Chapter 26 #2
The way he says it, quiet, certain with no trace of his usual teasing smile, makes something inside of me stir, almost like a warning.
Careful, Jo. You’re going where you’ve never gone before.
A breeze lifts a few strands of my hair, and he reaches out and catches the loose strands.
His fingers brush my cheek as he tucks my hair behind my ear.
It’s such a small thing, but somehow, here with him, it feels enormous. Like we’re a couple!
“So,” I say, because if I don’t fill the spaces I might drown in it. “What was your street called growing up?”
“Rhodes Drive.”
“That’s aggressively normal.”
“Thank you.”
“Did you grow up in New York?” I ask.
“Mm, in Brooklyn,” he says with a nod. “My mom and I shared a tiny brownstone with her two sisters. It was chaos with too many cousins and loud Sunday dinners. My grandmother always came for Sunday dinner, and she believed silence meant someone was plotting something. And what she said went.”
I laugh. “She sounds terrifying.”
“She was five feet two and ruled the roost with a wooden spoon.”
“I respect her already.”
He smiles at that, and it softens him in a way I don’t think many people get to see. The sharp edges ease. The perpetual calculation behind his eyes gives way to softness.
“What about you?” he asks. “London girl. What was your empire like?”
“Not an empire by any stretch of the imagination.” I tuck my hands into the sleeves of my cardigan. “I grew up in a semi-detached house in Richmond. We had a small garden where my mum tried to encourage me to grow herbs we would never use. Naturally, I resisted and spent most of my time inside.”
“Reading.”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously,” he echoes.
“I used to line my books up by height,” I admit. “Not genre. Not author. Not even series. Height.”
He stares at me. “I guess you would be an interior designer’s dream client.”
“It is aesthetically pleasing.”
“It’s kinda psychotic.”
“Maybe a little,” I admit with a laugh.
A group of teenagers passes us, talking loudly in French, one of them licking an ice cream that’s melting faster than he can manage. I watch the dripping ice cream with mild concern.
“What’s your favorite flavor?” he asks suddenly. “When you’re not being forced to be bold.”
“In life or in ice cream?”
“Let’s do the ice cream first.”
I pretend to consider although I really don’t need to. “Pistachio. It’s underrated. Subtle. A little unexpected.”
“It’s dangerously close to toothpaste.”
“Mint chocolate chip is the toothpaste one.”
“You’re banned from ice cream selections from now on.”
We laugh outright at that, the sound warm and completely unguarded.
“And in life?” he presses.
I trace the grain of the wooden bench with my fingertip.
“I like things that look ordinary but aren’t. Paintings people dismiss until you step closer and realize the brush work is genius. Buildings with ugly facades and beautiful interiors. People who don’t advertise everything they are on the first meeting.”
His gaze shifts to me slowly. “Like you.”
“And you?” I ask, my voice lighter than my pulse.
“I like precision,” he says. “Control. I like knowing the variables.”
“That sounds very you.”
“It is.” He glances towards the cathedral again. “But I also like disruption. The thing you can’t spreadsheet. The element that doesn’t fit.”
I arch an eyebrow. “You like chaos?”
“Selective chaos.”
“Ah. Curated unpredictability.”
“Exactly… like spending a weekend in Paris with Joseph’s estranged daughter.”
And just like that, the air between us changes.
Becomes charged. Like the second before a storm breaks, except there’s nothing violent in it.
Just anticipation. Axel’s thighs shift. We are more than just touching now.
Neither of us moves away. My brain searches for something to say to break this strange magnetic pull between us.
“What did you want to be when you were a kid?”
“A basketball player.”
I laugh before I can stop myself.
He looks offended. “Hey! I was good.”
“I don’t doubt you were. I just …”
“Just what?”
“I just can’t picture you missing a shot and being okay with it.”
His mouth curves slowly. “I missed plenty.”
The honesty in that remark sits between us quietly with no bravado, no deflection. “That surprises me.”
“Why?”
“You don’t strike me as someone who tolerates failure.”
He looks far into the horizon. “I don’t see my failures as a setback. I see them as another rung in the ladder of success.”
I nudge his knee with mine. “What a great way to look at failure. For what it’s worth, I failed spectacularly at gymnastics.”
He turns to me. “Gymnastics?”
“My mum thought it would build character. I cried every time I had to go on the beam.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like heights.”
He laughs, and I realize I’m starting to chase that sound. To say things just to hear it.
“What did you want to be when you were eight?” he asks softly.
“An archaeologist.”
He seems surprised. “Really?”
“Yes. I wanted to brush dirt off ancient things and discover secrets.”
“You do that now.”
“I guess I do.”
“Tell me something no one knows,” he asks after a moment.
“That’s a dangerous request.”
“So, live dangerously then.”
I study his face. There’s curiosity there, but not interrogation. Not the calculating businessman weighing assets and liabilities. Just him.
“I still sleep with the window slightly open,” I say quietly. “Even in winter.”
“Why?”
“My grandpa used to say fresh air keeps the nightmares away.”
He doesn’t mock it. Doesn’t dismiss it. He nods like that makes perfect sense. “I check the locks twice. Even when I know they’re secure.”
“Why?”
He laughs again. “I hate the thought of giving robbers an easy ride.”
I reach for his hand without deciding to, without thinking about it. Our fingers lace together naturally, like they’ve done it a thousand times before. His thumb brushes slowly over my knuckles.
We sit there, our hands tangled, talking about ridiculous things, like whether croissants are superior to pain au chocolat (they are), whether dogs or cats are more loyal (he says dogs; I say cats are simply more discerning), whether we’d rather live by the sea or in the city (we both say city, but only if there’s water nearby).
We agree on more than we don’t. And where we don’t agree, it feels less like friction and more like texture.
At some point, I realize I’ve stopped watching the gardens and turn slightly to face Axel.
I watch him. The way his brow furrows when he’s thinking.
The way he listens - actually listens - like what I’m saying matters.
The way his hand tightens fractionally whenever I laugh, as if anchoring himself there.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks quietly.
“Like what?”
“Like you’ve discovered something.”
I tilt my head. “Maybe I have.”
“And?”
I squeeze his hand once. “I’m not telling you… yet.”
His eyes darken, not with irritation, but with intrigue. “Tease,” he murmurs.
I watch how the sunlight catches his hair and eyes in a way that makes him seem impossibly untouchable. As if he is a god among mere mortals.
The air is thick with the scent of flowers, the faint river breeze, and something else, something electric that hums quietly between us. I realize, almost with a thrill, that this morning, this quiet, ordinary morning, has shifted everything. And all of Paris seems to hold its breath with me.
What will happen next is a secret that only the cool morning light seems to know.