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We say goodbye to Day and Aaron, and with his arm firmly wrapped around my waist, Ty leads me toward the Seine. There’s a chill in the air, a crisp, almost bitter chill. It makes me curl in closer to him for the warmth I know his body can provide me.
He obliges, his grip tightening as I move closer. Neither of us says a word as we approach the river. Neither of us needs to say anything. It’s a comfortable silence. One that could transcend time, binding us together in a way I can’t possibly conceive of right now.
It’s a silence that says all the right things at all the right moments.
And I apparently need to pause on the wine for a while… Or maybe not. Maybe the magic of Paris is casting itself over me. Or I watched way too much Peter Pan as a kid and still have a misplaced belief in fairies.
I sigh.
“What’s up?” Ty asks, his breath fanning across my cheek. Warm, ahhh.
“Just thinking. Too much.” I frown. “Way too much.”
He laughs. “Let’s get you food. And I demand you stop thinking.”
I raise my eyebrows. “D’you see a bed, mister? Nope. Me neither. Shove your demands.”
“Shove them where?” he hums against my neck.
“Up your ass. Up my ass. I don’t particularly care right now.”
His lips curve. “Yes. You need food, babe.”
He hands two tickets to the girl behind the glass and whisks me off toward a boat. Oh, it’s a nice boat. I’m not a boat fan, but the wood piping and classy interior has me swooning. Tyler leads me onto it, holding my waist the whole time.
The top of the boat is open, ready for tourists to sit on and stare at the city as the boat travels along the Seine. For a moment, I believe that’s where we’re going until Ty stops to talk to the host and he waves his hand.
He leads us to the back of the boat. His hands part two curtains, and with a nod, Tyler guides me behind them.
A whole section of the boat to ourselves.
Hot damn. What is he planning?
My butt has barely touched the seat when he orders for us both in fluent French. I stop and stare at him in disbelief. He can speak French?
“I spent a lot of time here while my parents were setting up their hotels,” he explains, answering my unsaid question. “Speaking French seemed…natural.”
“I can barely speak English.” And that’s true. Sometimes I forget how to speak my own language.
Ty smirks. “I lived in London for most of my life. France is a stone’s throw away from England. It’s not like you growing up in Seattle, where your closest ‘foreign’ language is French Canadian.”
“Most of your life? Where else did you live?”
A waiter enters with a bottle of rose wine and two glasses. He pours a little in one glass and asks Tyler to taste it. He does, nods, and the waiter pours two glasses before disappearing. I grasp the stem of mine and lean forward.
“We lived in the US for a few years. My parents were ready to expand over there when Uncle Brandon—Aaron’s dad—went international with his business. Mum had been considering it for a while, but Dad really pushed her into the leap.”
“How long did you live there for?”
“About three years. We lived in New York. It was my parents’ central base for the restaurant and hotel business. I sometimes wonder if they would have been as successful if it weren’t for my aunt and uncle, but then I think the same for the other way around.” He shrugs a shoulder.
“And you really never wanted to take it over? The business?”
He shakes his head. “Tessa is my twin, so it would have always been a fifty-fifty stake. I just… I don’t care. That makes me sound like a right twat, but I don’t. It’s not interesting to me. I refuse to do something just because it’s expected. I’m not my sister or my cousin.”
I run my finger around the top of my glass. “I respect that.”
“Really? Most people think I’m a fucking idiot.”
