Page 148 of Charming Deception

Then I make him wait with me until it’s our turn to have an old French man on the sidewalk draw a caricature portrait of us.

He’s so talented. In the finished sketch, Jameson and I are seated at a French café. True to life, he’s wearing his suit, but the artist drew a blue beret on his head that isn’t there.

“I love this so much,” I gush. “I’m putting it up in your living room.”

“Our living room,” he corrects me.

I can’t believe he doesn’t even argue with me about it.

I give it to Locke so he can secure it in the limo for safekeeping. “Please make sure this gets home to Vancouver,” I tell him.

“I’ll protect it with my life,” he replies gravely.

I like Locke. A lot.

Jameson refuses to stand in the hours-long line to go up the Eiffel Tower, but by then, the big digital displays announce that the lift to the top is closed. “This happens a lot,” he grumbles, promising me, in the same breath, to take me up in a helicopter anytime I want to see the world from above. I get the feeling he gives a hard pass to most things that regular mortals are willing to line up for. Maybe he’s never had to line up for anything.

I’m starving anyway. We’ve been surviving so far off pâtisserie from street vendors.

“Please tell me it’s time to go to dinner,” I practically beg as we walk back to the limo. “I really need a meal.”

“And how about some French wine? The good stuff.”

“Now you’re speaking my language.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jameson lifts an eyebrow, and as we settle into the limo, he says, “Alors allons te saouler, ma douce.”

My jaw drops as my ovaries moan. That was way too sexy for broad daylight. I suddenly feel like I’m in some dark, sweaty corner at the Moulin Rouge while he growls French filth in my ears.

“What was that?” I sound pathetically breathless. “You speak French?”

“Don’t you?”

“What, because I’m Canadian? I only took it up to tenth grade because they forced me to. I know, like, colors, the days of the week, and weather conditions. I can’t actually understand a word of what anyone says around here. Well, other than the English-speaking tourists.”

His lips curl in amusement. Then his eyes drift to my mouth, half-lidded.

“Tu es la plus belle femme de tout Paris.”

“Stop that.”

* * *

“You are the most beautiful woman in all of Paris.”

That was what he said to me. I’m pretty sure. I type it into Google Translate when we stop back at the hotel to get dressed for dinner, and he says it again.

I feel beautiful as I float out of our hotel suite on Jameson’s arm an hour later, wearing the short black-with-silver-sequins Balmain dress that he surprised me with. And the lovely, silky French lingerie underneath.

In the lobby on our way out to the limo, a photographer is waiting, at the ready to take “candid” photos of us—making sure to heavily feature the ring.

Jameson’s PR team has arranged for photos to be taken of us many times already, both formally and, like tonight, informally; those photos have all been released to the press, and it’s strange to me what a giant deal the media has been making about the engagement ring, of all things. As if the price tag on the ring a man gives a woman is directly proportionate to his feelings for her. As if a poor man can’t love a woman as much as a rich man can?

Regardless, our romance, starring the ring, has gone viral.

Or so I’ve heard from Jameson. And my brother, and Nicole. And everyone else I know, who are suddenly flooding my inboxes.

Troy included. Unfortunately.

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