Page 25 of After the Red Carpet
“Well, maybe we’ll have to plan a little trip sometime,” he replied, draping his arm around her and kissing her cheek.
Ella smiled at them and said, “It’s beautiful and so romantic. You should go. I loved living there.”
“How’d you end up there?” Dan asked.
“It was happenstance, I suppose. I was living in New York but itching for a change. My friend Jean invited me to visit him in Paris. He was heading into a divorce, so I went to support him. Fell madly in love with the city—the art, the culture, the energy. We were out to dinner one night with a group of Jean’s friends, and one of them mentioned that she was looking to sublet her apartment while she took a job in London. Jean whispered, ‘Ella,ma chérie, you should take it. Paris suits you.’ I was getting ready to write four short books about pleasure, each on a different topic. One was going to be about food, and it seemed like if I were going to spend months overeating, Paris would be a good place to do it. So, I moved.”
“That’s so cool,” Lauren said. “I love how you take chances like that and live so freely. I’ve barely left California.”
Ella smiled. “I’ve always had a bit of wanderlust.”
“Do you think you’ve finally gotten that out of your system?” Michael asked, glancing at Finn out of the corner of his eye.
“I hope not. Finn and I both love to travel. I hope we have a lifetime of grand adventures together. After all, birds build nests but they still fly.” She and Finn exchanged a smile, their eyes lingering on each other. After a moment passed, she asked, “So, who else wants to share their snow globe?”
“I got Australia. I’ve always wanted to go to the Great Barrier Reef for a scuba diving trip. Has anyone ever done that?” Jim asked.
“We did. It’s incredible beyond words. If you’re going to go, I have some recommendations. We made a few mistakes when we went,” Tom said.
“We sure did,” Elise chimed in, patting his arm. “For starters, you should actually know how to scuba before you let some random guy take you out on an expedition.”
Everyone laughed.
“This one was like, ‘I’m athletic, it’s no problem.’ He was singing a different tune as he lay on the floor of the boat, thanking the universe that he’d survived.”
“Ooh, that reminds me of the time we were in Greece and ended up on this crazy donkey ride because we misread the tour sign,” Chuck said. “My back hurt for weeks.”
They all cracked up.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Greece. Were you on the mainland?” Lauren asked.
“We spent most of our time in the Greek Isles, on Santorini. The beaches are everything you’d imagine and more.”
“Just don’t go to Lesvos,” Ella warned. “I tagged along with a friend who got a free trip to speak at a conference. Packed my entire suitcase with bathing suits only to discover it’s the only island in Greece without sandy beaches. There were stray dogs everywhere too. We spent most of our time sitting at a little British pub that oddly had the best food on the island. Basically, my brief experience of Greece was eating shepherd’s pie and fending off dogs that looked more like coyotes.”
Finn laughed so hard he had to hold his stomach, and the others joined in.
The boisterous conversation continued, but all the while, Finn couldn’t take his eyes off Ella. Over an hour later, Ella said, “Everyone get comfortable around the firepit while I run to the kitchen to get the dessert. I hope you saved room. We have an almond apricot tart with amarettowhipped cream, and because Finn is a chocoholic, there’s also a spicy chocolate tart with cinnamon whipped cream.”
Finn grazed Ella’s arm as she brushed past him to head inside. The group plopped down into Adirondack chairs. As soon as they were seated, Dan and Jim started clapping. “Dude, she’s a goddess,” Dan said. “Does she have any single friends exactly like her?” Finn blushed, an irrepressible smile on his face.
The others echoed the sentiments. “You must be the most eligible bachelor in the world and one of the greatest guys we know. We all wondered who would eventually snag you,” Carol said. “Ella is fantastic.”
“That she is,” Finn agreed.
After they said good night to their last guest, who raved that it was the best dinner party he had ever attended, Ella said, “Your friends are great. It was so nice of the gals to invite me to join their book club. Now I have two groups to hang out with.”
“Come here, love,” Finn said, taking her hand and guiding her upstairs. Once inside their bedroom oasis, he couldn’t stop staring at her, his hands on her waist. He looked at her with total adoration, searching for the words to express the depth of what he was feeling. Eventually, he said, “You are spectacular, Ella Sinclair. Who you are, the way you do things, how you make people feel, how you make me feel—it’s so very special. I love everything about the life we’re creating, and I love you with all my heart.”
She kissed him. “Ravage me all night.”
THE NEXT MORNING AT BREAKFAST,Ella tapped on the shell of her soft-boiled egg. “There really is something so satisfying about that sound. Do you remember that first breakfast we had together in Sweden?”
“It was the first time we were ever alone. I remember every word,” Finn said.
“I told you about the four books I was writing about pleasure, and the idea of oneness I have. You asked if I had considered writing about love.”
“You said it was too abstract a concept.”
