Until You

Miranda rose to her feet. "I have no idea what you're getting at."

"That performance yesterday, at the Louvre. That was for him, was it not?"

"What performance?"

"Miranda, cherie..."

"Don't give me that, 'Miranda, cherie,' business with the long-suffering sigh and the little smile. It wasn't a performance. I was just glad to see you."

"Of course." Jean-Phillipe narrowed his eyes. "That is why you clung to me like a squid."

"Like an octopus. Dammit, if you're going to speak English, get it right."

"Is not a squid an octopus?"

"No. Yes. I mean..." Miranda looked at Jean-Phillipe. His face was a study in innocence but his eyes were filled with laughter. "You're impossible," she said, but the tension had left her and she was smiling, too.

"As are you, Miranda." He stood up. "And now that your good mood has returned, I shall risk ruining it by asking again that you move nearer to me."

"No."

"I am concerned for you, cherie."

"I'm concerned for me, too, but there's nothing to worry about. I told you, O'Neil sent over a guy who installed the kind of lock that would keep a bank safe."

"And you can truly return to that apartment after what happened?"

"I can," she said, not adding that first she'd throw out the bedding and then she'd scrub the place down with disinfectant. "And I will."

Jean-Phillipe put his arm around her and drew her close.

"You are still the most stubborn female a man ever had the misfortune to know."

His tone was stern but she knew that he was smiling, and he was holding her as gently as if she were the sister he'd never had. Miranda hugged him, then leaned back in his arms.

"I have a wonderful idea."

"Yes?"

"Let's go shopping. We'll buy a bunch of extravagant, fattening things, come back here and make a wonderful lunch."

He kissed her forehead. "Fauchon's?"

"Fauchon's, definitely."

"We will buy oysters. And foie gras. And very ripe brie and champagne," he said, draping her coat around her shoulders and grabbing his own. "Everything that is extravagant and fattening."

Laughing, they made their way downstairs to the street. A light snow had begun to fall, adding magic to-the boulevard and to the brightly lit Arc de Triomphe just ahead.

"It sounds decadent," Miranda said.

"Everything pleasurable in life is decadent. Besides, we are celebrating."

"We are?"

"Of course. We shall raise our glasses and wish a short and most unhappy future for the trou de balle who violated your privacy."

"The what?" Miranda said, laughing.