Kissed in Paris (38 page)

I just hoped it wouldn’t be lost forever.

Twenty-three

When the Washington monument came into view from my cramped seat on the plane, I felt as if I’d been transported into another world over the course of the past twelve hours.

Everything had gone just as Julien had promised—there’d been a man in a black suit waiting for me at the train station in Paris. He’d handed me an envelope containing a passport, which had gotten me straight through customs without so much as a second look.

But now, all of that felt light years away. And as we flew over the place I’d called home for my entire life, the scary feeling that I was now in foreign territory planted itself in my psyche and refused to leave.

I can do this
, I repeated to myself as I exited the baggage claim area and searched the crowd for a face I recognized.
It will all be okay
.
I will feel better the minute I’m back with my family, and back with Paul.

“Chloe!”

I flipped around to see where Sophie’s voice had come from, and there she was with her long, golden brown hair stretching all the way down her back, but her usual, breezy California smile was missing. Standing on either side of her were my two youngest sisters—Lily, the twenty-three-year-old blond, blue-eyed beauty; and Magali, the only one who’d inherited my father’s olive complexion and dark hair. And at seventeen years old, she still looked like a baby to me.

They waved at me in unison, their faces panicky and distraught.

Here we go
.

“Oh my God, Chloe,” Lily started before I’d even had a chance to say hello. “What the
hell
is going on?”

“It’s not true, is it?” Magali piped up. “That you were involved in some kind of . . .” she leaned forward and whispered loudly in my ear, so loud that everyone around us could surely hear. “Some kind of
scam
? With a pair of French
thieves
?”

“And that they stole all of your things? And that your bank account is screwed?” Lily added, her crystal blue eyes widening in horror.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this when we talked?” Sophie demanded, her voice a pitch higher than normal. “Paul is losing his shit, and Dad is going out of his mind. And I’ve been worried sick! I told Paul you were probably kidnapped because you, of all people, would
never
get wrapped up in something so out of control, so crazy.”

“Okay, okay!” I shouted over them to no avail as we headed toward the parking garage. “One question at a time.”

But they didn’t miss a beat. They trailed alongside me, bickering over each other and shooting questions at me like rapid fire, unable to comprehend that Chloe, their big sister, who’d basically acted as their mother—their responsible, understanding, grown-up mother—could ever have been involved in exactly what I’d been involved in.

I stopped abruptly and turned to face them. “Shut up!” I cried, registering the immediate shock on their faces. “Just shut up. You’re all driving me crazy. How about instead of drilling me and acting like a bunch of maniacs,
you
be the calm ones for once! How about asking me if I’m okay?”

“Well, are you? Okay, I mean?” Lily asked as she spun one of her long blond locks around her finger, the way she’d always done as a little girl when she was in trouble.

“Yes, I’m as okay as I can be after . . . never mind. Let’s just get to the car.”

Sophie pointed straight ahead at a black BMW.

I turned to her. “Paul let you take his car?”

Her eyes darted to the ground as she charged ahead. “Well, he wasn’t exactly in the best mood today, and he was locked up in his office when I needed to leave to pick you and Lily up at the airport, so I just took the keys.”

“Why didn’t you take my car instead?”

She shrugged as she unlocked the doors.

“Hand me the keys.” I thrust my open palm at her.

“Why? What’s wrong with me driving?”

“Paul’s already not going to be happy that you took his car without asking, so it’s best if I drive it.”

“At the moment, he’s happier with me than he is with you, so you might as well let me drive.”

“Sophie,” I growled as I climbed into the driver’s seat and threw my shopping bag at her feet in the passenger’s side.

Sophie lifted the bag up onto her lap and peered inside. “Is this all you have with you?”

“So it’s true then? They did steal your stuff?” Magali asked, her choppy dark hair swishing against my seat as she popped her head in between me and Sophie.

I sighed as I checked the rear-view mirror and pulled out of the parking lot. “Yes, it’s true. And it’s not
they
. It was just one man who stole my things.”

“Oh my God. What is
this
?” Sophie screeched.

I glanced to the side, only to find Sophie dangling my raspberry bra and panty set in front of my face.

“Put that back!” I yelled.

“Is this even
yours
?” she asked. “You never wear stuff like this.”

“How do you know?”

Giggles erupted from the back seat.

“What’s so funny?” I asked as I sped away from the airport.

“Chloe, seriously.
You
wear something this sexy? Not in a million years,” Sophie said.

When I didn’t respond, she kept digging through the bag.

“Sophie, what are you, like ten years old?
Stop
looking through my things,” I said, clenching the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white.

“How did you buy this if that thief stole your wallet?” she asked, her voice just a pitch too high for me to stand.

“Sophie, seriously, I’ll tell you guys everything that happened. Just put my stuff back.”

“Fine.” She put the bra back in the bag and plopped it down at her feet. “So, answer the question. How did you buy the lingerie?”

“Someone gave it to me,” I said, feeling my face flush as I remembered Julien pressed up against me in the dressing room of the lingerie store.

“Who?” Lily screeched, leaning over Sophie’s shoulder.

“A guy named Julien.”

“You let a random French man buy you lingerie?” Magali asked, her hazel eyes widening to the size of quarters in the rear-view mirror.

“No, he wasn’t a
random
French man. He was the brother of the guy who stole my things.”

“Oh my God,” Lily said. “He’s a thief too though, isn’t he? You let a French thief buy you lingerie?”

“Why are your cheeks turning red?” Magali asked as she stared me down in the mirror.

“They’re not red,” I replied as calmly as I could, feeling my skin heat up to the temperature of the broiling sun.

I floored the gas, wishing I could jump out of the car and avoid all of their questions. God, this was much worse than I thought it would be.

“They’re totally red,” Lily said.

“Did you
like
this guy?” Sophie asked.

“I needed some clean underwear,” I snapped. “Remember? All of my things were stolen?”

“Is he cute?” Magali asked.

“Okay! Enough. Can you all just calm down and stop firing questions at me? I just got off a plane from France, I’m exhausted, my life is a mess, and the three of you aren’t helping!”

Silence comforted me for about ten seconds before Magali piped up again from the back seat. “But we don’t understand what’s going on. Can you just explain it to us?”

With my head spinning and my eyes trying desperately to focus on the highway, I sighed. “Fine. But no more questions. Just listen, okay?”

“Okay,” my sisters said in unison.

It didn’t matter how old they were now, when they were all together, they still reminded me of the same little girls they were after my mom had died.

I told them the whole story, just as I’d told it to Paul, leaving out the details that were still reeling in the forefront of my mind—like the way Julien had kissed me the night before, the way I’d felt when I’d walked away from him this morning, as if I was leaving a part of myself in that car with him, and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get it back. I also left out the details about our mom, and thankfully Sophie had stopped looking through my shopping bag before she’d found the letters or the photo.

I focused on the facts. Claude stole my passport. I followed Julien—the
supposed
undercover agent—to get it back. I found out Julien was really Claude’s brother and an ex-con himself, then I called the police after Claude showed up. Julien’s other brother—the
real
government agent—got me off the hook, and now everything was going to be fine.

But as I pulled into my driveway, turned off the car and swiveled around to look at my three sisters, they just stared at me, their eyes agog, their mouths hanging open.

“What?” I asked. “Stop looking at me like that. I told you all what happened. Now let’s go inside and move on. We have a wedding to deal with.”

“Move on?” Sophie’s dark blue eyes fixated on me. “Are you serious? You have a bag full of French lingerie from the guy you’ve just spent the past four days with, and just the mention of his name,
Julien,
makes your cheeks blush. You didn’t give us any of the details. The
juicy
details. Come on, Chloe, this is the first time, like
ever
, that you’ve had something interesting happen to you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing. Just that your life is really . . . you know.”

“Oh just spit it out, Sophie,” Lily chimed in from the back seat. “It’s boring!”

I flipped my head around and glared at my pale, blond sister, her blue eyes suddenly not so innocent.

“So give us the rest of the story,” Sophie prodded.

“There is no rest of the story. I told you everything that happened, and now it’s time to go inside, back to what you all apparently think is my
boring
life.”

Sophie grabbed my arm. “You’ve always been a horrible liar. What happened with this guy?”

“Nothing happened, Sophie. Let go of me.”

“Are you and Paul going to be okay?”

Before I had a chance to come up with an answer, her cell phone rang.

I snatched my bag from Sophie’s hands and climbed out of the car, my feet heavy on the pavement, my body limp and exhausted from all of the arguing, all of the lying. Things were usually the other way around with my sisters and me.
They
were the ones calling
me
with their dramatic episodes, and I was the one asking the questions, offering advice, fixing whatever needed to be fixed.

They weren’t used to being in the position of caretaker because they’d never had to be. I’d taken over for my mom right where she left off, determined not to let our little family disintegrate into a million pieces after our lifeline, our strong post, our mother, was taken from us so suddenly.

I stopped on the walkway and stared up at the faded red brick townhouse where I’d lived with Paul for the past year, watching as a massive black rain cloud loomed over the roof, threatening to heave pellets of cold water on the place I’d thought I would call home for a long time to come. Closing my eyes, I realized that I was right back where I’d been when I was twelve. At the cusp of another family disintegration. Except this time, even at twenty-nine years old, after years of counseling, fixing and planning everyone else’s lives, I hadn’t a clue what to do to prevent
my life
from spiraling into oblivion.