But it was starting to fill up. After a few months enjoying being a man of leisure, drinking espressos, and shopping for lingerie for her while she worked, he’d started up a new business.
He’d begun advising several French companies, some specializing in lingerie, some in sex toys, on entering the American market and the particular challenges and opportunities across the pond. It was a perfect job for his strategic brain.
They lived in the 6th arrondissement, not far from her work, in a flat above a leather handbag store and a macaroon shop. Joy Delivered was thriving back home, thanks in part to its continued business online and in stores with its biggest customer, Eden. The premiere vibrator boutique in New York had remained open and so had the BDSM clubs, thanks to Denkler winning the campaign on the power of a positive message. In some ways, the campaign wasn’t even about the candidate.
It was about pleasure being more powerful than politics.
It was about what happened behind closed doors being personal, and private, and not public at all.
It was about doing good for a neighborhood.
The law was a powerful thing too, though, and Michelle had a smart lawyer friend who’d tipped off the federal government about the phone hacking. Nick Bradshaw had been investigated for computer crimes. What he’d done to Michelle was only a misdemeanor, but it wasn’t his first time, and it turned out he had quite a sordid history of underhanded tactics in his arsenal as the Spin Doctor.
So many that he’d been sent to prison.
Michelle hoped he’d have a hell of a hard time spinning his jail time.
One Tuesday morning in April, after a phone session with Shayla, who’d left her husband and was managing better than she’d thought she would on her own, Michelle caught a train to Giverny. Jack had been working in the countryside today, advising a wealthy client in Rouen, so they were meeting in the middle, and had nothing planned but lunch at a cafe in the quiet village where Monet had painted.
When she arrived, she didn’t see him at the entrance. She checked her phone and saw he’d sent a message that he was already inside and to come find him on the bridge.
She meandered through the gardens where ruby red, sky blue, and sun yellow petals were in bloom. Spring had coasted into Giverny, bringing along a blanket of new colors. The lily pond waters were blue and glassy, reflecting the last bit of midday sun before the gray clouds at the edge of the sky blocked it. Soon she spotted Jack on the bridge, one arm resting on the railing, the other in his pocket.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she said, and dropped a quick kiss on his lips. She’d never grown tired of kissing him. She never would.
“Thank you for meeting me here. I’m a lucky man to be able to play hooky with you. Do you want to walk around the gardens?”
“I would love to.”
“Oh wait,” he said, smacking his forehead. “There’s something I meant to ask you.”
She cocked her head to the side. “What is it?”
He dropped down to one knee, and her mouth fell open. His eyes met hers, blazing with love and passion.
“Michelle, it only seems fitting to ask you this here, since this is your favorite place in Paris that’s not in Paris, and it’s my favorite place, too. Because it’s the place where I was finally able to tell you over and over how much I love you. And ever since that day I haven’t been able to stop saying it. Because I feel it everywhere. In every part of me.”
Her hand flew to her heart. A tear of joy slid down to her cheek as he reached into his pocket and removed a small black box. “I do too,” she whispered.
“I’ve always asked you to give yourself to me. And you have. Before I even deserved it. And I hope to keep deserving it, every day for the rest of our lives. And I want to ask you if you can give me one more thing. You. Always. Will you be my wife?”
She dropped down to both knees and threw her arms around him, joy flowing through her bloodstream. “Yes. I’m yours. Always.”
“Always is a very long time, and it’s exactly how long I want you,” he said, then slid a beautiful diamond onto her finger, and kissed her endlessly on the bridge. He didn’t even stop when it started to rain.
Yes, come to think of it, there wasn’t a single thing wrong with Paris, or France. Not even the rain. The rain was wonderful too.
THE END