My gaze drifted around us, and for the first time tonight, I saw a pointed stare. A woman turned away too fast when she met my gaze. Had people been staring at me all night? Pitying me?
Did they see me as some pathetic standin? The woman who could never compete for Jasper’s heart? Not when it had belonged to the woman in a white gown.
The woman he’d loved his entire life.
“There’s a reason you’re in Italy.” John bent lower to speak directly in my ear. “Jasper will never let go of Samantha. He might pretend to care. He might even be fooling himself. But at some point, he’ll realize it’s fake. And then you’ll disappear. I have no delusions Samantha’s marriage will last. And once it fizzles, they’ll find their way back to each other.”
Fake. Jasper and I were fake. And oh, how I hated that word.
It took everything I had to hide a reaction. To keep it hidden that he’d fired a shot and hit me straight in the heart. Be tough. “Like I said, I’ll have to disagree with your opinions.”
“You’re a stupid girl to believe you’re anything other than a fleeting distraction,” he whispered.
A stupid girl Jasper had married on a drunken whim.
A mistake.
“Thanks for the dance.” With one purposeful step, I pulled away.
Jasper’s arms were waiting.
He swept me away from John and Ashley, the pair exchanging a look like they’d planned that interruption all night.
“What did he say?” Jasper asked.
“Nothing nice,” I admitted, struggling to breathe.
“I’m sorry.”
I shrugged, swallowing the lump in my throat. Don’t cry. “It was bound to happen. You warned me about it, right?”
My mistake had been thinking we’d get that attitude from his own parents, not Samantha’s. No bathroom run-in tonight. Just an ambush on the dance floor.
As Jasper led us around, I scanned the room again. People were staring. Whispering.
Damn, I was an idiot. How could I have let myself believe this was real?
Stupid Eloise.
Maybe Samantha had broken his heart, had betrayed his trust, but he’d loved her for years. We were at her wedding, weren’t we? Maybe John was right.
Maybe Jasper wouldn’t ever really let her go.
My chest ached, and the swelling of emotions made it hard to breathe. Goddamn it. Don’t cry. I would not cry tonight.
“Ask me another question, El.”
“I’m all out of questions.” My voice cracked.
“Ask me.” His lips caressed my forehead as he spoke. “Please.”
It was the please that made tears flood my eyes. But I blinked them away, refusing to let the assholes in this room win. “What’s your favorite city in the world?”
“Paris.”
It was on my bucket list.
“Have you been?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Someday.”
Someday I’d visit all the pretty cities. I’d add more stamps to my passport. Maybe, if I was lucky, the man who came with me on those trips would be free to love me too.
“Come on.” Jasper broke the dance, clasped my hand and led me from the ballroom. His strides were so long that I had to skip every couple steps to keep up.
He walked straight for the elevator and hit the button for our floor, digging a key card from his pocket the moment we reached level three. As he headed down the hallway, he pulled out his phone from his jacket, quickly typing in something before pressing it to his ear.
“Who are you calling?” I asked, rushing to keep up.
He kept moving, unlocking our room’s door. “Yes, I need a chartered flight from Naples to Paris. Tonight. Departing in two hours.”
I gasped.
Jasper looked down at me, something serious in his gaze. Then the crinkles appeared. His hand cupped my cheek, his thumb stroking my skin, before he waved me into the room. “Go pack. Hurry.”
Pack. For Paris.
At the moment, being anywhere other than Italy, than this hotel, seemed like a brilliant idea.
I flew into action, racing around the room to sweep up everything I’d scattered around in the past couple of days.
Jasper did the same as he talked on the phone, giving our details to whoever was on the other end of that call.
How much did it cost to fly from Naples to Paris on a whim?
At the moment, I really didn’t care. France sounded like the perfect escape.
Jasper ended the call, his suitcase and carry-on bag both packed and zipped shut on the bed. He came to the bathroom, standing at my side to help collect my toiletries from the counter where we’d scattered them earlier, shoving them into my travel case.
“Are we really going to Paris?” I asked.
He met my gaze in the mirror. “We’re really going to Paris.”
The City of Light.
Paris at dawn was magical.
The streets were quiet. Only a few cars traveled along the sleepy roads. A woman walking her dog passed by, but other than the murmured French she spoke into her phone, the city was still tucked in from last night.
Jasper and I stood on the Pont d’Iéna, the Seine flowing beneath the bridge’s arched feet. His gaze was on the river. Mine was locked on the Eiffel Tower, catching the early sun’s rays.
The jet he’d chartered last night had touched down in Paris five hours after we’d rushed from the hotel in Italy. He’d hailed us an Uber to a hotel, but only so that we could drop off our luggage before the same car had brought us here. Just in time to watch the sunrise.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” I whispered.
Jasper’s chin was on my head, his arms around my shoulders. “Dream come true?”
“And then some.”
Because we were together. Because I’d let myself fall into the illusion again.
Someday, I’d go back to Italy. I’d visit Rome and Tuscany. I’d eat my weight in pasta and gelato. But I doubted I’d ever come to Paris again.
This was a memory I didn’t want covered with another.
The breeze caught a tendril of hair, whipping it into my face. I was still in my dress from the wedding. Jasper was in his tux, though he’d draped the jacket over my shoulders to keep me warm.
A yawn tugged at my mouth.
But I refused to move from this spot or admit I was exhausted.
If this was my morning in Paris, I wouldn’t waste it. So we stood together, locked together, as the city began to stir. Tourists and Parisians crossed the bridge. Cars clamored along the roads. Only when the gates to the tower opened did Jasper and I finally abandon our spot on the bridge. Then we spent the day exploring.
From the Louvre to the Notre-Dame Cathedral to the charming, crowded streets of Montmartre, we barely skimmed the surface of all there was to see, bouncing from one place to the next. In another life, each spot would get an entire day of its own, but since we only had one, I made the most of it.
Until the sun had completed its journey across the sky and ducked beyond the horizon. Until we were back in the same place we’d been this morning. On the bridge over the Seine, standing at the base of the Eiffel Tower once more to watch its shimmering lights against the darkened sky.
“Ready to go back to the hotel?” he asked.
“Not yet.”