Blame It on Paris by Jennifer Greene Read Free Book Online Page A

except that he’s tall and distinguished, of course. Where you’re more on the plain old adorable side.”
    He rolled his eyes, than yanked her next to his side. Walking backward, she was creating an obvious hazard for the other pedestrians, not to mention herself. French drivers knew no mercy. Especially for Americans.
    â€œCould you focus on the important stuff here? We just passed the Palais de Justice. Couple blocks down, we’ll be at Saint-Michel, and after that we’ll be standing in line to get into Notre Dame like every other idiot tourist in the city. Notre Dame. The real thing. You’re supposed to be thrilled.”
    â€œI will be. In just a sec. I’m still having a heart attack over your family. I think you should tell a girl before you sleep with her when you’re part of a dynasty like that.”
    This time he narrowed his eyes. Give the girl a little sleep, and she was all sass and sparkle. He hooked an arm around her neck, and it wasn’t an affectionate gesture. “You know, you’re not the only one who gets to be nosy. It’s about time you answered a few questions yourself. Like how you hinted that you weren’t in Paris just for a vacation.”
    â€œI wasn’t hinting. There’s no secret.” She didn’t seem to mind the stranglehold he had on her neck. At least she wasn’t trying to break free from it. “Actually, I guess there is a little secret, because I didn’t tell anyone back home what I was doing. But that was because it was no one’s business. I came here on kind of a private quest. I wanted to find some information about my father.”
    Now there was a word guaranteed to stop him dead. “Oh. Fathers.”
    â€œYeah, it wasn’t hard to guess we both had father issues…but in my case, it’s because I never knew my dad. He was French. From Paris. And he died when my mom was pregnant with me. So I never knew him or had a chance to know anything about him. That’s just the way it was.” Tears suddenly glistened in her eyes. “That was partly why the mugger upset me so much. I had some old letters in that purse, letters he’d written my mom way back when….”
    Hell. He loosened the grip on her neck. She was still talking. He’d figured out that when she started, it was like trying to plug a dike. Better not count on the flow stopping anytime soon.
    â€œYears ago, my mom threw out the letters when she married someone else. A man named George. That marriage only lasted a few years—but anyway, I was just a kid, saw her throwing out the letters and I saved them from the trash. There were only a few, but they were all I had of my dad’s. And on the envelopes, they had a return address, from where he grew up in Paris.”
    The little glisten in her eyes was one thing, but now a big, fat tear trickled down her cheek. Alarm started drumming through him. They were in the middle of a crowded street. There was no place to run.
    â€œSo…that was my plan when I came here. I just wanted to see the house, the neighborhood where he grew up. I can’t imagine anyone would remember him after all this time…but I still wanted to do it. Just walk that street. See it, feel it, smell it. I don’t have any other way to know him. And the whole idea popped into my mind when I got engaged. I mean…suddenly my whole life was going to change. And I just wanted to know more about who I came from.”
    He tried to steer her to something practical and solvable, so the tears would dry up. “So now you’ve lost the address? We could find a way to track that down, Kel—”
    She blinked. “Oh…no, no need for that. I’ve had the address memorized for years. What upset me was losing the letters. His handwriting. The words. It was the only thing I ever had of his. I never cared about losing my passport or money or anything like that. But darn