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He wanted to be whole for Quinn, and that would mean shutting off the voices in his head that continued to berate him for what he had done. Quinn’s trust helped him see he didn’t need the scarred painting to remind him how deeply he had betrayed a woman.
That dark, needy, cheating part of himself was just that,part. Not all of him. And knowing that meant he understood its power. From the depths of his soul, and with clear and utter certainty, he knew he would never do it again.
Maybe now he could finally forgive himself.
Gil texted he was waiting outside, and Jonathan took the elevator down to meet him. On the ride, they bantered about last night’s baseball game, which he had mindlessly watched until Quinn texted from the hospital.
“Short detour, if you don’t mind,” he said, directing Gil to Delphine’s shop,De Paris Avec L’Amour.
“I’ll circle,” Gil said when they were half a block away. There would be less than a snowball’s chance in hell of finding a parking spot.
At the intersection, Jonathan hopped out and approached the wood-framed door underneath the black and white striped awning.From Paris With Love. A bell jangled as two women entered in front of him.
Inside, he paused and looked around. The first time he had come here was shortly after she opened, after their split, and she was doing something in the back. An employee had gone to get her but came right back to tell him she was Very Busy. The poor guy smiled so awkwardly, Jonathan got the message and left.
The shop was just as full of charm today as back then, with the aged herringbone floor and creative displays of small-producer wines, like the ones from her family’s vineyard, and other imported specialties—squat cans of pâté de canard, oak barrels of olives, jars of cassoulet, bags of dried truffles, bars of fine soaps.
She curated an amazing inventory. Her picnic baskets—rented by the hour, day, or Hamptons weekend—were legendary. Customers only had to tell her how many people and if they had any requests or allergies, and she would fill the basket with delicacies paired with just the right wine.
If you didn’t order by Monday afternoon, you couldn’t get a basket for the following weekend. New Yorkers could be hard to please, but she had hit on an ingenious service that propelled the shop’s success like rocket fuel.
He glanced across the narrow space, where a glass case by the register held shelves of croissants, pain au chocolat, and pastel macarons. Cheeses lived in a separate case on the other end of the shop to keep the strong smells away from the delicate baked goods.
A young woman worked behind the counter, making espresso for a couple seated at one of the two tiny bistro tables, all that fit in the brimming but small shop.
And there she was, coming out from the back, a big cellophane-wrapped basket blocking her view of him. He waited while she showed it to the customer and brought it to the register.
“Merci,” the woman said. “Good luck. The entire neighborhood will miss your little touch of Pahr-ee—I wish you didn’t have to close.”
“That is very kind of you,” Delphine replied in her flawless, slightly accented English. “It’s for the best. I have missed France. But I will also miss New York.”
The customer reached to hug her. As Delphine leaned in, she caught sight of him over the woman’s shoulder. Her eyes closed as if shutting him out.
When the woman turned to leave, he approached Delphine, her black hair cut in a smartly shaggy bob, her green eyes narrowing at breakneck speed from surprise to scowl. “What are you doing here?”
“You’re going back to France?”
Her look challenged.Who wants to know? “Yes. My father is not well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How long will you stay?”
Her eyes rounded in that familiar way that told him he must not be getting it. “I’m leaving New York. I’m goinghometo France.”
She looked around and lowered her voice. “I guess my father was right after all, wasn’t he? New York turned out to be a mistake.”
Jonathan was the mistake.
Against her father’s judgment, he had convinced her to start a new life here, with him. Although her family ran the vineyard, she had her own career as a school administrator, and she found a similar job in the city.
Until something bright and shiny had crossed Jonathan’s path.
His fuck-up not only cost their marriage, it cost her job at the chichi private school—“we need our staff to stay out ofanyfray,” the principal had told him when, without telling Delphine, he had tried to intervene so she could keep her job.
That’s when she had started the shop. And now she was giving it up to return home. It would be one more failure in her father’s eyes and, far worse, her own.
“You didn’t say why you’re here. I’m busy.”
“I . . . We . . . We never talked about it. It doesn’t have to be right now, but shouldn’t we?”
