Love on Lexington Avenue(73)

“Done,” Audrey agreed.

Claire looked at her watch. “Okay, I’ve gotta get going. Just let me say goodbye to Bob.”

Five minutes later, after an extremely emotional goodbye to the dog, Claire loaded her suitcase into the truck of a cab and climbed into the back seat. “JFK, please.”

The taxi started its slow crawl through traffic, and Claire looked down at her iPhone, double-checking her boarding pass for peace of mind.

JFK to CDG. Nonstop.

She was finally off to see the Eiffel Tower properly.





Chapter Thirty-One


SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12

It was a gray day when she arrived at her hotel, but Claire didn’t mind in the least. In fact, it suited her slightly melancholy, jet-lagged mood. And though she’d thought she wanted nothing more than to go straight to bed after a sleepless red-eye flight, it was morning in Paris, and as she stepped onto the small balcony of her hotel room, she realized that the excitement of being in a new city provided a surprising source of energy.

She inhaled as she scanned the Paris rooftops, then let her breath out again when she caught partial sight of the Eiffel Tower in the near distance.

As she’d known it would, it made her think of Scott. Of his fondness for the city, his obsession with the structure. It had occurred to Claire when she booked the trip that there were other destinations where it’d be easier to get over him. Places that he hadn’t mentioned, where she wouldn’t be thinking of him every time she passed his beloved Eiffel Tower.

But she didn’t want to do what she’d done with Brayden. To lock all of her feelings in a room with a closed door. She wanted to face the emotions, knowing that even though there’d be pain, there’d also be memories. The good kind.

Claire needed to figure out how to be okay with how she and Scott had ended up—her being in love, him not so much. Paris had seemed like a good compromise. To be reminded of him without having to see him. By the end of the trip, her goal was to be able to think of the man without her chest aching.

It was a tall order, but she was determined.

Claire sent a text to her parents and Naomi, letting them know she’d arrived safely. Then another to Audrey, thanking her for the twelve—yes, twelve—pictures of Bob.

Then . . .

Then, she had nothing planned other than to roam and, hopefully, acquaint herself with the city. Armed with her purse and an umbrella, Claire left the hotel to begin exploring.

She got why the city was so beloved almost immediately. Not in a way her early-twenty-something self had grasped. She’d liked it well enough then, but as she’d told Scott, that had been more about checking sights off a list.

Claire saw Paris through a different lens now. Saw the way the city had both elegance and grit, noise and quiet, crowds and solitude. She caught a whiff of fresh bread, saw a bakery line out the door, and made a mental note to stop by tomorrow for what she’d been calling her “Eiffel Tower Day.”

She was determined to do it right, as she had promised Scott she would. Wine, bread, the blanket, the picnic basket. And yes, she’d be bringing the fresh flowers he’d vetoed since he wouldn’t be around to know one way or the other.

For now though, she just wandered, not taking pictures, not walking anywhere in particular, and yet somehow she ended up at the Eiffel Tower anyway. She stood for a long time, staring up at it, trying to see it through Scott’s eyes.

She imagined he saw a whole boatload of stuff she didn’t see. The engineering, the metal, the geometry of it. Even to her untrained eye, she had to admit it was pretty fantastic.

So fantastic that even without her picnic supplies, she scanned the grass area for a place to sit, comforted to see that she wasn’t the only person alone. There were plenty of couples, a handful of families, but there was also an older lady in a yellow dress. A guy with his sketchbook. A teen on her cell phone. A man in flannel . . .

Claire’s gaze had already flitted on to the next person, but slowly, as though in a dream, she dragged her eyes back to the guy wearing flannel. His back had been to her before, but he’d turned his head. And was now looking right at her.

Scott.

No, it couldn’t be.

She looked closer. It was him. Heart pounding, she started walking toward him.

His gaze was unreadable, even when she stood directly in front of him, looking down at his face, half-terrified he’d disappear if she said a word.

He spoke first, looking pointedly at both her empty hands. “Was I not clear in the proper way to do this?”

“What?” Her voice was breathy, nothing like how she was used to hearing it.

“I distinctly remembering mentioning wine. Baguette. A blanket. Flowers.”

“You nixed the flowers,” Claire interjected.

He smiled slightly, reaching to his left and holding up a bouquet of mixed flowers in shades of pink and yellow. “I decided you were right.”

Slowly coming out of her daze, Claire took it all in. The flowers. The wine. Two glasses. The baguette poking out of the picnic basket.

The fact that he was here.

He shifted to the side in silent invitation, and Claire slowly lowered beside him, mostly because her legs were shaky and she still wasn’t sure this was real. She looked back at him, found his gaze moving hungrily over her face as though relearning her every feature and committing them to memory.