By that evening, Jane’s confidence had completely evaporated. She looked doubtfully at the address in her hands for what had to be the thousandth time before stepping out of the taxi in front of 25 Avenue Montaigne, which just so happened to be the iconic Plaza Athénée. Thank God I’m dressed right. She took a deep lungful of the humid winter air, and smiled at the uniformed doorman who ushered her deferentially into the impossibly magnificent five-star hotel. The lobby was a sumptuous mixture of marble, velvet, and crystal that set her teeth on edge, and Jane felt a pang of longing for the clean lines and simple track lighting of her studio apartment.

She fought the urge to panic and instead focused on her image in the mirror across the lobby. Her pale blond hair was swept loosely into a low knot, and she’d opted for minimal makeup. Her gray eyes looked wide and innocent; the blue of the dress set them off nicely—and showed a tantalizing stretch of creamy décolletage. She looked sexy, but tasteful . . . almost as though she belonged here.

Of course, she also looked a bit vain, since standing there, over her reflection’s shoulder, was Malcolm. Watching her watch herself. Perfect.

She turned and pressed her lips to his, wiping the amused smile off his face. She inhaled deeply; she had forgotten how delicious he smelled. His spiced-champagne scent made her feel half-drunk already.

“You look good enough to eat,” he whispered in her ear when they broke apart, and she had to fight off a sudden impulse to point out that he could easily skip dinner and do just that.

A real date. Like civilized people. In chairs.

As if he had read her thoughts—the second, less scandalous set of them, anyway—he took her arm and led her into the restaurant. He held a white-silk-cushioned chair for her, and she sat carefully, scooping and arranging the full skirt of her dress in a futile attempt to keep it from creasing or pulling.

“God, I missed you,” Malcolm’s deep voice rumbled, and she forgot all about the chiffon. The candle at their table flickered, making his deep, dark eyes glow orange. “Those were the six longest days of my life.”

“I missed you, too,” she told him softly, and she meant it. She couldn’t quite explain it, but whenever she was around Malcolm, every part of her body hummed, desperate to be touching him. But at the same time, her mind felt peaceful, calm, as if it were perfectly happy to step out of the way and let her body take over. She was glad that their table was tucked in a private corner of the room, at least ten feet from the nearest other couple; an entire meal in public suddenly seemed like an awfully long time to avoid doing or saying something embarrassingly intimate.

“The auction house delivered my vase today,” Malcolm told her conversationally, unfolding his crème-colored napkin and placing it on his lap. She smiled automatically—of course he would make this easier with small talk. She felt her mind adjust itself to match the lightness of his tone.

“They did?” Jane said teasingly. His carbon-dated tastes had been their very first topic of conversation. “Let me guess: you’ll put it in some corner where no one will bump into it by accident, and then go tell all your friends how yours is two centuries older than theirs?”

He laughed. “You know, I didn’t think France gave passports to people who weren’t fanatical about preserving history. We’re surrounded by people who haven’t changed their traffic laws since horse-drawn carriages were the cool new hybrids. How did a serial renovator ever manage to slip through airport security?”

“I looked surprisingly innocent as a baby,” she answered. On their second date (they’d made it as far as her tiny kitchen table), she’d confessed that she was actually an American citizen, too, although she had lived in France with her grandmother since she was ten months old.

A white-jacketed waiter appeared just then with glistening flutes of champagne and two small glass bowls of radish foam with caramelized leeks.

Jane cocked a suspicious eyebrow. It smelled good, but it looked like shaving cream. “You know, they don’t eat foam in Alsace. This is strictly a pretentious Parisian thing,” she joked as the waiter glided off.

“Tell me more about your farm,” he suggested, taking a sip of the effervescing wine.

“You mean my own personal juvenile detention center?” She poked her bottom lip with the prongs of her fork. Malcolm’s eyes shifted for the briefest moment. “You don’t want to know about that.”

“I want to know everything about you.” His toe touched hers under the table, and a shiver ran from her pearl-painted toenails all the way up to her spine. She thought about all the luxury rooms in the floors above and had to clutch her chair to keep from dragging Malcolm upstairs. But that was the whole point of the evening, she reminded herself: to stay out of bed long enough to exchange more than pillow talk.

“Well, Gran keeps a fully stocked bomb shelter,” Jane admitted with a wry grin, feeling the warmth of the champagne begin to spread outward from her stomach. Six years away from her childhood home had given her the ability to see some humor in her unusual upbringing . . . as long as she didn’t linger on it for too long. “She was convinced we would one day be under siege.”

Malcolm laughed. “That sounds a little paranoid.”

Jane smiled and took another sip of champagne. Her grandmother was more than paranoid, but it wasn’t entirely without merit. Her daughter—Jane’s mother—and son-in-law had died in a car crash in North Carolina just ten months after Jane was born. The woman was so petrified of losing her granddaughter, too, that she’d moved her to her home in a tiny village in France and barely let Jane out of her sight. And when that had been completely unavoidable, Gran had sent her faithful dog, Honey, along to watch over her. “She was very . . . protective of me.”

The delicate sounds of a Mozart sonata filtered down from hidden speakers, and the waiter wordlessly refilled her water glass.

“Well I guess we have that in common then,” Malcolm said. A few tables over, a couple dug into goat cheese salads and fresh bread. “What’s your grandmother’s stand on antique art?” he teased, wriggling an eyebrow comically.

Jane smirked. “The woman has the absolute worst taste—even worse than yours, Mr. Quaint-French-Whatever. She has all these awful china plates on the wall and everything’s huge and floral and heavy. She can’t hang her hideous knickknacks and depressing oil paintings to save her life, so they’re constantly slipping and falling and breaking, and she was convinced that I was going around knocking them down myself. It didn’t even matter that I was in my room or outside; she always thought it was me. Let me tell you, though: if just hating those things was enough, then I broke every last one just by looking at them.”

“Now that’s quite a talent,” Malcolm said, an unreadable expression in his eyes.

“Wouldn’t it be? I could redecorate without lifting a finger.” Jane chuckled, lifting a polished fingernail in demonstration. “It would certainly make my job a lot easier. Madame Godinaux has me running all over the city to pick up light fixtures and furniture. I don’t know how she thinks it’ll all fit into one house. I’d love to be able to get rid of a display nook or six without leaving fingerprints.”

Malcolm leaned forward, his gaze suddenly intent. His abrupt intensity made her breath catch in her throat. “You’re amazing, Jane. Do you know that?” He reached across the table and grasped her hand. “I had this whole plan in place, but . . .” he trailed off, shaking his head ruefully.

Jane’s heart started pounding, and her skin sizzled at his touch.

“Jane, I’ve always believed that when you meet the one, you know it.”

Jane glanced around, sure that her heartbeat must be echoing through the whole room.

“I’m not a patient man,” Malcolm continued, “and a month is already too long.” He set a small box covered in deep blue velvet on the table between them like a challenge, and gave her one last long look before snapping it open. Set on a platinum band, the diamond—an emerald-cut solitaire of at least five carats—sparkled fiercely in the candlelight. “Jane,” Malcolm said, his voice throbbing with passion, “you’re the one. I don’t want to spend another day away from you, and I don’t want to wait. Please,” he added, but there was no pleading in his tone, “Jane, say you’ll be my wife.”

The room spun fast. Jane’s heart was in her throat and her cheeks flamed, as though the heat had been turned up full-blast. Marrying Malcolm would mean leaving France behind: her job at Atelier Antoine, her adorable apartment in the fifth arrondissement with its charming view of Notre Dame from the fire escape, her friends, her entire life . . .

The choice was easy.

“Of course. Of course I will.” She held out her left hand so he could slip the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.