One Cruel Night

“Never heard that before,” he said with a casual laugh of his own.

He gestured toward the balcony he’d come from, and I walked at his side back to the stunning city view.

“Is Penn…short for something?”

He shook his head. “My parents like unusual names.”

“So, just Penn?”

“That’s right.”

He leaned one elbow back against the railing and slid the other hand into the pocket of his suit pants. I suddenly felt as if I’d slipped right into a James Bond film. Except I was anything but a Bond girl, and things like this didn’t happen to me.

Up until this encounter, I would have said that men this attractive didn’t exist in the real world. They graced magazine covers, starred in blockbuster movies, and modeled for designer brands. If they existed outside of that glamorous life, then they definitely were not in Charleston. I hadn’t seen them in Kansas or Texas or Colorado or any of the other places my dad had ended up throughout his career in the Air Force.

“So, what’s your favorite part of Paris so far?” Penn asked. “Other than watching me write in my notebook.”

I laughed and eased forward against the balcony. “Probably watching the Eiffel Tower twinkle when the sun sets.”

“Ah, yes. A favorite tourist pastime.”

I scoffed. “If I’m a tourist, what does that make you? You’re American, too.”

“I stopped being a tourist a long time ago. But yes, I admit I am American. New York. You?”

“I’m not from anywhere,” I told him. When he looked at me in confusion, I clarified, “My dad was in the Air Force. He retired in Charleston.”

“Transient and adaptable,” he guessed.

“Suppose so.”

“What else have you done since being in town?”

I shrugged but saw that he was actually intently staring at me. His body language was completely fixated on me. His eyes slid to my lips and back up as he waited for an answer.

“All the regular stuff—Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Notre-Dame, Louvre, Basilica du Sacré-Cœur, the Champs, Versailles. I’ve been staying all summer with my best friend. She’s been here before and showing me the sights.”

“Sounds like a good friend.”

“What about you?” I asked. “If you’re not a tourist, what have you been doing?”

“Trying to get my head on straight.”

I arched an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“New York is too loud. I needed another point of view. To walk the streets where the greats walked before me and eat at the cafés where they ate and drink at the speakeasies and clubs they frequented.” His eyes grew distant at the thought.

I could see that he was in the same place he’d been when he was writing in the park. That writing, whatever he had been writing, spoke to a piece of him. It opened up something within his soul that also opened up within me.

“I know what you mean. Not about New York,” I said quickly, “but about needing to get a new point of view. Everything looks and feels and tastes the same at home. Paris is so…alive.”

He nodded. “And you’ve seen so little of it. When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow night,” I confessed.

He pushed off of the balcony in apparent alarm. “You’re leaving Paris tomorrow, and you’re at this party?”

“My friend wanted to come. She likes Parisian artists as much as I love the sights and sounds of the city.”

“This is a travesty. You cannot waste your last night in Paris.”

I shrugged and turned back to face the city below. “It doesn’t feel like a waste.”

“Maybe not, but you haven’t even lived the city. And you can’t live it from up here,” he said passionately, “looking down as it passes you by.”

He was right. It was strange to agree so easily with someone. As if Penn understood me better than my own best friend…better than I knew myself. That was disorienting, to say the least.

“Maybe.”

“Well then, let’s go.” He stepped away from the railing.

His blue eyes glittered with anticipation. A thrill shot through my spine at that look directed at me. And then reality crashed in.

“What?” I gasped. “Go where?”

“See Paris.” He gestured toward the door. “I’ll show you.”

I stared back at him in shock and excitement. I wanted to go. That much was obvious. But…I shouldn’t go. I wasn’t this insane. I couldn’t go around the city, alone at night, with a guy I’d just met. It wouldn’t be safe.

“I don’t even know you.”

“So?”

“You could be a serial killer.”

He laughed, a soft, guttural thing. “Fair. What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. I hadn’t expected that question. Not that I’d expected an invitation to wander Paris with him.

“I’m an open book.” He spread his arms wide. “Ask me anything.”

I scoured my mind, trying to figure out what the hell I could ask him that would make me trust him. Truth be told, I didn’t trust easily. Everyone had always said that moving so much in the military meant that you made friends easily. But if anything, it’d made me more introverted. Why try when you’d be out of that school in a year? It was only Amy’s persistence and my dad’s retirement that had kept me from being a loner in high school.