“Yes, but I wanted you to experience every bit of your trip, not waste it all talking to me,” he reasoned.
“Talking to you is never a waste,” she defended, not having to feign the stars in her eyes when she looked at him.
“I’m not better than Paris,” he stated.
Willow shrugged mysteriously. “You’ve never been there, how would you know? Maybe Paris is stinky and terrible.”
“Is Paris stinky and terrible?”
Not even missing a beat, she said, “Of course not; it’s Paris.”
“I assume that was your favorite part of the trip.”
Sighing wistfully, she said, “There were so many favorite parts, I don’t think I can choose. Next time I go, you have to come with me. Like Èze? You would love it. Or, at least, I would love it with you, and I’m sure you’d find it charming. We need to go to the French Riviera!”
“You know that cash register noise, that cha-ching? I keep hearing it in my head. Maybe it’s a stroke.”
Willow poked him in the side. “Start catching more cheating husbands, we’ve got traveling to do.”
“Hey, I’m doing what I can to wreck every marriage in the area; what more do you want from me?”
“Anyway, you made me digress. The weirdest thing happened in Paris,” she told him.
Quirking a suggestive eyebrow, he asked, “Oh yeah?”
Jabbing him in the side, she laughed. “Not that weird.”
“I’m just teasing. Go ahead, tell me what crazy thing happened in Paris,” he replied, smiling indulgently.
Narrowing her eyes at him, she said, “I don’t know if I want to tell you if you’re going to take that tone.”
He drew her against him, flashing the puppy dog eyes. “Tell me. The suspense is killing me—you don’t want to be responsible for my death, do you?”
Willow rolled her eyes at him. “I’ve already saved your life twice, what are you, my Lois Lane?”
He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “And the debt grows.”
Smiling softly, she said, “All right. I may have definitely missed you.”
He exaggerated his shock, his eyes going wide and his jaw falling open. “You did? No way.”
“Way,” she replied solemnly, nodding her head. “I think you’re starting to grow on me.”
“Just now? I usually grow much faster than that.”
Wiggling her eyebrows with a grin, her hand drifted downward as she joked, “You don’t have to tell me.”
His hand caressed hers as her fingertips flirted with the hem of his pants. “You’re distracting me. Finish telling me about your trip. Tell me about the commune, I know you were excited about that.”
Glancing around at the scattered people, she said, “We can talk about this in the car. Right now we should probably get going before we get in trouble for being frisky at the airport.”
“All right,” he said, reaching over to grab her carry on. “Give me a highlight to hold me over.”
“All of Èze. We have to go back there. Soon. They had this cute little gallery where every painting was set in Èze. I wanted one for a souvenir but I ran out of money. I’m going to save up and get one when we go back someday. I even had a Tom Collins at this restaurant literally overlooking the French Riviera—and it may have been the view, or the atmosphere or maybe the sexy French waiter, but it was incredible.”
“Hey,” he said, tossing her a wounded look as she laughed, wrapping an arm around him and falling into step beside him.
“I’m just kidding. No sexy Frenchman could ever turn my head, Mr. Wilde.”