HER ONLY EXCEPTION

CHAPTER 18- TRIP TO PARIS

Andrea woke before the alarm, suitcase already by the door. She dressed in a dark brown skirt and cream blouse: buttons done high, sleeves cuffed and armor in place. Mindy’s voice echoed again “Just have fun. No overthinking.”

The SUV for their departure waited outside. Henry was already in the back seat wearing a dark suit, no tie and sunglasses reflecting the gray dawn. He didn’t look up from his phone as she slid in. The door closed and silence swallowed them.

Andrea stared at passing streets. His cologne filled up the space between them. She crossed her legs and her skirt rode up an inch. His gaze flicked down once, then away as his jaw tightened.

The private jet was luxurious. It waited on the tarmac, sleek and gleaming. They boarded without greeting, cream leather seats facing each other across a low conference table with soft amber lights. The attendant welcomed them, then vanished to the galley after takeoff.

She picked the seat across from him because it was the most sensible option and opened her bag not thinking about the fact that the cabin was significantly smaller than she had expected it to be.

Outside the window the runway stretched flat and grey in the early light. Inside, the only sounds were the low hum of the engines and the quiet rhythm of Henry typing unhurriedly. Andrea pulled up the Paris itinerary on her laptop, read the first line but couldn't absorb none of it.

She turned slightly toward the window, crossed her legs and read the first line again. They sat in silence for about forty minutes none of them wanting to start a conversation until the flight attendant appeared.

She was beautiful in a way that read as effortless, her dark hair pulled back smooth and she had the kind of smile that arrived fully formed and stayed exactly where it was supposed to. She set Henry's coffee down with both hands and said something low into his ears that the engine noise swallowed, and Henry responded without looking up from his screen.

The flight attendant laughed a little too loud, "Just let me know if you want anything else Mr Moore," her hand resting on the back of his seat for just a moment before she straightened and moved on.

Andrea tried to look back at her laptop but she felt something shifted in her chest–more like a pressure, sudden and uninvited. She didn't want to examine whatever it is. She reached for her water bottle, took a long slow sip and forced herself to focus on the Bellamy presentation.

Henry looked up and his eyes locked in hers. His expression was exactly what it always was, unreadable and steady, but something in his eyes was different like he was aware of what he was doing.

Andrea looked back at her screen so fast the words blurring before her. She kept her eyes on her laptop and said nothing. Everything was absolutely fine.

Then turbulence hit without warning just an hour left till they reached Paris — a sudden lurching drop that sent her stomach into her throat and her hand shooting sideways before she could think about it.

It was the warmth she felt beneath her palms that made her realize what she'd grabbed tightly

Henry's forearm. Both of her fingers were wrapped around it, his skin warm and solid under her palm. She yanked her hand back immediately trying to stop her breath from hitching. "Sorry," she said. Her voice came out steadier than she deserved. "I didn't mean to...."

"Don't be." Henry cut in, he hadn't moved, flinched or shifted. He found himself looking at her the way he'd promise not to, his gaze lingered on her eyes a little to long, then his eyes drifted down to her lips taking in the soft pink lips that begged for his service. His eyes slipped lower to her blouse, noticing how tight the blouse clung to her body like a second skin, the curve of her breast and how how her breast seemed to beg for release in her bra.

Andrea broke the moment and turned to the window. The clouds outside were dense and white and she looked at them for a long time while the warmth in her palm slowly faded. Henry forced himself to concentrate on his screen and kept typing.

Andrea didn't look across the table again. But she was aware of him with a specificity that she found deeply inconvenient — of every small sound he made for the rest of the flight.

***

They arrived in Paris an hour later and it was raining, car moved through streets that felt nothing like home — narrower, the buildings pale and close together, the pavements slick and dark. A woman on a bicycle passed by with an umbrella in one hand looking completely. A black Mercedes Benz and ash SUV pulled up in from of them at the airport. Henry has instructed them to carry Andrea along to the hotel first, he had a meeting with a client, he had to close before the end of the day.

Andrea stepped into the car without a word, not even looking back to probably say goodbye. it felt as if she was mad at Henry for choosing to work even on the first day of arrival.

They arrived at the hotel Le Maurice earlier than expected, the hotel lobby was the kind of place that made you want to stand up straighter. High ceilings, marble underfoot, flower arrangements that reached toward the light like they meant it. Everything about it was quiet in the way that expensive things are quiet — not silent, just unhurried, as though nothing here had ever needed to rush.

Henry arrived twenty minutes later and spoke to the concierge in French. Andrea stood beside him, looking at a painting on the wall trying to appear as though she did this regularly.

She heard the shift in tone before she understood the words. The concierge's voice dropping into something apologetic, désolé appearing twice with a small helpless gesture between them.

Henry turned to her.

"There was a booking error," he said. "just one suite with two bedrooms left."

"What? how's that possible?" her voice came out a little too loud than she intended.

"I can book us separate rooms in another hotel if you're uncomfortable...."

"No." She said it before she'd fully decided to. "It's just one week. It's fine."

Something crossed his face too quickly but it was gone before she could read into it. He turned back to the concierge handed him a black card without saying anything.

Their suite was unreasonably beautiful and Andrea took exactly three seconds to appreciate it before she reminded herself that it was a shared room.

The city spread out below them in every direction, pale rooftops disappearing into low cloud. Two bedrooms on opposite sides of a wide central living space, a long sofa, a dining table, the kind of quiet that only exists when it rains.

They stood in the middle of it with their luggage and nowhere else to be and the particular silence of two people who have just run out of things to organise.

"The left bedroom has a better view," Henry said while picking up his bag. "Take it."

"Uh....no....you don't have to—"

"Andrea." he said her name with some finality in his voice that made her dare not counter back.

He walked into the right bedroom and closed the door behind him.

Andrea stood alone in the center of the suite, the rain moving down the windows in slow uneven lines. The city sat below her, grey and beautiful and completely indifferent.

She picked up her bag, went into the left bedroom and closed the door behind her. Then she leaned against it, one hand flat against the wood, and stood in the quiet of a room that smelled like fresh linen and something faintly floral, and let herself breathe for the first time since the airport.

The pressure in her chest was still there, the one she'd refused to name yet. The one that had arrived when the flight attendant laughed a little too loud back there in the jet and stayed through the turbulence, the car ride and was still sitting quietly behind her sternum now like it was waiting for her to look at it directly.

She pushed off the door and started unpacking.

She was not going to look at it directly.

On the other side of the wall Henry set his bag on the bed and didn't unpack it.

He stood at the window with his hands in his pockets and looked at Paris in the rain and breathed slowly and deliberately the way he did when he needed to remind himself that he was a man who made decisions rather than a man who was controlled by them.

They were finally in Paris and they were not leaving back to Chicago exactly how the came. he'd make sure of that.