“I think you could be happy.”
“Bring me the grandkids, and I’ll be happy.”
Daniel stepped outside her door, and looked up to study the sky. It was a bright, shining September morning. He took the ring off his finger, brought it to his lips and then tucked it away.
It was time.
CATHERINE WAS ABOUT ready to leave work when her cell phone rang.
“I need to see you.”
Daniel. She’d gotten used to hearing his voice, smelling his cologne, seeing him, touching him….
“Is it about the audit?” she asked carefully.
“No. I want you to come here, Catherine.”
“Where is here?”
“Will you come to my apartment?”
She didn’t want to go to his apartment. It was probably a shrine with thousands of pictures on the wall, little trinkets that had been given to him as wedding presents and a needlepoint announcement with wedding bells and pretty pink flowers, probably done by Michelle herself. “I don’t know. You could come to my apartment instead. It’d be easier. It’s closer.”
They were excuses and he knew it. “Please. It’s important.”
Catherine straightened her spine. “Tell me where and I’ll be there.”
Forty-five minutes later, she was standing at his door, with a pulse that wouldn’t slow down and the usual nervous stomach. He answered the door, well-pressed, smelling like sandalwood, and led her inside.
Catherine looked around.
Okay.
It was a typical Manhattan apartment. There were no burning candles, or needlepointed wedding announcements. The couch was brown leather, bacheloresque, but tasteful bacheloresque. It seemed spacious…sanitized, and then she saw the picture hanging in the corner. It wasn’t a wedding picture, or a photograph of Michelle and Daniel together. It was her sketch. Framed, matted and looking as if it belonged there.
She walked over and looked at it, looked at her scrawled signature in the corner, and Catherine started to cry. She didn’t like to cry around people. Crying was something private and personal, and implied ties, but the tears slid unchecked down her cheeks.
He came up close behind, almost touching her, but not quite. He even lifted his hands, but then forced them back down to his sides.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said, and she could tell where this was going. She wiped her face and headed for the door, but he caught her. This time, he did touch her.
“I didn’t want to love you. I didn’t want to love anybody. You didn’t ask for anything, you didn’t demand anything, you never took, only gave and then gave some more, and I was the one who was taking everything, bleeding you dry, and I knew it, too. But you didn’t whine or complain. I think that’s the reason I fell in love with you.”
Catherine sniffed once. “You make me sound like a doormat.”
He whacked himself on the forehead with his palm, but his eyes were soft. “I’m so bad at words. I think that’s why I’m an accountant. Gabe and Sean, they can talk. Not me. Never could. You’re no doormat, Catherine. You have no idea how strong you are, how talented you are, how special you are. But I do. I didn’t expect it because you hide it so well from everybody, and you kept surprising me.”
She took a step back, until there was a safe distance between them. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing, but I am tired of being alone, and I didn’t know I was tired of being alone until I met you.”
“Just me?”
“Yup. Just you. When I saw you on the beach, I knew I didn’t have anything to be scared of. You were so much like me that it was easy. So quiet, so lonely, but you weren’t going to be with just anyone. You had to find the exact right person, and thankfully I think it’s me.”
“I don’t know,” she said, because Catherine was smart and careful and wasn’t going to be with just anyone.
“I love you, Catherine.”
He was waiting for her to share, but these things he was talking about were serious and forever, and Catherine didn’t take serious and forever lightly. She didn’t think Daniel did, either, but she had been through so much with him, for him, because of him. She wasn’t ready. Not yet.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” he asked, looking nervous.
“I’m not sure.”
“About saying something, or about this?”
“About this.”
“Will you try? Please, take a chance, Catherine. I deserve a chance. I know that now. I deserve a chance.”
It surprised her that he expected her to give in so easily, but she’d learned some things since they’d been together. She was stronger. “Maybe this is temporary.”
“Catherine, do you know me?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think temporary is going to be my problem.”
Okay, he was probably right there. But the list of bad possibilities went on. “I’m not Michelle.”
“I know that.”
“What if somebody comes along that’s, you know, more like her?” Catherine asked, which was her polite way of saying that she wasn’t some knockout in a Vera Wang gown, and her skirts would always hang a little off, and she would give up buttercream cupcakes for no man, so if he was going to take her, this was what he got.
“If I meet another woman like Michelle, I’ll smile nicely and then go home and make love to the woman I love, and think how lucky I am to have someone like you who wants to be with someone like me.”
And he believed it. He honestly believed that he was the lucky one. At which time, Catherine decided to admit that maybe, possibly, it was worth a try.
She went to him then. “We try,” she said, clutching at the teardrop hanging from her neck.
His arms were outstretched. “Good.”
She hugged him, awkwardly at first, because she was so scared. She didn’t believe in many things, and although she believed in him, she wasn’t quite ready to believe in them. But when he looked at her, she could swear that really was love in his eyes. When she spotted her picture on his wall, she thought…maybe.
And she gave herself up to him, gave him her heart, but still, she held back a little bit of her soul.
SHE CALLED IN SICK on Friday. She wasn’t normally a person who called in sick, and thirty minutes later her mother called her cell, wanting to know what was wrong.
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“Then why aren’t you at work?”
“I’m taking a personal day.”
“But you’re not going to tell me what you’re really doing, are you?”
Catherine looked over at Daniel and smiled. “I’m with Daniel, Mom. Everything is fine.”
“Thank you, Catherine. Oh, and your grandfather wants you in his office first thing next week—seems he wants to expand your role at Montefiore’s given your help with the audit. He thinks you’re ready for the additional responsibility.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. He does love you, you know. And I love you, too, Catherine.”
“Love you, Mom.”
After she hung up, he reached out for her. “What do you want to do today?”
She didn’t really want to do anything. She wanted to lie in his bed and watch the autumn sun play on his chest, and then watch her fingers play on his chest. “Could we stay here?” she asked. “I don’t want to go out.”
His smile started slow, and then grew. “You’re not going to want to draw me again, are you?”
“Not today,” she answered primly, when he took her into his arms. “That’s tomorrow.”
ON FRIDAY NIGHT, they went to Prime because he wanted her to see the bar, wanted her to meet his family. It was odd seeing the three brothers standing together. There were similarities, but there were a lot of differences, too. Gabe, with a ready smile, and Sean, who looked as if he was always ready for trouble, but neither one of the brothers was close to her Daniel.
Gabe poured her a glass of wine,
and she could tell he was dying to ask questions, but he didn’t. Unlike Sean, who did nothing but ask her questions until Daniel called him off.
“You’re entitled to have tomorrow night off,” Gabe said.
Daniel grinned at her. “It doesn’t happen often. Don’t get used to it, but tomorrow, we’ll take shameless advantage of the fact that my brother is a romantic sap. What do you want to do?”
“We’ll figure something out,” she told him, and he grabbed her hand. Always touching her. She didn’t know she was a touchy person. The Montefiores weren’t touchy people, but she could get used to this.
In the end, they didn’t go anywhere on Saturday. They slept late, he proudly showed her his collection of Rolling Stones albums and she spent the afternoon listening to the strains of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” and sketching him—in the nude.
“I want you to show a sketch to your mother.”
“Of you? I don’t think so. You don’t know my mother.”
“Not me. But one of the other ones. You have a lot of good ones.”
“Maybe.” She still wouldn’t commit, but she was willing to think about it. He did that. Made her think about things that she wouldn’t have thought about before.
ON SUNDAY MORNING, Daniel awoke in his bed, his hands reaching out.
There.
He smiled to himself, anticipating the day, anticipating the moment when she would wake up. He loved watching her wake up. He loved her.
She reached out a hand, sliding up and down his back, and her lips curled up in what had to be the world’s sexiest smile. A smile meant for him.
When he pulled Catherine into his arms, he kissed her long and lingeringly.
Her brown eyes flickered open, blinking back sleep, her skin soft and bare. “I could get used to this.”
“I already am.”
“I love you,” she whispered, and Daniel murmured a quiet prayer.
“I love you, too. That’s why I want to marry you.”
“You want to marry me?”
“Yeah. Tell me yes.”
He could see her hesitation, and he wanted to shoot himself for jumping too early, but he didn’t want to waste a second with her. “I don’t know.”
It wasn’t the answer that he wanted, but he’d been prepared for it.
“Then we wait. And every day, I’ll ask you again. Until you know it’s right.”
“You really mean that?” she asked.
“Hell, yeah. Today’s Day One. Will you marry me?”
“I don’t know,” she said, almost giggling, definitely smiling. Right then, the alarm clock sounded, and he reached over to turn it off, and then noticed the date.
9/12.
His smile grew a little broader, and his heart expanded a little bit more.
Honestly, life didn’t get any better than this.
Epilogue
Day 104
CATHERINE WOKE UP the same way she always did. Daniel’s hand was on her breast, his thigh thrown across hers and she felt contended. It was getting easier to believe in them now.
She looked at him, studied him—her Odysseus—and smiled. The loneliness was gone from his eyes, his arms weren’t empty anymore. She’d done that.
Her.
Catherine Montefiore.
She rose above him, and he slipped inside her, so easily, so sure. He knew her body, knew how to touch her, knew how to please her, and he used that knowledge ruthlessly—ruthlessly being a purely subjective term, of course.
She rode him ruthlessly, a purely subjective term, as well, because he wasn’t complaining, either.
Afterward, he held her, never in a hurry to leave, and she liked that time in the morning, when they lay together so comfortably.
“I have something to tell you,” he said.
“What?”
“Today is my birthday.” She rose up on an elbow and studied his face. He was absolutely, smugly serious.
“You’re going to make me pay, aren’t you?”
He nodded once. “You aren’t going to turn down a man’s marriage proposal on his birthday, are you?”
“Did you plan all this out?”
“I had no say on the day of my birth.”
She traced a hand down his face. “I love you.”
He sighed. “But you still aren’t going to marry me, are you?”
Catherine smiled at him, and shook her head. It was time.
She leaned over and kissed him, letting her mouth linger, letting her heart love. “Actually, Daniel, I think I will after all.”
French Kissing
By Nancy Warren
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG
STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID
PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
1
“I LOVE PARIS in the spri-ing-time” was playing in Kimberley Renton’s mind as she headed to her first big event of couture week in her favorite city in the world.
Her over-the-top heels clicked like fingers snapping to the beat of the song as she walked along the Rue de Rivoli. Her designer skirt in black-and-white taffeta pirouetted around her. The matching black jacket frowned down at such exuberance while the crisp white card in her hand gave her entrée to one of the best parties in the fashion world.
As fashion editor for Uptown, one of the most respected women’s magazines in the States, Kimi was in Paris for couture week to see the greatest clothing designs in the world unveiled for the very first time. She had a front-row seat to every fashionista’s fantasy.
She watched as celebrities arrived at the discreet address of Simone, enjoying her reign as the top French designer. The tabloids, TV and gossip mags would, of course, showcase the stars and starlets who helped give couture week its sex appeal, but she knew that for this one week, she and her kind were more important to the top designers than that pop singer and her movie-producer boyfriend, now stopping for a photo at the top of the red-carpeted stairs, or the recently reconciled A-list stars emerging from their shiny black limo.
Still, it was fun, in an Academy Awards-night kind of way to watch the hoopla surrounding the celebrities. There were plenty of photojournalists and cameras to document the arrivals. A hundred or so fans and gawkers hung around at the bottom of the steps taking in the show.
As the black limo glided away, a white limousine pulled up. As the door opened, a muffled scream came from the crowd. Nicola Pietra emerged from the limo and paused, so accustomed to being photographed that she had her trademark sexy but rather sad smile on her face even before the folds of her gown had settled. A waiflike young woman with cascading dark curls and dark, slightly slanting eyes, she was an Italian screen goddess with a gorgeous face and body and searing sexuality.
Her accent was slight enough to be pretty and she seemed to cultivate the inevitable comparisons with Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. Kimi, half-Italian herself, had enjoyed following Nicola’s rise to fame, first in Italian art films and then in bit parts in American movies, to her current status as bona fide movie star. The actress’s jewels flashed in the glare of the cameras as she waited for Mark Apple, America’s Number One Box Office Stud to join her, and then the pair gave the photographers and fans a few moments to snap and gaze their fill.
With efficient bodyguards keeping autograph seekers at b
ay, they walked slowly up the steps arm in arm. Their approaching wedding was causing a frenzy not seen since TomKat had obsessed the world. Like TomKat, Bennifer, Brangelina and Posh and Becks, this couple also had its cutsie moniker.
Nicola Pietra and Mark Apple had only too easily become ApplePie. And not a slice would be left after the media were done with the pair, Kimi thought, watching the flashing bulbs, and listening to the questions and good wishes shouted in many languages. It was one of the worst-kept secrets in Hollywood that the pair was in Paris for fittings for the wedding dress for their highly anticipated nuptials.
Even in Paris, a city famous for its disdain of celebrity, there was a crowd out to cheer at the couple. Rumor had it that Mark Apple, whose string of hits seemed to have gone to his pretty head, had tried to rent Buckingham Palace for the wedding. When told he couldn’t rent the queen’s home, he’d attempted to buy the luxurious palace. He’d been quoted as saying that since he had three times the net worth of the Windsors, he was still willing to negotiate a deal.
Based on the couple’s idea of a wedding venue, Kimi could only imagine what the gown was going to be like, and wait—along with the rest of the world—for its official unveiling this week.
Prior to the wedding the gown was to be modeled here at the couture show. That was the condition that Simone had negotiated before agreeing to design the exclusive dress. Simone, as full of whims as the bridal couple, was arguably the greatest designer of the new millennium. Her designs were outrageous, unforgettable, and the cost of a gown was never revealed. It was another of her conditions. She followed the maxim that if you have to ask the price you can’t afford it to the ultimate degree.
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