Chapters (45)
- Cover
- Blame Iton Paris
- Copyright Notice
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Book One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Book Two
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
A lot of girls must fall into his lap at that restaurant. Maybe he was a notches-on-his-belt kind of guy. Maybe he just figured I was easy pickings.
Why had I done this? What was the matter with me? And even on the very remote chance he turned out to be worth something, I finished up my contract here in just a little over six weeks. So what was the point? Other than the fact that he was really cute.
“So I’ll see you Wednesday, then,” I said.
It took me a few minutes to recover, after I hung up. I ran out of the room, ran straight into Adela, grabbed her hands, and started dancing around the hall singing, “He called, he called, he called!” I should probably not mention that. For lack of emotional courage, I generally try to maintain a cynical persona, which is not reinforced by this type of behavior. Besides, given that I had stayed out of my room the whole weekend to make sure he couldn’t reach me, normal people might find me inconsistent.
“Wow,” Adela said. “He called? It actually worked?”
I froze. “What do you mean, ‘It actually worked’? You never thought it would work?”
“Well, I mean, I thought it would let us change restaurants, yes, but . . . and then, I mean, it could have worked.”
At work, Valérie and Giulia stared at me as if I had just shown up in a beret. “You actually DID it? You asked out some man you didn’t even know? I’ve never known anyone to do something like that before!”
I counted to ten. “You told me French women did that kind of thing all the time. You told me you wouldn’t hesitate a second. You told me I was a wimp, you—”
“Are you kidding? I’ve never seen anyone do anything like that in my life. We just made all that up to encourage you! We didn’t think you would actually fall for it!”
I folded my arms. “Why is it that all my friends have a vicarious taste for adventure for which I’m always the damned patsy?”
Valérie grinned at me. “Well, it worked, didn’t it?”
By Tuesday night before the big meeting, I had vacillated back to terror, or rather, vacillated back to letting terror have the upper hand. “I’m not going,” I said as Adela went through my wardrobe again, trying to figure out what I could wear for a first date. “He’s French. You know I can’t stand Frenchmen. They’re arrogant, faithless, gloomy, and live in Paris. I hate this city.”
“You know, he was French before you asked him out, too,” Adela said. “I just mention it.”
“I left him an invitation on one of his tables. How am I supposed to look him in the face after that? Besides, I don’t have enough black clothes for a long-term relationship!”