look past them, and then my pulse spikes annoyingly.

Jules stands at the other end of the foyer by the elevator, where the opening sequence will shoot tomorrow. Chatting with Solange, Jules looks beautiful, even in a short-sleeve black blouse, jeans, and flats. Or perhaps she’s beautiful because of the simplicity of her outfit. Her chestnut hair is cinched back in a clip, with a few loose tendrils framing her face. She wears her glasses and keeps a serious expression on her face. All-business Jules is in her element. She’s focused and diligent, entering details on a tablet. I feel like a stalker even though I’m supposed to be here.

I watch her closely until she turns around and makes eye contact with me.

Jules doesn’t change her expression—she’s a guarded woman—but a subtle sparkle lights those brown irises. I stride across the foyer, and when I reach them, Solange offers me a cautious smile before she says, “Don’t give me bad news that will make me mad.”

Damn, she’s tough. “I only have good news.”

Jules steps back. “I’ll leave you to it. I need to send out some emails with call times anyway.”

“Thank you,” Solange says, then pats the neck of her shirt. “Merde. I must have left my glasses on the balcony in the flat.”

Before she can even ask, Jules says brightly, “I’ll get them.”

She says it too brightly though. She’d never let on at work that she’s afraid of heights.

“I’d actually love to see the flat for a minute,” I say, stepping in. “Jules, would you show it to me?”

“Of course.”

With Solange quickly busying herself on her phone, we head into the old elevator. As it rises, I’m so close to Jules, I could kiss her neck if I leaned in a few inches. I want to tell her there’s a gift waiting for her at the hotel. Instead, I clench my fists, hold that admission back, and grit out, “How was your second day?”

“Busy. Solange is a whirlwind. But I can keep up with her.”

“Of course you can. Were you up at dawn, sitting at a café?”

A tiny smile shifts her lips. “Yes. I read some of my book by the river.”

Montmartre isn’t near the river. “You must have been up quite early to make it to the Seine before work.”

She shrugs, like of course . “How many times will I be able to do that?”

Many, if I have a say in it.

We reach the sixth floor and as soon as she opens the door to the flat, I set a hand on her forearm. God, her skin feels incredible. I sizzle from this small touch. “I’ll get the glasses.”

Without waiting for her answer, I stride through the chic flat. A red sofa, an antique armoire, and artwork that looks like it comes from an outdoor market all signal a minimalist-meets-French style that’s perfect for the show’s look. I step out on the balcony, grab the glasses from the ledge, then turn around in the doorway.

But she’s right behind me. “Actually, it’s okay.”

My brow creases. “It is?”

She closes the distance between us then steps onto the balcony and peers over Le Marais. She breathes in, breathes out. I say nothing—just watch her as she checks out the view, even though I don’t think she’s enjoying it.

After a beat, she turns to me. “But thank you,” she says softly.

I don’t entirely understand her fear, but I can tell this is important to her—this act of independence.

“Did it bother you that I wanted to help?”

“No. Not at all. I’m just not used to someone helping,” she says like she wishes it weren’t that way. “Or knowing.”

Oh.

She doesn’t tell people about her fear of heights. “Thanks for letting me, then. Even if I was pushy.”

She takes another big breath then shakes her head. “You weren’t.”

I hand her the glasses, and she heads back inside, then stops in the foyer. I catch up to her, and her gaze strays briefly to the door.

Someone else from the show could come in here any second. A set designer, a costumer, another producer. But right now, we’re the only ones here, and there’s a charge in the air, a palpable energy.

I hold her face with my hand. “Have dinner with me tonight. I need to get to know you more. I need to learn more about you. I want to take you on a date in Paris. Is that on your list?” I ask, taking a beat to let those words land.

To watch her eyes answer with a twinkle.

Then, she says, “Yes.”

When I walk into the bistro where we’re meeting in Montmartre, I can tell she’s here before I see her. I smell honeysuckle, and it’s the scent of wanting.