The high-end Boston oyster bar somehow reminded me of Le Procope. It wasn’t the decor, other than the almost matching black-and-white tiled floor, but the exquisite attention to detail, bustling vibe, and robust prices. I’d been there once, on a date, a couple years back. Now I longed to return. Mat would enjoy it. It would remind him of tonight . . .
“And Caden?” Mat’s question stopped my musings. “No special dinners here in Paris?”
My heart shifted. Mat was cracking the door open to his heart as well. We were stretching beyond the topic at hand.
I sipped my wine and, this time, I prepared to take him back in time. I shared with him the details of that spring, wandering around museums and eating picnics. I shared with him who Caden was and who I thought I’d been in his company. And as I talked on, I realized my experience was more aligned with my aunt’s than I’d accepted. Just as she had written to her sister, ideas and thoughts shared late at night about life, politics, art—along with good food and wine—had made Paris, and me in it, feel alive. It wasn’t Caden as much as it was that I had stepped outside myself and my narrow perceptions of my world and my place within it. Perhaps the coat hadn’t been borrowed after all.
I felt my face warm. “I’ve been hanging around you too much. I’m beginning to believe how I think changes who I am, and I can hang on to that brighter, even happier woman I found here.”
“You were that woman before Paris.” Mat kept his eyes trained on me. “Maybe you forgot, but I was serious when I said you hadn’t changed . . . You still drive me crazy and you’re still the woman I fell in love with.”
Thirty-Six
While we’d been inside Le Procope, Paris had transformed once more. This time from pale pinks in blue-graying skies with white stone and yellow streetlamps, to colorful restaurants, wine bars, and neon store signs brightening the black backdrop like pinpoints. Notre Dame, the Louvre, and the Place du Carrousel were all lit and the Eiffel Tower shot resplendent with gold on the hour. Without talking about it, we found ourselves meandering back toward the Seine, making a broad loop, before turning toward the apartment. Cars, zipping through the streets, added a sense of modernity to the night that disappeared completely across the quiet bridges. There they slowed and the streetlamps’ golden glows invited us to stroll again and take in the moment. It was the evening’s perfect denouement.
As we crossed back over the river, I reached for Mat’s hand again, sliding mine down his wrist until our fingers interwove once more. “Mat?”
“Yes?” He stepped closer to me.
I stopped and, before I lost my nerve, I kissed him. I didn’t ask. I didn’t explain. I simply lifted up on my toes and captured his lips with my own. In the first second, I sensed his hesitation and feared I’d misjudged. I lowered myself down, my mind racing through how to explain, retrench, and recover. But as our lips parted, he stepped forward, gathered me in his arms, and drew me up closer.
“You’re not getting away that quickly,” he whispered against my lips.
Instead of replying, I looped my arms around his neck and deepened the kiss. Margaret had said it felt like tiny bubbles. She’d been right. A bubbly sensation had danced through my head and heart for days. Now the champagne had been opened and a fizzy sensation rose from the tips of my toes to the top of my head, unlike anything I’d experienced. While I’d had a series of casual boyfriends over the years, there had only been two men I deeply cared for. First Mat, then Caden. And no two men could have been more different. There had been an intensity about my relationship with Caden. It felt fraught, and only in this moment did I understand I had mistaken an edgy anxiety for passion. Mat, on the other hand, had always felt like a delicious promise forever out of reach. Except he wasn’t.
After a moment more, Mat pulled back. His eyes held such warmth I felt saddened by the time lost and the distance I’d put between us. But, I reminded myself as I sank back to earth, I wasn’t the same woman back then, despite what he claimed, and that kiss wouldn’t have been, couldn’t have been, so glorious years earlier.
Without words, he tucked me close and we walked on toward Boulevard Saint-Germain. As we rounded the abbey, Mat stopped so abruptly I stumbled in surprise.
“Caroline?” I tracked his line of sight. “Isn’t that your dad?”
It was, dressed in dark pants and a sports coat, standing outside the apartment building. He was pacing small circles on the sidewalk.
“Dad?” I dropped Mat’s hand in my rush forward. “What are you doing here?”
Without answering, my dad pulled me into his arms and engulfed me into what might have been my first hug from him in over a decade. I discovered my forehead fit perfectly in that soft spot right beneath his clavicle.
I breathed him in. Lime shaving soap. Acqua di Parma. And his favorite cinnamon mints.
He stepped back, still holding my shoulders. “I came to see you . . . Can we talk?”
“Of course,” I replied as I felt Mat step behind me. Flustered, I turned between them. “Mat Hammond, you remember my father, Jack Payne. Dad, this is Mat. You met him, but—”
Dad cut across me with both words and a handshake. “I owe you an apology, Matthew.”
“Just Mat, sir.” Mat paused mid-handshake as if trying to rewind correcting my dad. “I mean—”
“Just Mat?” Dad teased with a side peek my direction. He and Mom chided us as children when we didn’t introduce ourselves by our full names.
“Moraitis,” Mat replied. “Moraitis Papadakis Hammond. Greek mother. English father.” Mat waved his hands, clearly undone. “My brothers got Luke and Peter, and I got Moraitis, my grandfather’s name. ‘Mat’ was my idea.” Mat looked between us, eyes wide. “Sorry. That was more than you needed to know. More than anyone needed to know.”
“Not at all, Mat.” Dad laughed.
Dad teased? Dad laughed? My focus swung back to him.
“I spoke with your mom. She said this apartment has three bedrooms. Do you mind if I stay with you?”
“Not at all.”
“Please do.”
Mat and I raced over each other in nervous agreement. If Dad caught the currents, he didn’t comment. He turned away and led us through the building’s front door.
Six floors up, the elevator opened into a stunning apartment. The living room, with broad windows, black leather furniture, and massive modern art, boasted a view across the building tops and distance to the Eiffel Tower. To the left, I caught a glimpse of books in a small library. Mat gravitated that direction. To the right, I found the edge of an oven range through an open doorway. Dad headed there and soon returned with a bottle of wine in hand.
“Would either of you like a glass?”
Mat spoke first. “Not for me, sir, if you don’t mind. I’ll leave you two to talk.” He looked toward me with an encouraging smile.