it would be to get lost in the catacombs with the lights out.” Angela searched her gelato for more bits of toffee. “But I realized that you would be able to navigate just as well. Lights. No lights. Is it wrong to say that made me feel more at ease?”
“Are you claustrophobic?”
“No. Well, yes. A little. Only when my mind goes wandering. I was standing there thinking what we would do if the lights suddenly flickered and went off.”
Ryan grinned around his hazelnut gelato. “Flickered and went off, huh?”
“Mm hm.”
“Angela, you have the mind of an author.”
She shrugged past those words. “I was thinking how scary it would be to reach out to find your way and feel a skull. But then I remembered that you were with me. You can navigate anything, Ryan. I have so much respect for that.”
They were no longer talking about lights in the catacombs. Ryan had navigated the path of being sighted to going blind. He’d kept his joy, his humor in the face of insurmountable odds. “I’m really impressed with you. That’s what I’m trying to say.”
He grinned. “Impressed and you think I’m hot.”
She scoffed. “I never said you were hot. You said that.”
“You agreed.”
“I did not,” she countered. The sun shone down on them, throwing sparks off Ryan’s aviators. His elbow was propped on their small round table, and his spoon was about to drip onto his arm. Before she could stop herself, Angela reached over, grabbed Ryan’s hand, and dragged the spoon to her mouth. She licked the melting gelato.
Ryan, who’d been at ease, suddenly seemed as frozen as the statues at the Palace of Versailles. But not frozen in a bad way. Not frozen because of being horrified or even shocked. He simply went perfectly still as if he didn’t want to miss what was happening.
Angela blushed. Her hand was still wrapped around Ryan’s and she slowly loosened her grip on him. But he caught her hand before she could move away. There, with their gelato melting in tiny cups between them, Ryan slipped the spoon into his own mouth. Angela’s hand was trapped between his two and the moment took on a whole different feel—one that was far too intimate for a busy city sidewalk. Even in Paris.
“Mm,” he said, and let the word linger on his tongue. “I’ve been wanting to taste you.”
Ice cold gelato had done nothing to cool her off, Angela realized as she lay on her ornate bed staring up at the detailed ceiling and watching the lights of Paris at midnight flash shadows and highlights across her room.
Ryan. What to do about Ryan. It was too soon after her divorce to be involved with anyone. Then again, was it? She and Brice had been separated for months before the divorce was final.
Whether she liked it or not, her friendship with Ryan had morphed into something more. She felt it. She knew Ryan felt it. But oh my. What to do about it?
She punched her pillow and rolled for the hundredth time trying to find a comfortable spot on the heavenly bed.
Ryan. He was everything Brice wasn’t, and just the fact that she was comparing the two proved she wasn’t ready for a relationship. Then again, maybe it was too late. She and Ryan were in—well, something. Some inexplicable friendship—not exactly a full and hearty meal, but more like a kind of soup. That was it. Soup. Relationships were meat and potatoes. What she had with Ryan was thinner, less filling. Soup. Or maybe stew. Yes. She had Ryan stew. Angela had always loved stew.
Oh Lord. She really needed to get some sleep.
“You’re fidgeting again.”
Angela exhaled and drew her fidgeting fingers into fists. “She’s late.”
“Only by a few minutes,” Ryan-stew interjected.
They sat at the coffee shop across from their hotel as instructed by Olivia. Angela had chosen three different tables since they’d arrived, moving their drinks and bumping into other customers as she rearranged their seating. She’d finally settled on a table that overlooked the street where she could watch the main doors of the hotel in case Olivia went there instead.
Angela rested her elbow on the table and propped her chin on her upturned palm. “Where on earth is she?”
For the next two hours, she continued to ask that. One at a time, they’d taken turns leaving the table and going over to the hotel to pack. They’d leave the following morning, and right now, it looked as though they’d leave without seeing Olivia.