One Cruel Night Page 3

  “Apparently, the rest of the world agreed with you. That was why they had to be cut off the bridges en masse.”

  “So much lost love.”

  “They just moved their love to a landfill.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “So romantic.”

  “Hey, at least their love is still in Paris.” His eyebrows knit together as he thought over that statement. “Erm…maybe.”

  “I guess they should have carved their love into a tree then.”

  “Why? So it could be made into paper or toothpicks?” he joked.

  I elbowed him in the ribs. “I was going to say that it would have lasted longer, but you’re determined to ruin all my romantic notions.”

  “Me?” He clapped a hand over his heart in mock horror. The quirk of his lips showed how much he was enjoying needling me. “Well, hang on then.”

  He darted off into the night, leaving me alone, standing by the nearly empty bridge.

  “Hey! Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be right back!”

  “You’re going to just leave me alone?” My eyes darted around anxiously. Suddenly seeing the sinister in the shadows and finding the quiet eerie.

  “One minute. I swear.”

  I leaned back against the bridge and crossed my arms, wondering what the hell he was thinking. I was all of five-seven in high heels with blonde hair that looked like a spotlight to possible predators. But my worries were unfounded. He appeared a minute later, as promised, jogging back to my side.

  “Anyone accost you that I need to beat up?” he asked with a sly grin.

  “I could have gone with you.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  I snorted. “My dad was in the military. I can handle myself,” I said with a calm I hadn’t felt in his absence.

  “Duly noted.” His smile was devious enough that I couldn’t stop myself from smiling back. “Here.”

  He opened his hand to reveal a gold lock about the size of his palm. He’d taken a Sharpie and written in surprisingly good handwriting, P & N.

  A small gasp escaped my lips. “What? How?”

  “Now, we have our own love lock. And I didn’t ruin all your romantic notions.”

  He slid the lock into my hand. It was warm from his touch. My cheeks flushed with pleasure, and a sigh of happiness escaped my lips. It was way too soon. Of course, it wasn’t love. I knew that. This was just a symbol of our night. My one perfect night in Paris.

  And though I knew it was entirely unreasonable and irrational to feel like I’d just tumbled over a cliff that I had no sense of ever coming back from, I fell anyway.

  And I fell hard.

  Chapter 5

  T he Palais Garnier was a stunning piece of architecture at the heart of Paris. Amy and I had hit all the main attractions this summer, but though she had a love for art, she had no joy for opera or ballet. Apparently, her parents had dragged her to one too many performances as a child, and instead of instilling a passion for the performing arts, it had ended up being more like trying to get kids to eat broccoli and killing their taste for it for life.

  So, I’d never even seen the palatial building, let alone set foot in it.

  But I damn well knew what it was.

  As a child, I had been starved for art. My mom used to sing opera before she gave up her career for my dad. Not that she was going to be singing in the Palais Garnier, but she had a voice like a songbird. One winter, when we’d been stationed in San Antonio, we’d gone to see a touring ballet company perform The Nutcracker. For a full year, I’d insisted I was going to be a ballerina—until it was clear that I had two left feet. Or more precisely, a fin and swam like a fish.

  But I’d loved the grace and beauty from day one.

  And my breath caught when Penn brought me to the Paris opera house. The one place in the city I’d always wanted to go and never had the chance. It was as if the man could read my mind.

  “Isn’t it closed?” I asked.

  “Technically, yes.”

  He had that smile on again. One so full of mischief that I was certain we were about to get in a world of trouble.

  “Okaaay…”

  “Trust me.” He held his hand out.

  I didn’t trust him. I hardly knew him. And yet, I reached out and placed my hand in his. Put my world in his palm as an offering.

  We walked around to the side of the building where a rotunda jutted from the main building with long windows cut into the stone side. Penn guided me to a door, and to my surprise, we entered a modern-looking restaurant with white tiled floors and bright red chairs.

  The maître d’ shook Penn’s hand vigorously, and they began speaking fluent French, effectively cutting me out of the conversation. I knew enough French to get by, but I’d studied Spanish in high school. Up until this moment, I’d thought I’d get more use out of that than French or Latin.

  “Come on,” Penn said, pulling me forward.

  “What were you talking about?”

  “The chef is an old family friend, and Pierre wanted to know if I’d be having private dining tonight.”

  My jaw hung loose. Oh…of course. That was…normal.

  “Are we…having private dining tonight?” I asked uncertainly.

  He shook his head. “Better.”

  Penn meandered us through the restaurant, stepped through a door labeled Staff Only, and then out into the darkened interior of the Palais Garnier.

  “Are we allowed to be back here?” I whispered. I didn’t know why I was whispering, except that it felt like we should.

  There was no one else on the inside of the building. It was even quieter than outside, and the only light came from soft recessed lighting.

  “Define allowed.”

  I couldn’t help it. A giggle escaped my lips. I’d never done anything illegal other than speeding and the occasional underage drinking. My father had been in the military, so his punishment for misbehavior was a more fearsome prospect than getting caught by the cops. But my dad was a million miles away, and Penn seemed to know exactly what he was doing. Suddenly, being inside of a theater house at night seemed like a great adventure.

  “You know that The Phantom of the Opera was written about this theater?” Penn asked. He confidently walked the halls, as if he was well acquainted with the interior of the building.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yeah. It was written by an opera critic who claimed that there was a real phantom.” He suggestively raised his eyebrows.

  “Write what you know, right?”

  “And he did. There’s an actual lake underneath the opera house.”

  “Truly?” I asked in surprise.

  “Yes. I’ve seen it before. More a pond actually. When they were building it, they kept tapping into the Seine, and instead of starting over somewhere else, they made it a man-made lake and built over it.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “And a chandelier fell and killed someone around the time the man was a critic.”

  “Perhaps the author was the phantom,” I suggested.

  “Or perhaps he was a Nick Carraway, destined to stand on the sidelines to Daisy and Gatsby’s tragic love.”

  “Or maybe he was just an opera critic who let his imagination get away with him,” I said with a quick cut of my eyes. “What have you been writing in that notebook of yours? Tragedies, as you seem fascinated with them?”

  “They are the best kind of story,” he admitted easily.

  “Are they? You don’t like happy endings?”

  “I don’t believe in them.” Then, he paused as if realizing what he’d said. “I mean…”

  “It’s okay. You’re not ruining my romantic notions.”

  His eyes were faraway for a second. “My parents aren’t exactly the model of relationships.”

  “Are they a tragedy?”

  “You’ve no idea.”

  I lost the thread of the conversation after that. I
didn’t know what to say to this broken boy. My parents were a strange match, but no one could deny they were a love pairing. Why else would a New Age–obsessed songbird end up with a strong-headed, religious military man?

  And, though I knew next to nothing about Penn, I could tell that he was jaded. Something inside of him was a shattered mess. He was putting on a bit of an act for me. Just as I was surely putting on an act for him. I was never this confident or reckless. I didn’t do spontaneity. I certainly had no experience with men. Let alone men like Penn, who could charm the pants off a snake. If I was trying to be more than I was, it shouldn’t surprise me to think that he was, too. I just didn’t know exactly what he was hiding. But I wouldn’t mind finding out.

  The thought startled me. It was the first time I’d considered beyond this night. To the bright light of day.

  “Here we are,” Penn said, swiftly pulling me away from that thought.

  “Where are we exactly?”

  He pulled open a door and tilted his head toward it. “Go on in and see.”

  I tentatively stepped forward. All of my bravado squashed by the uncertainty of what lay ahead. I tiptoed through the darkened interior to the faint glow of light. Then, I nearly gasped with elation when I realized where exactly we stood. With purpose, I burst forward past the curtains and out onto the massive stage.

  My jaw dropped as I looked onto the gilded auditorium and the rows and rows of red velvet seats. A chandelier hung, suspended in a dome, over the orchestra seating. Despite the dim lighting, it was a spectacular, unparalleled view.

  Penn stepped out behind me with a smile on his face. “What do you think?”

  “I have no words,” I told him. “How is this even real life?”

  “I wonder the same thing every time I’m here.”

  “How often are you here?”

  “When I was younger, we came every year. It didn’t take much to get away from my parents, and this became a favorite spot of mine at night.”

  “I can see why you love it. It’s so grand.”

  I had never seen anything like this before. And here was a man who had been coming here since he was a child. It was clear that we were from different worlds. He might not know it, but I certainly did. Still, tonight, it didn’t matter. I could be whoever I wanted tonight. I didn’t have to be poor little Natalie Bishop.

  Penn stood at my side and held his hand out toward me. “Can I have this dance?”

  I laughed. “There’s no music.”

  “We don’t need music.”

  “I’m not any good,” I told him before hesitantly placing my hand in his.

  “Lucky for you, I am a great partner.”

  He tugged me tight into him. He held our hands out and grasped my waist, guiding my own hand to his shoulder. My eyes crept up to his, and something bubbled up inside me—fear but excitement.

  Who was this man? What universe had he come from?

  Then, he led me in a smooth circle around the stage. His movements were effortless, and he guided us so evenly, it was clear that he had been doing this his entire life. We performed our slow waltz in front of an empty audience, yet the energy between us made it feel like it was a packed house.

  “I haven’t done this since I was a debutant,” I admitted.

  “You were a debutant?” he asked with surprise in his voice.

  I nodded.

  I didn’t add that it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever done in my life. That Amy’s parents had insisted she do it since she was a legacy, and she had refused until they said they would pay my way, too. It had been embarrassing. All of the manners, etiquette, and dance lessons in the world couldn’t make me a proper Southern lady.

  “I took my best friend to her debut. My four other closest friends pair off . We all got wasted before the event, and I thought all the parents were going to throttle us when we stumbled through the whole party.”

  “Oh god,” I said with a laugh. “Sounds way better than mine.”

  “It was an interesting night, to say the least.” He frowned slightly. His eyes drifted off and then snapped back to me.

  Our dancing stilled, and those entrancing liquid-blue eyes captured my attention. They fixated on me as if memorizing this moment, capturing it in his mind. I drifted closer to him, sliding my other arm up to his shoulder. He leaned down, our breaths mingling in the distance.

  I wanted to remember the way he looked at me forever. Such reverence and desire on his face. A face like that deserved to be painted and photographed, so it would never be lost to time. But I didn’t have those skills; words were the weapons I wielded. And I planned to paint him with flourished pen strokes and deft metaphor.

  His hand trailed up my waist, inched toward my shoulder, grazed my neck, and then cupped my cheek. The agonizing closeness of the movements sent a chill down my spine. My body was eager for those lips, and still, I waited. Letting the moment linger as he touched me with a possessiveness that said all I needed to know. He tilted my chin up and dipped to meet my tender lips.

  That was the moment a flashlight beam hit our bodies.

  Chapter 6

  “Hé! Qu’est ce que vous foutez là? Vous n’avez rien à faire ici!” an angry voice roared.

  “Shit,” Penn spat. “We have to go.”

  I didn’t need a translation to know that the guy sounded pissed. Penn grabbed my hand and ran the opposite direction of the security guard.

  “What did he say?” I asked, dashing after him.

  “Basically, What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Oh god.”

  Penn laughed as he continued running. “Hey, where’s the fun if there’s not a chance of getting caught, right?”

  My inner risk aversion shuddered at that thought. And yet, here I was, running from an angry security guard at night in the middle of the Paris opera house. Perhaps Paris had changed me. Or Penn had.

  The security guard was running after us. I knew that, if he caught up, we would be in serious trouble. We had been trespassing in the middle of a freaking palace. That wouldn’t go unpunished. I knew that people with money could get away with a lot, but I doubted that we’d both get away with this.

  So, we ran.

  And I was glad that Penn knew the way in the dark. My heels were a huge detriment. I walked in them all right, but running? It was more of an ungraceful stumble. Not that anyone but me noticed.

  I saw the restaurant up ahead of us. The lights were dark on the inside. It had closed. I bit my bottom lip as real fear coursed through me. What if we couldn’t get out? What if all the doors were locked? I could not get caught in Paris like this. My father would kill me.

  Penn reached for the door, and I breathed a sigh of relief when it sprang open with ease.

  “Come on. Get in.”

  I scurried forward in front of him. He pushed the door shut before the security guard saw where we had gone. The staff still seemed to be in the building, finishing up closing duties. We hurried past them and out into the Paris night.

  My breathing didn’t even out until we were two blocks away from the building. Then suddenly, I couldn’t stop laughing. My hands were on my knees, and I was doubled over. Tears welled in my eyes. All of the fear rippled out in laughter at the relief of not getting caught.

  “That was insane,” I muttered.

  Penn was laughing, too. “I’ve never been caught inside there. Fuck.”

  “I cannot believe we just ran away from a cop.”

  He waved his hand. “It’s fine. We got away. That’s all that matters.”

  I shook my head in awe. “Well, what else is on the docket for tonight? I don’t think anything can top almost getting arrested.”

  “The night is young,” he said, his eyes twinkling in the moonlight. “I think we can find something to top it.”

  My cheeks flushed at the heat in his words. Every new adventure brought me closer and closer to the point of no return. I knew I was there already. That I had probably
been a goner the second I agreed to walk out of that party with him. But, after being in a spot of real danger, I wondered if I should actually end this. And yet, I knew that it was impossible.

  I was having fun with him. And he was right; we hadn’t been caught.

  If I went back to the flat alone, then what? I was certain Amy wasn’t there. She probably had forgotten all about me in her lust for Enzo. That wasn’t how I wanted to end my last night in Paris. I wanted adventure. I wanted Penn.

  Penn held his hand out. “Shall we?”

  I nodded and placed my hand in his. He laced our fingers together, an intimacy in the moment that I couldn’t exactly place. It was as if those few moments of danger had shifted the momentum of the night. We were bound by what could have been. Not just what was.

  The night air was crisp and fresh. We passed a garden in full blossom as we continued our nighttime stroll. Wrought iron poles lit brightly colored flowers and row after row of square-shaped trees. Matching benches had been placed intermittently throughout. It was one of these benches where I had first glimpsed Penn.

  “My feet are killing me after running in these heels. I need a break.” I pulled him through the trees and onto the stone walkway, directing us toward one of the empty benches.

  He took the seat next to me. “I don’t know how women walk in those things, let alone run.”

  “Well, it was kind of a necessity.”

  “True.”

  I kicked off my shoes and stretched out the aching arches. I’d been fine up until the running. Not that I normally wore heels, but I was pretty fit from swimming. I should have been able to get through a whole night in these torture devices. If only Amy hadn’t insisted that they made my butt look so good.

  Penn leaned back on the bench with his feet straight out in front of him. “The parks really make the city. They’re so different from what I’m used to. Don’t get me wrong. Central Park is home, but well, it closes at night.”

  “Are we sure this park is even open?” I glanced around, wondering if perhaps we were trespassing.

  “They keep most of them open twenty-four/seven during the summer,” he reassured me. “No hope of having an angry cop chase us down.”