She flipped past the vast majority of the pages, not ready to show him quite that much yet. When she got to her first sketch of the day, she frowned. It didn’t look any better now than it had while she’d been working on it. But Rylan was peering at her with such keen interest, like he really cared about what she was about to show him, and it was too late to withdraw the offer now.

Fighting for composure, even as her face went warm and the back of her neck cold, she folded the book in half and passed it over.

His gaze dropped to the page immediately as he took it from her. “Notre Dame?”

A little of her unease slipped away. “At least it’s recognizable.” With its iconic windows, she’d figured it would be. But it was nice to hear all the same.

“Easily.” He didn’t make any other comment on the quality of the work, and it wasn’t until that lack of praise that she realized how much she’d been waiting for some kind of affirmation. Even just the normal, polite sort of approval your average stranger felt obligated to confer. He started to turn the page, then paused. “May I?”

They’d already gotten this far. She nodded, holding her breath.

He examined the next drawing with a look of concentration on his face. “Same basic scene.”

“Yeah. I—” Was it worth describing her process to him, when she scarcely understood it herself these days? “It takes a couple looks to figure out where I want to go with it.”

Another glance at her for assent before he flipped to the third and final piece. She sucked in a breath as he held the page out at arm’s length and pulled it back in, gaze moving over it.

When her resolve cracked, she forced an exhalation and wet her lips with her tongue. “I didn’t quite get to finish that one.” With weak humor, she explained, “Had to go and meet someone.”

His only response was a twitching at the corner of his mouth. Finally, after what felt like forever, his eyes darted up. “I like it.”

“You do?”

“Very much.” He checked the surface of the table before setting the sketchpad down with the drawing facing up. He tapped the corner of the paper. “This one especially.”

And just like that, she was glad he hadn’t jumped to say he liked them right away—that he had taken his time and considered each one. It made the compliment more meaningful, made it seem like he actually meant it as opposed to saying so just to be polite.

“Yeah.” She let out a sigh, the shaky anticipation of opening herself up to him melting away. Her tongue, tied up in knots this entire time, suddenly loosened, and she leaned across the table, angling herself closer to him. “I felt like I was kind of getting somewhere with that one. Wish I’d had a little more time to finish it.”

“You’ll go back.”

“If I have a chance.”

“You’ll go back,” he insisted. He thumbed the corner of the page. “You know what sets this one apart?”

She wanted to laugh. “That it doesn’t suck?”

“No. The others aren’t bad. Only there’s not as much . . . there there. You were drawing what you saw. But in this one, you were drawing it the way you wanted us to see it. Through your eyes. It’s subtle.” He slid the sketchbook over to her. “But it makes a difference.”

Humming to herself, she turned the page around so she could see it right-side up, and he had a point. It wasn’t just a famous church staring back at her as if from a postcard. The big, round window at the center connected to the pointed arches and the tops of the towers, which connected to the sky and to the ground, coming together to give a sense of warmth. Of wholeness. She’d been starting to interpret. To pull it all together and make an image you could feel.

Notre Dame. Our lady. A woman standing free and on an island all her own.

Rylan smiled and pointed at the picture. “It’s paying off. You can’t love what you don’t know, and you can’t draw like that unless you love.”

He wasn’t wrong, but she’d never heard it put that way.

How would it be to draw him? She’d never been the best at portraiture, but she could imagine it now. Spreading him out and having him pose for her. Naked, perhaps. He’d be beautiful, and with enough sketches . . . It would be dangerous.

It was the road to falling in love.

She closed the cover of the book and returned it to her bag. “How do you know so much about art?”

A shadow crossed his eyes, but it was there and gone in an instant. “I’ve always appreciated it. Never was much good at it myself, though.”

Before she could inquire any further about that, the woman who had taken their orders appeared beside the table again. Kate refused to shrink at her presence, opting instead to look up at her and smile. But she couldn’t help glancing at Rylan when the lady put her hand on his shoulder as she set a basket on the table in front of them. “Your food is almost ready.”

“Merci,” Rylan said, not reacting to the proximity.

So Kate wouldn’t react to it, either. She’d known what kind of person she was getting involved with. His easy intimacy with beautiful waitresses wasn’t anything she shouldn’t have expected. It was a good reminder, even.

The nervous patter of her pulse settled down into a low simmer as the woman walked away, leaving them alone again. Looking only at Kate, he lifted the top of the basket, releasing a thin cloud of steam and revealing tightly rolled rows of little towels. He picked one up, tossing it from hand to hand as he cleaned himself up. Setting it aside, he reached for another and looked to her. “May I?”

Oh. “Okay.” She held her hands out, only for him to take one gingerly into his palm. The cloth was damp and hot as he swiped it across her fingers with practiced ease.

She swallowed hard. She’d known what kind of man he was, and yes, it came with flirty waitresses. But it also came with this—a relaxed air and a skill with his hands. Deep in her belly, a coiling heat burned and flared.

He’d know what he was doing with her body, if she let him have his way with her. And maybe that was worth the insecurity and the casualness of the encounter. The whole idea was frightening and exciting and new.

And it struck her. If he pressed—and he would—she could take him to the hostel with her. There was nothing stopping her but her own inhibitions. The reservations she’d earned over the past couple of years about sex and intimacy and love. Who cared about her roommates, with their quiet groans and creaking bedsprings? Or about how sex had always gone for her before.

Who cared if you could trust a man when you were only going to sleep with him once?

A partner like him—it was something she’d never had, never been sure she even wanted. But maybe it was something she deserved the chance to try.

At that very moment, he looked up at her, and it was like the room shifted. He had no idea that her whole conception of how things might progress between them had changed. He must have sensed that something was different, though. His lips parted and he gave her a lopsided smile. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Shaking his head, he rubbed the cloth over the creases of her knuckles one more time before balling it up and putting it aside. “There we go. All clean.”

“They weren’t all that dirty before.”

“But now they’re cleaner.” He kissed the back of her hand before letting her go.

And just in time. Their waitress cleared the towels and the basket from their table, exchanging them for a circular platter big enough to hold a pizza. As promised, it was lined with some sort of bread, with more rolls of the stuff laid out along the edges. Topping it were servings of things she couldn’t begin to identify. They were colorful and different, and filled the air around their table with a hundred scents she’d never encountered in her life.

A dark hand appeared above the tray, pointing at each little area in turn. “Chicken, beef, potatoes, vegetables, lentils, greens.” The waitress looked between them for approval.