Blame It on Paris. Jennifer Greene

stopped yet. It wasn’t every day a woman got mugged. She kept remembering the creep’s stinky breath and body odor, the feel of his arm choking her neck, and that started the shakes all over again.

      They were just little shakes. Not big ones. It wasn’t that she was a wimp or anything. At least she never had been before this, and Kelly kept telling herself she was mighty grateful that Will had offered to help her. Being suddenly penniless and without ID in a foreign country would have been pretty darn daunting if she’d been alone.

      Yet she only caught a single glance at the inside of his apartment before some silly instinct made her whirl around and back out again—or try to back out. Will was still standing in the doorway, blocking her escape. Her nose was suddenly an inch from his chin. She was only a breath’s distance from those killer blue eyes. And those shoulders. And those disreputable blond whiskers.

      “I’m engaged. Did I mention that?”

      “Yeah, you did. What’s wrong now?”

      “Nothing. Nothing. You’ve really got an interesting place.” But interesting wasn’t the word for it. One look, and she labeled it bachelor lair. The whole place shouted single guy on the prowl.

      His flat took up the second floor of an old building. She could only see so much from the narrow hallway, but there seemed to be a bunch of rooms, all small. The main living area, off to the right, had long, thin windows; old, rich woodwork; carved tin ceilings. He’d left the French doors open a crack, leading to a step-out balcony. The sunlight and erotic, exotic breeze drifted through the open door.

      Well, possibly it was just a plain old spring breeze, and possibly her mind had totally invented the erotic, exotic thing, but Kelly didn’t think so. Reality was that sex appeal poured off Will in sheets.

      She tried to concentrate on being nosy, which should have been natural for her. The living room was tiny, with a soot-stained corner fireplace and an elegant tiled hearth. The couch was old leather, all wrinkled and soft. The Persian rug looked seriously ancient, thick and fringed, in reds and dark blues. One wall had built-in shelves, with books heaped to the ceiling.

      The dust wasn’t more than half an inch thick, and Will swooped a shirt off a chair. “Look around, make yourself at home, okay? The bathroom’s off to the left. I need to call work, and I’ll start some coffee. Then we’ll concentrate on what you need to do from here.”

      He squeezed her shoulder as he ambled past—an erotic, exotic squeeze, totally inappropriate for an engaged woman.

      Or more likely it was her response to him that was inappropriate. Splashing her face with cold water right then seemed a great idea, so she took off for the bathroom.

      Naturally, she nosed around. The toilet had an antique pull chain from the ceiling—interesting, once she was sure she could make it work. The white pedestal sink and tub were the old-fashioned kind with feet. He used a straight razor, she noted. Didn’t have much in the medicine cabinet but deodorant and first-aid stuff and one medicine. She thought it was for colds, nonprescription and more than two years old; he should have thrown it out. It was outdated.

      Her conscience chided her for being so shameful, but really, nosing around was better than musing that the tub was big enough for orgies. Not that she’d ever participated in an orgy. Or spent a lot of time thinking about them. Or planned to take up thinking about them.

      Impatiently she splashed her face with cool water, then grabbed a navy-blue towel to dry off. The towel was almost the size of a bedsheet. A thick blue rug covered most of the marble floor. No question that Will liked the color blue and his creature comforts.

      She opened the door, which gave her away with a telltale creak.

      Will immediately called out, “Across the hall and one door down. I’m in the kitchen.”

      So…it wasn’t her fault she got to see more of the apartment en route. To the left, an archway led to an alcove. Impossible to guess what the odd-sized space was for, but Will had squished in a small desk, lamp, chair, laptop, so it worked as a miniden. Still, it wasn’t ordinary. The walls had some kind of linen-like finish; the carved ceiling looked hand done. Everywhere, the creaky floors were covered with old Oriental rugs. Nothing seemed new. Everything about the architecture seemed older than a few centuries, practically older than America. Will’s love for blues and comfortable textures followed through everywhere. And he might not be into dusting, but he was basically a put-away tidy kind of guy.

      “What? Did you get lost?” He stepped out of the kitchen.

      “No. I’m just dawdling around. No amount of guilt ever seems to stop me from being nosy. And I love your place—it’s really interesting.” Looking around had also given her a chance to catch her breath. Maybe she didn’t have a full-bore grip yet, but the adrenaline had finally quit pumping. “Will…thank you for helping me. Really, thank you.”

      “Yeah, well, I stumbled around plenty when I first moved to Paris. Might have gotten into real trouble if a few people hadn’t offered a hand. Anyway…” He turned away, started pouring steaming water into pottery mugs. “Did he hurt you?”

      She blinked. His tone was so casual that she almost missed it, but then Will wasn’t an in-your-face kind of caretaker. Instead he was subtle, found a way to slip in a disturbing question and get it out of the way. Most strangers wouldn’t have cared, much less made the effort to steer into a potentially awkward problem.

      She thought that just maybe her attraction to him was more than ordinary old sex appeal. Damned if he wasn’t coming through like a seriously good guy.

      And then she tried to answer the question. “I’m bound to have a few bruises show up tomorrow, maybe even a nasty one on my neck. But I don’t need a doctor. Nothing serious.” Yet suddenly she needed to snug her arms tight under her chest. “I have to admit, though, that I keep feeling…weird. I was never mugged before, never had anyone touch me with the intent to hurt me. I can’t seem to shake it off. There’s just a high…ick…factor.”

      “Sit. I was going to make coffee, then figured that was stupid. You need caffeine like a hole in the head. So it’s tea. French-style. With a bunch of sugar. Sugar for shock, right?”

      “Actually, I never need an excuse to use sugar, but that’ll do.”

      The kitchen was mostly copper and blue, with white trim. There was no dishwasher, and no place for one, she noticed with shock. The sink was messy, but cleaned fairly recently, and the counter just looked typical of a guy, dishes reproducing since the night before. Her scrutiny kept picking up details. A small fridge, a couple bottles of unopened wine, the luxuriously sexy smell of fresh bread, a heap of fresh fruit in a bowl. The eating table only had room for two chairs, was hardly big enough to put plates on, but it overlooked the boulevard below, the whole view of thick, old trees, the steady snake of cars and street traffic. Sunlight ribboned through fresh green leaves.

      “Ever since I got here,” she murmured, “I keep seeing the same things I could see at home. Cars. People. Buildings. Spring flowers and smells. But somehow it’s incredibly different.”

      “It’s Paris,” he said, as if that explained everything.

      And maybe it did. Heaven knows her response to Will was unlike her response to any other stranger. She couldn’t seem to pin down a reason. Maybe being mugged had just thrown her normal reactions off-kilter. Maybe shock and fear just made her senses more acute, inflamed her emotions.

      And maybe burning her tongue on the hot tea would distract her from these idiotic thoughts about him.

      “Better,” she pronounced, after she gulped down three long sips of the strong brew.

      He leaned against the counter. “Okay, I figure we’d better organize a plan of attack here. Obviously the first priority is getting you a new passport. Somewhere, do you have your original passport number, and other ID like a birth certificate or driver’s license?”

      “Well, I did have. But that stuff was all in my