Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“This could get expensive for you . . .”
“Parlez-vous français?” he asks.
“Oui . . . un peu,” I say. “I took four years of French in high school. I could get around if I had to.”
“Paris it is,” he says, leaning in to steal a kiss. “The City of Light . . . the City of Love.”
“I’m in.” I kiss him harder, my hips circling against his hardness, teasing. Last night, out of sheer boredom, we decided to get drunk on cheap wine and try the most ridiculous Kama Sutra poses we could find online—which in retrospect was a terrible idea on my part given my intense lack of flexibility.
My muscles burn this morning as if I completed an Ironman Triathlon overnight, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting him all over again.
“Who gave you permission to be this addictive?” I ask, kissing my way down his rounded shoulder.
He cups my chin, steering my lips to his, and when I come up for air, our gazes catch, lingering in something unspoken.
“I have to tell you something,” he says.
My stomach drops. Those six words are rarely followed by anything good.
“It’s something I’ve only ever said to one person before . . . and in a completely different context,” he says.
I lose myself in his copper-hued irises, waiting with bated breath, growing more impatient with each torturous second.
“I love you, Anneliese,” he says.
Fullness floods my chest, and I throw my arms around him so hard and fast I knock him back into our messy pile of pillows.
“You love me?” I ask, but only because I want to hear him say it again. I wasn’t ready the first time. I didn’t get to fully appreciate the beauty of those words on his lips.
“I love you,” he says, his mouth curling at one side. “Just thought you should know.”
“I love you too.” I think it’s time I spread my wings. “Take me to Paris.”
EPILOGUE
LACHLAN
belamour (n.) one who is loved; a beloved person
Five years later . . .
“There you are. I was looking for you.” My wife steps through a curtained doorway into the inner courtyard of the eighteenth-century Spanish home we’ve been restoring for the better part of the last year. With its sweeping views of the Montserrat mountains, charming locals, authentic cuisine, and centuries of history, we feel as if we’ve stumbled into a hidden paradise. “I should’ve known you were out here working.”
She shifts her notebook to her right arm before checking her watch.
I close my laptop lid and place it aside.
“How’s it coming?” she asks with a wince.
“Eight more chapters to go before she’s ready for her first read,” I say before soaking her in. Maybe it’s the midday sun, but she’s radiant today—more than usual.
“Progress is progress,” she says. “Are you still stuck on the title?”
Ever since Anneliese took her naming business to social media, it’s grown by leaps and bounds. With a wait list a mile long and a full-time assistant keeping her organized, she’s spread paper thin these days—and yet she still found time to whip up a list of title options for my newest manuscript. Given the fact that she named my last book—which was an instant bestseller—I figure she knows what she’s doing. That and she’s my personal good-luck charm.
“I’m going back and forth between The Midnight Apartment and The Crooked Key,” I say, spouting off two of the top contenders.
“Both are intriguing,” she says, her lips bunched at one side as she takes the spot beside me on the sun-soaked bench. “I don’t know that you could go wrong either way.”
I run my palm along her thigh. “I just feel stuck without a solid title. The other ones were so easy.”
“I don’t know that you’re stuck as much as you’re finding every reason under the moon not to write,” she teases. “You do this every time.”
“Do what?”
“You get to the end of a book, and all of a sudden you’re stuck on this or that, or you’ve got a laundry list of more important things to do.” She says all of that with love in her voice and a tender gaze. “I get it, though. It’s scary finishing a project, putting it into someone else’s hands, waiting for the official critique before it goes to the masses, where you’ll get hundreds of thousands of new critiques.”
I sniff a laugh. She knows me too well. My whole life I never cared what anyone thought of me—until I became a published writer.
Five years ago, when my childhood house burned to the ground, it took The Neon Prince with it. A week later, Anneliese presented me with a brand-new Moleskine notebook and monogrammed fountain pen and encouraged me to write something new and fresh. The more I declined, the harder she insisted.
She loved my stories, she told me. She also called me selfish for not wanting to share them with the rest of the world. I swore to her my oral stories were miles better than the ones on paper, but she wouldn’t hear it.