“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“I’m standing in the doorway of the perfume shop, and I need to see you. I need to talk to you. I need to tell you exactly what I should have told you the last time I was here. I need to tell you in a thousand ways,” he said, because that’s all that mattered. He needed to submerge himself in the words, to drown out all the other things he hadn’t said. To start now, and start over, and start better. To stop being so damn terrified of love.

There was silence. Only silence for what felt like an eternity, and in that span of time he simply had to wait for her.

“You do?” she asked carefully.

“I do. Where are you? Are you in your favorite part of Paris that’s not in Paris?”

He was rewarded with a small laugh. “I’m predictable.”

He shook his head. “No. I just listened. To everything. Will you be there in an hour?”

“If you’re coming, yes,” she said, and he swore he could see her smiling. He knew he was.

“I am. I’m coming for you.”

He doubled back to the hotel, calling the concierge along the way to request a car service stat, and then slid into the backseat of a black sedan that shot him straight out of Paris and along the road to Giverny. Nearly an hour later, the driver pulled up to the gardens, and Jack paid him.

“Do you need a ride back to Paris, sir?”

“Yes, but I don’t know when.”

“I’m going off-duty, but please call this number and we will send someone for you,” the driver said, and handed him a card. Jack slipped it into his back pocket, thanked the man, and bought his ticket to the gardens. He walked through Monet’s one-time house, then crossed into the lush landscape that had inspired the painter. In all his time here in Europe, he’d never made it to these gardens. It was a true paradise, an escape from city life, and he understood why this land had inspired so many works of art.

He scanned for her across the flowerbeds, a sea of petals in every color. A central alley was covered by iron arches, roses climbing over the metal. Weeping willows brushed the green ground with their branches. He walked the perimeter, eyes peeled the whole time, and then the Japanese bridge came into view, its green wood slats rising over the lily pond. The most beautiful sight in all the gardens was this bridge, but in his mind it barely compared to her. She was resting her elbows on the bridge, reading a book. He picked up his pace, walking across a path edged by orange and red and gold bursts of petals, then reached the bridge. She looked up when she heard footfalls.

“Did you know this garden displays two hundred thousand annuals, biennials, and perennials each year?” She held up the book. “I read it in here.”