I try to settle back into the soft sheets, but the thought of Iris sitting right outside the door, waiting to be fed and petted irks me so much, I need to get up. Perhaps it would be different if she wasn’t the most affectionate cat I’ve come across.

“Mon dieu, she has adopted you already,” Camille said last night after dinner when Iris hopped into my lap as if it were the lap she’d been curling up in for years, and promptly started purring.

I kiss Camille on the crown of her head and try to wriggle myself from underneath her without bothering her, which is impossible because she’s lying half on top of me.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me for my cat,” she says as she rolls onto her back. “You only just got here and she’s already got you wrapped around her paw. If you go out and feed her now, she’ll know she has successfully manipulated you and she’ll do it again and again.”

“Go back to sleep. I’ll bring you some coffee later.” I sit on the edge of the bed, unable to drag myself away from Camille, it seems. I stroke her cheek with the back of my hand and a flood of images of all the things we did yesterday comes rushing back to me.

“The cat food is below the sink,” Camille says. She’s the one who seems to be purring underneath my touch now.

“Okay.” I kiss her cheek, find a robe hanging on the back of the door, and greet Iris outside the bedroom. She nearly makes me trip when she pushes herself against my shins as I make my way down to the kitchen.

Chapter Twenty-One

Camille has taken Monday off work and through the magical powers of the French employment system, she’ll be able to take three more weeks off while I’m in Paris, even though she has already had two months off earlier this year for her sabbatical journey through Australia. One is reserved for when we go to her family’s house in Provence, another for my last week when we’ll want to spend every waking minute together, and the remaining five days to sprinkle throughout the weeks I’m here so she’ll never be at work for a full week.

We have finally ventured into town and it’s a glorious summer day with a blue sky above us and the Eiffel Tower watching over us wherever we go. We’re having lunch on the terrace of a café called Les Etoiles in an area called Le Marais, a bottle of heavenly light rosé wine in a bucket next to us.