I definitely never thought I’d settle down with a woman from Eben Cape. Marrying a high school sweetheart was something for the suckers who stayed around. Not for people like me.

Plus, Emily wasn’t even my high school sweetheart.

She was Beau’s high school sweetheart.

I had a thing for her. Who didn’t? She was beautiful and smart and she was going places. I fantasized more than once about being with her. About taking her for a drive in my broke-down mustang. Wind in our hair, never looking back. It was nothing more than a dream. Emily only ever had eyes for Beau. Couldn’t blame her. Back then, I had nothing to my name and vague dreams involving either acting or veterinary work. Beau had a brooding stare and an energy about him that made all the girls crazy.

It didn’t thrill me that he wanted her so much. I wanted my best friend to go fishing with me and drive our cars around and whatever other small-town entertainment we could find. I didn’t want him obsessed with Emily. I gave him shit about it whenever I could. I told him it wasn’t going to turn out how he thought. He told me I was dead wrong.

Turns out we were both wrong.

Neither of us could have predicted how the last few years would go.

And now Emily has become Emily Rochester, widow, a woman returned from the dead.

I’m enraptured by her.

Maybe I always have been.

But… no. That was a childhood crush.

This is something else entirely. I’m not sure what to call it, but I know it’s the domain of adults. Nothing like the teenage lust I had for her back then.

The driver takes us directly to the front of the hotel, and I shake Emily awake as gently as I can. “Hey. We’re here. Time to wake up.”

“What?” She squints out the car window. “This isn’t the airport.”

“I got us a suite at Le Pavillon de la Reine. It’s in the heart of the Marais. Very historic. I thought we could all use a good night’s sleep before we get back on the plane.”

She’s too tired to argue if she even wants to. Emily tilts her head toward Paige and raises her eyebrows. Can you carry her?

I nod as if she regularly asks me to carry Paige in from the car while she’s sleeping.

Emily shifts Paige so I can take her in my arms. The little girl is so tired she barely stirs when I lift her out of the car and arrange her head on my shoulder. The driver pulls out the bags from the trunk and goes in ahead of us.