said. “He’s about to retire. He has nothing to lose.”
“All right, I can see where that makes sense, but Bill?” I shook my head. It couldn’t be. Then again, I hadn’t proved to be such a stellar judge of character, now had I? “I give your theory a solid maybe.”
“I’ll take it. More importantly, what should we do now that your evening is free?”
“Climb into bed and pretend today never happened.”
“Non non,” he protested in a perfect French accent, which made me smile. “Look at you. You’re stunning. You can’t go hide in your room. You need to get back on the saddle.”
“Ugh, why is it always a saddle? Saddles bruise your butt bones. Why can’t it be ‘you need to get back in the bubble bath, little lady’?”
He laughed. “Have it your way, but you and me are going out on the town.”
“What? But I’m not—” I was going to say I wasn’t dressed, but that was clearly not the case.
“Exactly,” he said. He rose to his feet. “Sit here and enjoy your wine. I’m going to change, and then we are hitting the City of Light, baby.”
Oh boy.
chapter eighteen
HIS SUIT MIGHT not have been French, but it fit the man spectacularly. Navy blue, it conformed to his broad shoulders and tapered down to his narrow waist. He wore a white dress shirt beneath it, no tie, matching navy slacks, and dark-brown dress shoes—no Converse sneakers. Shocker! Then again, since he’d rushed here to take my place at the dinner with Severin, it made sense that he’d brought his most professional attire.
Truly, the man looked divine. I supposed he’d always been this handsome, even back when I detested him, but now I knew him outside the office and could appreciate that there was more to Jason Knightley than I’d previously acknowledged.
I watched him walk across the patio toward me and felt my spirits lift. I was in Paris, and I had a handsome and, more importantly, nice man to escort me about town. Really, what more could a girl want?
Well, not to have been made a complete fool of, but at least I’d gotten out before I found myself in an untenable situation. And I’d had the great satisfaction of dousing Jean Claude in champagne. That helped.
“Okay, you were smiling, and then your expression slid into a deep dark frown. What happened between me standing over there and arriving here?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Please.” He shook his head. “Your WTF line is so deep”—he paused to gently poke the skin between my eyebrows—“I could go rappelling in there.”
I immediately stopped frowning. “Better?”
“Much,” he said. He held out a hand and helped me to my feet. “Come on—we’re running short on time.”
“I thought we had all night,” I said.
“Not for our first event,” he said. “In fact, we are cutting it very, very close.”
He had already paid the bill, and we hurried from the brasserie with Jason keeping my hand in his. He got to the curb, raised his free hand to his mouth, and let out a piercing whistle. A taxi appeared as if out of nowhere. Jason opened the door and none too gently pushed me in.
“Eiffel Tower, s’il vous plaît,” he said.
“Oh, that’s a great idea,” I said. “But we need tickets to go up, and I doubt there are any available.”
He pulled two tickets out of his suit pocket. My eyes went wide. “What?”
“The couple who had the apartment before me had to leave town unexpectedly. They left the tickets with Zoe, and she offered them to me, for a price, when I rented the place. I had thought I’d be going alone, but then you appeared.” He glanced at the time-stamped ticket. “Plus, we get champagne at the bar on the top.”
“Drunk on the Eiffel Tower,” I said. “This night is looking up.”
“Attagirl,” he said. He glanced out the window, tracking our progress.
I could see the tower in the distance; we were getting closer. I felt my nerves wind up and my anxiety spike. I’d never been very good at cutting appointments close. What if we didn’t make it? It would be a waste of tickets. We’d miss out. I’d never wanted to be on top of the tower, drinking champagne, as much as I did right now.
“Hey.” Jason grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t worry—we’ve got this.”
There he was. The guy who never worried about anything and was totally cool with winging it. He always assumed everything was going to work