“It is. Gosh, look how big his kids are now.” Stan was the first guy Camille had gone out with, a year after Jace’s death. Stan had been great—kind and respectful, really hoping for a relationship. He’d wanted to marry her, be a father to Julie, and raise a family together. Camille had not been ready. She had not been close to ready. Now she looked at Stan, and felt a pang of envy for the vibrant life he’d found with someone else. Envy . . . but not regret.
Her phone buzzed, and she checked the screen. “Oh boy.” Her chest felt suddenly tight, and then, just as suddenly, it was full of weird flutters.
“What?” asked her mother.
“Professor Finnemore wants to see me.”
Seven
Finn didn’t know what to expect, based on Camille Adams’s cryptic message. She wanted to see him about some photos she’d developed from film found in an old camera. The pictures had been taken in postwar France, which had immediately piqued his interest. When she got out of the taxi in front of the Georgetown restaurant, he caught his breath. Damn. She made him feel like the Big Bad Wolf.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“You look very nice,” he said. Those legs. He was going to think about those legs all through his overnight flight to Paris. But oddly enough, it was her big, soft brown eyes that interested him even more than the legs. A feeling of unease stirred inside him. He’d grown accustomed to keeping things simple, and he already knew instinctively that Camille Adams was complicated.
“Fair enough,” she said, “considering how I was dressed the first time you met me.”
He didn’t remember what she was wearing that day, but it was not a tight skirt and high-heeled sandals. “Thanks for meeting me here,” he said.
“Well, I thought since I’m the client this time, I should come to you.”
“You’re not a client,” he said. “I don’t have clients. I’m a teacher. I have students.” Oh my God, he thought. Please be my student, Camille.
“Your services aren’t for hire?” The wind lifted her silky dark hair away from the curve of her neck.
He wanted to bury his nose there and inhale deeply. He wanted to— “Nope,” he said. “My advice is free.”
“Then you have to let me buy lunch.”
“No way. Don’t even think about it.”
She opened her mouth to protest, and he held up a hand. “It’s not a date,” he said. “Okay? It’s lunch, and I’m buying, end of story. Come on, Camille. Let me be just a little bit nice to you.”
Her shoulders relaxed, and she smiled at him. She was even prettier when she smiled. “I would love to let you be nice to me.” She looked up and down the lush, elegant street. “I’ve always liked this neighborhood,” she added. “There’s something about the atmosphere.”
“Agreed. It reminds me of my favorite boulevards in Paris. When was the last time you visited Paris?”
“Not since I was in college.” Her gaze shifted. “I don’t travel much anymore, so . . .” She didn’t finish. Instead, she seemed to mentally regroup, and looked up at him with those gorgeous, sunshiny eyes. “What made you think of Arnaud Loves Patsy?”
“It’s trendy, I know, but it follows one of my favorite trends.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s quiet. You can actually have a conversation here.” And to his own amazement, he actually wanted that from her. His meddling sisters would be amazed. “So I thought it would be a good place to talk about the pictures you found. Also, it’s closer to the airport than Annapolis. I’m catching a nine p.m. flight.”
“Oh. Where are you going?”
“Marseille. Back to work.”
She hesitated, looking at him with an expression he couldn’t read. Not disappointment. Relief? “Then we should get started.”
He stepped aside and gestured for her to precede him up the figured gray stone steps of the 1880s building. A pair of Louis Tiffany lamps flanked the entryway. “How’s your daughter?” he asked. “Julie?” He hoped like hell he got the girl’s name right.
“She’s fine. Thanks for asking. You caught us both on one of our worst days.”
“I still feel bad about that. I’ve made a career out of repatriating lost soldiers, and I’m usually better at dealing with people on their worst days.”
“The film meant a lot to you. I feel bad, too.” She regarded him calmly for a moment. In that moment, he realized she disarmed him, and he couldn’t figure out why. Maybe—
“Professor Finnemore.” The maître d’ greeted him with a slight bow. “Your table is right this way.”
She smiled slightly. God, he couldn’t get enough of that smile. “Friend of yours?” When she saw the prime location of the table, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Obviously.”
They were ushered to a curved, upholstered bench at an intimate table by the front bay window—an ultraprivate spot reserved for VIPs. “My mother comes here a lot,” he said. “She’s in the Diplomatic Corps.”
“They must think she’s awesome.”
“Everyone thinks she’s awesome.”
“Including the Washington Post. I read the coverage of the ceremony for your father. What an incredible moment for your mother and your whole family.”
“It was. Seeing the survivors—the guys on my father’s reconnaissance team . . . They’re all the age my dad would have been, surrounded by their kids and grandkids . . . that was something. After the ceremony, they gave my mom a collection of letters they’d written.”
Camille gazed across the table at him. Okay, maybe she wasn’t gazing, but he could tell he had her attention. “That must have been nice,” she said. “Hard, though, for your family.”
“You’re right—it was both. We went back to my mom and stepdad’s place afterward and got drunk and read the letters,” he said. “That probably sounds disrespectful, but it was . . . well, we drank toast after toast to my father, there were tears, and we bonded.”
“It’s good that you spent some time with your family.” She folded her hands on the table and held his gaze. “Tell me about them.”
Shit. Now he was the one gazing. And he liked her. Not just because she was pretty, but because she was . . . interesting. Cool. She didn’t fit the mold of the kind of woman he usually hooked up with. She made him want something more than a hookup. She made him want to get to know her. And even more risky—she made him want to let her know him.
“Let’s see. Short version. When my dad went missing, Mom had three kids—my sisters Margaret Ann and Shannon Rose, and she was pregnant with me. She met my stepfather while on assignment in Belgium,” he said. “Rudy had two kids by his first marriage—Joey and Roxy—and he and Mom had two more—my brothers, Devon and Rafe.”
“Wow, that’s quite a clan.”
“Even more so now that we’re all grown and have kids.”
“You have kids?”
“Not me, but all the others. I’m a professional uncle.” After he’d been burned by Emily, he wasn’t sure he was cut out for family life. His sisters kept saying he just hadn’t met the right woman yet. Sitting here now, having lunch with Camille Adams, made him wonder . . . no. No.
“Is your stepfather in the Diplomatic Corps, too?”
He shook his head. “Rudy is a journalist. He’s been a correspondent for every major bureau you can think of. And he plays a mean slide guitar. When we lived in Frankfurt, he was in a garage band called the Trailing Spouses.”
“Interesting name . . .”
“It’s an official designation for the spouses of people with government posts. In the Diplomatic Corps, almost everybody has one.” A waiter came to pour water from a crystal pitcher. “Anyway, that’s my family in a nutshell. I’d rather hear about yours.” Finn was startled, because he really did want that. He wanted to know everything about her.