Page 128 of One Wrong Move

“Happy tears, I promise,” she says, standing in front of a giant wall of renaissance portraits. A tear tracks down her cheek. “It’s just… I’ve read so much about this place and heard so much, and I just never…”

I press a kiss to her temple. “I get it.”

“Do you cry at car shows?” she asks, brushing the back of her hand along the line of her jaw.

“Well, no. Not recently.”

“When did you cry last?”

“How did this get turned around on me?”

She smiles and rests her head against my shoulder, her eyes on the giant painting. “Because you fascinate me. Almost as much as this magnificent example of renaissance chiaroscuro.”

“Almost as much,” I murmur.

“Mm-hmm. That’s high praise.”

I wrap an arm around her waist. “Oh, I know, coming from you.”

The rest of the day is filled with more joy than I can remember feeling in a long time.

I’ve never identified as an unhappy man. The years had been good to me. I’ve made enjoyment a priority, once I stopped competing with Alec. Work hard. Play hard.

Buy expensive cars.

Drive expensive cars.

Travel, meet people, drink, travel some more, buy another watch, move into the townhouse, attend a conference in Japan. One thing after the other, and it’s all been satisfying.

But the last few months have been so decidedly different that it’s hard not to see the truth. That there was a before and an after. Before Harper moved in. After Harper moved in. And the difference is so stark I might as well have become an entirely different man.

Hollow.

That’s the right word for how I lived before. And how I will live again, if she once again slips out of my grasp.

“Look at that,” Harper says. We’re walking along the Seine, toward where the Eiffel Tower rises in the distance. Harper stops and points across the river, at the row of stands. “They’re selling… art. I think.”

“Prints, most likely. Come on.” We cross the bridge, and she peruses through various offerings of the tiny market. My gaze snags on a picture of a vintage car painted on a thin canvas. It looks like the Ferrari 250 GTO, one of the greatest cars ever built.

Harper notices my interest. “Buy it,” she whispers. “I know that you want to.”

“Is that your professional opinion, as my art adviser?”

“Yes. I think that artist is one to watch.”

“Will his work appreciate in value?”

“Yes,” she says. “Sentimental value.”

We leave the stand with two rolled-up canvas prints in a tube. The walk is beautiful—as most things in Paris are—and chaotic, and all other things it tends to be. The riverside wall along the Seine is peppered with tourists and Parisians alike, enjoying the fine weather.

The Eiffel Tower disappears when we draw near, hidden behind the tall buildings around us. The seventh arrondissement is old and storied, and the stone structures here are imposing.

And then, we turn a corner, and she appears.

Grand, and forcing one to look so far up that it gives you a crick in the neck.

Harper grabs my hand and pulls me forward. I follow her, loving this side of her. The side that takes what she wants.

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