I did as he said, watching with confusion as he walked around to the drivers side.
“Okay, explain yourself. Paris? Really? I thought we were just pretending.”
Jack started the engine, his profile illuminated by the soft glow of the dashboard lights. “We are pretending.” His voice was calm and even as he pulled away from my mother’s house. “But the pretense has to be convincing.”
I couldn’t resist rolling my eyes. “And that requires an international trip?”
“It does if I’ve already told your family we’re going.” His hands were relaxed on the steering wheel, but something in the set of his jaw told me he was more tense than he was letting on.
“You just made that up on the spot,” I countered. “You could easily tell them our plans changed.”
Jack was quiet for a moment, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “I could,” he finally said. “But I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“Because you deserve Paris.”
His simple statement knocked the wind out of me. I stared at his profile, trying to make sense of what he was saying.
“What do you mean?”
“Look, I agreed to be your fake boyfriend to help you deal with your family. If I’m going to do this, I want to do it right.” He glanced at me briefly before returning his eyes to the road. “Your sister gets to have her special weekend with all the attention on her. Why shouldn’t you get something special too?”
“Because it’s insane!” I blurted. “Paris is halfway around the world. It’s expensive. It’s... it’s too much.”
“It’s a weekend, Mia. A few days in Paris is well within my means.” The way he said it, so matter-of-fact, made me aware of the vastly different worlds we came from. “I know it seems extravagant, but if we’re selling this relationship to your family, we need to make it believable.”
“And you think spending thousands of dollars on a weekend trip is believable?”
Jack was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice had a different quality to it. “I think it’s believable that I would want to take you somewhere special. Somewhere that would make you happy.”
My heart did a funny little flip in my chest. “But why Paris specifically? You just pulled that out of nowhere.”
His lips quirked up at the corner. “It wasn’t entirely random. Paris in October is beautiful. The summer tourists are gone, but the weather is still good.” He shrugged. “And it seemed like the kind of place that would piss your sister off the most.”
That surprised a laugh out of me. “Wow. Didn’t think you had that kind of petty in you, Sullivan.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he replied, that half-smile still playing on his lips.
We drove in silence for a few minutes as I tried to process everything. Jack Sullivan wanted to take me to Paris. Not because he had to, not because it was part of some business deal, but because he thought I deserved it. Because he wanted to make me happy.
“I can’t let you do this,” I finally said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s... it’s too much. For a fake relationship.”
He stopped at a red light and turned to look at me, his dark eyes serious in the dim car interior. “Mia, let me do this. Please. Or at the very least, think about it.”
Something in his voice made my arguments die on my lips. The light turned green, and he returned his attention to the road, leaving me staring at his profile and wondering what the fuck was really happening between us.
“Okay,” I heard myself say. “I’ll at least consider it.”
Jack’s smile was small but genuine. “Good. That’s all I ask.”
As we drove through the quiet streets toward my house, I found myself stealing glances at him, wondering what other surprises Jack Sullivan had in store. Paris. With Jack. Did I have the strength to say no to that?
JACK
