Read Online The Last Time I Saw Paris by Elizabeth Adler - Free Book Online Page B

you like to stay for supper?” She tried to sound casual, as though it were a spur-of-the-moment thing, but the truth was that morning she had driven into Carmel and bought food especially, knowing she would ask him. “It’s just some stuff I bought in town: turkey, coleslaw, mashed potatoes, gravy …”
    â€œGood home cooking.”
    He was laughing at her and she said huffily, “You don’t have to stay.”
    â€œNo. But I want to. And thank you for the invitation. I like turkey and mashed potatoes. And I like the company.”
    She smiled shyly. “It gets lonesome out here.”
    â€œIt beats going to a bar alone too, I guess,” he said, laughing as she glared at him.
    Back in the house, Lara lit perfumed votive candles, which gave off the scent of rosemary and thyme, reminding her of Provence all those years ago, thankingGod that Dan would never know how long she had agonized about this night. About what to wear and whether they should eat in the dining room or the kitchen, finally deciding on the kitchen because it would look less like a setup; about the bottle of wine she thought he would like and food he might enjoy.
    Why am I doing this? she’d asked herself with a little illicit thrill. What am I thinking of? It’s dangerous. . . .
    She put on a CD,
Bill Evans with Symphony Orchestra,
soft, rippling piano and strings that sounded like the sea. When she turned Dan was standing in the doorway looking at her.
    Tension zigzagged between them and the air seemed to tremble in the long silence.
    â€œThis is beautiful,” Dan said quietly.
    Nervous, she invited him to take a seat, served him some food, asked him to pour the wine. They talked about their “children”; about books and art and music; about anything but what was happening between them. And then he surprised her by telling her that once he had been a man with a dream.
    He laughed at himself as he said, “I thought I could be a sculptor. You know, a modern-day Michelangelo, traveling to Carrara to choose my precious piece of marble from the great quarry, hacking away at it in my freezing garret studio.”
    â€œThen why didn’t you pursue it?”
    He shrugged. “Fate dealt me another hand. There was no time left for dreams. Now, it’s just a hobby and I guess I’ll never get to Carrara to pick out that marble. But as they say, that’s life.” He smiled at her. “And I’m a happy man.”
    â€œI envy you.”
    He looked steadily at her. “There’s no need for you to envy anyone.”
    Avoiding his eyes, she began busily to remove the dishes. He took her hand, stopped her. “We’ll do that later,” he said. “Come, let’s go for a walk along the beach.”
    It was cool out and Lara buttoned her sweater as they strolled barefoot along the shoreline, with just a slender moon and the glimmering phosphorescence in the waves to light their way. She was so aware of Dan’s shadowy bulk next to her, so aware of his scent, his nearness, that when he caught her hand in his, an electric trembling hit the pit of her belly and she could not look at him.
    He turned her gently to face him, put his hand beneath the soft hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her closer. She heard her blood pounding through her veins as she succumbed to the lure of that other world where all that mattered was the way he made her feel. Sensual. Alive.
Female.
    He was running his hands down her smooth back under the blue cardigan. “I can’t get you out of my mind. I leave you here and I go home and think about you, wondering who you are,
what
you are.…”
    This was so wrong, so against everything she was, she must be crazy.… She pulled abruptly away from him. “There’s nothing to know.”
    Dan put his hand on her shoulder, turned her back to him. “There you go again,” he said, exasperated.
“Why,
Lara?