Accidental Father (10 page)

Alex cleared his throat. “I'm just saying, it's not fair to put anyone through that kind of life.”

“I don't know,” said Luc. “Since the boy regards Julianne as a mother figure, and it's obvious he does, she will always be a part of your life.”

“That's a given.” Alex swirled the brandy in his snifter and nodded.

“Her home is in Washington,” he continued. “How are you going to make this work? Are you going to share custody?”

Alex's head jerked up at the suggestion. “I'm not sending Liam to Washington. It won't work. It's not safe, and I don't want him that far away. Plus, shipping a baby back and forth on long overseas flights wouldn't be the best thing for him.”

The fire crackled.

Henri, who'd been uncharacteristically quiet finally contributed. “Well, then, it sounds like the best thing for everyone is to convince Julianne to move here or to Paris.”

Alex shook his head. “Easier said than done.
Even if I could convince her to pack up and leave her life back in Washington to start over in Paris, which is where I'll be, where I want Liam to be, there would be the issue of visas.”

“Unless you get married,” Luc said.

Alex quashed every positive emotion that the thought dredged up, Marriage—to anyone—was not for him. Not even for his son's sake. And certainly not when it involved a woman for whom he was starting to develop deep feelings.

D
owntown St. Michel was a gorgeous little medieval storybook village. Storefronts with hand-painted signs lined a cobblestone square, with narrow streets jutting into it like spokes of a wheel. They passed a butcher and a baker…and Julianne was sure they'd stumble upon a candlestick maker before the day was through.

Turning her face into the sunshine, she was glad she let Alex convince her to get out today.

She'd awakened to find a voice message from him:
“Are we still on for sailing today and/or a tour of St. Michel? Please call or text once you're up and around.”

Julianne had been reluctant to spend the day with Alex, feeling as awkward as she was after telling his family she and Liam wouldn't be staying in St. Michel. Now that she was rested and they were outside with Liam in a stroller enjoying the fresh morning air, things were starting to feel better.

“There's a great little patisserie around the corner,” Alex said. “Why don't we get some pastry and take it with us on the boat?”

It was chilly out, but not as cold as it had been in Paris. In fact, if they stayed out of the shadows of the buildings and walked in the sun, it was quite pleasant. “I could use a strong cup of coffee to go with that good pastry.”

Alex smiled at her. “Follow me.”

He was looking particularly good this morning in jeans and a moss-colored polo shirt that brought out the green in his eyes. As he picked up the pace, walking a few steps ahead, she noticed that his gorgeous eyes weren't his only asset.

Yeah.
She'd definitely spent worse days with far less attractive people.

The downtown square was free of people except for a couple of merchants sweeping their entryways and an artist painting at his easel. Liam seemed to be happy to be outside in the fresh air. He was sitting up in his stroller, taking in everything. He
pointed to a cat perched on a windowsill, only to be distracted by a black dog lolling in the doorway of the cheese shop.

She remembered what Alex had said about March being off season, and was grateful for this insider's look at the town.

Julianne drew in a deep breath and was treated to the tantalizing aroma of fresh baking bread mingling with a hint of cinnamon, vanilla and…chocolate. The scent was so tempting that it made her mouth water.

The chocolate shop that Sophie had mentioned at dinner last night had to be close by.

“Are you familiar with Maya's Chocolate Shop?” Julianne asked.

“It's a legend,” Alex said.

“I'd really like to visit it before we leave today.” She inhaled another whiff of the chocolate which was calling to her, and when she glanced at Alex, she noticed he was looking at her in a particular way that made her feel as if she'd intruded on something private. Awkwardly, she cleared her throat.

“I can smell the chocolate. It has to be close by.”

He picked up his pace and walked slightly ahead of her once more. They turned a tight corner that
led them to a street that was more of an ancient alleyway than a road built for anything other than pedestrian traffic.

“There you go,” Alex said, pointing upward toward a sign.

Julianne followed the direction of his finger to a hand-painted sign that read
Maya's Chocolate Shop.

The shop window was adorned with white lace curtains and was brimming with tins and boxes tied with colorful ribbon. Pyramids of chocolate were arranged on several glass-dome covered stands; even more—chocolate-dipped fruit, bonbons, truffles, petits fours—were set out in bountiful exhibits on doily-covered trays.

It was a feast for the eyes that tempted Julianne to press her nose against the glass.

Maybe it was the allure of decadence, or perhaps just the promise of what she'd tasted last night, but Julianne was drawn to the shop like the eye would be pulled to a shiny coin caught between the cobblestones.

“Alex, I want to go in,” she said, nearly breathless.

“Of course,” he said. “Why don't you go in there and I'll get the coffee and pastries? Unless you want to see the patisserie?”

He seemed eager to get to the boat. Of course, the downtown area was probably old hat to him, good for nothing more than a bakery indulgence.

“Go ahead,” Julianne said.

“I'll meet you and Liam back here.”

Before he left, he pulled opened the glass shop door for her. A wind chime sounded, and Julianne was immediately struck by the scrumptious scent of chocolate as she'd never smelled it before. Alex held the door open until she'd maneuvered the stroller inside.

“I'll see you in a minute,” he said. As he closed the door, the chimes sounded again.

“Bonjour!”
a lilting voice rang out.

“Bonjour,”
Julianne answered, suddenly wishing she'd asked Alex to stay to serve as interpreter. She'd not brought her lexicon and had forgotten that French was the St. Michelian native language. Sophie was so
American
. Maybe that's why she and Julianne had related so well.

At first, Julianne didn't see where the voice had come from. She glanced around the shop, taking in the copper candy molds decorating one wall, the gift baskets artfully arranged on glass shelving, the confectionery displays adorning the case, and the marble wrap table standing regally in the center of it all. That's when she caught a glimpse of curly,
fire-red hair and a woman whose expression was nearly as vibrant.

“Hello,” said the woman, as she stepped out from behind a display. This time she greeted her in heavily accented English. “Good morning.”

The woman's broad smile was nearly as warm as the color of her hair. “Well, look at you,” she said. “There's a woman in love if I've ever seen one.”

For the span of a heartbeat, Julianne was too shocked by the woman's suggestion to move. She glanced behind herself to make sure Alex wasn't still standing there, even though she knew he'd gone and would've heard the chimes if he'd come back into the shop.

“The only person I'm in love with is this little guy right here,” Julianne said, finally recovering her good sense.

The redhead tilted her head to the side and furrowed her brow as if something didn't make sense.

Finally, she shrugged.

“Well, if not now, soon. Very soon.” She nodded resolutely. “Don't worry, everything will work out fine.”

If not now, soon. Very soon.

Julianne blushed as she replayed the words in
her head. The woman had audacity to assume such things.

What? Did she fancy herself some sort of psychic?

“I'm Maya. What may I get for you?”

Despite her bold comments, warmth seemed to radiate out of Maya's every pore. Julianne felt every bit as drawn to her as she did the tiny little shop.

 

After Alex had steered them safely out of the harbor, he set the sailboat's steering lock and turned his attention to the chocolates Julianne offered him. He pulled the ribbon from the small white box. Inside were two heart-shaped pieces of dark chocolate.

“Did you pick these out?” he asked.

“No, Maya gave them to me, one for each of us. Why?”

An odd sense of letdown tempered his mood.

She looked gorgeous sitting there in her turtleneck sweater and windbreaker, hugging Liam in his little orange life vest, trying to keep the boy wrapped in a blanket to shield him from the wind.

It was warmer today, and Liam didn't seem to be at all bothered by the wind or the sea spray. In fact, Liam kept alternately sticking his head up so
that the spray misted his face and then burying his head against Julianne's chest, in a game of sorts.

Alex loved watching them, the way they interacted, the way the wind whipped Julianne's dark hair, the way her eyes rivaled the color of the Côte d'Azur.

He took his piece of candy and handed her the box.

She peered into the box, to see what it held while keeping it far enough away that Liam couldn't grab it.

“Oh.” Her gaze flicked from the contents of the box to meet his eyes. Color flooded her cheeks.

Why was she blushing?

Maybe for the same reason he'd thought a piece of heart-shaped chocolate might have had some significance. What was wrong with him? In the past, if he'd thought for a moment that a woman was giving him chocolate hearts, that would've been the precise moment he would have turned his boat around and politely sent her back to shore.

Then again, when was the last time he'd taken a woman out on his boat?

“Maya is a piece of work,” she said. “Do you know her?”

“No. Before today, I'd never had the pleasure.”

Julianne had introduced him when he'd gotten
back to the shop after fetching their pastries. Then it had only been a quick
bonjour
and they'd said goodbye, ready to head to the boat. In fact, he hadn't realized the chocolates had been a gift, or there would've been a
merci
with the
bonjour
.

“She claims her chocolates have medicinal properties,” Julianne said. “That the right piece of chocolate can help a person solve their problems.”

“Sounds to me like she's a great business-woman,” Alex murmured before biting into his piece of candy.

“Mmm…” The throaty note of pleasure escaped before he knew what he was doing. He glanced at Julianne just as she bit into hers. Although she was a little less vocal, a bit more delicate about her pleasure, bliss was definitely written all over her pretty features.

“I think I might need a daily dose of this medicine,” he murmured. He didn't realize he'd said it aloud until Julianne answered him.

“Oh, do you have a sweet tooth?”

He hadn't been talking about the chocolate.

“Yes, something like that. What's in the chocolate?” He peered at the bit of candy that remained. It contained flecks of red.

“I think those are rose petals,” Julianne said. “Whatever they are, they're delicious.”

As Alex unlocked the wheel and steered the boat, he watched the rapturous look on Julianne's face as she savored the last bite of chocolate. Luc's suggestion that he marry her elbowed its way to the forefront of his mind. Last night, the thought had terrified him. Today, it still didn't sit well, but at least it didn't give him the urge to jump overboard and swim toward shore.

No, today his thoughts were tiptoeing around the fact that marriage was nothing to be taken lightly. Especially when one had a job as dangerous as his with iWITNESS. It was one thing to put himself in harm's way, but it was quite another to drag a woman and child into it.

His heart clenched as he inwardly acknowledged how Liam, by virtue of being his son, had been dragged into it without asking. That's why Alex would make the boy's safety his top priority.

Reflexively, he glanced over his shoulder to the motorboat that was trailing about one hundred yards behind him, with secret service agents on board no doubt surveying the area with high-powered binoculars, ready to move at a moment's notice.

That's the kind of life he lived.

There was no need to drag a woman like Julianne into it. Even if he did like the way she looked,
the way she thought…and the way she tasted. Especially since he was still fighting an uncomfortable feeling that he could be quite comfortable with this woman.

For her own good, he couldn't fall in love with her.

As he popped the last bite of the chocolate heart into his mouth, he decided it was a good time to change the subject. “So, how was your time in Paris?”

“Very short,” she said.

He'd loved going to her concert and regretted that the evening had ended on such a bad note. He watched her now as she tipped her face into the ocean spray in a new mimicking game with Liam.

“Did you get to see the sights you wanted to see?”

“Basically, all I saw of Paris was the route from the airport to the hotel, then from the hotel to your office, in an hour at Luxembourg Gardens and the Boulevard St. Michel and less than that in the area around the Opéra Garnier.”

She held up one free palm in
ta-da
fashion to punctuate the sentence.

“No Eiffel Tower?”

“No.”

“No Arc de Triomphe or Champs-Elysées or Louvre?”

“Um, no.”

“You're telling me that on your first visit to Paris you basically saw nothing?”

“That about sums it up. I spent the majority of my free time talking to you about Liam. Oh, but I did manage to take a lovely unexpected side trip to St. Michel. The principality. Not the boulevard. Or—er—in addition to the short walk down the Parisian boulevard.”

The look she shot him was anything but appreciative.

“I'm sorry,” he shot back. “I hope you'll let me make it up to you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Right. When would that happen?”

“Actually, I have some business in Paris next week. Why don't you come with me?”

She squinted at him as if he'd suggested they fly back to Paris via the power of flapping their arms.

“I'm serious.”

Her expression softened, she looked a little vulnerable, hugging Liam close, as if she were actually considering it.

At that moment, he realized he hoped she was.

“I think Liam has had enough back-and-forth travel for a while.”

She bit off the sentence as if she'd considered saying more, but stopped. He hoped she wasn't thinking about letting Liam rest up for the long journey back to the States.

He didn't have the energy to keep fighting that battle. Soon enough they'd have to iron things out—

Marry her.
Luc's voice whispered in the back of Alex's mind. He ignored it and tried to return to his original thought of how they'd eventually work out something.

But right now, with the rich taste of chocolate in his mouth and the sweet sight of Julianne holding his baby, all he wanted to think about was…right now.