THE LAST ROMANTICS, A Paris Love Story (Park Avenue Series, Book #5) by Ruth Harris

Author:Ruth Harris [Harris, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Romance
Published: 2011-03-26T04:00:00+00:00

I loved her and I loved no one else and we had a lovely magic time while we were alone. I worked well and we made great trips, and I thought we were invulnerable, and it wasn’t until we were out of the mountains in late spring, and back in Paris that the other thing started again.

—Ernest Hemingway

1.

RETURNING TO PARIS was like returning home. Kim left the boat train at the Gare St.-Lazare, and while all the other American tourists went to the plush hotels on the Right Bank, he went directly to the boulevard St.-Germain and, in a lengthy and loving negotiation, bought out the entire stock of the flower seller who set up every morning in front of the Deux Magots. For an additional sum, also lovingly negotiated, he arranged to rent her barrow too, and pushing it in front of him, lie set off for the place Vendôme. He crossed the pont Alexandre III, the wheelbarrow filled to overflowing with iris and anemones, baby’s breath and peonies, mimosa and lilies, roses and carnations, violets and daffodils.

Here, indeed, was a man madly in love! He turned left on the rue de Rivoli, maneuvering the barrow under its arched arcades, right into the elegant rue Castiglione and into the broad place Vendôme. It seemed that Napoleon himself smiled down! It was just eleven in the morning and the day for the fashionable citizens of Paris was just beginning. Yellow Isotta touring cars, white Duesenbergs, drop-head Rolls Royces with basketwork bodies, bottle-green Cadillacs and canary Packards were lined up in front of the Ritz, and opposite, in front of the House of Redon, a reflecting brigade of rakish and luxurious automobiles also waited. The sidewalk was freshly washed, the windows gleamed, the white awning with the black block letters flapped in the crisp January wind.

“Monsieur Hendricks!” The pretty receptionist greeted Kim with a kiss and then with laughter as she glimpsed the mountain of flowers. “Oh, la la!” she exclaimed as the doorman held the door open and Kim pushed the barrow of flowers up the two stone steps and into the pale-gray entrance foyer. It was going to be a glorious day! Kim put his finger against his lips to silence the receptionist. Nicole, who seemed to know everything that happened in the House of Redon, must not have the slightest warning. Silent conspirators, Kim and the doorman wedged the barrow into the small elevator and with a push of the button sent it up to the second floor and Nicole’s office. The black-and-gilt lift was so minute that Kim and the barrow could not fit into it at the same time. Kim left the barrow in the elevator and paced it up the curved, carpeted staircase which the models descended to show off the new collections. He arrived at Nicole’s office floor just as the elevator did. He opened the grillwork door of the elevator cage, extracted the flower-bedecked barrow, and threw open the door to Nicole’s office.

She

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