One Paris Summer (Blink) Read online

  BLINK

  One Paris Summer

  Copyright © 2016 by Denise Grover Swank

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Blink, 3900 Sparks Drive SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

  ePub Edition © May 2016: ISBN 978-0-310-75532-6

  Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by the publisher, nor does the publisher vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any character resemblances to persons living or dead are coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  BLINK™ is a registered trademark of the Zondervan Corporation.

  Cover design: Brand Navigation

  Interior design: Denise Froehlich

  Interior illustration: © PaNaStudio/www.istock.com

  16 17 18 19 20 21 /DCI/ 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To my daughter Julia—her obsession with Paris inspired Sophie and Mathieu’s story.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER One

  “WE ARE NOW making our final descent into Charles de Gaulle. Please make sure your seat belts are fastened, your seat is in an upright position, and tray tables are stowed away.”

  Paris, France.

  My stomach twisted into knots. This city was one of the most desirable vacation spots in the world, but I didn’t want to be here.

  Sighing, I shook my sleeping brother. “Eric. Wake up.”

  He lifted his eye mask and took out an earplug, his eyes barely open slits. “Have we landed?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then leave me alone.”

  I had no idea how he could still be sleeping. I was so freaked out, I hadn’t slept at all.

  We were about to see our father for the first time in ten months.

  But Eric could sleep through anything. Fireworks. Mom’s yelling. Alarm clocks. Mom claimed it was because he was a seventeen-year-old guy. I decided it was because he was lazy. The fact that he had excellent grades was pure luck and charm.

  I leaned over Eric and lifted the window shade, taking in the sight below the plane. Densely packed, grungy-looking buildings covered the landscape.

  He groaned and blindly shoved my arm from the window. “I swear, Sophie . . .” But rather than finish the sentence, he turned away from me.

  “You have to put your seat up, Eric. The flight attendant is coming down the aisle.”

  He turned back around and slid his mask to the top of his head. “What’s she gonna do? Arrest me?”

  He shot me a sardonic grin. My brother was such an idiot. But he was older than me by fifteen months and twice as popular at our private high school. Girls found his idiocy charming. I had no idea why.

  “They might arrest you. You hear about people being taken off planes all the time.”

  He snorted. “Good thing they’re taking me off the plane in the city I want to be in.”

  “You don’t want to be here any more than I do.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Good point. Maybe if I put up enough of a fight, they’ll send me back to the good ol’ USA and you can spend eight weeks in Paris with Dad on your own.”

  Panic rose in my chest. “You wouldn’t.”

  His lips twisted in disgust. “I couldn’t get so lucky. Dad would probably bribe some official to make me stay.” But he still hadn’t raised his seat.

  The flight attendant was two rows ahead, gathering trash. “Eric.”

  “Relax, Sophie. It’s no wonder you don’t have a boyfriend. You’re too uptight.”

  “Some of us like to follow the rules.”

  “No kidding, Soph. Live a little.”

  The flight attendant stopped next to our row and looked at Eric’s reclined seat. “Sir, would you please return your seat to the upright position?”

  “Of course,” he said, flashing her his flashy smile. “Be happy to.”

  “Merci.”

  She moved past us, and a smug grin lit up his face. “See, Chicken Little. The sky didn’t fall on your head.”

  “Shut up.” My tone was harsher than intended. “I can’t believe Mom trusted you enough to send us alone to Paris together.”

  “She couldn’t exactly ship us in a box from Charleston, could she?”

  I couldn’t believe she was sending us at all.

  “Be a good girl or Dad might not let you be in his wedding.”

  “Good.” I crossed my arms and flopped back in my seat. “I have no intention of being in his wedding.”

  “You may not have a choice.” He didn’t sound happy about this, and I was sure it had more to do with concern for his own fate.

  “He can make me give up my summer—the one summer I actually had plans—but he cannot make me be in his wedding.” I shuddered. I couldn’t even imagine my father with another woman.

  “Please. I had to quit my job at the golf course. My girlfriend broke up with me because she didn’t want to hang out alone all summer. I gave up a whole lot more than you did.”

  That was debatable. My piano teacher had set up lessons for me to take with a local college professor to prepare for a scholarship competition in the fall. Now I worried I wouldn’t be ready. The colleges I wanted to go to were expensive. “At least Dane is coming on Sunday.”

  A mere six days ago, Dad had called to drop his double bombshell—one, he was marrying a woman he barely knew, and two, he insisted we come to the wedding and spend the entire summer with him, his new wife, and her daughter. No discussion. No concern about whether his plans fit into our lives, only a sheepish I’m sorry.

  Eric had been even more vocal in his refusal, but Mom had surprised us by insisting we didn’t have a choice. In fact, she seemed downright happy about Dad’s remarriage, but then she’d handled his departure better than any of us. In an effort to appease us, she’d talked Dad into letting each of us have a friend stay for a few weeks. Eric’s friend first, then mine.

  I’d considered losing my passport, but my friend Jenna—who was supposed to come after Eric’s friend Dane—had a conniption. “That’s just so wrong,” she’d said as she sat on my bed, painting my toenails. “Who turns down Paris?”

  “I’m not rejecting the entire city of Par
is. Only my father.”

  “So tolerate your father and enjoy Paris! Surely there’s something you want to do there.”

  I thought for a moment. “I want to see the Eiffel Tower. I hope I’m not too scared to go up.”

  She nudged my shoulder with hers. “Maybe you can get Dane to take you up. Just think, you’ll get almost four entire weeks with Dane Wallace.” She gave me a goofy look. “You and Dane. In Paris. Alone.” Dane got to stay longer because Jenna couldn’t come until the end of July. Not that I was complaining too much. I’d been lucky because Dane hadn’t been Eric’s first choice. His best friend, Dylan, couldn’t afford to leave his job all summer.

  I rolled my eyes. “We won’t be alone. Remember Eric, aka the reason for Dane being there? And don’t forget my new stepsister, Camille.” Only her name wasn’t pronounced the normal way. Dad said it Cam-ee.

  “Whatever.” She shifted on my bed. “Look. You’ve crushed on the guy for over two years. This is your chance. It’s destiny.”

  I gave her a serious look. “You mean it’s your destiny to come to Paris the day after Dane leaves . . . aka the reason you’re pushing this whole thing.”

  “Soph! It’s a trip to Paris!”

  In the end it didn’t matter what I wanted. My mother was so adamant, she very well might have shipped us in boxes.

  The plane’s nose dipped forward, and I gripped the armrests, sucking in a breath.

  “The plane isn’t crashing, you idiot,” Eric groaned. “It’s called landing.”

  “I know,” I said through gritted teeth. Like it was natural for a hulking metal object to coast thousands of feet into the air and back down. Forcing my grip to loosen, I closed my eyes and imagined I was sitting at my piano at home, my hands poised over the cool, smooth keys. My fingers started to involuntarily play the B-flat minor scale.

  I opened my eyes when I felt the wheels touch down on the runway. Eric was giving me his trademark look of disgust. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but that’s an armrest. Not a piano.”

  “It calms me down. Would you rather I freak out?”

  His expression suggested that neither was his preferred option.

  The prospect of eight weeks of separation from my piano almost freaked me out more than the fact that my father was getting remarried. While I would have loved to go to Julliard, my real dream was to study in Europe. No matter where I studied, scholarships were essential. Mom was a nurse raising two kids on her own now. And although my father’s job sounded fancy—architectural restorationist—he didn’t make much money. His career had also required us to move around a lot, but Dad had assured us we could finally grow roots in Charleston, where we’d moved in my sixth-grade year. There were plenty of old buildings there to keep him busy until we graduated.

  It had been a great plan. At least until last August.

  Eric gave me a look of mock pity. “You really think Dad’s going to come through on his promise to get you a piano in his apartment?” He shook his head. “Then you probably believe Mom wanted us to come to France because she wants us to get reacquainted with dear ol’ Dad.”

  My mouth dropped open, but nothing came out. What was he talking about?

  He leaned closer, his eyes narrowing with contempt. “Grow up, Soph. Mom wants to go to the beach with her new boyfriend in July. Why do you think she wanted us to come to Paris so bad?” He paused, his silence daring me to answer. “We’re too old for a babysitter, but what kind of mother would she be if she left two teenagers alone for a week? Dad only wanted us for a few weeks, but she insisted on the entire summer so she could spend more time with her boyfriend guilt-free.”

  “What?” I asked in disbelief. “No.”

  He shrugged. “Believe what you want.”

  I stared at him for several seconds before deciding he was full of crap. “Why do you always have to be such a jerk?”

  Leave it to my brother to make a difficult situation even worse.

  CHAPTER Two

  I WAS IN no hurry to get off the plane, but Eric shoved me into the aisle. I was exhausted and unprepared for the long walk to the immigration lines.

  Mom had warned us we’d have to talk to a customs agent before we could leave the airport. Since I was the one who had filled out the immigration card for our family, I handed it to the bored-looking man behind the counter, along with our passports. He riffled through the blank pages of our booklets, then examined the front page with all my information. “What is the purpose of your visit?” he asked, still studying the book.

  “Uh . . . we’re seeing our dad.”

  “Is he a French citizen?”

  I shot a glance toward Eric, who rolled his eyes, apparently thinking I didn’t know the answer to the question. “No. He’s American.”

  “Where will you be staying?”

  “At his apartment.”

  “How long will you be staying in Paris?”

  “Too long,” I grumbled. When he looked up at me with a blank expression, I said, “Eight weeks.”

  After a few more questions, he stamped a page in the middle of our passport books and handed them back. “Welcome to France.”

  He might as well have said Welcome to your summer of hell.

  Eric took over and led the way to baggage claim. After instructing me to stay with the carry-on bags like it was an important job, he proceeded to wrestle our three massive suitcases off the carousel.

  “I’m not a kindergartner, Eric,” I said in a dry tone.

  He scowled. “I never said you were, Sophie.” He pulled the second bag off the conveyor belt and shoved it toward me. “You wanna trade places?”

  I caught it as it rolled to my side but didn’t say anything, tired of keeping up with him. He gave me an odd look, as though confused by my lack of reply, then grabbed the last of the suitcases.

  We rolled our bags toward the exit in silence. Irritation rolled off Eric in waves. That, along with our bickering, made me realize he was nervous about seeing Dad too.

  I wanted to turn around and beg my way back onto the plane for the return flight to New York. I’d never get away with it, which meant I had no choice, and that made me angrier than anything. It wasn’t my fault our father had run off and left us. Why should we have to change our lives to fit his schedule?

  As I followed Eric, I took several deep breaths in a feeble attempt to keep myself together. It didn’t help that I was working on approximately two hours of sleep. I figured we had a several-minute walk, enough time for me to calm down, so I wasn’t prepared to turn a corner and find a crowd of people waiting behind a metal railing, many of them holding signs scrawled with passenger names. My eyes were drawn to the left, and I found him, peering over the head of a woman in front of him.

  Dad.

  The joy I felt at the sight of him caught me off guard, but it quickly slipped away, leaving fear in its wake. I wasn’t ready for this.

  “Eric! Sophie!” he called.

  Eric looked over his shoulder, making sure I was still behind him, then made a beeline for our father.

  Dad closed the distance and engulfed Eric in his arms, holding him for longer than I would have expected. I watched them, realizing with sadness that Eric was now nearly as tall as our father. Then my gaze shifted to the black-haired woman next to them, who was studying me with open curiosity. Her scrutiny made me uncomfortable, but I felt compelled to return it.

  She wore a royal blue skirt and a silky cream blouse. I wasn’t a shoe expert, but the cream leather pumps on her feet looked like they had cost a fortune. Her makeup was perfect, and her hair hung in loose curls that brushed her shoulders. But it was her face that captivated me the most. Her dark chocolate eyes were soft and kind, and her mouth tipped up into a warm smile.

  I still stood on the secured side of the imaginary line, my feet anchored so that I blocked the traffic flow behind me. A middle-aged man bumped into my shoulder and broke loose into an angry tirade I didn’t understand, but I barely noticed. My bre
ath was stuck in my chest.

  I couldn’t move.

  “William,” the woman next to my father murmured in a musical accent.

  Dad set loose my embarrassed-looking brother and turned his attention to me, eyeing me as though I were a skittish wild animal. “Sophie.”

  Less than a year had passed, but he looked older. New wrinkles were etched around his eyes and there was gray scattered throughout his dark hair, but his eyes had changed the most. I always remembered them filled with laugher and love; now they held only profound sadness.

  I remained frozen, waiting on him. He was the one who had left me, and I’d waited ten months and six days for him to come back, growing angrier each day. Now I was facing him on unfamiliar turf. The unknowns of this trip scared me to death, and all I wanted was for my dad to tell me everything was going to be okay—though he was the one who had done this to me.

  I wasn’t about to make the first move.

  Tears filled his eyes, although I was unsure why. Was it because I wasn’t running to him like I used to every night when I was little, greeting him with a squeal of delight when he came home from work, smelling of sweat and marble dust? Or was it because I’d grown an inch taller and my hair was three inches longer, and he now realized everything he’d missed? Had it hurt him to miss the father-daughter dance at my school? Did he long for our Sunday night ice cream dates at Cold Stone? Or the spring nights we’d sit together on the back porch, watching thunderstorms roll in? He’d stolen nearly a year of our lives together and I couldn’t forgive him for that, no matter how much my mother insisted I should.

  But I loved him too. Still. In spite of all the pain he continued to cause me, and that pissed me off even more.

  He took two steps toward me, crossing the line that separated my life from his, grabbing my arms and pulling me to him. I stiffened, then sank into his chest and fought the tears burning my eyes. My face pressed against his shirt and I breathed him in, taking in his changed scent. He had switched his usual musky shampoo for something lighter, and while I could still detect the crushed stone embedded in the fiber of his clothes, that was different too. And that was what broke loose my tears. His new smell. This man was no longer the Daddy I knew. He was gone from me forever.