Nights With Him(115)
“Beauty for beauty’s sake. Love for love’s sake,” he said. “I was looking for the right time to give it to you. This seemed to be the right time.”
“Did you really resign?”
He nodded. “I want you to go to Paris. I want you to take the job.” He reached for her hand, clasping it tenderly.
“You do?”
“Yes. More than anything. Well, there is something else I want.”
“What is it?” She didn’t want to assume anything. She wanted to hear it all from him.
“What would you think about taking me with you? I’m no longer the CEO of a sex toy company. I’m just a man in love with a woman, and willing to go anywhere for her.”
Her heart flew out of her chest. It soared on new wings, flying with radiant joy and happiness. She’d never expected to feel this way. She’d never expected a love like this. And she’d never imagined that a man would give up his business to be with her.
“You gave up your business?”
He nodded. “My business caused all the trouble. You could barely do your job here, given the job I had. I want you to have a private life, not just a public one. So I gave up my job to be with you, and you’re worth it, because you’ve given me everything. You’ve given me love. I didn’t even know that I could love, and now I know I can. Because of you. I just hope you don’t mind dating an unemployed man.”
She laughed, and shook her head. “What are you going to do in Paris?”
“Love you,” he said, confidently. “Take me with you. You haven’t said yes to me yet. You’re toying with me, right?” he asked, the corner of his lips quirking up in a smile.
“I’m not teasing you. I’m just shocked. I didn’t think you’d make this kind of choice. Isn’t it an impossible choice?”
He shook his head. “It’s not an impossible choice. It’s the only choice.”
She felt as if she were dreaming. As if this moment was going to slip away through her fingers. She wanted to grasp it forever, to hold onto it for the rest of her life so she’d never forget how she felt.
“You still haven’t told me if you want me to go with you,” he said, reminding her. Then, only then, did she look away from him to take in the scene unfolding before her. All her friends, her family, her brother, the man she once loved, they were all here, and they were all watching her and Jack. Everyone was waiting for her answer. They were all witnesses to her incandescent happiness.
She turned to Jack. She gripped his hand tighter, pulled him closer, never wanting to let go. “Come with me to Paris.”
EPILOGUE
Lovely Rain
Life wasn’t entirely perfect in Paris.
Some days, for instance, it rained.
Oh, wait. That wasn’t a bad thing. Even the rain in Paris was lovely. Especially the rain in Paris was lovely.
While Michelle had missed her brother, she’d met him in London a few months ago, when Jill had performed in A Streetcar Named Desire. Jack had joined her. His schedule was much lighter these days.
But it was starting to fill up. After a few months enjoying being a man of leisure, drinking espressos, and shopping for lingerie for her while she worked, he’d started up a new business.
He’d begun advising several French companies, some specializing in lingerie, some in sex toys, on entering the American market and the particular challenges and opportunities across the pond. It was a perfect job for his strategic brain.
They lived in the 6th arrondissement, not far from her work, in a flat above a leather handbag store and a macaroon shop. Joy Delivered was thriving back home, thanks in part to its continued business online and in stores with its biggest customer, Eden. The premiere vibrator boutique in New York had remained open and so had the BDSM clubs, thanks to Denkler winning the campaign on the power of a positive message. In some ways, the campaign wasn’t even about the candidate.
It was about pleasure being more powerful than politics.
It was about what happened behind closed doors being personal, and private, and not public at all.
It was about doing good for a neighborhood.
The law was a powerful thing too, though, and Michelle had a smart lawyer friend who’d tipped off the federal government about the phone hacking. Nick Bradshaw had been investigated for computer crimes. What he’d done to Michelle was only a misdemeanor, but it wasn’t his first time, and it turned out he had quite a sordid history of underhanded tactics in his arsenal as the Spin Doctor.
So many that he’d been sent to prison.
Michelle hoped he’d have a hell of a hard time spinning his jail time.
One Tuesday morning in April, after a phone session with Shayla, who’d left her husband and was managing better than she’d thought she would on her own, Michelle caught a train to Giverny. Jack had been working in the countryside today, advising a wealthy client in Rouen, so they were meeting in the middle, and had nothing planned but lunch at a cafe in the quiet village where Monet had painted.