Escape for Valentine's: Beauty and the Billionaire / Her One and Only Valentine / The Girl Next Door

Finally, she was out on the sidewalk, glancing up and down for a taxi. A hotel bellhop asked her a question in French. She tried to remember how to ask for a taxi, but it had slipped her mind.

In the sidewalk café next to her, propane heaters chugged out the only warmth in her world. People were eating breakfast, enjoying the sights of the busy street, their lives still intact.

The bellhop asked the question again.

She remembered. “Cabine de taxi?”

“Going somewhere?” came Hunter’s voice from behind her.

“The airport,” she answered without turning.

“I thought Mahoneys didn’t run away.”

“I’m not running away.”

“You mad at me?”

The question surprised a cold laugh from her.

“Because I’m pretty mad at you,” he said.

“No kidding.”

A taxi pulled up, but Hunter let someone else take it. “So, what’s your plan?”

She sighed. “Why’d you do that?”

“We’re not finished talking.”

“I thought you had problems to solve.”

He snorted. “And how. But I want to know your plans first.”

Sinclair looked pointedly down at her suitcase.

“You left the rest of your clothes in the closet,” he said.

“Those are your clothes.”

“So, you’re going to pout? That’s your plan?”

“I’m not pouting.” She was making a strategic exit from an untenable situation before he had a chance to ask her to go himself.

Another taxi came to a stop, and Hunter sent it away.

“Do you think we could sit down?” he asked with a frustrated sigh, gesturing to the café.

Sinclair shrugged. If he wanted to ream her out some more, she supposed she owed him that much.

He picked up her suitcase, and she moved to one of the rattan chairs. She folded her hands on the round glass table and looked him straight in the eyes.

“Go ahead,” she said, steeling herself.

“You think I’m here to yell at you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Good grief, you’re as bad as Jack.” Hunter signaled the waitress for coffee, and Sinclair decided it might be a very long lecture.

“It seems to me …” said Hunter, as the uniformed woman filled their cups. He shook out a packet of sugar, tore off the corner and dumped it into the mug.

Sinclair just stared at the rising steam.

“You have two choices,” Hunter continued. “You can slink back to New York with your makeover half done and take your chances with Roger. Or you can buck up and stay here a few more days to finish it.”

“It seems to me,” she offered, forcing him to get to the heart of the matter. “Those are your choices, not mine.”

“How so?”

“Why would you want me to stay? Why would you want to help me? I ruined your life.”

“We don’t know that yet.”

“Well, I might have.”

“Possibly. Did you do it on purpose?”

“Of course not.”

“So you weren’t dishonest, you simply lacked certain details and a little good judgment.”

She tightened her jaw. She normally had great judgment. “Right,” she said.

A small glimmer flickered in his eyes. “You want to fight me, don’t you?”

She wrapped her hands around the warm stoneware mug. “I’m in the wrong. I can take it.”

“Very magnanimous of you.”

“Are we done? Can I go now?”

“Do you want to go now?”

She didn’t answer.

“Seriously, Sinclair. Do you want to walk out on Paris, the makeover and me just because things went off the rails?”

Things had done a lot more than go off the rails. She forced herself to ask him, “What do you want?”