Le sigh.
Le big, heavy, kick-my-toe-against-the-ground sigh. “Fine. You’re not a model, I’m not Judy, and we’re not going to explore together, since we can’t shag.”
He heaves a sigh, too. “Yeah, I suppose that’s how it has to be.”
That’s for the best, surely. I didn’t come to France looking for a no-strings-attached fling. In fact, I’m probably better off focusing squarely on my new job, my new home, and my new life. But, for a few seconds there, I was enjoying the possibility of a little tryst. Of getting lost in something that felt like the opposite of guilt, the opposite of too much attachment. Something that felt only good.
Perhaps I was looking for an antidote to my ex and I didn’t even realize it.
A pill of bliss. A drink of pure desire.
It’s been so long since I experienced that pull with someone. After more than a year together, the spark between Richard and me had faded, and before he’d been injured, I’d been ready to rip the Band-Aid off. We were drifting, two magnets stripped of their charge.
Then he had his accident.
I cringe inside, my stomach twisting at the memories—the harsh, cruel memories of how everything changed. How I stayed longer than I intended.
Now, everything has changed for me once again.
Time to zero in on why I’m here in France. I have a brand-new chance in my career. I’ve been given a great gift with this job, and the fresh opportunity to succeed in my field. I can’t afford a distraction like a tall, sexy British man who’d kiss me senseless, knock the breath from my lungs, and then take me hard by the terrace window, all of Paris at my feet as he pleasured me.
Whoa.
Talk about getting ahead of myself.
I wipe the triple-X version of this man from my mind.
My brain is pure as the driven snow again.
“Let’s just start fresh.” I hold out a hand. “I’m Joy Danvers-Lively. It’s a mouthful, and it’s taken me years, but I’ve finally found it in me to forgive my parents for saddling me with their last names hyphenated. So cruel, don’t you think? They each kept their last names, but made that double clunker my problem.”
“It is a lovely name, all three words,” Griffin says with a smile as the waiter brings a little slip of paper.
I point to the bill. “I can get it. Expense account and all.”
Griffin shakes his head, snatches the receipt, and says, “It’ll be our first and only date it seems, so at the very least, I ought to be a gentleman.”
First and only. My heart drops a little at the stark truth, even though I know it has to be this way.
He grabs a few euros from his wallet, leaves them on the table, and rises. As he stands he extends his hand. “Griffin Thomas.”
We shake. I’ll admit, I want to yank him close and kiss the hell out of that handsome face. But I’m going to be good. This man is about to become my voice, and I can’t take a chance. The job is too important, the chance to carve out a new life too valuable. I don’t want to risk it by doing something foolish like boinking the person I’m supposed to spend so much time with.
“And it’s not even a quintessentially British name,” he says as we weave away from the tables and to the sidewalk.
“Yes, Griffin Thomas does in fact sound more like a male model’s moniker.”
He tuts. “Don’t be silly, Joy. If I were a male model, my name would be something ripped straight from a list of macho and sexy names.” He takes a beat as we reach the corner of the cobbled street. “I’d be Blaze.”
I crack up. When I catch my breath, I say, “You’ve clearly given this some thought.”
“You haven’t?” He adopts the most serious look. “Don’t you think that would be a fantastic name for a model? Blaze Dalton. Admit it, if that were my name, I’d have no choice but to be a model.” Demonstrating, he gives a smoldering look as we turn onto the side street, passing a sundial on the side of a building. “A male model.”
“Blaze Dalton, Male Model, PI,” I say, like a TV announcer. “They’d make a TV show about you. You’d solve crimes, and you’d probably even be a nurse, too. Blaze Dalton, Male Model, PI, Moonlighting Nurse.”
“For when you need a crime solved and a bandage to go along with it.”
“Where are you from, Archie Blaze Dalton Thomas the Translator Male Model with a first aid kit?”
He chuckles, as we stroll past old buildings with names on the buzzers like Mercier, Bernard, and Dubois, heading toward my furnished flat. “I grew up outside London. French mother, English father, bilingual in French and English since I was little. My parents still live outside London.”
“Are you close with them?”
He nods. “I text them often, and ring them once or twice a week.”
“You are a good son.”
“I try. And what about you? Where are you from?”
“Born and raised in Austin. Went to school in San Francisco. Worked long and hard not to have a Texas accent.”
“Why?”
I nudge him with my elbow. “I didn’t want people to stereotype me. To say I had a Texas drawl or what have you.”
“You don’t really have a Texas drawl,” he says, in a perfect imitation of a standard American accent. It’s hilarious to hear him slide from his sophisticated voice to one I’m so accustomed to.
And yet, I’ve had enough of men from there.
“Never speak like that again,” I tell him.
He laughs. “I’ll stick to Archie talk.”
“You do that.”
We navigate a stretch of sidewalk that’s perhaps two feet across, and it delights me. The streets here are so different from the wide concrete ribbons back
