Perfect Strangers

“Anything but that.”

He blinks at my disgusted tone, then offers, “Perhaps the phyllo-wrapped brie with fig preserves?”

“Yes. Perfect. Thank you.”

James orders filet mignon and a green salad, the waiter departs, and then we’re left alone with my blossoming anxiety.

James takes me in for a while in silence. “I’ve said something wrong.”

Crap. If he’s going to be this damn observant all the time, this will never work.

“No, not wrong. Just…” I glance up to find him staring at me with his signature intensity, all smoldering masculinity and hungry eyes. “I was wondering if you spoke to Edmond about me.”

He leans back in his chair. Without breaking our gazes, he says evenly, “Yes. I asked him to tell me everything he knew about you.”

My heart does a painful flip beneath my breastbone. “And what did he say?”

“That you were a friend of Estelle’s, staying in her unit. A writer on holiday from America.”

I study him. Is he holding something back? “What else?”

“That you seemed very bright and charming, but you had the saddest eyes of anyone he’d ever met.”

Our locked gazes feel like a physical connection, fingers interlaced and squeezing, a live wire conducting heat and electricity between us across empty space.

I say, “The next person who tells me I have sad eyes is going to get a fork stuck into one of his own.”

“I know,” comes the soft response. “You don’t want to talk about anything personal, and I’ll respect that. But you did ask.”

His tone is both gentle and intimate, as if we’re already lovers. The sheer tenderness of it makes a lump form in my throat. I haven’t had tenderness from a man in forever. I haven’t had this kind of undivided attention in forever, either, and the worst thing about it is…I don’t deserve it.

I don’t deserve to be sitting here living and breathing when the only reason I had to live is six feet underground.

I’m horrified to discover my eyes are watering.

Desperate to escape his searing eyes, I tear my gaze from his and stand. “Excuse me for a moment, please. I need to use the ladies’ room.”

Without waiting for an answer, I turn from the table and walk at a breakneck pace across the restaurant to the double doors near the foyer we passed on the way in.

I burst into the restroom and collapse against the opposite wall as the door closes behind me. I stand there trembling, wondering how the hell he makes me feel stripped so raw when all I’ve felt the past two years is entombed.

He melted me with his first look. His first searching, seeinglook.

I drop my face into my hands and groan.

This was a stupid idea. I’m obviously not ready for this. It’s naïve to think emotions won’t get involved if I can’t even sit at a table with him without bolting in a panic.

It’s not like this is the first time it’s happened, either. Every time I talk to the man, I end up running away. If I slept with him I’d probably unravel completely!

I picture myself curled naked in a sobbing ball on his bed as he looks on helplessly, wondering which mental institution to call first.

“Olivia.”

I look up and emit a peep of terror. James stands across from me inside the ladies’ room door, materialized as soundlessly as a ghost.

I open my mouth to stammer some mortified excuse for why I’m acting like such a lunatic, but before I can speak, James closes the distance between us and gathers me into his arms.

All my distress instantly quiets. I descend straight from the frantic chaos of my head to the real and grounding presence of his body.

Oh Lord. Oh holy…

If I thought I were melted before by his eyes, his big, warm, solid frame against mine proves to be an entirely different form of liquefication. Parts of me I didn’t even know I had are thawing and beginning to burn.

“Just breathe,” he says quietly, his mouth close to my ear. “Just feel me and breathe.”

Seven more beautiful words have never been spoken.

The way I sag against him in relief, it’s as if a spell has been cast. I wind my arms around his shoulders, bury my face into his neck, and inhale a breath scented of his skin. When I let it out, I’m almost groggy with desire.

Against my breasts, his heart hammers as madly as mine does.

He presses his cheek against mine. He twines a hand into my hair, cradling my head in his palm. He curves around me, protecting me from—what? My own fear, I suppose. My imagination. My past and all its baggage.

Myself.

Someone pushes open the door and proceeds toward the stalls as if we’re invisible. She uses the toilet, washes her hands, and leaves without a word, as if two lovers entwined in the entry of a restroom is completely unremarkable, a thing so commonplace it doesn’t even merit a look.

Maybe it is. It’s Paris, after all. Entwined lovers are as common a sight as street lamps.

“Better?” James whispers, his rough jaw tickling my cheek.