Illicit ✔

nineteen

His smile faltered, and he dropped his chin, fumbling with the collar of his sleek shirt. "I'm so sorry for the delay. Work has been insane, Gemma has been on my ass, and the girls have been having issues at school. But..." He peeked up, a twinkle of mischief in his ocean eyes. "I have a proposition for you. Hear me out, okay?"

She lounged against her cushions, seeking to find a position that didn't give her a double chin, or make her arms look enormous, or show the holes in her tank top.

"Okay, sure. What's up?"

"All right, well first off, answer this—" he squinted, pouting his lips, "—are you able to take a few days off on short notice? Say... in the next week?"

She focused on his flawless face, trying but failing to understand what he meant. Was he traveling out to visit her again? Did he plan to scoop her off her feet and wine and dine her in her city?

He said Gemma was on his ass... how would he pull that off?

"I... I mean, I can try? If it's for the right reasons, Rog might allow it—"

"—well, push for it. Please. Because I'm buying you a plane ticket to Paris, and I want to meet you there."

She tipped over, losing hold of the phone. It slid to the floor and bounced off one of her pillows, disappearing under a pile of dirty laundry.

Dazed with visions of the Eiffel Tower and the Champs Elysées, she didn't react to having lost her phone until she heard Ryan yelling, "Cora? Cora, are you still there?"

"Hey, yeah, sorry," she said, retrieving the device from under a pair of sweatpants and pulling it up to her again. Her hair had gotten miffed up, so she shrugged it out of her eyes and mouth and huffed. "Um, I think I hit my head—it sounded like you wanted to fly me to Paris?"

Paris—a dazzling city she'd visited once in her youth and had fallen in love with. The food—Camembert, anyone?—the scenery, the monuments, the museums, the avenues, the intimidating yet exhilarating Metro. She'd always dreamed of going back and exploring as an adult.

Ryan's sensual smirk appeared. "You're not crazy, that's exactly what I said. I'll book us a room at Le Royal Monceau for a few nights, and... we'll do this the way I intended to." His cheeks flushed to a coral color that brought out his eyes, displaying the ever-growing desire in them. "I want to spoil you and realize all our fantasies in the utmost luxury. Like we pictured it, remember?"

"Le Royal Monceau?" She almost cringed at her botched pronunciation, compared to his smooth, sexy accent. "Oh," she let out a discreet moan, "I remember." Her knees buckled and the never-fading butterflies did backflips in her belly. "How the heck would I ever forget those conversations?"

"Right." Ryan placed the phone up against something and angled backwards in his chair, pressing his hands to the back of his head. The corners of his lips glided up a little further, and she could have sworn she saw his heart thumping in his rib-cage through his crisp shirt. "So talk to your boss, would you? I can get away with pretending I have a business trip in Paris—Gemma wouldn't question that. Chat with him and contact me with your answer as soon as possible?"

Coralie didn't miss a beat—the instant Ryan hung up, she dialed Roger's number, completely forgetting that it was seven-thirty am and he would murder her for daring to wake him.

But to her shock, when he replied, he didn't belt out insults; instead, he adopted his fatherly tone that he only used when he was worried about her.

"The girls said you've been distracted lately, is that true?" The sternness in his words almost prompted Coralie to get cold feet and offer to call him back later. "I'm sorry I haven't been in much, otherwise I would have addressed this in person."