Trust Me (Paris Nights #3)(51)

When Lina came out of the shower, squeezing a little product into her towel-dried curls, Jake was slouched on her couch with his feet on her coffee table reading a book. She angled to see the title. It was her original British copy of Harry Potter.

She grinned. “Are you seeing the Sisyphean themes?”

“Well, every time this family burns a letter another one shows up. Is that Sisyphean?”

“I’m starting to think all life might be Sisyphean. I just took a shower, and I can guarantee you I’ll have to do that all over again tomorrow.”

He laughed, his eyes lingering on her face. “You’re sparkling,” he murmured. “Is that how you usually look?”

“I’ll tell you a secret,” she said confidentially. “It’s hard to look like yourself in a mirror. You just look like someone worried about what other people think of you instead. So I don’t really know.”

He laughed again, a low, subtle sound that made her feel fluttery and eager. “It’s a good look on you, whatever.” He stood, so much easy grace in his movements that the fluttering kicked up. “Makes me happy.”

“Yeah?” She watched him as he moved past her to take his turn in the shower. It brought him so close to her she thought he would touch her, and her heartbeat kicked up higher. She felt like a girl with a crush and a hope and a maybe.

All centered on this one really cool guy.

He didn’t touch her. Just an elusive hint of heat as he turned sideways. Straight, strong shoulders a breath away. Hard face. Gentled for her. “Yeah.”

He went into the bathroom. A second later there was the little click of the lock turning.

Her mouth dropped open. That was just—a real slap in the face, that was what that was.

What, did he imagine her sneaking in on him in the shower?

And not like that vision?

She stared at the door, frowning a little. But for the first time since the attack, she felt strong and she felt happy. She felt that having started down the wrong path didn’t mean you had to stay on it. It was exactly like a dessert. If it went wrong, you weren’t doomed. You could start over. Try again. Change techniques. Zut, you could even, if you wanted, change what the whole dessert was trying to say.

***

Lina had a little bar-height table instead of a regular dining table tucked near one of the casement windows of her one-bedroom apartment, and she was sitting at it when Jake came out of the bathroom. Fully dressed herself now—not huddled in pajamas or in a bathrobe, but dressed in jeans and a stylish amber-colored top, red lipstick on, ready to go out.

Outside that window was a summer night. And she was a person who hadn’t been able to go to bed before midnight for a solid decade. She’d worked hard today, but she’d been working that hard almost every day all her life. And she’d always had a couple of hours worth of adrenaline to come down off, after she finished up a busy night in the kitchens.

She curled her toes into her boots and cleared her throat. “So, ah…do you have a friend to show you around Paris?”

He paused. His expression did that inscrutable thing again, the one that meant he just didn’t trust her enough to show his emotions.

Couldn’t really blame him for that.

“I’ve got an app,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Some tourist guide app over a real person?”

He leaned his shoulder against the wall of her bathroom and studied her a moment. “But I don’t have a real person,” he pointed out gently.

She dusted her hands briskly and hopped off the tall chair, making sure her boots hit the floor with an affirmative sound. “Voilà.”

He rested his head against the wall, too, the faintest degree of bemusement mixing in with his carefully neutral expression. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

“I’m offering to be your local guide. Show you the real Paris.” She gave him the brightest, most so-let’s-get-moving look she could.

He gazed at her a long moment.

She tried to look cute and enticing. A cute little thing, ha.

Like someone who might make him get all fluttery and eager, too.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Let me check in.” He stepped into her bedroom and shut the door between them for a moment while he spoke on his phone, then came back out. “We’re good.”

Relief brightened her whole spirit.

Jake made a soft sound.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He was watching her face. “You look even prettier when you’re happy.”

A faint heat touched her cheeks.

He leaned his shoulder against the outer door, studying her with a subtle warmth in his eyes. “So do I get flowers on this date? I’m partial to tulips.”

“It’s almost August. No tulips. You haven’t given a woman flowers in a while, have you?”

He declined to comment.

So he wasn’t romantic, or he didn’t say it with flowers, or he hadn’t dated in a while? Or just spent most of his life deployed?

She frowned at him a little, wondering what a life without flowers was like.

He straightened from the door. “Ready to go?”

She stared at the door to the outside world beyond him. And, as she had to now every single time she braced herself to step through it, took a slow breath, held it for two seconds, and then let it slowly go as she stepped forward.