Wedding in Paris We'll Always Have Paris something Borrowed, Something Blue picture Perfect

Paristhe following spring Six days before the wedding"MERCI."Kate Finney Donovan fumbled with the fistful of euros then finally handed them all to the impossibly goodlooking bellman waiting expectantly by the door."Merci beaucoup." He bowed and said either, "May I be the father of your children?" or "Lady, you'd better take a crash course in the exchange rate," then closed the door behind him. She laughed for the first time in eighteen hours of traffic jams, airport security checks, turbulence, and just plain motherofthebride jitters. Clearly it was a testament to the Parisians that she had made it from the airport to the hotel without incident and with most of her money still in her wallet. She had relied on the kindness of Englishspeaking cab drivers and her memory of highschool French to keep her from going too far astray and neither had let her down. Although, judging by the bellman's reaction to the tip she had given him, maybe she had better reread the section on currency inParis for Touristsbefore bed. She was staying in the apartment her greataunt Celeste Beaulieu kept at the Hotel St. Michel on the Left Bank. Celeste was already at the inn named Milles Fleurs, which was located on the outskirts of the city, for the wedding festivities, and she had suggested Kate might want to spend a few days in pampered luxury before the wedding craziness got into full swing. Celeste knew all about her lapse of sanity the night of the engagement party. She had listened as Kate poured out her heart a few days later, held Kate's hand across the transatlantic wires as she alternately blamed herself then Ryan for thinking with their hormones and not their heads. Only Celeste knew what Paris had meant to them and how hard it would be to see the city for the first time as onehalf of an abouttobedivorced couple. "You will do as I say,chÉrie," Celeste had commanded, as only a Frenchwoman from Brooklyn could. "Send on your bags to Milles Fleurs and tell Alexis that you have business to attend elsewhere before you can join them." "You want me to lie to her?" Kate had asked, warming to the idea despite herself. "The business is your heart." What Celeste apparently wanted was for Kate to discover Paris in her own way, on her own time, so that she would have some control of her emotions when she finally saw Ryan again. Perhaps if she got all of those Paris "firsts" out of the way she would stand a fighting chance. Considering the fact that she'd burst into tears at her first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, her aunt might have a point. Even through the thick fog of jet lag, the City of Light's staggering beauty had overwhelmed her as she rode in from the airport. It was every bit as dazzling as she had imagined it as a giddy teenager in love with love and dying for romance. Wide boulevards. Narrow cobblestone streets. Graceful trees dressed in the lacy greens of spring. The Eiffel Tower rising up into the latemorning sky like a dream. She could almost see the ghosts of Renoir and Monet, Hemingway and Fitzgerald watching over the young artists and writers who sat hunched over sketch pads and laptops and steaming bowls of onion soup, feasting on every wonderful thing the city had to offer. Why didn't we do this years ago, Ryan? Before it was too late for us.... She already knew the answer. Children happened. Careers happened. Life happened. And somewhere along the way dreams faded. Thank God, she had listened to Celeste and claimed this time for herself. Her bags were safely en route to Milles Fleurs. Her daughters thought she was meeting with a gallery owner who was staying in a farmhouse in the Loire Valley. All she had with her was an overnight bag, some toiletriesBretton, Barbara is the author of 'Wedding in Paris We'll Always Have Paris something Borrowed, Something Blue picture Perfect', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373837120 and ISBN 0373837127.