“A very good idea.” She smiled broadly at him. They were off and running with eight weeks to plan a pink wedding.
* * *
—
Olivia got everything in order before she left New York in mid-April. Jean-Pierre was expecting her, and he was picking her up at the Ritz for dinner on the day she arrived. She was eager to see him. She hadn’t stopped since she left Paris, and she was looking forward to setting up their office space at his father’s gallery on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Jean-Pierre said he had a lot of plans to discuss with her over dinner.
She was at the Ritz by noon, had a quick lunch in her room, went through her emails, swam in the pool afterwards, and then had an appointment at the spa for a massage. She was back in her room at four o’clock. A vase with two dozen red roses was waiting for her in the room, with a card. “Welcome to Paris. À ce soir. Jean-Pierre.” Until tonight. She smiled when she read it.
She went back to answering emails, and at six-thirty she bathed and dressed carefully for dinner. She wore a short black skirt, which showed off her legs, a white Chanel jacket, and towering high heels. Her red hair was like a beacon and lit up her face and green eyes.
She was outside promptly at eight o’clock, and two minutes later, he pulled up in a sleek black Ferrari. He looked incredibly handsome, even more than she remembered, and very racy in the sports car. “It’s my father’s,” he confessed as they pulled away from the hotel, and she liked that he admitted it. “He let me borrow it for the night to impress you.” There was an innocence and unpretentiousness about him that she loved. She thanked him for the flowers, and they started talking immediately as though they had seen each other the day before. They had spoken constantly since she left, but there was an ease about their relationship and their meshing of ideas that made it feel as though they had known each other forever. They were friends and business associates now, and the same unspoken question hung between them that had been there before.
They had dinner at a chic bistro in the Seventh, Le Voltaire, which had been there forever, and when they got in his father’s Ferrari again afterwards, he finally addressed the question. She had been wondering if he would ask her.
“You were going to take care of something after you left Paris. I believe it had to do with the husband of the woman we met at Castel, at the party.” She knew exactly what he meant, and he remembered the circumstances perfectly, as well as her explanation at the time.
“I remember,” she said simply.
“Did you take care of it?” His eyes met hers when he asked her. He had waited three weeks to see her again and hear the answer.
“Yes, I did,” she said, thinking of herself telling Paul all the reasons why she had decided that being with him was a mistake, and how angry he had been at her. Jean-Pierre smiled at her response and looked pleased.
“If you didn’t, you know that my father’s car would have turned into a pumpkin and we would become white mice,” he said, and she laughed as they took off and headed toward the Right Bank in the splendor of a moonlit Paris night with the Seine beneath the bridge and Notre Dame in the background. She was surprised when he took a right turn on the Right Bank and drove her close to Notre Dame, and then parked nearby. The moon was almost full overhead. “Do you want to walk for a few minutes?” She nodded and they got out of the car and wandered close to the magnificent church. The scene looked like a postcard of Paris.
He took her hand, and they walked along the street and stood in the shadow of the church. He kissed her, as though he had always meant to, and she had expected it. He wanted the first time he kissed her to be somewhere that they would both remember. He wanted this to be different, for both of them, and had felt that way about her since the first time he saw her in New York, as though she would always be in his life from then on.
“I want us to always remember this,” he said softly, and kissed her again, and then they both saw a bouquet of white balloons flying high overhead toward the stars. “It’s a sign,” he whispered, and she smiled at him, and then she laughed and he looked surprised. “What are you laughing at?”
“I was just thinking how pissed off your father would have been if I hadn’t taken care of things when I went back, and we had to give him back a pumpkin tonight instead of his Ferrari.” Jean-Pierre laughed. She looked happy and full of mischief.
“You’re a terrible person,” he said. It felt good to both of them to be young and happy, in Paris, carefree, and in love. Olivia knew then that he was the one she’d been waiting for, and had freed herself for. Jean-Pierre had known it from the moment they met.
Chapter 15
Olivia stayed in Paris as long as she could before her grandmother’s show at the MoMA. She and Jean-Pierre spent every day together setting up the Paris branch of her business, getting their new office in order, and training their new assistant to work with the technology they used. And after being there for five weeks, she told Jean-Pierre she had to go home.
They had gone to Saint-Tropez for their first weekend together, and stayed at a house Jean-Pierre borrowed from a friend. It was beautiful and peaceful out of season there, they walked along the narrow streets and sat at outdoor cafés along the quay, as they got to know each other. Their lovemaking was gentle and loving. He spent a few nights at the Ritz with her, and she stayed at his apartment. They were discovering each other, their histories, their fears, their dreams and goals, and they were happy together. Their joy from being in each other’s lives, and how well suited they were, was obvious to everyone who saw them.
Jean-Pierre’s father commented on it, and was pleased to see his son with a lovely young woman. He hoped their relationship would last forever, and said so to his son.
“I’m working on it,” Jean-Pierre said with a twinkle in his eye that his father had never seen before.
Olivia reminded him that she had to go to New York for her grandmother’s show at the MoMA, and he hesitantly asked her if he could join her.
“I want to meet your grandmother and your mother,” he said. “Would it be too awkward if I come with you?”
“No, it wouldn’t.” She smiled at him. “As long as you don’t mind that my grandmother is very outspoken and a little eccentric. She says whatever she thinks.”
“I’ve been around eccentric artists all my life, and I think she’s earned the right to be outspoken at ninety-two. If you can’t say what you think by then, when can you?” She warned him too that seeing Federico’s facial scars could be shocking at first. Her family was all used to them, and he had refused to continue having plastic surgery to fix them. He had decided to live with them instead, and Gabrielle said she no longer even saw them. Olivia told Jean-Pierre that one side of his face was perfect, and the other had nearly been destroyed when the mine went off where he was standing in Vietnam. He was lucky he hadn’t been killed.