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“Good evening, Tessa.”
That voice…to this day, I sometimes wake up to the memory of that voice sliding over my skin, sinking deep into my veins and winding its way through my body. My first experience, I would later realize, as a woman responding to a man.
I’d started to look behind me. But before I could crane my neck back, Rafe had shifted out of the shadows and knelt down next to my chair. He made small talk about the weather, recently completing a diving course with the CEO of some company he wanted to buy, asked me about my nonexistent social life.
When he had glanced back toward the ballroom, it gave me a moment to appreciate the details I had seen before but never noticed. His face was narrower than Gavriil’s, but the blades of his cheekbones were just as sharp, his black beard cut to precision along the straight lines of his jaw. He possessed the same pale blue eyes as Gavriil and his father. For so long, I had imagined them as Gavriil had, tiny glaciers existing inside a man who might as well have been made of stone for all the emotion he displayed.
But that night, as he looked back at me with that hint of warmth, I didn’t see a man of stone. I saw a man living behind a shield. A man I suddenly suspected had far greater depths than the child I had been would have recognized.
My mother had come out moments later, her voice shrill with nerves as she’d lectured me on not straying too far away from her. I’d been mortified. But Rafe hadn’t run away. Instead, he’d taken my hand in his and bowed over it. His touch, warm and firm, had lasted for a single heartbeat.
One heartbeat was all it took to fall for Rafael Drakos.
After that night, I couldn’t shake the impression he made on me. I never threw myself at him or found excuses to be with him. That smacked too much of desperation. But when we found ourselves at the same event or ran into each other in Santorini, I savored every moment I had, every bit of conversation.
Once, I’d found it romantic. Now it just adds to the layers of humiliation slowly suffocating me as I move down the street with my market bag thumping against my hip.
He wasn’t wrong. When I realized he was going to say no last night, I left. Ran away, as he put it, to be alone with my humiliation and anger.
The humiliation is something I’ll get over. Being rejected, especially by the man you pined over for nearly ten years and imagined yourself to be in love with, is embarrassing. Toss in that I had spun quiet dreams of him falling for me in the months leading up to our wedding, only to hear him tell his father just hours after our wedding ceremony that he would never fall in love, and I had every right to flee.
But the anger, the helplessness… I pause to catch my breath. Helpless anger is far worse than…anything. There is no power. No control. Only feelings that can do nothing but suffocate you.
The same anger that drove me to say yes to Rafe’s proposal. Had I not had that anger festering inside me from not getting to visit Katie the year before, I’m not sure I would have said yes, even with my decades-long crush. Something I realized on my wedding day after I’d fled to my room. I’d let Rafe’s offer be the catalyst for change instead of making the choice myself.
Rafe still hasn’t called or texted. Either he’s contemplating my offer or, the more likely scenario, he’s gone back to Greece.
Good riddance.
I’ve reserved today for rest, to get myself back into a good place. A quick trip to the market, a light lunch, hours of lounging on my bed or the terrace with a book. Tomorrow morning will be designated for work. And the afternoon will be something fun, something I can look forward to when thoughts of Rafe and his rejection of my proposal weigh me down.
Notre Dame, I decide as I turn a corner and my building comes into view. I can’t remember how many times I’ve been inside since I came to Paris. I’ll wake up early and continue my work on the schematic designs for Juliette’s house. Applying the skills I learned in my program to renovating a stunning home on Washington’s Olympic Coast isn’t just a dream. It’s satisfying, knowing I’m helping Juliette create a home for her stepmother that she’ll be able to move through with confidence.
It’s also the kind of project that will enable me to pursue other passions down the road, like taking on designs for clients needing accessible designs who wouldn’t be able to afford them. I’ve known since university that accessibility design was an area I wanted to focus on. But living in an apartment that wasn’t designed for someone like me has made me more appreciative of all the privileges I grew up with. That and having two potential clients who had needed those changes, but had to decline my proposals because of cost.
I won’t be able to help everyone. Not even close. But I can do something.
Buoyed by my plans for the next two days and thoughts of my future, I mentally map out tomorrow afternoon if the morning is successful. I’ll go to the cathedral first, navigate the long aisles, the dark little coves flickering with candles lit by prayers of the thousands who will have streamed through that morning. Then wrap up with a visit to Shakespeare and Company on the Left Bank. Definitely use the wheelchair so I can take as long as I want to wander through the shelves on the main floor and pick one, two, or even half a dozen books to take home.
Perhaps, after an afternoon to myself, I will somehow work my way around to accepting putting off my divorce long enough for Rafe to receive his inheritance. In the moment, all I could think of was myself. But condemning Rafe to losing out on his entire life’s work, not to mention the uncertain future Drakos Development’s thousands of workers would face in the aftermath of such a huge change, feels selfish.
I don’t want to. Resigning myself to another eight months of purgatory feels like forever. But it’s the right thing to do.
The scent of freshly baked baguette wafts up from my bag and eases some of my tension. Paris’s open-air markets are a wonderful place to spend a morning. I can find anything from fruit and gourmet cheese to flowers and spices. The Marché de Grenelle, with its colorful stalls arranged under the Métro, offers not just the usual consumables, but random goods like books and clothing.
I glance down at the bag slung across my body. Beneath the bread, fruit and wedge of goat’s cheese is an impulse purchase. One I questioned at least three times as I maneuvered my way through the crowds.
But beneath the self-doubt, I’m glad I bought it. Rafe may not want me as a lover. Fine. But someone will. When that time comes, I want to feel as sexy and confident as I can. Until then, I can enjoy my gift for myself.
“Tessa!”
I bite back a sigh and glance over my shoulder as a young man darts out of the lobby.
“Hi, Thomas.”
Thomas bounds up to me. With his shaggy brown hair and lanky build, he is the epitome of what I imagine a college boy from California to be. He’s here on a summer study abroad program, a detail I learned when I ran into him in the lobby his first week here. Since then, every time he sees me, he peppers me with questions about my life in Greece, what it was like to live in Ireland before that, my favorite things to do in Paris. It would be endearing if I hadn’t glimpsed the interest in his eyes or turned him down four times to “just grab coffee.”
Even if I wasn’t married, the kid is easily seven to eight years younger than me. I have zero interest in being some college student’s French fling.