Chapter 19
Nineteen
SOPHIE
Sophie had to keep remembering to sip her chocolat chaud before it went cold. Her hand was flying over the page of her notebook, and she had to keep shaking her wrist to stop it from cramping. She’d started her morning at the café by transcribing the events of last night, needing to get it off her chest and out of her heart, but somewhere between the part where Papa first arrived at the apartment and then mentioned his fourth marriage, she had an idea, for a story, or maybe something more. A novel—of sorts. Three sisters. One father. And a reunion. In Paris.
Because who could not be inspired by this beautiful city?
Her phone pinged, stirring her from her world, and she looked down at the screen to see yet another message from her mother, once again asking why she wasn’t responding. Heaving a sigh, she thought of last night, everything leading up to it, and all the messy emotions that it had stirred up. She was in no mood to talk to her mother or even text. She couldn’t pretend that what was transpiring here in Paris wasn’t happening, so for now, it was best not to reply at all.
She went back to her notebook, trying to get back into her zone, but now she was distracted by something else. The sound of her name being called out.
Frowning, she looked up, trying to pinpoint the sound, and she beamed when she saw the source.
“Gabriel!”
“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” he said as he leaned down to kiss both her cheeks.
She warmed at the touch. “Not at all. A welcome distraction.” There was a difference, after all. “Do you have time to sit?”
“Only for a moment, then I’m off to the gallery.” Gabriel dropped onto a chair and smiled broadly. “Good news. I finished my painting.”
“That is good news!” Sophie said. Isabelle would be relieved.
“Then why don’t you look happier?” he asked.
Sophie let her shoulders relax. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only because I’ve come to know you,” he said, giving her a small smile that made her stomach flutter.
He had come to know her, and it wasn’t just a feeling that she alone had. He understood her. More than Jack. Certainly more than her mother.
She could talk to him. About anything.
“It’s been an eventful couple of days,” she began. “My father came to the apartment for dinner last night.”
“Ah, so you agreed to see him.” Gabriel looked pleased by the decision.
Sophie wondered what he’d have to say about what came next.
“He’s getting married. Again. Not for the third time or the fourth. But for the fifth, as it turns out.” Or so he said. She still wasn’t sure if she believed him. There may have been one or two he forgot to mention—or forgot in general. Surely there’s been more than one woman in all the years since he’d left her and her mother and flown back to Europe on a one-way ticket.
“And you’re not happy for him?” Gabriel gave her a knowing look.
“I don’t know how to feel,” Sophie replied. “Papa seemed happy, but then, he was happy with my mother, too, at first.”
And Isabelle and Camille’s mother before that.
And maybe the wife he had before her, too. Sophie would laugh out loud if she didn’t feel like crying.
“You’re surprised then?” Gabriel ventured.
“Yes,” she replied. Though she wasn’t sure why she should be. Their father bounced around, never staying put for long, never able to sit in the same place or stay with the same person before he got restless. “I guess I didn’t think my father was capable of love.”
“But surely he loves you,” Gabriel said. “And your sisters.”
Sophie had thought about this a lot over the years until she’d stopped thinking about it at all. She had one parent who was too ever-present and another who was never there. But did physical presence constitute love?
“Maybe I have it all wrong,” she said with a shrug. “Maybe I don’t even know what love is.”
“You mean you’ve never been in love?” Gabriel glanced at her, causing a blush to bloom in her cheeks.
“Honestly?” Sophie thought of Jack, down on one knee. “I’m not sure that I have.”
Except she wasn’t so sure that was true anymore because lately, she felt like she was falling in love. With Gabriel. With Paris. With the life she had here.
Or maybe she was just getting swept away.
“That’s the thing about love,” she continued. “It’s not certain.”
There was no guarantee. And the thing or person you loved the most could be snatched away at any time, sometimes by the very person you thought you could trust more than anyone.
“You said the same thing the last time I saw you,” Gabriel commented.
Sophie glanced at him, flattered that he remembered. “I’ll have to watch what I say around you,” she teased, again feeling her cheeks heat.
“You can speak freely with me,” he assured her with a pat of his hand, letting it linger there on top of hers, warm and reassuring. “I feel like I can be open with you, too. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to do that.”
She stared up into his dark eyes, feeling the pull of their connection as her heart picked up speed, and she wondered for a moment if he might kiss her, right here under the awning of this café in the heart of Paris, and she realized that she wanted him to, as much as she wanted just about anything else in the world. She felt close to him, but she wanted to be even closer.
They were side by side, pressed together, and just when she thought he might lean in, the woman beside her stood up, shaking their table, forcing them to steady their belongings.
“Your father,” he said after a moment, and Sophie inwardly groaned. She didn’t want to think about her father right now, much less talk about him. “What part surprises you most? That he’s getting married again?”
“I guess you could say that I thought my father wasn’t the marrying kind,” Sophie said. “But I guess he’s exactly that. It’s the committing part that he has a problem with.”
“And to you, they are the same?” Gabriel asked.
Sophie looked at him in confusion. “Absolutely. That’s what marriage is. A pact. A promise. A commitment for life. Otherwise, it’s just…a relationship. Otherwise, there’s no point in getting married.”
Isabelle and Hugh were a perfect example of two people who were not just in love but committed to each other for life. She had seen it in their eyes at their wedding, and she saw it when Isabelle spoke of Hugh, which was admittedly not very frequently, but then again, this was sister time.
“Do you think your father sets out to end these marriages?” Gabriel asked pensively.
Sophie had gotten used to Camille’s support when it came to their father, and she grew quiet while she contemplated Gabriel’s question.
“No, I think that Papa just gets swept up in the moment,” she finally said, just like she was, she supposed. It was easy to do, especially here in Paris, on a beautiful blue-sky day with the tulips in bloom and the river across the street, sparkling in the morning sun, and a handsome, understanding man at her side.
“Maybe he just loves the idea of love,” Gabriel said. “Just because he can’t make a marriage last doesn’t mean he is incapable of love.”
Sophie nodded slowly, thinking back to when she was young and her father used to take her mother by the hand and twirl her around their small backyard when a song he liked came on the radio. Her mother was a different person back then. She was more carefree. Happy even. She used to laugh and light up around him. She’d been, Sophie supposed, a woman in love.
And now, she was a woman who had been burned by it.
“He lives life big, to the fullest, but only for the day,” Sophie said. Papa never stopped to think about how his actions might impact tomorrow—or who they might hurt. “He’s in love, so he wants to get married. Again. But once the honeymoon is over, so is the marriage to him. His feelings change over time. And Papa always lets his emotions be his guide.”
Gabriel looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. “You have high expectations of marriage.”
Sophie considered this. “Maybe I do. But shouldn’t everyone before they take that step?”
“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “I don’t ever plan to get married again.”
Sophie wasn’t sure why this proclamation bothered her, but it did. It wasn’t like Gabriel was a boyfriend or anything more than a friend. He hadn’t kissed her, had never even held her hand. He owed her absolutely nothing, yet somehow she couldn’t help but feel…heartbroken.
“You don’t?” she asked, willing him to change his mind.
“No,” he said simply.
“But if you met the right girl…” She stopped talking, not wanting him to think that she was referring to yourself. “You’d be open to it then, surely?”
“I don’t think so,” Gabriel said.
Sophie took a sip of her hot chocolate, finding that it had now grown quite cold. She wasn’t in love with Gabriel—surely not. She was just caught up with being in Paris, with a man who was attractive and charming and easy to talk to. She hadn’t even considered a future before this trip with him, but hearing him announce that he never wanted to get married made her realize that there never could be a future with him.
And that maybe…she eventually did want to get married.
But maybe just not to Jack.