I take a minute to think, and Tony lets me go, watching me as I go to the window and take in the view again. He won’t pressure me, I know, he’s giving me all the time I need.
He turns to go to the kitchen again, to make some more coffee I imagine, maybe order some more food, but I already know what I want.
“Tony?” I ask, a tremor in my voice as he spins to catch my gaze. “Don’t think I wouldn’t… don’t think I won’t… not for a second.” I tell him, and he rushes to catch me in his arms as I hurl myself at him.
“I only want this,” I tell him. “I only want you, anytime, anywhere.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Tony
I hold her, but like every other time, it’s never for long enough. I want to be fused to her somehow, so we can be conjoined forever.
The door chimes and I know it's the hotel stationary, plus some breakfast, if they know me any better which I’m happy to see they do.
I tell the concierge to drop Max’s car back, that we’ll be leaving for the airport after breakfast, and if he wouldn’t mind putting a call through to the pilot to have him call me.
“Oh!” I add, holding him back just a minute longer, using the stationary to address and stamp the autographed photo before handing it to him, asking him to post it.
Ashlee looks at me in awe.
“They treat me like a bratty teenager here, but put up with me,” I remark, smiling at the concierge.
“The service is excellent, more like family,” I tell her, closing the door and making my way back to her before I think about anything else.
My luggage is my passport, phone and credit card. Ashlee has her bag and within a few hours, we’re zooming over the Atlantic, headed for Paris.
“We should make it in time for dinner,” I tell her, watching her look out the window of the plane, glancing over to me only to open her eyes wider with excitement before looking out again.
She hasn’t stopped smiling since we left the hotel.
Let’s see if we can’t keep her smiling forever. That sounds like a plan.
It’s a ten hour flight, so I catch up with Max by email to finalize things for me on his end. I think I will stay in Paris for as long as I can, asking Max to see about a visa for Ashlee too.
He knows people.
Max always makes things happen. Good things.
Once business is taken care of, and I can’t stand being so far away from her a minute longer, I invite Ashlee into my seat with me. Huge, leather things, more like sofas than airline seats.
She feels so much better with each mile between us and the states.
A new life, that’s what I’m thinking, but not too soon I hope?
“You haven’t changed things just for me, have you?” Ashlee asks, looking up at me with clear eyes, finding a mat of my chest hair through my shirt and teasing her fingers into it.
“I’ve changed everything for you… for us.” I tell her flatly, then smile.
“My life started yesterday, Ashlee… when you walked into it. The only changes are to keep it that way.”
I see her eyes misting up, clutching at me, but it’s the truth.
“It’s only been one day so far, and I know it’s been a hell of a ride but I want this everyday. With you Ashlee,” I tell her.
She looks thoughtful, then nervous.
“Are you going to work in Paris?” she asks me quickly, changing the subject.
“No.” I tell her quickly, rubbing her arm with mine around her shoulder.
“I want the next few days to be just all about us. I do have plans, maybe… for work I mean, but not right now.”
I’ve always wanted to start my own production company, direct my own movies. God knows I’ve spent enough time in front of the camera as well as behind the scenes. It’s not what you know in this business but who you know.
I think it can work, and I already have a leading lady in mind.
The thought of her on the big screen, her smooth skin and huge blue eyes… those hips.
I shiver a breath in, then think, who would play her leading man?
Fuck!
I’d have to act in the films too, no way am I letting any other punk near my woman.
“Tony?”
“Tony?” she’s snapping her fingers in front of my eyes. I focus on her again, creasing a smile.
“Miles away,” I exhale, drawing her closer, feeling her shiver a little too and wondering if it’s just the cabin temperature, or what I think she must sense coming on this trip.
With me, us.
Our life together from now on.
“As long as I don’t have to tear you away from autograph hungry secretaries,” she muses, teasing me but I can still see the thought of it in her eyes as she bites her lip.
How can I show her, how can I make her understand?
“That’s what I’m getting at Ashlee. I don’t want us to have to tear each other away from anything, I want it to be us… all the time. Every day,”
Dammit!
I’m a trained actor. I can laugh, cry or be deadpan on command… but I can’t stop the emotion from showing in my voice, the goosebumps from swarming my body when I feel what I have to ask her, what I have to know now.
I hear her take a sharp breath in, flushing red and both her hands reaching for mine, the silver line of her own tears; the tremble in her sweet lips urging me forward.
“Say yes,” is all I can manage at first. Taking another breath and her hands in mine before kissing them both and asking her properly.
“Say you’ll be my wife, Ashlee, that I can have and hold you like this every day for the rest of our lives. Say yes and I can rest easy, never having
