Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
We stand for a while, each of us lost to our own thoughts as our eyes scan the many ways to say I love you. The wall speaks of language. Je t’aime. Te amo. Rakastan sinua. Aroha i a koutou. But the language of love is more than words. As we stand, holding hands, I think of Whit and the ways he shows his affection. His family is so lucky, and I hope they know that. I think of how he’d stepped up to fill his father’s shoes when so many men in his place would’ve been consumed with their own grief. I think of the time he devotes and how his loved one’s needs are his priority. I think of his thoughtfulness, and I think about the person he is.
Whit tugs on my hand, and as I turn, he’s wearing this expression that I find really hard to place.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” he says softly. “You?”
I glance back at the wall. Je t’aime, I think to myself. “It’s just really lovely, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. He nods, gaze dipping to his shoes. His phone buzzes as he slides it out of his pocket. “Jacques is at the end of the street. Are you ready?”
“Where shall we go next?”
“Well, this is that part of the day that isn’t up to you.” He fights a smile and loses, and as though he doesn’t want to admit it, he pulls me in and presses a kiss to the top of my head. I take the opportunity to breathe him in.
“So we’re off to the hotel?” I glance up at him, and wiggle my brows suggestively.
“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?”
“Get my mind out of the gutter?”
Whit slides his arm over my shoulder, and we turn from the wall of love. “I feel like I’ve created a monster.”
“And what would that make you?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“A reasonable one,” I retort.
“Amelia, whether in London, Paris, or whatever, I will always be your daddy!” And with that, his hand slips down my back, his fingers digging into my (recently discovered) sensitive sides. I squeal and jump from his reach, not wanting to be tickled as adrenaline begins to pump through my bloodstream. I might not be a fan of tickling, but being chased by Daddy gives me the shivers.
“This looks exactly like the exact kind of place you arrive with no luggage,” I whisper as we follow a twentysomething woman up a grand staircase, feeling very conspicuous about our lack of bags.
“You think this looks like the kind of place that rents rooms by the hour?” Whit angles his amused gaze my way.
“More like the kind of place I couldn’t afford to rent an hour in.” When we’d arrived at the hotel, I almost walked by the entrance because it was so unassuming. It looked like a house, though the hanging Moroccan lanterns on either side of the door seemed a bit odd. Once the door opened, we moved into a space of such fabulousness. The color scheme is dark and sensual, the decor opulent, all marble floors and crystal chandeliers. To put it another way, I felt like Alice in Wonderland, stepping into another world.
“It’s a good thing you’ve got a wealthy patron then, isn’t it?”
“Patron?”
“A better title than a john, I think.”
“What?” If the first explanation had poked at me, the second stopped me in my tracks, my steps grinding to a halt at a small landing. My ears must be playing up because there is no way he just insinuated that.
“That didn’t come out very well.” He pulls a face, kind of abashed. “This place,” he adds with a flick of his fingers. “It used to be a high-class brothel a hundred years or so ago.”
“I guess they haven’t changed the decor,” I answer, staring up at a life-sized nude on the wall in front of us. A painting on canvas, old or made to look so. The model faces away, her head turned coyly over her shoulder as though startled but not unhappy at being caught in a state of undress.
“C’est magnifique, non?” The hotel employee showing up to our room pauses from a few steps away. I don’t need to speak French to understand what she’s referring to, especially the way she’s staring up at the painting.
“Yes, it’s very beautiful. She’s very beautiful.”
“We think this is one of the women who worked here when the ’otel was a bordello,” she continues. “Her patron would’ve been very rich to have commissioned something of this scale.
“So you don’t know her name?”
“Non,” she says sadly. “The women would want to keep their anonymity, hoping to move onto better or different things.”
“That makes sense.”
“But each of our suites is named for a famous courtesan,” she adds. “Come, let me show you to La Pompadour. I think you’ll be very happy there.”