Red Hot Rebel - Olivia Hayle Page 0,34

I don’t want those girls to compare themselves to me.

I stand, brushing off a few leaves from my dress. “You got what you needed?”

“Yes.” He hands me my bag without question. “Time to switch your footwear.”

I hold on to his arm as I slide out of my strappy, heeled sandals and into my comfortable loafers.

Goodbye pinched feet, hello freedom.

“That’s something I wouldn’t be sad if humanity had never invented,” I say. “Heels.”

Rhys glances back at the people watching us. A few have snapped pictures, probably thinking that his equipment and my posing meant we might “be” someone. They’ll be disappointed when they realize we’re not.

“Smartphones,” he mutters.

I snort. “You’re very predictable sometimes.”

He looks at me like I’ve just insulted him gravely, and I can’t help it, I burst out laughing.

A reluctant smile tugs on his lips. “Predictable,” he mutters. “My family would have a collective aneurysm if they heard me described that way.”

“It hasn’t been your MO in the past?” I shoulder my bag and wave a little goodbye to the few people still watching us. Two of the girls wave back and turn around, giggling to one another.

“Not exactly. Wait…” He keeps a hand on my arm, the other reaching up to gently untangle a leaf from my hair. “I shouldn’t have made you lie down along that hedge.”

“It made for a good shot.” I say, speaking more to his Adam’s apple than him. The first few buttons in his shirt are undone, showing a slice of tanned skin.

It had been easy to forget the kiss while we worked. Well, forget might be too strong of a word. Push it to the side—keep myself from thinking about it, when all I had to do was focus on posing or looking at his camera, not at him.

But it’s just the two of us now, and no lens in between us.

He takes a step back. “Come on,” he says. “We have places to see, and Paris waits for no one.”

We grab a cab half of the way, and spend the rest of the time walking around the small streets in St. Germain. He takes me to a bookstore by Notre Dame, complete with two stories and a cat sleeping in one of the chairs.

“The best English bookstore in Paris,” he says. “It’s become a bit touristy these days, though.”

I look over at where he’s standing, having to duck his head to fit under a low beam. The shirt stretches over wide shoulders as he reaches for a book on a top shelf.

My mouth is dry when I speak, and I find myself having to clear my throat. “I saw you reading on the plane the other day.”

“Mhm.”

“Do you read a lot?”

“Well, I do run a small publishing house,” he says absent-mindedly, turning the paperback he’s holding over to read the back. “So yes. I’ve finished that one, though.”

I follow him, smiling, as he pays for his book and we head out. He shoves it in his back pocket. “Something for the flight later,” he says.

“It’s a long one.”

He nods, face shuttering. “I know.”

I don’t want him shutting down, though. “Have you ever been to Kenya?”

“Yes, but it’s been a while.”

“Have you been to every place we’re going to?”

The bastard actually needs to take a moment to think about it. “No,” he says, “but nearly.”

“This trip must be so boring for you.”

“Unbearably so,” he says, but he doesn’t look the least bit bored. “Tell me about your dancing.”

“My dancing?”

“You said the other day that you danced when you were younger. I want to hear about that.”

“You find that interesting?”

He raises an eyebrow in that enviable, maddening way only he seems to be able to. “Yes.”

We pass Notre Dame, the church closed for visitors, and I stop to take a picture. The reconstruction will go on for years. Somewhere to my left, people are speaking in a language I can’t place. Rhys might not like tourists, but I do.

They’re a reminder of all the places I’ve yet to see and can’t wait to go.

“I danced for nearly ten years,” I say. “From the age of six to sixteen. It was my passion—everything I did was centered on that. Getting as many hours in the studio as I could.”

“It shows,” he says. “When you dance.”

Perhaps it’s stupid for that to mean anything, but it does. Something in my chest lurches dangerously. The memory of his lips on mine resurfaces again. Before, under the bright Parisian sun, the kiss we’d shared at midnight felt like