Chapter Twenty-Two
ARIA
Everett pulls the convertible off the road and parks near a low stone wall overlooking the harbor.
The village of Villefranche-sur-Mer spills down the hillside with narrow buildings in shades of peach and gold and faded rose, their shutters painted green and blue and weathered white.
Cobblestone lanes twist between them, too narrow for cars with a strip of sea below.
It looks like a painting.
It looks like my mother's paintings.
My chest tightens seeing it finally in real life.
Everett cuts the engine and we sit there for a moment in the sudden quiet. Just the sound of the breeze and the distant lap of water and my own heart stuttering like a song skipping its beat.
"You okay?" he asks.
I nod. Then shake my head. Then laugh at myself because I can't seem to decide.
"Maybe a little nervous," I admit. "Which is stupid. It's just a village, but I've spent my whole life imagining the day I would come here, and now...." I trail off.
"And now it's no longer a distant fantasy."
I turn to him. How does he know exactly what's in my head? How does he keep surprising me?
"Yeah. How do you always have the words when I don't?"
"I've lived with those too. Wondering what it would be like once I knew my father. What it would be like once I had a family."
"Right... of course." I say, because I can't imagine what it would be like to not know your father until he passes away, and not know your siblings until his death brings you all together after years of intentionally keeping you apart.
He just says, "Take your time. We have all day."
So I do.
I let the place settle into me the way it's lived in my imagination for twenty-six years—in my father's stories, in my mother's brushs, in every dream I ever had about the version of my life where she was still here and we came back together.
Then I open the car door and step out.
The air smells like salt and flowers and warm stone. Like the Riviera everywhere else, but quieter and more intimate.
Everett comes around the car and stops beside me.
For a second we just stand there together, looking down at the village curving around its harbor.
Then he tips his head toward the path. "Come on."
We walk down into Villefranche through streets so narrow our shoulders nearly brush the walls on either side.
The village is everything I pictured with its crumbling plaster, iron balconies trailing flowers, and cracked shutters.
Somewhere above us, a woman is hanging laundry on a line.
Below, the sound of the sea gets louder.
Everett walks beside me without hurrying. No phone. No agenda. His sunglasses pushed up on his head, his hands in his pockets, his pace matched to mine as if not to rush me. He looks like a James Bond character trying to blend in linen and casual but he's too gorgeous to ever blend in.
He's giving me this.
Not just the place but the time to explore and the safety of knowing I'm not doing any of this alone.
We reach the waterfront and I stop to stare at the harbor. Small boats bob in water so clear I can see straight to the bottom. The buildings crowd right up to the edge with their reflections making it hard to tell which are the real buildings and which ones are the mirror.
"My dad said she used to paint here," I say softly. "Right along this stretch. She'd set up in the morning and stay until the light changed."
Everett looks at the waterfront like he's trying to see it. Trying to picture a woman he never met, painting in a spot that's probably changed and probably hasn't.
"Did he say where she lived?" he asks.
"Up the hill somewhere. A balcony apartment with blue shutters and climbing roses." I smile faintly. "That describes about half the buildings here."
"Then we'll find the right half."
That makes me laugh. He's always so sure about everything, but it's the thing that also makes me feel so safe with him. He says what he means and he does what he says. He's not the kind of person who overpromises and underdelivers.
But it's also why I have to remember to take our agreement at face value. He said only twelve months, and to not fall in love with him. The things that I admire about him may also be the thing that breaks my heart.
I shake the thought. I can't think about that now.
I need to be in the present. How many more times am I going to get the chance to marry a billionaire and travel to the place I have wanted to see my entire life.
If this is my last chance, I need to savor it.
Our agreement is something I will have to come to terms with later.
We wander. That's the only word for it.
Just moving through the village in an aimless way I don’t think Everett has done in years. Maybe ever.
He's not good at it at first.
I can tell.
His stride keeps wanting to quicken, to find efficiency, to arrive somewhere. Twice I catch him checking his pocket for his phone but then pushes it back into his pocket. He told me he was taking the day off and I can see how hard that is for him.
By the time we've climbed two more streets and found a tiny square with a fountain and a café with three outdoor tables, something in him has loosened.
He pulls out a chair for me.
I order us coffees in French from the elderly man behind the counter, and when I come back Everett is leaned back in his chair with his face tipped toward the sun, eyes closed, looking more comfortable than I've ever seen him.
"You look like a tourist," I tell him.
He opens one eye. "I am a tourist."
"You look like a tourist who doesn't own multiple companies."
"At the moment, I don't want to."
That comment brings a smile to my cheeks.
I set his coffee down and sit across from him, tucking one leg under me. The square is quiet. An orange cat slinks along the fountain edge. Two old men play cards at the table behind us, arguing in French about the rules of the game that I'm sure they've played for years.
I imagine if Everett and I came back next year, we'd find them here again, arguing over the same rules. Then my heart tugs with a sort of sadness at the thought that there won't be a next year for Everett and I. We'll be "happily" divorced by then. Though I'm looking forward to that less and less.
I change the course of my thoughts and try to get back on the subject in front of me. This is the life my mother had before Seattle.
Before my father and peaches and America.
This beauty. This ease.
I understand why she missed it.
After coffee, we keep walking.
It's the crêpe stand that undoes Everett's dignity first.
The stall is tiny—just a woman with a griddle and a stack of toppings—and the crêpes are huge, dusted in a truly offensive amount of powdered sugar. I order two. Hand him one.
He looks at it like I've handed him a live animal.
"It's a crêpe," I say. "Not a court summons"
"There's no way to eat this cleanly."
"There isn't. That's the point."
He grips a hold of it, folding it in half like a pizza and takes a bite.
Powdered sugar immediately coats his chin... his shirt, but I'm oddly impressed with his skill nonetheless.
He looks down at himself and realizes that he's covered in sugar and then looks up at me like I knew this would happen and set him up.
I press my lips together so hard to keep from laughing that my jaw aches.
"Don't," he says.
"I'm not saying anything."
"Your face is saying everything."
I lose the battle. The laugh bursts out of me so loud that it makes my stomach hurt and my eyes water. He stands there in the middle of a cobblestone street in the south of France looking like a man who just lost a fight with a bakery, and it is the funniest thing I have ever seen.
"You have—" I gesture at my own chin.
He swipes at it but misses entirely. Gets more sugar on his hand.
"Here." I step closer and reach up, brushing the powdered sugar from his jaw with my thumb. His skin is warm. His eyes track my face from this close with an intensity that makes my hand slow.
I pull back before I can do something stupid.
"You're hopeless," I say.
"I built a billion-dollar company."
"And you can't eat a crêpe."
"These are separate skill sets."
I'm still laughing when we reach the gelato shop.
It's the kind of place that only exists in coastal villages—bright colors, handwritten flavors, a line of three people that constitutes a crowd here. I order pistachio. Everett orders dark chocolate because of course he does.
We walk down toward the water eating our cones, and for a few minutes everything is simply, perfectly easy.
Then the seagull happens.
One second Everett is holding his gelato and saying something about the architecture of the building ahead of us. The next second a gull the size of a small dog dive-bombs from absolutely nowhere, clips his hand, and sends the cone flying.
He jerks back.
The gelato hits the cobblestones with a splat.
The seagull lands three feet away and starts eating dark chocolate gelato off the ground with zero remorse.
Everett stares at it.
Then at his empty hand.
Then at the bird.
"Did that just happen," he says flatly.
I am already doubled over.
"It's not funny. That bird just robbed me."
"He saw weakness and exploited it. Very CEO behavior, actually."
Everett looks at the seagull again. The seagull looks back with the dead-eyed confidence of a creature who has never once been held accountable for its actions.
"I'm going to buy another one," Everett says.
"The bird will come back. He seems to like you."
"I’ll be better prepared this time."
I shake my head. "Just share with me. It’s pistachio."
"A nut is not an ice cream… it’s a trail mix," he says as I had it over to him.
He takes the cone from my hand, like I knew he would, because under all that hard shell of control, Everett is curious about things. Like he wants to understand the world, just under his own scope.
He takes a lick of the ice cream as we start walking again. I brace for his judgement on my flavor decision because I know it’s coming.