Blame It On Paris

realize I'm prying, but come on. what possible difference could it make if you tell me? I'm not telling a soul. You can get it off your chest. No one'll ever know.'

'There's nothing to get off my chest.'

'Fine.' she said. 'Be a martyr.'

The waiter returned to pour more wine. He took one look at Will's face and brought another liter. 'Did I know before sleeping with you that you could be a complete pain in the butt?'

He thought it was a pretty good insult, but she only chuckled. 'Hey, I'd have 'fessed up to being a pain in the butt if you'd just asked. But it's okay. You can keep your secrets. I was just thinking of all the reasons why you might not want to go home. A warrant out for your arrest. Like for a murder rap. Or drugs-'

'Oh, for Pete's sake. It's nothing like that.' He reached for the bread at the same time she did. Naturally the bread was fresh out of the oven, still warm, still wonderful. But every other woman he knew fretted whether stuff like bread went straight to their thighs. Kelly inhaled it faster than he did.

'My dad and I don't get along. Think of two quarterbacks from opposing teams,' he said finally.

'Opposing quarterbacks play together every Saturday,' she noted. 'And you already told me that you and your dad have a really conflicted relationship. But it's still a stretch from not being close to feeling you have to live a whole continent away.'

Hell. It went on. Past the bread and salad. Past a liter and a half of wine. Past the filet mignon, and then, when she saw the pastry tray, past watching her salivate as she made her choice.

Correct that. Choices.

'I've got three sisters. No brothers. So I'm the only male. My dad started Maguire's, built it into a monster-size corporation. But now he wants to retire, and he wants to do it by my taking it on.'

'But pretty obviously you didn't want to, so you told him no.'

'I've been telling him no since I was old enough to talk. He's heard it. He doesn't give a damn. Aaron Maguire wants me to do what he wants me to do.' Will pushed away the plates, went for the demitasse. 'And back when I was a boy. I really cared. I did everything but stand on my head to win his approval, his respect.'

'But it was impossible?' she asked gently.

'Oh no. I got it just fine. As long as I do exactly what he wants, everything's always been hunky-dory. And that's the point. He doesn't just want me to run the company. He wants me to do it his way. Eighty-hour workweeks. Him involved in all the decisions. And then there are my sisters.'

'Your sisters work at the company, too?'

'No. That's exactly the point. They don't. They want to live in the style he's let them become accustomed to. Lots of money, no responsibility. Bail them out whenever they lift a finger or run up a credit card bill or want a trip to Goa.'

He wished she would look at him with a little more sympathy. Instead she kept asking more questions. 'So you told your dad how you felt about that, too.'

'I've talked to him about all this fifty ways from Sunday. I also always met him more than hallway- like going to Notre Dame because he wanted me to. That was a smooth stretch, but the minute I graduated, the pressure started up again about my coming into the company with him. He wouldn't give up. He won't give up. And I just plain got tired of fighting all the time.'

She fell silent, which was damned scary. She never shut up if given the opportunity to talk. By then she'd finished three desserts-three-explaining that they were pastries, after all. and she was only in France for a short time, and anyway, she couldn't help herself.

He found the crumb of Napoleon at the corner of her mouth and grinned. She just did everything so two hundred percent. And he was bringing her back here tomorrow, if he had anything to say about it. In the meantime, she claimed he'd have to carry her out of the place, because she was that stuffed.

He drove them back to his place, but then, instead of going in, he suggested taking a stroll down the boulevard. It was midnight by then. He had to work tomorrow, he knew. But it was a starry night, and even though she'd nagged him into talking about stuff he really didn't appreciate, he still didn't want the evening to end.

'A walk sounds good,' she agreed.

So he wrapped his jacket around her shoulders and stuffed his hands into his pockets. They walked, hip to hip, working off dinner, doing a boulevard loop.

Finally, when they were almost back to his place, he said, 'All right. Spill it out. I can't take much more quiet.'

She obviously caught the long-suffering teasing tone in his voice, because she chuckled and deliberately bumped hips with him.

Then she answered. 'I think you need to find a way to solve this problem with your dad. Because you're an American, for heaven's sake. You can't want to give up your country.'

'Hey, I'm not. I wouldn't. I never said I was going to do anything like that.'

'Okay. But then it means that you intend to come home, not live here forever. And that means you have to find a resolution with your dad.'

There was a reason he never talked about this. With anyone. He was a grown man, had been for a long, long time. When you were a kid, talking about problems sometimes helped. But when you were an adult, talking often simply meant giving someone else the power to interfere. And somehow it thorned even deeper because Kelly seemed to think he needed to be interfered with.

'For now, this has to be the resolution. Moving a serious distance away was the only way to stop the constant war with him. I didn't want my mom upset all the time. And I won't and can't live the life my father insists on.'

She said firmly. 'And that would be fine, if living here was working for you. but it isn't. You're camping out here. You can't commit to a relationship, get married, have kids, set up house-not if you really don't want to stay here. So you've set yourself up in limbo. It sucks.'

'Hey. It's not exactly a hardship to live in Paris,' he said drily.

'It wouldn't be. Except that in the meantime, you don't get to see your family. Your sisters, your parents and friends. All the people and things you loved. How much pressure could your father possibly put on you?'

He said flat out. 'Twenty million bucks' worth of pressure. Not counting compound interest and a few spare assets here and there.'

Finally, something that took that wind out of her sails. 'Whew. Okay. I have to admit that's some fair-size pressure.' He heard her take a big, long breath. 'But even so, that's just about some stupid money. It's not about anything that matters.'

They seemed to be back at his front door. In the shadowed arch, he dug out his key. While she waited, Ms. Hardcore-Idealist lifted her head, taking the moment to smell the fresh spring leaves, to savor the crescent moon cradled in a wisp of clouds. She was relaxed and happy, now that she'd scratched all his emotional allergies.

'Did anyone ever tell you,' he said, 'that maybe it's easier to give advice when you've never had to walk in their shoes?'

'Oh, yes. Lots of times. I've ticked off reams of people with my nosiness and my opinions. Zillions. Hordes. Trust me, I've just irritated you this time. If I really got going, I could probably tick you off enough to throw me out forever-'

There seemed only one way to shut this down.

He moved her against the old brick, in the shadow of the doorway. When her head shot up-mouth still open, of course-she stilled, just for a second, when she saw his eyes.

Then he bent down and took her mouth. Feasted on it. more like. For a kiss that was clearly intended to communicate some annoyance and impatience and maybe even a little temper, it somehow turned out wrong.

It turned out tender.

Damnably tender.

She looped her arms around his neck, closed her eyes and sank into him on a sigh.

He couldn't understand it. One minute he was ticked off at her. The next, she was his whole world. Times ten. He couldn't kiss enough, taste enough, touch enough.

He fumbled with the key, groped to turn it, not severing the connection to her mouth for even a second. The door finally creaked open, then crashed against the far wall. He kissed her in, kicked the door shut, kissed her down the hall, kissed her into the velvet shadows of the bedroom, kissed her as he started peeling off layers of clothes.