Paris Is Always a Good Idea

by Jenn McKinlay

  I mean, this was Knightley. We were rivals. Sure, we’d been getting along here, but what happened if we took this further? What happened when we returned to Boston? We were in charge of a ten-million-dollar ask. We weren’t supposed to get involved. In fact, I could see Michelle’s head exploding at the mere idea that two employees had hooked up on the company dime in Paris. Ack!

  Jason ran a hand over his face and winced when he accidentally touched his eye. “Listen, I get that this was unexpected.”

  “What ‘this’?” I balked. Yup, still panicking. “There is no ‘this.’”

  “Yes, there is,” he insisted. “And I know it wasn’t on your agenda, and I know how much you hate that, but it’s here and it’s real, and you can’t pretend it isn’t.”

  “Yes, I can,” I said. When he lifted his good eyebrow at me, I knew I’d stepped in it. “Not that I’m pretending anything. What happened between us wasn’t real. It was conjured up out of champagne and excess emotional baggage, that’s all.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Stop saying that!”

  “Fine,” he said. “Horseshit. How’s that? Better?”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “And you’re kidding yourself,” he said. “Do you really think that what happened between us tonight was so hot because of geography?”

  “Yes.” I tipped my chin up defiantly.

  Jason took a step forward so that he was looming over me. It was a power play, and I resented it. I also refused to back up.

  “You’re lying to yourself. You’re so busy trying to find a girl who doesn’t exist anymore, you’re missing what’s right in front of you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snapped.

  “The girl who went on a gap year seven years ago doesn’t exist anymore, and looking for her is futile,” he said. His voice was kind, as if he felt bad about delivering such unwelcome news. It made me clench my teeth. “You’re not going to find love with one of your exes. You need to find someone suited to who you are today.”

  “Like you?” I scoffed.

  “Yes,” he said. He reached out and pulled me close. “Exactly like me.”

  Then he kissed me. His lips were warm and firm and fit perfectly against mine as he wooed me into responding to him and the scorching chemistry between us. He splayed his hand on my lower back and pulled me in high and tight, our bodies locking together like two puzzle pieces. His tongue teased the seam of my lips until they parted, and then he deepened the kiss and buried his hand in my hair to hold me steady while he wrecked me with his mouth, positively wrecked me.

  The kiss was just as magical as the one atop the Eiffel Tower, perhaps even more so, because whether I wanted to admit it or not, Jason had come to mean something to me. He was more than a coworker; he was definitely a friend, and maybe—no. I stopped the thought.

  Jason wasn’t who I wanted. He was connected to the Chelsea of my present. The cold, lonely, workaholic person I no longer wanted to be. I wanted the old Chelsea, the bighearted, wide-eyed woman of my youth, before my life had become a tragedy.

  It took every bit of inner strength I possessed to break the kiss and pull away from him, but I did it. I pushed out of his embrace, putting some distance between us. I was out of breath, and my pulse was erratic. I felt as if I’d just run the Boston Marathon and I needed a bucket of ice or a fan to get my body temperature back down.

  “You don’t understand,” I wheezed. “Seven years ago, I lost someone very dear to me to cancer. And afterward, in my grief, I lost myself.” I felt a hot tear streak down my cheek. “You can’t understand what it’s like if you haven’t suffered that sort of pain. It changes you. But I want to be that Chelsea again. I want to be the optimistic, happy, adventurous woman that I once was. I don’t want to be the emotionless zombie that I’ve become.”

  He stared at me. “You’ve never been emotionless around me.”

  “Rage doesn’t count.”

  “Is that all you feel with me, really?”

  “No,” I admitted. I scrambled to come up with a new definition for us that had built-in barriers. “I think we’ve become . . . friends.”

  “Friends?” he asked. He laughed without humor. He shook his head. He stared past me, out the window, and then looked back. “Is that all we are?”

  I saw the confusion and disappointment on his face, and I felt my throat get tight. How had everything gotten so complicated?

  I met his gaze and held it, refusing to look away when I said, “That’s all I have to give you right now.” He looked so hurt and bewildered that I glanced away. “Listen, we just have to get through this dinner with Severin, and then we’ll go our separate ways. You’ll fly back to Boston, and I’ll press on to Italy.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said. He spread his hands wide as if saying, Give me a chance. “You can come home with me, and we can figure out what this thing is between us.”

  “No, I can’t,” I said. “I’m committed to going to Italy. If I don’t, I’ll always wonder what if, and I don’t want to live with that. Besides, for all I know, Severin is still planning to meet me at the wine festival, and I’ve already made plans.”

  “With the guy in Italy?”

  I nodded.

  “So you’re willing to throw away something amazing, albeit unexpected, for a memory that may not live up to your expectation?” he asked.

  “I have to,” I said. “Even if it wasn’t because I want to see my journey through to the end. I still have to be there to meet Severin. I promised Aidan.”

  “He could send someone else.”

  I stared at him, and I could tell by the flicker in his eyes that he knew that wasn’t true.

  “You know how much is riding on this ask,” I said. “I have to go. Besides, you know the company policy against employees dating. Michelle in HR would love to fire one or both of us for violating the rules. You know that. This”—I paused to gesture between us—“puts everything at risk, especially because you are on company time right now.”

  “We could fight it,” he said. “Rules are meant to be broken.”

  “Jason.” He knew as well as I did that wasn’t who I was.

  He turned away from me and contemplated the wall for a moment. I waited, wondering if he was going to yell or argue or try to cajole me. I wasn’t positive I could resist the charming Jason, but he did none of those things. Instead, he nodded.

  “All right,” he said. He turned back to me, and when I met his gaze, there was a distance there I hadn’t seen before, not even when we didn’t like each other. I knew he was protecting himself from getting hurt, and I couldn’t fault him, even as I immediately missed the closeness we’d recently shared. “I don’t like it, but I understand.”

  I nodded, wondering why, having won this round, I felt as if I’d lost something precious and rare.

  chapter twenty

  I HAD NO idea what to expect when I went to meet Jason the next day for our shared cab ride to the Four Seasons Hotel George V for the Robbie Severin dinner. Would he try to persuade me to change my mind? Would we argue? Or would he remain distant? I wasn’t sure which I dreaded more.

  Instead of my white gown with the silver beaded trim—I was having it along with the other dress Jean Claude had given me cleaned and delivered back to him—I wore my standard-issue little black dress that I always packed no matter where I traveled. I did my hair up in a twist and accessorized with jet-black earrings and a bracelet. I had a black clutch purse and strappy black high-heel sandals to complete the look.

  The drama the night before had caused me to sleep late, and if I was honest with myself, I was avoiding Jason. I’d spent most of the afternoon in my apartment, going over my playbook for the Severin campaign, and I’d mentally kept the disaster of my personal life at bay. It wasn’t until I was gettin
g dressed that a few frustrated tears had fallen, making my face a hot mess with red eyes, blotchy cheeks, and a pink nose. I was not a pretty crier. I decided to do the smoky-eye thing with my eyeliner to try to hide the red rims, and I put on my cherry-red lipstick, hoping it would distract from the rest of my red face, which I tried to subdue with powder. When I met Jason in the vestibule at the agreed-upon time, he barely looked at me.

  “The cab is here.” He gave me a tight nod and opened the door, gesturing for me to go first.

  As I passed him, I noted how handsome he looked in a charcoal-gray suit with a pale-gray dress shirt and burgundy tie, although the burgundy did bring out the purple highlights in the dark-blue bruise beneath his left eye, which was still slightly swollen.

  “Nice suit,” I said.

  “Zoe helped me find a replacement this morning since mine was out of commission after last night.”

  “Ah.” I didn’t know what else to say. He’d wrecked his suit fighting with Jean Claude. I knew it wasn’t my fault. No one had asked him to fight my battles—at least, I certainly hadn’t—but I felt a twinge of guilt all the same.

  “Sorry about that,” I said.

  He looked at me now. His gaze was steady when he said, “Don’t be. It was my choice, and I’d do it all over again.”

  There it was. There was the Knightley swagger I knew and loathed so well. I sighed. I felt like we were back in the office, vying for the position of most successful moneymaker. It proved I was right. A couple of kisses hadn’t changed anything.

  He held the door to the cab open for me, and I climbed in first. He followed and told the driver our destination, the famous Le Cinq restaurant. Once the taxi merged into the crazy Parisian traffic, I relaxed back against the seat and turned to him.

  “Do you want to talk about our strategy with Severin tonight?” I asked. “More specifically, what are you going to tell him about your eye?”

  Jason was staring out the window, and I followed the line of his gaze. He was looking at the Eiffel Tower, which was all lit up for another night’s festivities. The sight of it made my heart sink. Was it really less than twenty-four hours ago that I’d been there with him, drinking champagne, slow dancing to Edith Piaf, and sharing the kiss of a lifetime? How much had changed in a day.

  “I don’t think we need to go over it,” he said. “We’re professionals. We know how to chat up a potential donor. As for my eye, he probably won’t ask.”

  His tone was abrupt, and I was surprised by how much it smarted. I missed the rapport we’d begun to share, the teasing, the laughter, and the camaraderie. I knew I could never go back to thinking of him as just an overgrown frat boy. Not now. He’d become more than that to me.

  “All right,” I said. I didn’t pursue any more conversation. I hoped he could unbend enough at dinner with Severin to give the appearance of unity. It wouldn’t help our cause to have Severin think we were at odds. I felt my anxiety spike.

  One of the ways I controlled my nerves before big meetings was to run scenarios through my head. I envisioned everything from the initial greeting to the casual small talk to the pitch I planned to make. Sometimes one run-through was enough, but other times, like right now, I had to go over and over the meeting, assessing it from every angle, looking for any possible catastrophes.

  I closed my eyes and began working through my initial greeting with Severin. I pictured the handshake, what to say, how to maintain eye contact and ask a personal question that was more in depth than the weather but not overly familiar. I figured I’d ask how he was enjoying Paris. I was just getting to the part where I would say something witty when a low voice interrupted my meditation.

  “What are you doing, Martin?” Jason asked.

  So, I was Martin again. I sighed and opened my eyes.

  “I’m mentally running through all of the possible scenarios that could happen tonight and practicing my responses to them.”

  He lifted one eyebrow as he studied me. “Do you do that for every meeting?”

  I could feel my face get warm with embarrassment. “No,” I said. I sounded defensive. “Just the really important ones.”

  “Huh.”

  I had no idea what he meant by that. Was he impressed? Probably not. Did he think I was mental? Probably. I couldn’t fault him. With everything that was happening, I was beginning to wonder if I was mental myself.

  Before I could spiral deeper into self-doubt, the taxi pulled up at the curb, and a doorman from the Four Seasons, who was wearing a long dark coat and a short-brimmed cap, opened the door. I stepped out while Jason paid for the cab with his company card. I waited on the curb, and together we entered the hotel through the revolving door.

  Flowers. That was my first impression of the posh art deco hotel. Huge clear glass vases of all sizes and shapes filled the center and the perimeter of the lobby, and each one was stuffed to bursting with irises. I gawked as the chandelier above lit the purple flowers to their best advantage. I got the feeling they’d been arranged with the lighting in mind, as each bouquet seemed to glow from within. Truly, it was breathtaking.

  We were meeting Robbie Severin at Le Cinq, the swank restaurant known for its three Michelin stars and its chef’s famous French cuisine. Together we walked through the beautiful hotel, turning right at the hallway that ran along the courtyard, which led to the entrance of the restaurant. Aidan had said to treat Severin like royalty. Given that he was considering a major gift of $10 million, in my mind he was royalty, and I was happy to do the requisite bowing and scraping.

  At the entrance to the restaurant, Jason paused. He looked around, searching for Robbie Severin, whose face was as well known as those of the other celebrity billionaires, like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg. There was no sign of him. Jason checked his watch.

  “We’re a few minutes early,” he said. “I’ll just check with the maître d’.”

  “Sure.” I watched him walk away. The line of his shoulders was tight, and I could feel the tension pouring off him. Was this because we were at odds? Or was he nervous about meeting Severin, or both? Either way, it did not bode well for the dinner. I turned and looked out at the marble courtyard with its precisely sculpted shrubbery and lone black fountain.

  “Chelsea Martin.” A voice called my name, and I turned around to find a man about the same age as my father approaching with a woman beside him. He was dressed impeccably in a navy-blue suit, and his companion, who was close to him in age, wore a purple dress that I recognized from my very brief visit to the Absalon design house. I wondered if it was one of Jean Claude’s. Oh, the irony. Then I looked at her face and saw the Frida Kahlo unibrow. Eleanor!

  Of course I recognized Robbie Severin immediately, but if I hadn’t, Eleanor’s presence would have clinched it. Severin was of average height but built thick and strong. His gray hair was cut short but with sideburns that framed his angular face. Meanwhile, Eleanor, who was petite, walked beside him with clipped steps, her thick heels clicking on the marble floor.

  “Mr. Severin, it’s good to meet you,” I said. I held out my hand in greeting. Severin looked at it and shook his head. He pushed Eleanor forward. She shook my hand as if doing it for both of them. I went with it. “Ms. Curtain, it’s nice to see you again.”

  “It’s good to see you, Ms. Martin,” she said. She gave my hand a firm shake and then dropped it.

  “Please call me Chelsea,” I said.

  “Robbie.” Severin pointed to himself.

  “Eleanor,” Ms. Curtain chimed in. Her dark hair was in a ball on the top of her head, and her rectangular glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. She reminded me of an inquisitive little bird, one who sported a very thick brow over both of its eyes. I tried not to stare—in fact, I turned my head away to keep from doing so, but it really was as if someone had attacked the poor woman with a Sharpie and drawn a thick line across her fore
head. Wow, just wow.

  “Terrific,” I said. So far, so good. I tried not to think about the rejection of my handshake. I remembered Severin was a germophobe and wanted to kick myself for forgetting. Did Jason know? I debated how I could signal to Jason not to offer his hand when he joined us. My stomach cramped. All I could think of was the $10 million being snatched out of our grasp if we messed this up.

  “My colleague Jason Knightley just went to check on our table. Shall we join him?” I asked.

  Robbie gestured for me to lead the way, so I strode forward, keeping my back straight, hoping I didn’t look as nervous as I felt. I knew there was no need to be, not really. If anything, I was overprepared. But I had never had to perform my numeric dog and pony show with a coworker who was less than happy with me, a coworker who hadn’t held my gaze longer than absolutely necessary since we’d left our apartments. This was the apex of the uncomfortable day after. Maybe I should have slept with him. I gave myself a mental shake. No, if anything, things would have been much, much worse.

  Jason was standing with the maître d’ when we arrived. I could see from his expression that he recognized Robbie right away. He said something to the master of the house, and the man nodded.

  “There he is,” I said. I turned and met Jason’s gaze, widening my eyes and glancing up, trying to warn him about the incoming unibrow. He wasn’t looking at me, however, but at Severin.

  I stopped beside Jason and performed the introductions. Robbie insisted on first names again, and I was relieved to see that Jason never offered his hand in greeting.

  Instead, he gestured for Robbie to follow our hostess, who had conferred with the maître d’ about our table, and we fell in behind Robbie and Eleanor, passing a grand piano where a man played softly, surrounded by more of the towering vases filled with purple irises.