When in Paris... (Language of Love)
Read When in Paris... (Language of Love) Online
Authors: Beverley Kendall
Tags: #New Adult Romance, #young adult mature, #romance, #romance contemporary, #New adult, #contemporary romance
When In Paris…
Beverley Kendall
Copyright © Beverley Kendall 2012
Published by Season Publishing LLC
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
www.theseasonforromance.com
www.beverleykendall.com
Cover Design © Hot Damn Designs
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
License Statement
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to author and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedication
To the love of my life, Ryan.
Mommy loves you always.
Acknowledgments
Dawn, thanks again for holding things together while I wrote and for loving the book. Grace, thanks for your invaluable input and edits. Lori, you just made the book better with your spot on observations and really helping me pull the blurb together. Barb, thank you for the blurb aid and the brainstorming sessions. Kim, I know it took a bit of back and forth, but you nailed that cover better than I EVER could have wished, hoped and prayed for. I bow to your enormous talent.
WHEN IN PARIS...
College freshman Olivia Montgomery is thrilled at the chance to start over, escape the rumors that plagued her in high school. And she can finally put her juvenile crush, Zachary Pearson, where he belongs—in her past. Then her unrequited love strolls into her French class, shattering Olivia’s newfound peace, and the feelings she'd thought buried for good come rushing back. Now she can't shake her unwanted attraction to the one guy who can twist her stomach into knots with just a smile...but has never given her the time of day.
Zach’s good looks may have always gotten him his pick of girls, but it's the star quarterback’s skill on the football field that gives him his pick of the Big Ten colleges. To escape the crushing demands of his win-at-all-costs father, Zach opts for a private university in upstate New York where, his present and past collide. And the one girl he’s always wanted but can’t have—and a class trip to Paris—turn out to be the ultimate game changer that has him breaking every one of his rules.
T
ABLE OF
C
ONTENTS
Also by Beverley Kendall
Historical Romances
The Elusive Lords Series
Sinful Surrender
A Taste of Desire
All’s Fair in Love and Seduction (Novella)
An Heir of Deception
C
HAPTER
O
NE
OLIVIA
Did you know in your mind a lie can morph into the truth if you tell it to yourself long enough?
I heard that once.
As I’m sitting waiting for class to start, that’s the thought that goes through my mind the instant I spot Zachary Pearson framed in the doorway. It’s also the moment I fear I’ve fallen victim to the same phenomenon.
How? By fooling myself into believing that what I felt for him was something between antipathy and indifference.
It had all started on the first day of high school. I’d been fourteen—you know, the age when our bodies are a flux of surging hormones. The instant I laid eyes on him, I felt a physical attraction so powerful I swear it left me dazed. I think my heart had been in the smile I sent him, to which he’d responded by
giving me
the colder-than-arctic shoulder.
The memory of that look still sends shivers through me.
Beyond crushed is the only way to explain how I felt when he’d completely ignored me. At that point, disliking him had been a simple matter of self-preservation. Of course that’s not how I looked at it back then. No, back then I was just plain hurt, not to mention nursing a bruised pride. You see, by then I’d become accustomed not only to male attention,
but
their admiration. It hadn’t been anything I’d actively sought or was particularly proud of, it just was.
He hasn’t seen me yet so maybe there’s still a chance I can escape before he does. But the only exit means I’d have to walk right past him, which means I’m stuck.
Stuck with Zachary Pearson.
Stuck
on
Zachary Pearson.
I’m not even sure I know the difference anymore.
In high school, it’s not like I expected him to instantly fall at my feet or anything like that. What I had expected was that he, at the very least, acknowledge my existence. What I’d gotten was him looking through me like I was glass. Call me young and foolishly naïve, but it had taken me an entire week to finally get the message that he did
not
like me. And was never
going to
like me.
The clincher had been the first day of French class. Zach had arrived late and the teacher had instructed him to take a seat in the desk beside mine—one of only two available. His expression had given nothing away when he’d shifted his blue-eyed gaze in my direction, then to the vacant desk to my left. Without saying a word, he seemed to make it a point to bypass me to take the other desk at the opposite side of the room.
I can still remember how hot my face had gotten and how badly I’d wanted to get up and leave, aware of the curious stares and speculative glances being cast in my direction. Steely pride had kept my butt in the chair and my chin high.
And it was at that precise moment that any remotely warm feelings I’d had for him died. At least that’s what I’d convinced myself.
Here’s the thing, I believe in karma and I’ve always tried to conduct myself in a way to stay on its good side. Irony, on the other hand, is a cruel and heartless bitch. There’s no
reap what you sow
philosophy to it, more a
betcha didn’t see that coming
sort of thing.
Well, I definitely didn’t see
this
coming because when I arrived at college last week, memories of high school and Zach were just that, memories. I’d filed them away in the section of my brain where I stored all the other unpleasant things and never-to-be-relived events in my life.
But as usual, life has other plans for me. Filing Zach away is going to be anything but easy. Life, as I’m learning, likes to “eff” with me. And today, I’m not finding the joke it’s playing funny.
Nope. Not one little bit.
A shallow breath catches in my throat and my heart starts this fierce, uncontrolled thumping, as if it’s trying to escape my chest. I’m treading water, trying to wrap my brain around what’s happening.
Zachary Pearson is standing in my French class.
That’s what’s happening.
Yes, me and my one-time and all-too-brief high-school crush—but more notably my long-time nemesis—are attending the same college.
Zach.
At
my
school.
In
my
class.
My
French
class no less. That’s irony working overtime.
While part of me is mentally gasping at his appearance, the other part tries to convince me he must be a hallucination. Part of a bad dream from which, God willing, I’ll soon awake.
Seriously, what are the chances that having moved to a different state more than three-hundred miles from home, I’d run into him here?
I close my eyes, but when I open them again he’s still there, scanning the room in search of a place to sit. When our eyes finally meet, he goes still, surprise flaring in his pale-blue eyes. Wickedly beautiful eyes that can appear a dove gray in a certain light.