A Manhattan Heiress in Paris
Step into the roaring 1920s Parisian music scene
Leaving Manhattan…
For a secret Parisian affair…
New York darling Elizabeth Van Hoeven has everything…except freedom. But now Eliza’s traveling to study piano at the Paris Conservatoire and falling for jazz prodigy Jack Coleman in the process! A love like theirs is forbidden back home, and as they make beautiful music together under the Parisian lights, Eliza and Jack face a difficult choice: the life they’ve always known, or the possibility of a life they never could have imagined…
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They passed through another village, a cluster of pale yellow cottages with faded red tiled roofs around a square dominated by an ancient church, a large fountain, and found the inn they were looking for tucked along a side lane. It was two story old building, the same yellow stone, blue shutters thrown aside at the windows. White-covered tables were clustered under the towering, shady trees, and a large dog slept in the doorway, unmoving when they car screeched to a halt. An old man snoozed under the shade just like his dog.
The inn’s luncheon was just as good as they were told. They sat at a small table under the shade of the trees in a back garden, watched by an old, dozing man under a grape arbor and served by a red-cheeked woman in a lavender-printed apron, who clucked at them to eat more and admonished her old father not to be so lazy, to stop snoozing and help in the kitchen. He didn’t answer, but she kept bringing out plates of the delicious food, pate and fresh-baked baguette, bouef bourginon with rosemary potatoes, salade landaise, wonderfully gooey cheeses, and a lighter-than-air souffle.
They laughed and talked as they ate, letting the warmth of the day soak into them, the scent of flowers all around, until at last Eliza couldn't help herself a moment longer. She leaned over and kissed Jack, letting the perfection of the moment linger.
“Ah, young love,” the old man said with a cackle of laughter. “I don’t mind if you kiss in the garden all day. If I was just thirty years younger! But we do have rooms to rent. Lovely feather beds.”
Eliza dared not look directly at Jack as she drew away, for fear he would laugh at her bright red face. Yet under her embarrassment, she felt a brilliant sun-flare thrill. To see Jack—really see him, feel him, be his completely. For as long as she could have him, as long as she could cling onto these wonderful feelings. To have this time to hold onto for the rest of her years…
But what if he did not want her? What if everything they’d done together, felt, their laughter and delight and bone-deep understanding, was all on her part? Her own romantic naivety?
She peeked up at him, and suddenly she knew, she was sure, it was not all her. He felt for her, too, wanted her, even if perhaps he didn’t love her as she did him. She could see it in the intense depths of his eyes, the sudden solemn stillness about him.
She impulsively wound her arms around his neck and felt him press against her, lean and strong and so, so wonderful. And she felt something else, too, hard through his trousers. Oh, yes, she thought with a delighted laugh. He did want her. And he was so beautiful, so wonderful. He was everything she could ever, ever want.
And it would be a shame to put Chloe’s gift, tucked secretly into her handbag, to waste…
“A feather bed does sound like the bee’s knees,” she said.
“Eliza…” he said hoarsely, warningly. “You haven’t...done this before? I know you haven’t.”
“Well—no,” she said, flustered. She had begun to rather fancy herself a sophisticated Parisian lady, but she knew now she certainly was not. “I’m sure I won’t be that bad at it, though. With a little practice.”
“Oh, Eliza,” he said, laughing helplessly, the sound flowing against her, through her, like a song. “No one in the history of the world has ever been as adorable as you.”
“Adorable?” she said, putting on a little pout. “I’d rather be glamorous. Or a vamp!”
“But you just can’t help it. You are adorable, no two ways about it.” He bent his head and kissed the tip of her nose, her cheek, a soft, fleeting, teasing movement over her lips. “Your first time should be with someone you care about. Someone you—you…”
“Care about?” she cried. “Jack, you are the man who showed me how to really fly on music! How to see the world in new and beautiful ways. How to be true to myself. You—you…” I love you, she wanted to shout for all the world to hear. But mostly she just wanted him, all of him, desperately. Wildly. “Do you care about me?”
He smoothed his palm over her hair, so tender and gentle, his eyes gazing deeply into hers. “You are the sun and the stars and everything good and lovely and bright in all the world, Eliza Van Hoeven,” he said roughly. “You’re everything I never thought could be true.”
Eliza feared she would burst into tears at those words. “Then let’s rent that room. Please?”
In answer, he took her hand. That one gesture, their two hands meeting, clasping tight, the two of them together in the bright light of day for everyone to see—it was everything, she saw that now. It was love and freedom, and not being alone against the cold world any more. It was all of that, and so much more.
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