Page 4 of Meet Me in Paris

I only heard one of the countries. The rest blurred together. “By France, do you mean Paris?”

“Specifically Paris, yes. That will be your first five days. Normally, it would be three, but your grandfather wanted to give you extra time to recover from the long flight. I’ve already booked the plane tickets for two weeks from today.”

Paris.

Five entire days in Paris.

City of Light. City of Love. The city I’d dreamed of visiting my entire life. It felt ever out of reach and never quite real—a city overseas that other people visited and talked about, and movies and books referenced, but beyond a barrier I couldn’t cross.

Now I would get my chance.Finally.Only one problem.

“Does it have to be a month?” I asked. “Or can I fly home early so I don’t lose my job?”

Eleanor looked up from her papers and stared at me. My sisters did the same.

“Leave it to Kennedy to miss the whole ‘small fortune’ part,” Alexis said. “You won’t need a job after this, Neddie. None of us will.”

“Don’t call me Neddie,” I shot back. Only Hunter called me that, and he . . . wasn’t here anymore.

Eleanor looked back and forth between us. “I, uh, apologize for not being clearer. Your grandfather wants all of you there for the entire trip, or nobody gets a cent.”

“Just how many cents is that?” Alexis asked. She looked around at us and shrugged. “It’s not like I’m the only one thinking it.”

“It’s a fair question,” Eleanor said. “Ladies, your grandfather was very clear in his will. One month together and not a day less. If you manage it, and I think you will, the inheritance waiting for each of his grandchildren in liquid assets, stocks, and real estate will total $4 million.”

I’m pretty sure I passed out.

“Are you ready to go?”Jillian asked, looking around my now-bare office. “I don’t know how you spent any time in here. You should have let me bring you some plants.”

I barely heard her as I stared at my empty desk, wondering how life could change so drastically, so quickly. I didn’t particularly enjoy my job, but it paid the bills, and I’d resigned myself to climbing the corporate ladder for the next twenty years. Now, my apparently rich grandfather wanted to dump millions on us and send me on a dream trip to Paris, all of which I should be more excited about.

Iwasexcited. It was just so unexpected, like a dream from another lifetime, a wish belonging to someone else.

Holding my laundry basket piled high above the sides with my belongings because that’s all I’d had in my car at the time, I stood staring at an empty office that would belong to someone else by this time next week. My leather chair in the far corner no longer held comforting pillows in varying shades of blue, my favorite color. Nor did the walls bear safe, generic art, like black-and-white photos of a castle in Scotland and a waterfall in Oregon.

A lifetime ago, those walls would have held photos of Paris—the Eiffel Tower, Versailles, aPhantom of the Operamovie poster,or the Broadway advertisement forLes Misérables.But no longer. Not after what happened.

“Oh! One last thing,” I told Jillian, opening the bottom drawer of the desk. I pulled out an insert that served as a false bottom and retrieved a framed photo—a family photo from my junior high years before our family got divided like a pepperoni pizza. Dad and Mom sitting on chairs in the center, holding hands. The thirteen-year-old version of me right behind them in a white dress flaring in the wind. Eleven-year-old Alexis to my right, nearly my height and smirking at the camera. Nine-year-old Jillian to my left wearing a grumpy expression and a sage-green dress she rarely took off because it matched her favorite plants. She’d been grumpy about being forced to stand still so long. A field spread filled the background. If only I could remember whose field.

A happy family before we knew better.

Jillian looked over my shoulder. “Aw. They seemed so happy.”

“They were.Wewere.”

“That’s the way I remember it. Just proves how amazing Mom was, giving us such a peaceful childhood while shielding us from what was happening with Dad.”

Mostly shielded. I remembered more than my sisters, which wasn’t surprising for an oldest child. Remembering wasn’t the hard part. It was forgetting.

I slipped the photo into the laundry basket and heaved it onto my hip, feeling like a housekeeper but suddenly not caring. One month from now, I’d be in a position to start my own travel agency if I wanted, and nobody here even knew it. The second condition of Grandpa’s inheritance? If any ofus told anyone outside the family about the inheritance, none of us got a cent. A reasonable condition, and probably for our own safety, but a little awkward to skirt around when quitting a job.

“Kennedy!” Joseph exclaimed from down the hall. The tall, lanky man straightened his glasses as he hurried over and slid to a halt in front of us. “I heard a rumor you might be quitting. Looks like it’s true.”

What did a person say to that? Duh? I smoothed my face, trying to act as though Joseph weren’t the gossip king of the office trying to pry my secrets from my unwilling hands, and forced a smile. “Yes, it’s sad to be leaving everyone.”

Joseph leaned forward conspiratorially. “Is it, though? You’ve been here longer than almost anyone. Maybe you asked for a raise and didn’t get it.”

That had happened just last year. Not that I was bitter. Mostly. “No, not at all.”

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