Page 81 of The Paris Chapter

His words felt just as arousing as him inside me, touching me, looking at me reverently. The words rolled over me as pleasure built deep inside. This was fast and eager but still just as good as when we went slow. ‘I’m so happy we’re together.’ I gasped as my release came suddenly, and I shattered on top of him, my body throbbing with satisfaction.

‘I’ll never get tired of watching you come,’ he said, panting, thrusting into me. He cried out my name as he joined me, then rolled me down onto the bed and looked at me tenderly. ‘This is real,’ he promised me.

‘I know it is.’ I wondered how I had ever been unsure if this was real between us. Nothing had felt more real to me than this.

I could feel him trembling as he kissed me and we both held on to one another tightly as we came down from the sweetest high.

While Ethan and Juliette went to see a venue together, I got ready for the day and sat down at my writing desk to work on my book. I only had a few chapters left to write – my characters’ sex scene, which I had been nervous to start but after my night with Ethan I now knew would be a breeze, and my leading lady deciding to move to Paris to start a new chapter of her life with the man she had fallen head over heels in love with.

My phone rang on the desk beside me, and I saw it was Gita, my editor.

‘I finished reading the last chapters you sent me,’ she said without preamble. ‘I’m really loving this book, Tessa. It’s romantic and compelling like all your books and your characters are so well drawn, their dialogue is perfect and Paris is like its own character. But most of all, I love the message about making sure you love yourself as well as being in love with someone else.’

‘I’m so happy you’re enjoying it,’ I said, beaming from ear-to-ear. ‘I only have a few more chapters to write.’

‘I can’t wait to read them. Did you have a think about a title so we can get working on a cover?’

‘Actually, yes…’ I said, explaining it to her.

‘Oh, I love it,’ Gita said. ‘It’s perfect. I’ll get talking to your cover designer.’

‘I’m sorry I had to push my deadline back,’ I said then.

‘Don’t be. You did the right thing waiting to be able to writethis. I think it will be your best book yet. And I think it’s going to be a huge hit. You know Stevie will make sure it is.’

I laughed. ‘I have every faith in her. I can’t wait for her wedding in the autumn.’

‘We will all raise a glass to your books, that’s for sure. Now, let’s speak after you send me the final chapters, and I’ll keep you looped in with the cover. And Stevie will be in touch about promotion soon.’

‘Thanks, Gita.’

I hung up and went back to my book. I started to write the sex scene, my mind going back to last night – and this morning. I had been so comfortable in bed with Ethan. I’d never felt like that before. I knew it was partly how comfortable I felt with him, and how special he made me feel, but it was also saying my final goodbye to Joe and the chapter we’d spent together. I knew that feeling I wasn’t good enough for him had been wrong. It was him who wasn’t good enough for me.

My time in Paris had shown me that it was okay to be me. No, not just okay. It was bloody fantastic to be me. To be myself.

Ethan and our friends had shown me that I was worthy of being loved. Maybe I even deserved love. In all the forms it came in. Because it wasn’t just about romance, was it? The search for the one. Love was all around us. Love had all forms. And all of them were just as important, maybe even more so. Friendship, family, pets, yourself; hell, the love of life itself. So I had gone to Paris feeling like love was gone. That I’d never find it.

But I’d had it inside me all along.

I thought about what Gita had said about my novel, and its message about making sure you love yourself as well as being in love with someone else. It made sense that I had put that in my book as that was something I had realised in Paris and had come home changed by it. That was what helped me take the risk withEthan. Because even if it didn’t work out, although I had a sneaky suspicion it just might, I knew I wouldn’t fall apart again.

I’m happy with who I am.

Looking out of the window of my flat, I spotted a blossom tree. There were beginnings of pink flowers on it. Signs that the new season had arrived. That even though winter could feel like it would last forever, it never did. Spring always arrived.

It was the same for life. Peaks and troughs. Ebbs and flow. The bad days followed by good ones. I had been stuck in winter for what had felt like forever. Letting myself wallow in hurt and disappointment, angry and bitter, thinking that betrayal meant that I’d been foolish to open my heart in the first place. But Joe had been the fool, not me. It was never a bad thing to let yourself fall. I knew now that I was able to get back up again.

And I always would get back up again.

40

That night, Ethan and I went for dinner with Juliette, Carly and Luke, and Juliette’s older Frenchman Pierre, who was now officially her boyfriend, had followed her to London and seemed besotted.

We went to a small restaurant run by someone Ethan had trained with in a quiet corner of London, and all sat around a table with wine, and orange juice for Carly. Ethan sat beside me, his arm draped around the back of my chair, and we kept smiling at one another.

‘The venue might actually be perfect,’ Juliette told us. ‘It’s light and the perfect size and it’s in a great spot near theatres for people looking to eat, right?’ she asked Ethan, smiling happily.

Ethan nodded. ‘It does feel pretty perfect. It was a catering college so can be easily changed into a kitchen and restaurant, and it’s a listed building so would give us the cosy family feel we want for the French bistro. We want to do food that our parents made for us, recipes passed down, albeit with a slightly fancy twist.’

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