AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’m not ready to deal with the silence just yet.
So all I say is, “Stay.”
17
ALYSSA
“Paris is overrated.”
I roll my eyes. “It is not overrated. Everybody has just gotten so jaded about everything. They can’t just enjoy things for what they are. They have to assign values to things and places and people and it sucks out the fun of just, like, being in the moment. Letting yourself experience a place without the tags people have forced on them.”
Uri snorts as I climb down off my metaphorical soapbox. “I think you’ve had enough wine,” he remarks.
He makes a show of reaching for my glass. I snatch it before he can and hold it out of his reach.
“I’m serious. Paris is the city of love, right? There’s this expectation of romance, magic, mystique. But the first time I went to Paris was after a breakup. I was sad and lonely and I even tried to put off the trip because my boyfriend was supposed to come with me and I didn’t really want to go on my own.”
“Let me guess: you had a midnight in Paris moment and you started to change your perspective.”
I scowl. “Do you always make a habit of interrupting other people’s stories with your cynicism?”
He smiles. “A thousand apologies. Continue.”
“No, you ruined it.”
He chuckles. “I was right, wasn’t I?”
I groan noisily. “You weren’t wrong, per se. I walked the Pont des Arts. I ate croissants and pain au chocolate and stood in line for a cup of hot chocolate that changed my life. I walked through a Parisian park and met this group of old men playing chess under the trees. And what I realized was, itwasmagical. Itwasromantic. I didn’t need a boyfriend. I just needed to embrace the experience.”
“How very poetic.”
“It figures you’d be one of the jaded ones.”
“I’m not jaded.” He shrugs. “I just see things for what they are. Paris is a city just like any other city. It smells like piss, simmers with unrest, and hides pickpockets round every corner. Sure, they make a good hot chocolate—but I can make you the same one right here, right now. And you don’t have to stand in line for it.”
“I just have to stay in this basement for God knows how long?”
“Until otherwise noted.” He picks up the bottle of wine and tops up my glass. “At least there’s good booze.”
I lift my wine glass and hide behind it for a second. The last couple of hours have flown by. It’s annoying how easy it is to talk to him. Not that we’ve spoken about anything overly personal, but then again, isn’t everything personal in one way or another?
“Getting me drunk is not gonna make me forget anything, Uri.”
His eyes connect with mine for a moment, but he looks away just as quickly. Contrary to what Uri seems to think, the alcohol hasn’t made me goofy or wiped my memory—it’s relaxed me. It’s made me feel like sitting down to dinner with my captor is totally normal. Charming, even.
But I can’t help wondering how many other women have experienced this very same thing in this very same basement. How is he getting away with this?
It can’t be just because he’s handsome and charming, can it? No, that’s too simplistic an answer. Maybe it has more to do with the women he chooses. Maybe I’m here not because I chose to scale a fence to retrieve my package, but because he looked into my soul during our first dinner and saw the loneliness inside me. He saw that I was lost; he saw that I was broken. He saw that I needed to lose myself in something else in order to survive.
That was another thing that the therapist said to me in those hazy, miserable post-Ziva days.You like immersing yourself in experiences and people to avoid your own issues.
Of course, I told her that I had no issues to avoid and stormed out.
Maybe that should have been my first clue that she was right.
Laughter bursts through my lips unexpectedly, taking even me by surprise. Uri watches me carefully, not saying a word until after it’s subsided.
“What’s so funny?”
