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He smiles, leaning in to kiss me. “You don’t have to thank me. I wanted to do it. I thought you’d like it.”
“I love it. This whole… this whole gesture is…” I shake my head, unable to find the words.
He doesn’t let me search for them for long. He cradles my face and pulls me in for a longer kiss this time. When he breaks it, he wraps his arms around me for a hug, and I can’t help noticing how perfectly I fit against his chest with my arms around him, too.
I can’t believe we’re embracing on a balcony in Paris. In front of the Palais Garnier, of all places.
There’s no contest. This is the most romantic moment of my life.
Chapter Thirty-two
Brynn
We get pastries for breakfast at a street café, then we head for the Champs-Élysées where we’re supposed to meet up with Dare and Aubrey.
We catch them coming out of a shop, Dare already carrying a Louis Vuitton shopping bag.
“Oh my god,” Aubrey says as soon as she sees me. “I’m going to spend so much money here.”
I laugh at her mix of horror and delight in realizing it. “Have you been here before?”
I should have been able to tell by the look of wide-eyed wonder on her face—I’m sure I have a matching one on mine—but she shakes her head. “No, this is our first time. It’s so beautiful. I’m obsessed with the architecture in this city.”
“Right? It’s so pretty,” I agree. “Even the stores we have back home feel so French here.”
“I love it,” she says on a sigh, then she points down the road. “Do you want to head that way? I want to see the Arc de Triomphe.”
“Me too, but I don’t want to drive around the circles of hell that seem to surround it. That seems scary.”
Dare wraps his arm around Aubrey’s waist as we fall into step beside each other on the sidewalk. “There’s a café on the corner with tables outside you can view it from,” he tells us. “We could stop there so you can get your pictures.”
“I wouldn’t say no to a coffee,” I say, glancing over at Killian.
He slides his arm around my waist. “We can head that way. We need to stop somewhere and get you a coat first, though.”
“I want to go to Chanel,” Aubrey states.
I’m excited to window shop, but the shops on this street are too high-end to casually buy a coat from, so I shake my head. “I’m fine in my sweater, honestly. Who cares if it’s a little chilly? We’re in Paris.”
We head that way so we can get our typical tourist pictures in front of the arch and have some coffee, but Aubrey is hungry, so they decide to order lunch, too. We order something to snack on while we’re there, and she eats quickly so we can get back to shopping.
She does, in fact, spend a lot of money. I’m tempted to, but I don’t have any, which makes it a little easier to agree about things being pretty but continue on my way empty-handed.
When we get back to shopping after seeing the Arc de Triomphe, Killian tells me to pick out a coat so I don’t freeze to death tonight when it cools down even more. When I continue to refuse, he says, “Fine, I’ll pick one myself.”
But he picks more than a coat. He grabs dresses for me to try on, too, then he sends me to the dressing room to model them for him.
I don’t hate it, honestly.
It feels good to come out in the pretty dresses he picked for me, to turn and spin like I did on the faux-runway last night, but for a much-preferred audience of one.
He enjoys watching me, too. I can see it in his eyes.
“I like that one,” he decides when I’m trying on the third dress, a white fitted gown that clings and drapes in all the right places.
“So do I,” I say with a smile, looking at it in the mirror. “I do not like the price tag, though, and it’s a bit fancy.”
“You need a dress for tonight. We’ll get that one.”
