Seven Nights To Surrender

by Jeanette Grey

  To distract himself, he plucked his own shampoo off a different shelf. Working it into his hair with brisk efficiency, he turned his mind to other things.

  “So I was thinking,” he said.

  “Hmm?”

  “How do you feel about going to Versailles today?” Girls tended to like all the frilly décor and dresses and things. Not that he took many women there. It was a bit of a trek, after all. But he wouldn’t mind a train ride into the country with her.

  She twisted around, grabbing a little bottle of conditioner to work into her hair. “I don’t know.”

  He was getting into the idea now, though. He could take her around the castle, then they could grab a nice dinner somewhere outside the city. Get some fresh air. Walk around, hand in hand, like a couple of romantics.

  It’d be different. Nice.

  “I think you’d like it. It’s a weekday, so the crowds won’t be too bad.”

  “I just—” Her tone made him come up short.

  Shampoo threatened to drip into his eyes. He wiped it away with his wrist. She sighed, rinsing the conditioner out of her hair before trading places with him again so he could scrub at his own.

  His eyes were still closed, and her voice only barely rose over the pounding of the water.

  “I was thinking maybe I’d head out and do my own thing today.”

  Oh. “Oh.”

  “I mean, I’ve only got three full days left, and I haven’t gotten nearly as much drawing done as I’d planned to. I’ve still got all these things to figure out before I go home. And I’ve been having fun with you, but . . .”

  She trailed off, but he could fill in the blanks. He was a diversion. A distraction. She had other things to worry about.

  The whole thing made him feel sort of hollow.

  Holding his tongue, he took a little longer under the spray than he really needed. She had limited time here and a lot to do, but he had limited time, too. Limited time with her. Limited time to spend not bored and alone and spinning his wheels.

  When he couldn’t pretend to have any more soap in his hair, he sighed and turned around. “Fine. No problem.”

  Her expression was hopeful in a way that just squeezed the emptiness harder. “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Whatever you need to do. We can hit Versailles tomorrow.” He hesitated, working to sound nonchalant. “If you have time.”

  “We’ll see.” She had a mesh pouf in her hand and started working a softly scented lather over her chest.

  He flexed his hands at his sides. Then gave up. Keeping his distance was fucking stupid, especially in a five-by-two-foot tub.

  “Here. Let me.”

  He reached out and took the sponge from her, grazing her skin as he did. She consented, flipping her hair out of the way and turning so he could soap her back. He traced the sloping lines of her body with an intensity that surprised even him. Memorizing.

  “The thing is—” She cut herself off, and he paused, surprised. “With wanting to go work on some art stuff today.”

  “Yeah?” He returned to sliding the sponge along her curves.

  “Remember how I came here to find myself?” Her inflection held the same self-mocking lilt to it as the first time they’d met. When she’d admitted to being an artist and a dreamer, and had begun to wrap him around her finger.

  So he echoed it, too, his smile wry. “It’s a romantic notion.”

  “But it’s actually true.” She turned, and he let his hand drop to his side. She took the sponge from him and bent to soap her legs. When she straightened up again, determination colored her expression. “I got accepted into an MFA program.”

  His brows rose toward his hairline. A master of fine arts? That was a pretty big deal. “Wow. Congratulations.”

  Pride warred with demureness in her tone, making her voice pitch higher. “At a really good school, too. At Columbia. In New York, so I can keep my apartment and everything.”

  “So what’s the debate?”

  “I didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket. So I applied for a bunch of jobs, too. And I got offered one of them right before I left.” She hesitated before adding, “At an ad agency. Entry level, but it would pay the bills.”

  “Well, that’s great, too.” Insane that she would even be considering it when she had a chance to pursue what she obviously loved, but great. He guessed.

  She pointed toward the water, and he shifted, making room for her to trade places with him. As she stepped beneath the spray, the lather twisted and ran, sliding in foaming sheets along her form, and his throat went dry.

  She rinsed herself off in a way that must have been designed to torture him, then hung up her pouf and sluiced the water from her eyes. “I can’t do both, is all. I have to decide.”

  “Is it really that much of a decision?”

  “Yeah. Just the biggest one ever.” She twisted her knuckles. “So this whole trip—it was supposed to be about finding inspiration, or discovering myself, or whatever. But it’s about deciding some things, too.”

  He couldn’t hide his confusion anymore. “But you love art.”

  She made a snorting sound. “I love eating, too.”

  “But you love art.” He wasn’t letting that go.

  “Love isn’t always enough, you know. People don’t make a living painting.”

  It sounded like she was parroting back someone else’s words.

  He shook his head. “You could.”

  She dropped his gaze, and he reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder and the other on her waist.

  “You could,” he repeated.

  She leaned in and kissed his chest, then rested the side of her face there, inviting him to put his arms around her. “Guess I still have to prove that to myself,” she said.

  He held her close and bit his tongue.

  She had no idea how lucky she was, having the opportunity to decide. Once upon a time, he would’ve given anything for that chance. Instead, there’d been his father’s college and his father’s company and his father’s entire fucking life laid out in front of him. Even when he hadn’t hated what he was doing, he’d had that hemmed-in, caged feeling pushing on him.

  And here Kate had all these options. All these dreams.

  He wouldn’t be the one to stand in the way of her choosing to follow them.

  “Okay.” He pulled away enough to press his lips against her temple. “I won’t pretend I’m not disappointed, but I understand.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He let her go, then reached for his bar of soap. Moving quickly, he lathered it up and spread the suds across his chest.

  When she spoke again, it was tentative. “Any idea what you’ll do today?”

  “Not sure.” He hadn’t really planned on having a day to kill on his own. “Catch up on some things I suppose.” He probably had a lot of emails to delete. That would take at least ten minutes.

  “Will you spend it here?”

  He slowed the motions of his hands. “Do you want me to?”

  She shrugged, then stepped aside so he could get under the spray. “I don’t think I’ll be gone the entire day. I could meet you when I’m done? Maybe relax a bit before dinner.”

  He’d like that. “Sure.” He ducked his head under the water. Once he’d slicked his hair from his face, he said, “I’ll head back here by late afternoon?”

  “Okay.”

  A few hours, cooling his heels by himself. That was practically nothing.

  It would feel like nothing, after. When she was gone for good.

  He didn’t want to think about that now. He finished rinsing off and sluiced the water from his eyes. Despite the curls of steam, she looked cold, standing near the back of the shower. He held out a hand in invitation. “Come here.”

  She came without resistance. Pulling her flush against his body, he opened his mouth against hers, drinking her in. He closed his eyes. And held on.

  chapter FIFTEEN
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br />   Kate had let herself get way, way too comfortable with Rylan doing all the work on their adventures together. It gave her an uneasy, restless feeling, realizing how much she’d come to rely on him.

  She mentally shook her head at herself. Well, not today. Today, she sat in her seat on the Metro on her own, watching the signs go by. Navigating the system and the language barrier all by herself.

  Part of the appeal of foreign travel was finding your way around, after all. Immersing yourself in a whole new place, hearing different words in different tongues. She’d been missing that part of the experience, letting him do all the talking for her.

  She’d gained another kind of experience, though. Her cheeks flushed warm as she tried not to think about the things they’d done these past few nights. It had been good. Really good. But that wasn’t the point right now. It didn’t matter how much she’d been enjoying herself—sex wasn’t going to help her figure out her life.

  And nothing was as easy as Rylan made it out to be.

  Her stomach did a twisting set of flips as she recalled his reaction to her grad school dilemma. He’d made it all seem so simple. She loved art, so therefore she should go for it, give it her all. Risk everything. The very idea of it was terrifying.

  And thrilling. She’d never gotten that kind of support before. Had someone stand up to her father’s voice in her head, telling her that drawing was a waste of time. She was a waste of time.

  The twisting in her stomach turned into a hard, painful clench.

  Rylan’s words had made her feel better about considering taking this chance. But they were just a few words, after years and years of being made to feel like she wasn’t enough. Sure, Rylan’s opinion was the one she wanted to believe. But she still had to prove that she was worth this chance. At least to herself.

  Before long, her stop came up, and she rose, clutching her bag close as she made her way off the train and up to the surface.

  Of course, that was where she really had to start paying attention.

  With her mental map firmly in grasp—and her paper one tucked away so she didn’t look like too much of a clueless tourist—she headed north, keeping an eye out for the things that looked familiar. More than once, she half turned to point something out or ask a question. To grab Rylan’s hand.

  She rolled her eyes at herself as she crossed the street. Stupid. She’d left him behind not only because she needed some time to herself—which she did.

  But also because she was embarrassed to admit that she was going back to someplace she’d already been.

  Her very first day with him, she’d sworn she’d find some time to go back to the Louvre, but as her time in the city had flown by, it hadn’t been the old, grand paintings in the museum that had called to her to visit them again. Instead, it had been the city itself. The version of it that Rylan had shown her. The top of the hill where he’d challenged her to open her eyes.

  And she had. And what she’d seen had been beautiful.

  Montmartre was just as bustling, the climb to the top of Sacred Heart just as arduous as she remembered. But somehow, when she finally reached the top of it, the view of rooftops and skyscrapers and the swath of city spreading out before her toward the horizon was even more incredible. The feeling of lightness in her chest more expansive.

  Winding her way through the thinner weekday morning crowds, she found a spot at the railing near where they had stood together Sunday afternoon. It was earlier in the day, so the angle of the sun was different, but she could work with that. She picked out a place to sit a few feet away and pulled out her tools, planning ahead in her mind. Graphite on paper to start with. Then if she liked where that was going, she had some other options. Colored Conté crayons or charcoal. A cheap little set of watercolors. Concentrating, she decided on a composition and dug in, sweeping her pencil across the page.

  Twenty minutes later, she had a fair representation of the scene. She held it out at arm’s length and looked at it, frowning. Accurate, but not emotive. It didn’t give any sense at all of how it felt to be there, looking out across the Paris skyline.

  Frustrated, she flipped the page and started again, attacking the scene with more fervor this time, laying down bolder lines and deeper swaths of shading. Trying to pour the light and air and scent of Montmartre into her page.

  Her piece of charcoal snapped in half within her grip, and she blinked furiously against the blurring of her vision as she stared down at what she’d done. Her eyes prickled harder, and her breath got short. Shit, this one was even worse.

  She wanted to fling the whole damn sketchbook off a cliff. Who did she think she was kidding? This was high school–level work; she’d be laughed out of critique for it. She’d be laughed out of grad school.

  And there was that voice again.

  The worst part was, her dad had almost never told her to her face that she wasn’t good enough. He’d said it with his frowns and his disappointed sighs. His absolute disinterest when she tried to show him something.

  He’d said it to her mother. Maybe he’d thought she couldn’t hear, or worse, maybe he hadn’t cared. She’d been right in the next room. She’s wasting her time on that crap. Like hell I’m paying for lessons. She’s gotta grow up sometime . . .

  Maybe it was time to grow up. To give up.

  She dug her nails into her palms, sharp enough to snap her out of it. No. No way in hell she was giving up. She’d spent the last ten years overcoming that kind of thinking, working to banish that doubt. It hadn’t been easy, after she and her mother had finally left, but it had been good. There’d been no more tiptoeing around a quiet house, afraid to awaken a sleeping beast. There’d been a tiny apartment full of love, and there’d been her mom, telling her she could do anything. Be anything.

  Just like Rylan had this morning. Rylan, who’d taken it for granted that of course she could make it in the New York art scene. Rylan, who barely knew her and who believed in her.

  She swiped a clean part of her wrist across her eyes. She was better than this. She could do better than this.

  Turning the page, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

  In her mind, she was back there on that Sunday afternoon, on this very hill and on the footsteps of this very church. Rylan stood behind her, his chest broad and solid against her spine, his hands warm on her skin. He’d kissed her neck the way he seemed so fond of doing—the way that made her shiver and turn to mush.

  She’d felt something more than just in awe of the city at the time. Tired from the climb, and close to someone who was interesting and beautiful and who treated her like she and her pleasure were precious. She’d felt . . . connected. To Paris. To her own life and breath.

  To a man with more secrets than she had time.

  That wasn’t the doubt she needed right now.

  If he were here, he’d be sitting right beside her. Quiet and supportive. Reading or playing with his phone, making random comments as they struck him. But he’d be patient. He’d let her see the city the way he knew and loved it. He’d let her make something of what she saw.

  She opened her eyes again, and the cityscape in front of her seemed to resolve itself. Without looking, she traded her pencil for a stick of soft, ephemeral vine charcoal and started sweeping out the world in broad strokes.

  Once she had the basic shapes sketched in, she eyed the work she’d done. She was calmer now, better able to look at it with an analytical eye. It needed more bulk. More weight. She fumbled for the little tin of powdered charcoal she’d made fun of herself for bringing at the time. It was such a mess, but when she dipped her fingertips into it, the sootiness of it felt right. She smeared it onto the page, using the hard pressure of her strokes to show the crevices and depths between buildings. A light blush of it to hint at the wispy expanses of clouds in the sky.

  Darker, more permanent compressed charcoal now. Finer lines. Her fingers started adding in other things, too. Spindly intimations of connections between rooftops and
streets, anchoring the sky to the earth. Tying her and it and the lover she could almost feel behind her back together in one rough portrait of a place. Of a time.

  Of herself, from beyond the page.

  Finally, she set her stick of charcoal aside. Her shoulders were stiff and her left foot was half-asleep, but in her lap, she had a drawing. She regarded the image for a long, long time. Relief broke over her like the dawn.

  When she looked up at the city again, she smiled.

  There was something wrong with Rylan. His incessant pacing brought him face to face with a wall again, and he groaned before turning around. Putting his back to the plaster, he covered his face with his hands.

  Late afternoon. He was supposed to meet Kate back here at the room sometime in the late afternoon, and here it was, barely past two and he was wearing a hole in the carpet waiting for her.

  But what else was he supposed to do? He’d gone for a run, then stopped by the apartment to swap out some of his dirty clothes for clean ones. Had lunch in a café and caught up on the business papers. Deleted emails and voicemails from his inbox.

  On a normal day, he’d read a book or watch a movie or maybe cruise for pretty girls beneath the Eiffel Tower, but none of that appealed right now. He just wanted Kate to get home already so he could ask to flip through her sketchbook. Tell her she was amazing, and that she was insane for even considering turning down a chance to pursue her art for real. Take her to dinner and then turn all his charm to getting her naked with him again.

  He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes.

  What the hell had he been doing with his life before this week?

  He’d just about finished another circuit of this stupid, tiny room when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, hoping like hell that it would be some kind of diversion.

  His sister’s face stared back at him from the screen, and his thumb froze over the button to either accept or ignore the call.

  They’d spoken a couple of times in the year he’d been away. It’d been a while, though. The last time, she’d been relentless in her insistence that he come home. He hadn’t picked the phone up since.