Her brown eyes were so big, and a tear slid down her cheek. He wiped it away with his thumb, and brought the salty streak to his lips. “Don’t cry,” he whispered.
She just shook her head, unable to speak.
“I’m not done,” he said. “Because I’ve done a bad job telling you how I feel. I thought if I kept it all inside, I wouldn’t hurt you. I thought words were what had ended Aubrey’s life. And that if I didn’t say them, I could somehow protect you. But you made me realize I was a stupid, fucking selfish idiot for thinking that.”
“You’re not an idiot.”
He nodded several times. “Yes, I am. I’m an idiot for not telling you in the doorway. I’m an idiot for not telling you at dinner last night, or later in the hotel room. Or even this morning. I’ve been so consumed with regret that I let it dictate everything in my life. And everything with you. And I’m not a shrink, I’m not someone who understands the fine details of emotions, or how people heal or move on. And I know you’re worried that I’m not capable of love.”
She started to speak, but he silenced her as he held up a finger to signal he had more to say. “It’s okay, I’d be worried too. And all I can do is tell you this—I have never felt this way for anyone. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. You consume my thoughts, you fill my heart, and I want so much more than thirty nights with you. I want the days, too. I want days like this. Good days and bad days. I don’t want another week. I want all the weeks. Maybe I’m a work in progress. Maybe I’m like a rough piece of clay. But I can be refined, and shaped, and become better with you. I want to go back to New York and not have an expiration date. I want you to let me keep loving you. The way I feel for you is without question,” he said, and now he didn’t resist the impulse to touch her. Because he’d done enough resisting. He needed to connect fully with her.
“I want that too,” she said in the tiniest voice, full of so much vulnerability.
He cupped her cheeks, holding her face in his hands, looking at her. At the woman he loved madly. Deeply. Truly. Without any regrets, without any reservations. “I’m going to tell you over and over how I feel. Because I need you to know. I always ask you to give yourself to me, and you do, and have in every way. And I want to give myself to you,” he said, and she was trembling under his touch. Her shoulders shook and her lips were parted. “If you’ll still have me.”
“Oh Jack, you know I will. You know I love you. You know I’m crazy in love with you. You’re not a work in progress,” she said, her voice breaking.
“I kind of am, but I want to be a work in progress with you.”
“We can be that for each other,” she said, tilting her chin up.
“You want me to kiss you, don’t you?” he said, their playfulness coming back.
“Always.”
“I will always want to,” he said, and kissed her in the garden, on the bridge, the weeping willow the witness to his deep and abiding love for this woman who’d challenged him, who’d changed him, and who’d healed him simply by loving him. That was what had truly washed away the regret. Yes, her words, her insight, her kind understanding of his past had helped him see all that he was clutching unnecessarily. But ultimately, he’d been letting go already. Letting go because she loved him.
* * *
They had a very late lunch at a cafe in town, laughing, talking, touching.
She hadn’t expected him to show up. She’d resigned herself to her own hotel room, to a few more lonely days in Paris, and then to a long string of empty nights back in Manhattan, as she immersed herself in another 10K, in more Spanish lessons, in bowling, in whatever she had to do to rid this man from her mind.
She had no doubt the process of erasing Jack would have been even harder than erasing Clay had been.
But she didn’t have to, because there was no longer an arrangement or an end. There was only this new beginning.
At lunch, his phone rang. He glanced at the screen, then hit ignore, then silent. “Just a customer. I’ll call him later. I will regret it more if I miss this lunch right now,” he said, then laced his fingers through hers.
After they ate, they wandered through Giverny, getting lost in the shops, and getting found again. Instead of calling the call service, they simply caught a train back to Paris. Because the train was what they needed and wanted. The last one, and they were all alone in their car. The conductor took their tickets, and then the overhead lights dimmed. She gazed out the window as the train rattled through the countryside at night. The hum of the wheels and the din of the engine made for a relaxing soundtrack at the end of the day.
She felt his hand in her hair, a gentle tug as he pulled her close. He turned her face so she was looking at him. “Make love to me on the train,” he whispered.
It was the first time he’d said that. Make love. The words were like diamonds to her, and just as valuable. She wanted to be as intimate with him as she could, after he’d said those gorgeous words over and over at the gardens. Besides, they were living in the bubble for a few more days, existing outside the public eye of prying New York City gossip papers. Carla had advised her to be cautious, but as far as she could tell that guidance applied to New York, not to this moment in time.
She kissed him, sweeping her tongue across his lips, savoring the taste of his mouth. His kisses were consuming; they rocketed her to another realm; they turned her on in mere seconds. She felt that sweet ache between her legs, the one only he could soothe, so she straddled him, and unzipped his pants, so grateful to be wearing a skirt. Then, she sank onto him, and gasped silently. He filled her so completely, and held her like she was all he’d ever wanted.
She cupped his cheeks, and he gripped her waist, and she made love to him on the train back to Paris.
“Michelle,” he whispered, keeping his eyes locked on hers.
“Yes?”
“I’m so in love with you,” he said, holding tight to her, his words better than any dirty ones he’d ever spoken, and those had melted her with heat. But this was something else entirely. This was the deepest connection, her greatest wish. This was everything she’d ever wanted—to love and to be loved back.
“I’m so in love with you.”
She looked away once to catch their hazy reflections in the dark of the window. They looked like two people who couldn’t get enough of each other. His eyes squeezed shut, his breath came fast and harsh, and he moved deeper into her. She watched for another moment, thrilling inside at all that the window revealed about him, and how he felt for her. She turned back to him, their bodies colliding, their lips connecting, her arms wrapped around him as they came together once more.