Love Is In The Air (Modern Vintage Romances #14)

Chapter 1

Tara

Is there anything sadder than being alone in Paris on Valentine’s Day?

Yes. Yes, there is.

It’s drowning your sorrows alone at a fancy bar.

When I first stumbled across the Prescription Cocktail Club on a walk from my small but charming one-bedroom on Rue de Buci in Saint-Germain-des-Prés—my new home for the next six months—a drink had seemed like the perfect way to celebrate.

Finally, after years of waiting, my work visa had come through for my dream assignment at the Louvre. Champagne-worthy, right?

But now, sitting here with my cocktail and my loneliness, I feel downright pathetic.

I arrived in Paris this morning, and the whirlwind of unpacking, finding a bistro next door for lunch, and getting settled had carried me through the day. Then the sun went down, the jet lag kicked in, and reality set in.

And, as if all that isn’t enough…of course, it has to be Valentine’s Day.

When my boss at the Philadelphia Museum of Art first told me about this restoration project, it felt like the universe was finally smiling at me. I work in a niche field, and this is exactly the kind of assignment restorers like me dream of.

My specialty isn’t oils, marble, or tapestries—it’s eighteenth-century pastel portraiture, the fragile, powder-soft creations of artists like élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Rosalba Carriera.

Pastels are treacherous; they fade, crumble, and practically disintegrate if you so much as breathe on them wrong.

Most restorers won’t touch them. But I spent a decade honing the skills for my PhD on Rococo-era women artists overlooked by history.

Which is why, when the Louvre acquired Rosalba Carriera’s Portrait of the Comtesse* de Valois—a luminous pastel more than 250 years old, pulled from long-term storage and badly in need of restoration—I was one of the few in the world they could call.

And believe me, I showed up with bells on.

Now those bells are quiet and dull as I sit in a bar straight out of a Parisian dream—dim lighting, velvet armchairs that swallow you whole, and bartenders in suspenders treating cocktails like high art.

The music is jazzy, sultry, and just loud enough for me to sip something lethal (with absinthe, of course) and pretend I’m not the saddest cliché in the City of Lights.

I’d made an effort with my outfit—boho chic armor against the embarrassment of being solo tonight.

A vintage sapphire-blue dress with a long front slit, which a friend of mine made for me out of bamboo fabric (it’s all the rage these days).

Boots that are chic but comfortable to walk in—which is a must for any city girl.

I wore several silver chains around my neck—including the one that’s supposed to be my good-luck charm.

Silver bangles and earrings that made a tinkling sound.

I left my hair in loose, dark waves tumbling around my shoulders.

I hadn’t been in a relationship for…oh God, when was Brian? A year ago? No, almost two!

Now, he was a mistake. We’d been dating for six months when I walked into his apartment unexpectedly and found him balls deep inside a colleague.

I wasn’t in love with him, so I wasn’t exactly heartbroken, but my ego took a major hit, and so did my trust meter, which was why I was steering clear of men.

Or so I thought, until….

“Drinking alone, they say, is a dangerous avocation,” a French-accented male voice said from behind me.

He’s not my type, and by that I mean he doesn’t look like an artist.

This one is all business—broad shoulders in an impeccably tailored charcoal suit, with the kind of face that belongs in an oil painting: sharp jaw, faint stubble, eyes like gray storm clouds. They rake over me like heavy silk, dragging across my skin.

“Pardon?” I manage to sound haughty as I’m fairly certain there’s a “Candid Camera” somewhere. Men like this guy—Vincent Cassel meets Jean Dujardin—don’t talk to women who look like me. They go for the sophisticated ones in designer wear.

“I was watching you,” he says, taking a step closer, “and wondered if your eyes were truly as sad as they looked from across the room.”

The balls on the man. And the charm.

I cock an eyebrow. “And what’s your verdict?” I ask, because screw subtlety. I am single. I am in Paris. I can flirt with a Frenchman if I want to.

His mouth curves—barely. “Honey-brown eyes…d'une beauté rare*.”

I chuckle. “Is that a line? And does it work for you?”

“Absolutely not a line.” His voice is deep, smooth, and far too confident. And then there was the accent…deliciously French. “If I were the kind of man who dropped lines, I’d ask what a woman like you is doing here alone, on a night like this.”

I laugh, feeling giddy with Paris—or maybe it’s the champagne cocktail spiked with absinthe.

He slides into the barstool next to mine, turning slightly to face me. “Well, what is a woman like you doing here?”

I noticed that he’s wearing dress shoes with red soles. Well, then….

As my abuela* would say, “Mija*, a man like this is only after one thing.”

Well, abuela, I hope he’s after my pussy because I’m so ready to…get it filled.

I’m twenty-eight, single, and it’s been so long since I’ve had sex that….

Dios mio*, I’d have to carbon-date my lady parts to know precisely when.

“Monsieur*, I’m practicing the fine American tradition of wallowing.” I lift my glass. “As you know, we export many things—Hollywood, hamburgers…heartbreak. And it’s Valentine’s Day, after all.”

He exhales a soft laugh, more cynical than amused. “Valentine’s Day is an American invention designed to sell chocolate and bad poetry.”

“What have you got against a day dedicated to love?”

“In France, we need no calendar to remind us of love or…lust.” He gestures toward the room, all glittering couples and roses. “But you Americans…you commercialize even martyrdom.”

I arch a brow. “We do?”

His voice drops. “Saint Valentine was beaten, stoned, then beheaded. And for this, you buy heart-shaped balloons.”

“Really?” I flutter my eyelashes like an ingenue, which I most definitely am not.

I have a degree in art history, so I know the St. Valentine’s Day story, but I have no problem letting him play teacher. I can even call him sir.

I stifle a giggle, and drain my drink.

My mystery Frenchman lifts a hand to the bartender, who immediately sets to work on another champagne cocktail for me. The man beside me drinks an amber liquid—cognac, judging by the glass.

“Yes, really.” He looks at me as the bartender slides me a fresh drink. “You must admit that you Americans make a spectacle of it.”

I sip the drink. It’s as good as the first one.

“Well, lucky me. I am the spectacle.”

That earns a low chuckle. He leans closer like a predator circling prey.

“What’s your name, Spectacle?”

“Tara.”

He nods once, like he expected nothing less. “Gustave.”

I hold out my hand, and he takes it, but instead of shaking it, he brings it to his lips and kisses my knuckles.

Now, I’m a grown woman, but when I tell you that sparks flew—I mean it. It was like electricity ran through me and hit my clit. Boom! Like Cupid’s arrow!

“What are you doing in Paris alone on Valentine’s Day, Tara?” He holds my hand as he talks, his thumb doing things to the palm of my hand that should be illegal.

“I….” I shake my head. “Does it matter?”

He thinks about it for a moment and then tips his chin in acknowledgment. “Non*, it doesn’t.”

And that’s it. No last names, no job titles, no explanations. Two strangers in the most romantic city in the world, sparring in a beautiful bar, our banter as sharp as the citrus twist in my drink.

“Oh, please, Americans are so smitten by Europe that it’s given you a superiority complex,” I argue when he says that Paris is wasted on tourists.

“It’s not a complex, ma chérie*. It’s simply fact.”

Another fact is that I haven’t had such a deliciously fun conversation in…forever.

I finish my drink, and as I’m about to turn to the bartender, Gustave places a hand over mine. “Please, chérie, don’t.”

I frown. “Why?”

“So that when I invite you to my hotel room, I won’t have to worry you’re drunk.”

Like I said, the balls on this man. And the charm!

“You’re being presumptuous,” I say, pulling my hand away from his, but I don’t order another drink.

I’ve never had a one-night stand. I’m a relationship girlie. I’ve slept with three guys in my life—three boyfriends.

But maybe it’s time, Tara, to live your life. After all, it’s Valentine’s Day in Paris, and this is one hell of a fine Frenchman.

“Not presumptuous, just very hopeful,” he replies with a broad smile.

It relaxes his features, even those cheekbones that look like they were slashed with a palette knife by Rembrandt.

He glances toward the tall windows overlooking Rue de Buci, then back at me with a look that is nothing short of an invitation.

My heart thuds as I see a discreet black awning bearing the golden crest of H?tel de l’?le, its facade glowing in the night.

I lick my lips. Temptation thrumming through me.

“There’s a hotel across the street.” He holds his hand out. “Come with me.”

He means it. Every inch of him radiates certainty, like he’s a man who’s never heard the word non.

It rattles me, so I lean into what I do best; humor. “Do you always invite women you meet at bars to hotels?”

“No.” He sounds like he means that, too, but I can’t believe that. A man like him is a playboy. He can land any woman.

Apparently and evidently, even me.

“Are you…. Are you staying in that hotel?” I feel gauche.

This is not my scene. Not at all. My first boyfriend was a musician who played guitar in a garage band. I drew sketches of him while he played.

My second boyfriend was a starving artist like me.

Unlike me, he refused to get a job as I did, waiting tables.

Apparently, that interfered with his muse.

When he suggested we move in together to save bills, which I read clearly as me carrying him, I told him, “Darling, I restore masterpieces for a living, not starving artists with delusions of grandeur.”

Then there was Brian, the cheat. He was an assistant at an art gallery, and we dated for six months before that ended like a priceless vase in the hands of a toddler—fast, loud, and in tiny pieces.

“I have a suite at the hotel,” Gustave says with the kind of arrogance that should have made me roll my eyes. Instead, it made heat curl low in my stomach.

Come on, Tara, this one has a suite, and he looks like he can probably pay for it.

I put my hand in his. “You sure about this?”

He smiles again. He has straight teeth. White.

“Only if you are, chérie.”

I close my eyes for a moment, take a deep breath. Then I look at him, clear-eyed. “Lead the way, Gustave.”

* Countess (French)

* Of rare beauty (French)

* Grandmother (Spanish)

* Darling, feminine (Spanish)

* My God (Spanish)

* Sir (French)

* No (French)

* My darling, feminine (French)