Page 93 of Worth Every Penny
Her lips hover millimeters from mine. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I gently take her elbow. “Come on. Let’s go and meet the great man himself.”
By the time Kate has finished chatting to Stephen Condar like he’s a long-lost friend, she’s had three glasses of champagne and is grinning like an idiot.
“I’m starving,” she announces, approaching me where I’m waiting near the entrance. She reaches up on her tiptoes and kisses me. I could get used to these frequent kisses. Her lips are soft and taste sweet from the alcohol. “Let’s get some food.”
“I’m taking you home for a shower. We’ll call for takeout. What do you want to eat?”
“Hmm. Takeout in Paris? You spoil me. I’m in the mood for…” She puckers her lips, her gaze directed to the upper left corner of the room. When she looks back at me, her eyes are glinting as if she’s up to no good. “Seabass.”
I fix a stern expression on my face. “I thought you didn’t eat fish?”
“I lied. I love fish. Seabass is still my favourite.”
I open my mouth wide in mock outrage, but the way she’s looking at me, that cute teasing grin, undoes me. I smile like a love-sick idiot. Before I can suggest that we should find her some seabass, she sticks her tongue out and dashes out of the door, disappearing into the peppery dusk of a summer’s evening. The little bell overhead tinkles to signal her exit.
What the fuck?
I chase after her. She’s running down the narrow cobbled street ahead of me, zig-zagging in and out of shadows, glancing over her shoulder to check I’m following. She’s giggling, and if I weren’t dangerously close to falling in love with her, this behavior would annoy the fuck out of me.
As it is, I’m completely entranced and find myself sprinting to catch up, heat firing through my pumping muscles, the thick, balmy heat of the Paris evening clinging to my skin like heavy perfume.
Kate takes a turn into a square we passed through earlier, me close behind. The cafes are closed now and there’s no one around.
“Where are you going?” I shout.
“For a shower.”
She skids to a halt in the middle of the square, where a large circular stone fountain sits. Three dolphins spout water from pouted mouths. Kate sticks her hand into the stream.
As I approach, she flicks the water at me and I duck, hands raised to stop the droplets landing. “Stop! What are you doing?”
She gives me a huge grin, kicks off her shoes, lifts up her skirt and steps into the fountain. I can’t take my eyes off her. She’s magnetic. Joy shines out of her like rays of fucking sunlight.
I prop my hands on my hips. “This is unsanitary. Get out.” I hold out my hand to help her out, but she ignores me and begins paddling around as if it’s a totally normal thing to do. Water soaks her dress; the fabric sticking to the outline of her thighs.
She’s fucking irresistible. So sexy, even when she isn’t trying.
“Kiss me first,” she demands.
I roll my eyes but lean towards her anyway. She keeps shifting out of reach until my shins are knocking against the low stone wall, my upper body teetering forward.
She relents and lets me kiss her. Our foreheads come together. We’re both breathing a little heavily from the exertion of running through the streets.
She pulls away. “You like me.”
“Yes.”
Something softens in her eyes. “It’s more than that. You actually care about me.”
“Took you three glasses of champagne to work that one out?”
Her hand slides around the back of my neck, and she pulls me closer again. “No. It’s not the champagne. It’s that you just ranthrough the streets of Paris and jumped in a fountain to be with me.”
Jumped in a fountain?“No, I didn’t.”
Full lips split to reveal Kate’s white-toothed smile, and she leaps up, her entire body weight hanging from her linked arms at the back of my neck.