“Yup. Say cheese.”
She smiled the best she could, but as she did, she was looking at his phone. It was a new model. Fancy. Expensive.
She shook the thought from her head once he’d taken the shot. He let her go and flicked back to see if the picture had come out all right. When he found it, he smiled, turning the phone to show it to her. “We look good, right?”
They did. Tense but good. She nodded.
He twisted his phone around to get both thumbs on it, holding it as if to type. “You never did give me your email address, you know.”
She did know that. “Oh. Right.”
“Do you not want the pictures?” He raised an eyebrow.
“No, I do.” It made her nervous for some reason. As if giving him a way to contact her crossed a line. Ridiculous, considering all the other lines they’d merrily waltzed past without a second glance. Fighting down the fidgety feeling, she rattled it off to him.
He typed it in and nodded. “Ta-da. Sent.”
“So now I’ve got your address, too.”
“Yup.”
She hadn’t checked her email since she’d left the hostel. She should probably make a point of doing that soon, just in case. Without really thinking about where she was going, she started walking again.
“So.” He fell into step beside her. “Anything else you want to see here?”
She hadn’t particularly wanted to see anything here in the first place. “Not really.”
“May I make a suggestion?” His usual cockiness had simmered down a notch. It sounded like a real question.
“You may.”
“I say we catch a train back to Paris. Have dinner. My treat.”
He’d offered to treat enough times this week. She’d practically lost count.
She was counting again now. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.” He nudged her shoulder with his own. “Come on, let me apologize for . . . this.” He waved his hand around.
This. Which he had also paid for.
Her heart was in her throat. “What did you have in mind? Dinner-wise?”
Shrugging, he steered them toward the main gates. “I haven’t taken you to a real French restaurant yet. What do you say? Escargot? Cassoulet? Foie gras?” His voice lilted up, his flawless accent kicking in.
The one he’d acquired following his parents around Europe when he’d been a kid.
God. The itch of a suspicion turned into a tide of realization, her heart thumping hard against her chest. All that stuff about hostels and splitting the cost of a hotel room—had it all been a trick? If so, she’d fallen for it. He must think she was such an idiot.
“Can we just head back to the hotel first?” She needed to get her legs back under her.
Concern crossed his features. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
But when he tried to put his arm around her again, she couldn’t relax into it.
All day long, ever since she’d slipped out of his bed this morning, she’d been thinking she had to protect her heart.
Maybe she should have been protecting more than that. Maybe she should have been protecting it from the start.
chapter TWENTY-TWO
Rylan managed to wait until the door of their hotel room was closing behind them before he rounded on her. And shit, he could actually feel his father’s boardroom training taking over. Making him keep his distance. Making his face hard.
Just like his dad, when Rylan or his siblings or his mom had disappointed him.
What the hell else was he supposed to do, though? Kate hadn’t exactly refused to touch him the whole way home, but fuck if it hadn’t been the longest train ride of his life. Her, sitting right beside him, hand held loosely in his until she took it away to fidget with her nails, her hair, her bag. She forced him to reach for her when he wanted to touch her again—never offered contact herself. The entire time, they’d spoken maybe a dozen times.
Regret was eating at him, but it was slowly shifting into something angrier. He never should have pressured her into spending the day with him. He definitely shouldn’t have suggested Versailles.
He should have put the tickets someplace other than his wallet.
It didn’t seem like it could be that simple, but she’d gotten all closed off right after he’d flashed the damn thing in front of her. He didn’t need to be a detective to figure it out.
He closed his eyes and curled his hands into fists, taking three deep breaths before staring across the room at her. Last night, everything had seemed perfect. And now it had come to this.
Fuck it.
“Say it.” He tore his jacket off and tossed it in the corner with the rest of his things. “Whatever you’re thinking. Just say it.”
She’d been facing away from him, rummaging through her bag, but at the harsh sound of his voice, she shoved the thing aside, sending it clattering to the floor. The violence of it startled him, and his heart squeezed as she set her hands on the edge of the desk. Dropped her head and drew her shoulders up.
“Who are you?” She didn’t look at him until the question was out of her mouth, and even then, she didn’t turn. Just twisted her neck to gaze at him with dark, sad eyes.
His heart rose up into his throat. “What do you mean?”
The whole thing was choking him, the irony making it hard to breathe. Yes, he’d hidden the details of his life from her. But in these spare handful of days, he’d shown her all these other things. Parts of himself that people who knew a lot more of the facts had never seen. Parts he’d never shown to anyone before.
“I mean,” she said slowly, “who are you?”
“You know.”
“No.” Her mouth drew into a tight line. “That’s the problem. I don’t.”
For a moment that felt like an age, he stood there, waiting for the blow.
Finally, Kate turned around, her gaze level. Her voice quiet but strong. “Let me see your wallet.”
And there it was. Not a physical impact, but a punch to the gut all the same. “Kate . . .”
Negotiate. Dodge around the subject. Turn the tables.
She held out her hand. “Give it to me.”
He tried to joke, “If you needed money, you could have just said—”
“That’s not what I need. That’s the last thing I want from you.” Her throat bobbed, and her eyes were far too bright. “Don’t you know that?”
There wasn’t any negotiating with that—with the way she was looking right through him. She’d seen his heart; all these days and nights, he’d showed it to her again and again. But she didn’t want that. She wanted the shell.
And it was all his fault. He’d set himself up for this right from the start.
“I can explain everything,” he tried, but she shook her head.
“Just let me see.”
He wished he’d gotten a chance to kiss her one last time.
Resigned, he reached into his pocket and pulled the damn thing out. Really, if she’d been paying attention, just the brand and the suppleness of the leather gave him away. A hundred tiny details all gave him away, from the watch he’d been wearing that very first day to his patterns of speech to the shape of his father’s ring. But she hadn’t wanted to see. Hadn’t wanted to hear.
And now he had to tell her the truth.
“It’s funny,” he said, handing his wallet over. The world seemed to shiver, a low sense of vertigo making everything sway. “I told you my last name when we were at the Musée d’Orsay. You didn’t flinch.”
“Should I have?”
“A lot of Americans do.”
She opened the billfold and counted out the five hundred odd euros he had left in there. Then with unsteady hands, she pulled out the Black Amex. The membership to the VIP fitness club attached to his mother’s apartment building. Each card as damning as the last, and when she looked up at him, her expression was bereft.