Page 44 of Meet Me in Paris

“Yep.”

I examined the painting. “But it’s so realistic.”

“Not everything he painted was warm sunshine and lily pads. He captured cold winters, too. It’s why I like this painting.” He stared at it with a thoughtful expression. “There’s beauty even in a harsh winter scene.”

I pondered that for a long moment. Monet painted exactly the way I’d always seen Paris before coming here—with a soft, reverent eye that improved upon what actually existed. But now that I had experienced it, that image faded and a more realistic one took its place. Not any less beautiful but more like a beautiful winter scape—real, bold, and fearless in its depiction of truth. Not apologetic but proud of the way things really were.

Hunter, not Claude. Turns out my heart had gotten what it needed rather than what it wanted, and I was okay with that.

“What?” Hunter asked as I examined him.

“Who’s the geek now?” I asked.

He chuckled softly as I rose onto my toes and gave him a quick kiss. It soon turned into a longer kiss that turned into an even longer embrace, and then I forgot about art entirely.

When I returnedto the hotel after a long day with Hunter, dizzy with happiness, Alexis was alone in our room.

“Where’s Jillie?” I asked.

“At the neighborhood shop around the corner, getting snacks for the flight tomorrow. Too expensive at the airport.” My sister’s voice was clipped as she lay on the bed, staring at her phone.

Nearly a week in Paris, and she seemed just as warm and cuddly as ever. My happiness fizzled into clarity once again.

I sat on the bed, cross-legged, as if we were kids again. Then I put my chin in my hands, grinning.

She looked up. “What’s up with you?”

I’d spent most of the trip so concerned about Claude and Hunter that I hadn’t had a real conversation with my sister. Time to change that. “You didn’t want to come, did you?”

She looked taken aback but recovered quickly. “Of course not. But if I didn’t, neither of you would get the inheritance.”

Interesting. “Are you saying you don’t need the money?”

“I mean, I won’t turn it down. But do I need it to survive? Not really.”

Because of Dad. The realization made me grit my teeth. He’d dodged his child-support payments for years to dumphis money onto the only daughter who’d chosen him. Senior trip to Europe, huh? Meanwhile, Jillian and I survived on beans and broth more times than I could count. How much different would Mom’s cancer fight have been with funds like that? Could we have saved her in the end?

I swallowed a sharp retort, reminding myself that none of it was Alexis’s fault. Except choosing Dad, but that couldn’t be taken back. “Dad remarried, didn’t he?”

She looked away. “Remarried with two kids. Both boys.”

It shouldn’t have stung, but it did. I didn’t have the greatest relationship with him ever, but I still harbored a sliver of childlike love for my father simply because of who he was.

“How did it go, with his new family?” I asked, noting the pain on my sister’s face.

She scowled. “I left when I turned seventeen.”

I hadn’t heard this. “Really?”

She nodded. “Spent my senior year living with a friend. Dad didn’t come to my graduation, but I got a check in the mail a week later.” She chuckled bitterly. “I almost threw it in the trash.”

I stared at her. “Wow.”

She shoved her phone back into her pocket. “Yeah, well, he never was the epitome of fatherhood, was he?”

“No, he wasn’t.” I cocked my head, not quite understanding. “If you knew that all along, why did you go to live with him?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” she said. “About what happened between him and Mom. Not that it matters now.”

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