Paris Is Always a Good Idea

by Jenn McKinlay

  I blinked and covered my mouth with my hand. I glanced back down at the book. I thumbed through more pages. There was Jean Claude in Paris. He had made me weak in the knees with his French accent and devastating good looks. I’d been a nanny to the Beauchamp family, and he’d worked as a designer for Monsieur Beauchamp’s fashion house. I’d been totally smitten with him, falling deeper in love every day we walked along the Seine, holding hands and sharing dreams.

  I flipped through several more countries, the memories coming thick and fast. I’d loved Germany, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal, too, but Italy. Ah, Firenze. That was where I’d met Marcellino DeCapio. A dark-haired young man whose passions had been wine and me and whose chocolate-brown eyes had seen right into my very soul. He was a natural sweet talker who was rumored to be able to coax the grapes on the vines into ripening with a whisper. He’d charmed me into more than that. I could still feel his strong arms about me and the silky feel of his thick dark hair when it slid through my fingers. I sighed.

  Marcellino was the only one I’d kept in touch with from my year abroad. Oh, we weren’t close. Our contact, which had begun with phone calls during my mom’s illness and then her passing, rapidly dwindled to annual Christmas cards once I started working. In fact, I think I just sent him corporate cards from the office because . . . lame.

  I slumped back against the couch and closed the book. This. This was the last time I’d been truly happy. My year abroad. It hit me then that I no longer knew the young woman who had fallen in love with Colin and Jean Claude and Marcellino. I couldn’t even remember what it felt like to be topsy-turvy, dizzy from a smile, ass-over-teakettle crushing on someone.

  Was I even capable of those feelings anymore? I didn’t know. But there was only one way to find out. I had to see them again. The thought of leaving, just leaving, everything and everyone to return to Europe and find the three men who’d once meant so much to me was positively terrifying. It was also the first time I had felt fully alive in years. There was no doubt in my mind. I had to go back.

  chapter three

  THE THING IS, I quit,” I said.

  “Beg pardon, what?” Aidan Booth removed the earbuds from his ears and held them up for me to see. “I was doing my daily meditation.”

  “Oh, sorry to interrupt,” I said. I glanced around the office, trying to gather the same strength of purpose I’d had a second ago when I uttered the words I quit. It had taken me three cups of coffee and a quick sesh of listening to Beyoncé’s “Flawless” to get pumped for this. I’d been as ready as I’d ever be, and now I was . . . not.

  Aidan was sixty-two with a long gray beard that touched the second button of his Henley. He wore his thick curly hair—also gray—in a ponytail, which started at the nape of his neck and reached down to the middle of his back. He was a vegan who was into the environment, so despite being the general manager in charge of corporate fundraising for the American Cancer Coalition, he shopped at thrift stores, limited his use of plastic, and had a hydroponic tower garden in the corner of his office, where varietals of lettuce grew in front of the window like big leafy flowers on a large metal cylinder that resembled a plant stalk.

  “No worries,” he said. He said this all the time. It was, in fact, his catchphrase. In all the years I’d worked for Aidan, he’d never seemed to worry about anything. “What was it you needed to tell me, Chelsea?”

  “I quit,” I said. It came out more abruptly than I’d intended, and I cringed.

  Aidan blinked. He jammed a finger in his right ear and wiggled it as if to remove wax, then he nodded. It was a slow bob, as if he was acclimating to the unexpected conversational direction. “I can dig it. Mind if I ask why?”

  I blew out a breath. How much did I want to say? I wasn’t sure. How could I explain that my father was getting remarried, I was freaking out, and the last time I could remember laughing that didn’t involve a video of a pudgy kitten getting stuck in the narrow leg of a pair of tapered pants seemed like a lifetime ago?

  “I need to go find myself,” I said. It sounded vaguely bohemian, so it was something I figured Aidan could understand.

  I reached up and adjusted the tie that held my hair at the nape of my neck, then I fiddled with my earring. I was fidgeting, which made me look nervous and was not how I wanted to present myself. I clasped my hands in my lap to keep from doing it again. I wasn’t nervous—really, I wasn’t. I knew this was the right thing to do. My life had become as predictable as gravity, and it was time to shake it up.

  Aidan stroked his beard. It was a mannerism that had developed with the facial hair. When I had first come to work for the corporate-fundraising arm of the ACC, he’d had short hair and been clean shaven. In the seven years I’d been there, Aidan had been undergoing a slow transformation, like erosion on a beach, except his landscape was more like a reforestation involving beard oil and braids.

  I glanced at my reflection in the window behind his desk. It hit me then that I had not changed a bit in seven years. I was wearing my usual slim skirt and tailored blazer over a silk blouse that buttoned to my throat. This was my uniform at the office, paired with narrow-heeled pumps that added two inches to my height, making me five feet nine inches. Today’s skirt was navy, as were the pumps, my blazer was sage green, and my blouse was ecru. I wore the same diamond stud earrings and pearl ring, which had both been my mother’s, as I did every day. Even my shoulder-length blunt cut was styled exactly the same as it had been seven years ago. I always wore it tied at the nape of my neck, never loose, never styled in any other way.

  I suppose it could be that I liked the simplicity of keeping my routine exactly the same. There were never any surprises in the morning. I maintained myself just like I maintained my life: a place for everything, and everything in its place. Oh man, my dad had been right; I really had stopped growing.

  Despite the polished look, I was worried. How would Aidan accept my resignation? Would he understand that I had to do this? Or would he try to talk me out of it? I didn’t know if I could withstand that. I brought in a lot of money from the corporate sector. It wasn’t arrogance to believe my contribution made the department as successful as it was. Aidan said as much at my annual review every single year.

  “Enlightenment is what you seek?” he asked. He looked as if he was trying to understand.

  Aidan had also become a Buddhist in the years I had known him, leaving his Catholic roots behind as he embraced the teachings of the Dalai Lama. But that right there was why he should understand my need to go. Right? I laced my fingers together, trying not to squeeze too tight. I did not want him to offer to send me to Buddhist camp. It had happened before when he’d feared I was burning out.

  “Not enlightenment as much as a general lightening up,” I said. I met his kind gaze, took a deep breath, and said, “I need to remember what being happy feels like. I need to find my laughter again.”

  Aidan’s eyes softened. His beard tipped up at the corners, which I knew meant he was smiling, although it was hard to spot through the whiskers. I got the feeling he was trying to think of what my laugh sounded like. When two deep grooves appeared between his eyebrows, I suspected he had no recall of me laughing. That made two of us. Whatever noise I made when amused, it was rusty at best.

  Aidan leaned forward. He rested his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. He considered me with his steady, pale-blue gaze, and I felt my heart thump hard in my chest. Since I’d been promoted to senior director of major gifts two years ago, a promotion I’d gotten after only five years’ experience in corporate fundraising, as opposed to the ten years that were generally required, I’d never called out sick, never taken a vacation day, and in fact, never missed a single day of work, not one.

  “You are aware that you’re putting in jeopardy all of the work you’ve done on the ask from Severin Robotics,” he said.

  I bowed my head. I did know. It was the reason I had
slept for only two hours last night and was now operating in a fuzzy half-conscious state where I’d give anything, even my favorite, perfectly worn-in flannel cow pajamas, just to be able to put my head down for a power nap.

  “I have every confidence that my team can handle it without me,” I said. I met his gaze with assurance. I really did believe in my team. One hundred percent.

  Aidan’s gaze never wavered from mine. Here was the thing with Aidan. He was absolutely a peace, love, dope kind of guy, but he was also the general manager of a department that raked in millions, and a person didn’t get to that level by being a cream puff.

  “Your team is without question one of the best,” he said. I felt a surge of pride. I had carefully vetted every single person and was damn proud of what we’d accomplished. “But the Severin Robotics account is the largest single corporate gift we’ve ever tried to negotiate. Are you really willing to leave it to your team to manage without you?”

  I leaned back in my seat. I had suspected the Severin account would be a sticking point. I’d spent months developing a relationship with the company’s marketing department and philanthropic foundation, and I’d even gone so far as to tap its community-relations people.

  When I got a major corporation in my sights, I did my research. If I pursued one, it was because I knew that it was generous in giving back to the community but also that it was sympathetic to the cause because cancer had touched someone prominent in the company in their personal life. In this case, I had read an article in the New York Times about the owner, Robbie Severin, who had disclosed in the story that he’d lost his father to prostate cancer because his father had neglected to get checked. I knew that he was passionate about fighting cancer.

  Severin was also an eccentric billionaire, and while I had yet to make contact with him directly, his people were responsive to me when I reached out, and so the negotiating for a major gift from Severin Robotics had begun.

  “Julia is more than capable of closing the deal,” I said. Julia Martinez was my right-hand woman. If anyone could do it besides me—not to sound too full of myself—it would be Julia. “In fact, I was going to recommend her for my position, in the interim for certain but also long term.”

  “Let’s worry about that later,” Aidan said. He dropped his hands and leaned back in his chair. “Is there nothing I can do to induce you to stay until Severin’s major gift is a done deal?”

  “No, I’m sorry, because, as you know, as soon as we confirm one major gift, there’s another one on deck. If I keep waiting to finish projects, I’ll never leave,” I said.

  “What’s the exact status with Severin?”

  “My team is working diligently on the proposal. Our plan is to capitalize on Severin Robotics’ history of corporate social responsibility, which is strong. We’re also trying to lure them in by offering them exposure to college campuses, using our community-outreach coordinators to set up student events all across the country. The job market for robotics engineers is prime, and this exposure will promote Severin Robotics as a premier employer for those students aiming to work in automation technologies.

  “Severin is looking to diversify their tech from manufacturing into the medical field, so they want to increase their candidate pool. They want the best and the brightest working for them. Making their brand more recognizable on a national scale is something their community-relations people were very specific about wanting. Also, the ACC’s annual gala is coming up, and we’re hoping we can go ad heavy for them there as well. Once the proposal is put together, we’ll—excuse me—they’ll present it to Robbie Severin and his board of directors.”

  “Any idea when that will happen?” he asked.

  “No,” I admitted. “Severin is traveling in Europe presently, and there’s no word as to when he’ll be back, but I’m hoping for a meeting in late April.”

  Aidan stroked his beard. He considered me carefully. Then he reached into his desk and pulled out a box of truffles from Teuscher Chocolates of Switzerland, which had a shop over on Newbury Street. Damn it. He knew their truffles were my weakness. He pushed them across the desk toward me.

  “I have an idea,” he said.

  I reached for a chocolate and promised myself that I would not cave. I absolutely would not give in and stay. I bit into the silky smooth confection, hoping it would fortify my resolve. After all, they had loads of chocolate in Europe. If I went, I could try them all.

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  It was a long conversation. Point and counterpoint were made, and in the end, Aidan convinced me to take an extended leave of absence with the caveat that I would remain in contact with the head of my team as needed. If Severin popped up wanting a meeting in the next month, Aidan wanted to be able to count on my input to help see it through.

  If I agreed, in return he would keep my position open for me. Should I decide after a month or two that I didn’t need to continue the general lightening up I sought, then my job would be waiting for me. It was a generous offer, and I was too smart to turn it down.

  While it wasn’t the dramatic severing of my old life to start a new one that I had envisioned when I walked into his office, there was no question it was the better move. Despite his old-school hippie exterior, Aidan knew exactly what my contribution to the department was, and he wasn’t going to let me leave easily, which I took as the compliment it was. Truthfully, I loved my career, and I had a sweet corner office that overlooked the Boston Common. Despite my quest, I didn’t particularly want to give that up either, especially if I failed.

  “So, now that that’s settled”—Aidan’s voice when he spoke was as soft as flannel—“where do you think you might want to start looking for your laughter?”

  I felt myself smile when I answered. “Ireland.”

  chapter four

  MARTIN, WE HAD a meeting scheduled for eleven, or did you—gasp—forget?” Jason Knightley, or the bane of my existence, as I thought of him, stood in the open door of my office, looking pointedly at his watch.

  At six foot three, he was tall, with broad shoulders and a thick head of dark-brown hair that flopped in a perfect wave over his forehead. Knowing him, he likely spent no time on his hair but simply towel dried and finger combed it into masculine perfection. So annoying. He was dressed in his usual office attire, which consisted of a dress shirt—today’s was pale blue—that he wore with the cuffs rolled back, showing off his thick forearms; a geometrically patterned tie in light and dark gray; charcoal-gray trousers; and a pair of black Converse high-tops, as if being an adult ended at his feet.

  I loathed him. He had come to work for the ACC three years ago, after a hot-wing-eating challenge he’d thought up for the Children’s Leukemia Society went viral. He was all flash and no substance. During Knightley’s first month here, Aidan had paired us up to acquire a major gift from Overexposure Media Group, a locally headquartered multimedia corporation. What should have been a slam dunk of an ask turned into one of the most humiliating experiences of my life, and I’d never forgiven Knightley—not a surprise, given that it was all his fault. Looking back, I was stunned that we’d survived the experience without bloodshed.

  While I operated on innovative ideas and attention to detail, letting my corporate partners know that they could trust me implicitly to achieve what I promised, Jason relied on that indefinable something about him that made everyone seem to like him immediately—everyone except me. My colleague Julia called it charm, but I had never seen that in him. I found Knightley to be about as charming as a runny nose, which was to say not at all.

  I glanced at the clock on my desk, or rather at the spot where the clock on my desk used to be, then looked back at him, meeting his smug expression with a defiant tilt of my chin. I never missed a meeting, ever. My life was ruled by my schedule, and I had never deviated from it until today. Knowing it would vex him, I shrugged, drawing out the gesture by holdin
g my hands up as if to say whatever.

  His eyes narrowed. He had eyes that switched from blue to gray depending upon what he was wearing. Today they were blue, which was one more reason, on top of his square jaw covered by a thin layer of neatly trimmed scruff, full lips, and perfect arching eyebrows, that I found him to be too much. The other women in the office spent an inordinate amount of time trying to decide if his eyes were blue or gray. It was galling.

  “I didn’t forget. We’ll have to reschedule,” I said. I offered no other explanation and turned my back on him and continued packing.

  On my way back from Aidan’s office, I had snagged an empty box from the mail room so I could pack up the few personal items I had at work, because now that I’d initiated my departure, I was ready to be gone. After a quick visual survey, I realized I could have just used a plastic bag from 7-Eleven. It was amazing to me that I’d been here for seven years, and yet there were very few sentimental items displayed on my desk and bookshelf. Kind of sad for a place that had been my second home.

  “Reschedule? I didn’t think the itinerary queen—that’s you, by the way—even knew that word. Wait,” he said. Knightley stepped into my office, a frown creasing his brow. “What are you doing?”

  I picked up one of the awards for excellence that sat proudly on the bookshelf by my desk. I had four; Jason had two. I knew it bugged him that I had more, so I took great delight in huffing a breath on the Lucite wedge engraved with my name and lovingly polished it with the sleeve of my jacket. Did it need it? No. Was I being a bitch? Maybe a little.