Chapter 19
Eden slid into the seat across from Renard at the breakfast table. “Well, I just finished talking to Sophie, and it seems our plan is working. Since you’ve announced you’re gay, she is pretending her heart is broken.”
“And when you refused to return to Boston to marry Mark, he pretended the same thing,” Renard said, smiling.
“Soon Mark and Sophie will begin dating to mend their broken hearts,” Eden added.
“Cheers,” they said, tapping their coffee mugs together, grinning widely.
“So, are you ready to celebrate your birthday this weekend?” Renard asked her.
“As ready as I’ll ever be. Like I told Sophie, I want to keep things simple. Now that my photo shoots are over for the remainder of the year, I plan to relax and take it easy. Are you looking forward to your cruise?”
“I sure am. On Monday, I’m taking the train to London for the day. Then, at the end of the week, I’m checking out of the hotel and flying to the Netherlands. I’ll start the cruise there. You sure you don’t want to come with me?”
“Sounds like fun, but I’m sure. This has been one hectic year, with photo shoot after photo shoot. Next year will be even busier.”
“What new language are you learning now?”
She smiled. After recently discovering her knack for picking up new languages, she was trying to absorb a new language every few months.
And even better, her tutor had put her in touch with someone who would speak that language back to her.
So far this year, she’d learned basic Russian, Italian, and sharpened her French.
In the new year, she’d start learning Chinese.
When the doorbell sounded, Eden said, “Would you grab that door for me, Renard? It’s probably the service technician. My dishwasher has been acting up. Right now, I need to make a quick call to my hair stylist to see if she can squeeze me in at the salon one day next week.”
“Sure. No problem,” Renard said, getting up from the table and heading for the door. Eden stood, as well, and moved toward the phone in her bedroom.
**
Drew glanced around outside Eden’s apartment.
It was in a quaint section of Paris, off a single lane where no cars were allowed to drive.
Instead, there was only minimal foot traffic.
It appeared that there were seven apartments connected, similar to row houses, with a French Provincial architecture that gave them a distinguished appearance.
He verified the house number before knocking and then shifted his gaze to a bed of flowering plants in several decorative pots beside the door.
He recognized the scent of one of the plants as jasmine. He should not be surprised.
“May I help you?”
Drew jerked his head around to look at the male who answered the door ─tall, muscularly built, and dressed comfortably in slacks and a shirt. He looked at the house number again, then said, “I am looking for Eden Tyson.”
The man lifted a brow. “And you are?”
Drew frowned. Did that mean he had the right house, and some man was opening Eden’s door like he lived there? Did he? “I’m Drew Steele.”
The man lifted a brow again and lounged in the doorway, not bothering to invite him in. “So, you’re Drew Steele?”
“That’s what my parents named me,” Drew said smartly, trying not to get upset at the thought that he had been replaced already. “And who are you?” Drew asked.
It took the man long enough to answer. “I’m Renard, a friend of Eden’s.” The man stepped aside. “Come on in. Eden is in the bedroom.”
At least the man hadn’t said she was in bed. After entering, Drew asked, “Would you please tell Eden that I would like to see her?”
No sooner had Drew made the request than he heard Eden’s voice from somewhere in the back part of the apartment. “Who was at the door, Renard?”
Suddenly, she appeared, and her gaze moved from the man she called Renard to him. She stared at him as if she were seeing a ghost. “Drew! What are you doing here?”
He could only stare back at her. She looked beautiful in a pair of beige linen slacks and a purple blouse that seemed to bring out the color of her eyes.
Her hair was tied back, away from her face, and the style placed emphasis on just how perfect her features were.
Those dangling earrings in her ears added the finishing touch.
And she was wearing the necklace. His necklace.
Seeing it around her neck gave him hope.
“Drew?”
He wanted to counter her question and ask what the other man was doing there, but couldn’t.
He had no right. He had told her to move on, and obviously, she had.
What he should do was preserve whatever dignity he had left and turn to leave.
But he couldn’t do that. He loved her enough to fight for her.
“I came to see you, Eden.”
“Why? If I recall ─and I honestly do ─you made it clear four months ago that you didn’t want to see me again. So, I will ask one more time, Drew. What are you doing here?”
Instead of answering her, he glanced at the other man who stood leaning against the closed door. “I would like to have a private conversation with Eden.”
The man looked at Eden. “You’re okay with that?”
She nodded. “I’m okay with it. He won’t be here long.”
The man nodded, grabbed his jacket off the chair. While putting it on, he said to Eden, “I’ll check back with you to see if you want to go to the pub with me later.”
Then, in a surprising move, the man approached Drew, extended his hand, and said, “Nice meeting you, Drew Steele.” Then, in a low voice, he said, “Good luck.”
His words surprised Drew. He nodded and accepted the man’s hand. “Nice meeting you as well.”
When the guy had left, he turned back to Eden. “Who is he?”
“Renard.”
She said it like the man was someone he was supposed to know. He must have had a dumbfounded look on his face because she then added, “I’ve mentioned him to you before. He’s Sophie’s ex-boyfriend. The man her parents had hoped she would marry one day.”
He then remembered that Renard was gay, and was relieved that the man wasn’t the competition he thought that he would have to deal with. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“Why?”
“When he opened the door like he lived here, I didn’t know what to think.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “It’s not your business to think anything when it concerns me. What brought you all the way from Phoenix to talk with me?”
He drew in a deep breath. He saw the glare in her eyes, the way she had squared her shoulders and stiffened her spine, and knew he had his work cut out for him.
Eden Tyson wasn’t going to make this easy on him.
She would give him hell, but whatever he had to go through, he would, if he could make her see just what she meant to him and how wrong he had been.
“Do you mind if we sit down?”
At first, he thought she would deny his request and show him to the door, but he was glad when she crossed the room and sat on the sofa.
Deciding not to press his luck, he took a chair near her, instead of sitting beside her.
He glanced around, really seeing the place for the first time since his primary focus had been on her.
“Nice place.”
“I’m sure you didn’t travel thousands of miles to compliment me on my Paris apartment.”
“No, I didn’t. I first went to New York to see you, and when I realized I didn’t have your address, I went to see your agent, and she told me you had returned to Paris.”
“It made sense for me to be here. But the question is, why are you? You made it perfectly clear four months ago that you wanted me out of your life so you could return to being you, the man who enjoys the company of many women, the man who will never allow himself to fall in love. You made it pretty clear that I was not the one you wanted.”
“Yes, I did. And I was wrong.”
**
Eden met his gaze, fighting back her rage when she remembered the words he had spoken, when he’d basically told her that he’d been using her, before delivering the final blow ─that she meant nothing to him. That he had had his time with her and was ready to move on.
She doubted he knew how much he had hurt her. He likely hadn’t realized that she’d fallen in love with him almost a year ago, during their stay at the lodge. But he had hurt her, and she didn’t think she’d ever get past it.
“Eden?”
“What?”
“I said I was wrong.”
She lifted a brow. “Just what were you wrong about, Drew? You seemed to believe everything you said that night. So please explain things to me, because I am somewhat confused.”
He stood, blew out a long breath, and then began pacing her living room.
She watched him, noticing a few things. He was still handsome as sin, that would never change.
And he was now thirty-one, since he’d had a birthday in October.
She wondered which one of his many women had celebrated it with him.
Pushing that thought to the back of her mind, she couldn’t help admiring his buff body, which meant he was likely sticking to his routine of jogging five miles each morning.
“I couldn’t do it.”
She blinked, realizing that while she’d been ogling him, he had stopped pacing. “You couldn’t do what?”
“None of the things I said I would do. Return to being the old me, going back to my womanizing ways. I would make the call, then hang up the phone before anyone answered. I couldn’t do it.”
She frowned, trying to follow him. “Why not? That night, you told me I was not enough.” At that point, she didn’t care if he heard the pain in her voice. It was the same pain she’d had to deal with for four months.
“I was especially wrong about that. I honestly believed that I could not be serious about any woman because I never wanted to end up married to a woman like my mom.”
Although he had told her about his cousins in Charlotte, he’d never talked about his deceased parents. “What was wrong with your mother?”