Page 42 of One Time in Paris
One can always count on children and drunks for the truth.
His gaze dropped, then flicked toward her lips. “Well, we’ll always have Paris...Texas, anyway.”
She laughed, then gave a shriek as her foot slid hard on the slick marble. He caught her once again, barely keeping her from falling. “Come on,” he said, then hoisted her over his shoulder. “Let’s get you out of here before you catch pneumonia.”
“What are you, Tarzan? This isn’t the way you carry me romantically out of the fountain.” She giggled, then smacked his arse. “Though the view isn’t bad.”
“Isla, you’re outrageous. And drunk. But I’ll pretend I won’t remember any of this in the morning.” He set her down on the ground and held her upright.
She arched a brow, lips pursed. “Is that what you did last time?”
Touché.
“No,” he said flatly.
He reached for both of their shoes and the T-shirt and handed them to her. “Hold these.”
Isla gave him a baffled look. “What for?”
“I need you to carry them.” He didn’t wait—just bent and scooped her into his arms like he’d done it a thousand times before. Like it wasn’t rewiring something deep inside him. Like it wasn’t the most natural thing in the world to hold her this close.
Like it isn’t exactly where I want her to be.
“I’m taking you back to your hotel room. Before you get either of us in any more trouble.”
17
ISLA
The first thingIsla saw as she woke up was an enormous bouquet on the nightstand beside her pillow. She startled, then sat up, frowning at the vase of daisies and English garden roses—her favorite.
“From Callum,” Aiden said from the corner of the room.
Isla drew in a sharp breath, her gaze shooting toward him. Aiden sat in a chair, one leg crossed over the other, a laptop poised on his lap.
“What are you doing here?”
“You asked me to stay, so I stayed,” Aiden said with the hint of a smile on his lips.
She squinted at him, thinking back at the night before...
Her heart sank.
The humiliating way he carried her out of the square.
Aiden helping her to her hotel room.
She wrinkled her nose.
Yet, it was different this time—she remembered it all clearly. She’d been in that fountain, and—for a moment—she’d fantasized about his arms around her. Holding her. Kissing her. Hopefully, she hadn’t made it obvious.
Oh God, I really embarrassed the hell out of myself.
“I really need to never drink again,” she said, mouth dry. “I swear I don’t usually do this.”
“You were working. We’ll chalk it up to overly eager locals hoping for a moment in the spotlight who kept handing you drinks.”
“Did you sit in that chair all night?” she asked, climbing out of the bed.
