Page 55 of The Daddy’s Girl

And yet…I have shown Amelia all the good parts of myself. I have spent her entire life proving to her—and possibly myself—how good and perfect I could be.

Suddenly the truth hits me square in the chest, nearly knocking the breath from my lungs. I am speechless with the verity of it all.

I have set her up with impossible standards.

This might be the biggest barrier between us. Bigger than her being my goddaughter. Bigger than her father being my best friend. Bigger than the twenty-eight years that divide us.

What kind of man does this make me?

What have I done to this poor girl?

Rule #15: No one is perfect—except for the one man you can’t have.

Amelia

Paris is rarely ever quiet. During the day, it hums with life. Voices, cars, music, the Métro buzzing beneath our feet.

But tonight, past 2 a.m., it’s so quiet it feels breakable and delicate.

My arm is looped around Matis’s as we walk along the river toward the 16th. In the courtyard, I felt a shift within him. For some reason, me complimenting him on his perfection seemed to cause a disturbance in his mood, as if I had just told him something he’s never heard before.

Does he not see himself the way I do? Is that even possible?

For as long as I can remember, Matis has been nothing but kind and strong and wise. He literally shaped my standards for men without even knowing it.

And sexy. So goddamn sexy.

He smells delicious as I mold my body against his while we walk, slightly awkwardly with so little space between our legs. It’s moments like these that I forget Matis is twenty-eight years older than me. His hair might be graying, and his skin might wear some extra smile lines, but his soul is no older than mine.

We dream the same.

“I love this spot,” I murmur as we cross the Pont des Arts. He pauses at the top and turns us so we can stare down the Seine together. “I remember when this bridge used to be covered in locks. There was something so romantic about it, all those people professing their love for someone else.”

“I loved those too,” he replies. “But the bridge could not withstand the weight of that love.”

I remember that day, when they had to remove those thousands of locks, each inscribed with initials and names, so the structure didn’t collapse into the river. Now it’s a plain plexiglass wall to prohibit it happening again, and something about that makes me sad.

Softly, he whispers, “The world is truly romantic at heart.”

“Yeah…I guess it is.” Glancing up at him, I realize how much Matis has seen of Paris, three decades more than me, and I’m suddenly desperate to know it all. “What was your childhood like?”

Matis lets out a sigh as he stares downstream.

“When I think of my childhood, I think of my mother. I know we struggled and never had much money. There are distant memories of skipped dinners and Christmases without presents under the tree, but I have to try hard to remember those. What I truly recall is the way she made it all so magical. When I was hungry, she’d spend the last of her paycheck on my dinner but would skip her own, lying and saying she ate at work. She would wake me up in the middle of the night so we could watch the snow from the rooftop. She would take me dancing in the middle of Trocadero under the lights of the sparkling tower. Because that is the thing about Paris. It is the city of love. It’s meant to be enjoyed with someone you love.”

My eyes grow misty as I turn my gaze up toward him. Now would be a perfect time to tell him I love him. Not in a familial way either. In the real way.

He is the man who taught me about love. It begins and ends with him.

“That’s beautiful,” I whisper.

He gazes down at me, and the contact between us grows thick with tension—romantic tension. Surely, he feels it. He must.

This isn’t how a godfather looks at his goddaughter.

This is how a man looks at a woman.

And I’m screaming inside for him to kiss me. Take me into his arms and kiss me so passionately on this bridge that the cobblestones beneath our feet remember what it was like to bear the weight of so much love.