at both of them as I shook my head. “I can’t just up and leave the country that quickly and maintain this ‘sweet girl next door’ vibe.” I made air quotes around the words with my fingers, my eyes huge when I thought about it. “It’s my first trip out of the country. Something is going to slip.”
Rick opened his mouth, but before he could get anything out, Dane dropped his elbows on his knees, leaned forward, and captured every ounce of my attention with the burning in those electric eyes.
“You can do this, Leah,” he said, the confidence in his voice so absolute that it filled my chest and made my heart swell. “I’ll be with you every step of the way. You’re going to be great.”
After sending his friend a fleeting but quizzical look, Rick punched my shoulder lightly and then slung his arm around me. “If you can wait tables and deal with terrible customers with a smile and sense of humor, you can play this role. For five hundred thousand dollars, you can do just about anything.”
Dane chuckled, the intensity seeping out of him as he picked up his beer again and took a sip. “Yes, you can, and you will.”
I looked between the two of them, taking a deep breath as I was reminded of why I’d agreed to do this in the first place. They both had faith me in, and after having survived my first full week in the city without anyone calling me out for being a fraud, I was starting to have faith in myself.
That interview had been the first step in building my confidence, but the whole week had passed in a similar vein. Katie was a godsend, Dane had been true to his word despite his own hectic schedule, and I was settling in well.
All I had to do now was to do the exact same thing in Paris. Paris.
Traveling wasn’t something I’d done much of. It had always been a dream of mine and I’d known I’d be getting to do some with this job, but this trip had still caught me unawares.
Rick and Dane circled back to a conversation they must’ve been having about their favorite football team earlier, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to care much about a bunch of men chasing after a ball in that very moment.
It was probably considered blasphemy in Texas for anyone to refer to football as just a bunch of men chasing a ball, but shit, Paris. Those men could chase the ball all day long for all I cared. My gaze was rooted to the papers in the folder and I flipped through them, reading every single word on every single page.
As soon as I got back to the hotel, I’d be Googling everything there was to Google about a trip to Paris. I only had one day to prepare, which seemed preposterous, but I supposed all the arrangements had already been made. All I had to do was pack my bags with some of my new clothes, hop on a plane, and be flown to fucking France.
No, but seriously. What the hell happened to my normal life?
I imagined walking over cobblestone streets with Dane by my side, and a small smile must’ve spread on my face. Rick poked me again, his gaze dropping to the folder as he obviously drew his own conclusions about what the smile had been about.
Thank God there’s no way he can know that it was about Dane as much as Paris. He grinned at me, clinking his beer against mine as he glanced back down at the papers.
“You’d better buckle up, sis. It looks like you’ve got one hell of a week ahead of you.”
A hint of a smile appeared on Dane’s lips, but he didn’t say anything. He simply lifted his chin and took another sip of his beer, but his eyes said it all.
They had that heat in them that made me think that I had a hell of a week ahead of me in more than one way. Professionally, it was going to be a rough one but personally? All I had to do was give him the go-ahead and I was pretty sure Dane would make sure this was a trip I would never, ever forget.
Chapter 16
DANE
Monday flew by. Rick and I had been up early so I could get him to the airport on time. Then I’d hit the office running. There was a ton of stuff