She leaned back in her chair, and tapped a charm on her necklace. It was one of mine, and the charm was a pizza pie. “I don’t know if you remember this, but I ordered this one online from you a year ago.”
I flipped through my mental file of necklace orders. I certainly didn’t remember all of them, but a pizza pie charm stood out. “It’s not often I get a request for a pizza pie. I think I found it at a toy shop. I can’t believe that’s yours.”
“Small world. It’s for all my Italian men.”
“But, of course,” Bryan said. I didn’t look at him. I’d barely looked at him most of the night. My heart was still sore.
“And yours?” Gabrielle pointed at my throat. “What’s on yours?”
I walked her through some of my charms, telling her the same stories I’d told Bryan that afternoon in Washington Square Park of the English major I never became, and the building that I almost moved into.
“And that one?” Gabrielle touched my movie charm. “Were you almost a movie director?”
I laughed and shook my head. “No.”
“Then what is this for? Is it to remind you to stop watching movies?”
“Sort of.” I looked at the fireplace to avoid eye contact. I’d never told Bryan about the movie camera. I’d never told anyone but Jill what it stood for.
“Kat, Kat, Kat. A woman like me knows when a woman is lying. What is the movie camera for?”
I returned my focus to the French civil servant Bryan needed to charm. “It’s for a boy.”
“And who is this boy?”
“My first love. He was my first favorite mistake.”
“Ah. See! I knew it wasn’t just about the cinema. Tell me about him.” Gabrielle placed her elbow on the table and tucked her chin in her hand to wait for a story. I glanced briefly at Bryan. He was watching the two of us.
“I met him when I was seventeen.”
“Young love. The best kind.”
“And he was wonderful. And kind. And funny. He made me laugh. And he kissed like a dream.”
“So he definitely wasn’t a Frenchman, because they kiss like bores!”
“We used to go to the movies together all the time, and we made out in the theater.”
“That is why I say young love is the best kind. You can’t keep your hands off each other.”
I nodded, as waiters circled the small restaurant, clearing tables, and serving other diners. Low music played overhead, tunes like those sung by the torch singer who lived across from me when I called this city home. Songs of love gone away, or love gone awry.
“But he broke my heart.”
“And so you vowed to guard your heart from that kind of boy?”
“Yes.”
“And you still pine for this boy?”
“Yes,” I said, a hitch in my throat.
“You are beautiful and you are still so young. We cannot have a young, beautiful, smart woman in love with a boy who doesn’t care for her.”
“He does care for her.” The words came from Bryan. I turned to him, to look into his pine green eyes with their hints of gold. Those eyes practically infiltrated me with the way they knew me. “He always cared for her. He always loved her. He’s madly in love with her. She’s his Love, Actually. She’s his Casablanca. She’s the one he’d stop the bus for, the one he’d run through traffic for, the one he’d drive like a crazy man to the airport for and run through the terminal to stop the plane. Her name’s above the title for him. She’s the opening credit and the closing credit. She’s the love of his life.”
Then in a voice so low only I could hear, he whispered forgive me.
With the white tablecloth obscuring us, I reached for his hand. He laced his fingers through mine, squeezing tight. I squeezed back, and I let go of the hurt. I let go of the ache. I let go of the past.
“He is not a mistake then,” Gabrielle announced.
“He’s not. He’s the one,” I said.
Gabrielle raised her wine glass, now nearly drained of its contents. “So we drink a toast to love, and we drink a toast to business. You have a deal to buy the padlocks from the city of Paris.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bryan opened the door to the town car he’d reserved. Gabrielle gave him a kiss on each cheek, then got inside. He shut the door, and we both waved as the driver sped off to take her home. We crossed the cobbled street and turned onto the sidewalk running along the river Seine. The muted yellow gaslight from the streetlamps flickered and illuminated our path along the slate-gray ribbon that sliced its way through the city.
“You were amazing back there,” he said.
“Oh, you’re too sweet.”
“I would call you a good luck charm, but I’m pretty sure it’s a hell of a lot more than luck that just went down in there. Brains, talent, beauty, brilliance. Is there nothing you can’t do?”
“I’m not terribly good at cooking or gardening.”
He snapped his fingers as if disappointed. Then he turned serious. “Kat, thank you. Thank you so much for what you did.”
“I’m glad I could be of help.”
Bryan reached for my hand. “Am I allowed to hold your hand? Or does that break the on ice rules?”
“I’ll bend on this one for just a moment.”
We turned onto the Pont du Carrousel that arced over the river. A dinner boat tour floated underneath the bridge, it lights drawing yellow squiggly lines along the water. The Louvre watched over us nearby.
“Would you bend on another one? Because I’d really like to kiss you by the river Seine.”
He gave no room to answer as he pulled me close and dusted his lips on me, leaving a soft, barely wet kiss.
“We should stop. We should be good.”
“We should. But I’m crazy in love with you, and if makes things better, I’ll never stop telling you that. Besides, I have five years of feeling it but not saying it to make up for. So I’ll say it again. I’m madly in love with you, Kat Harper.”
“Fine,” I said with a smile. “That earns you one more kiss.”
He pressed his lips on mine, tracing them with his tongue in a way that made me shiver. I looped my arms around him, underneath his jacket and against his shirt. I walked back a step or two until I met the railing on the bridge and leaned against it. He ran his hands through my hair, moving closer, as the space between us compressed. My body melted into his and I inhaled his cool, clean skin. I wanted to feel him, touch him, taste him, have him. I was crazy to be so close to him. I was foolish to ever think I could have resisted.