Free The Last Time I Saw Paris by Elizabeth Adler Page A

between them, she knew she would never be the same.
    As they emerged slowly into reality, the night air felt suddenly chilly. Dan sat her up and pushed her arms into the sleeves of her cardigan as though she were a little girl, fumbling with the tiny pearl buttons until she had to help him. He smoothed back her tumbled sandy hair then held her face in his two hands. “I’m not sure what love is,” he said softly, “but somehow I think I’ve found it.”
    A shaft of pure happiness seemed to come from somewhere deep inside Lara as she bent her head, leaned into him. “I don’t know what love is either,” she whispered. “All I know is I want what I have with you tonight.”
    He pulled her to her feet, held her close, kissed her again. They were laughing as they shook sand out of their clothes. He helped her with her skirt, and she insisted on buttoning his jeans, running her hand over the gentle bulge that she now knew and for this moment called her own. She bent to kiss him through his jeans and he groaned. “Sweetheart, my love, don’t or we’ll never get back. And look, the tide is coming in.”
    The ocean was racing toward them along with the barking dogs. He grabbed her hand and they ran, slipping and stumbling along the ever-narrowing stretch of beach, scrambling, disheveled and sandy and wet and smelling of sex and love and seaspray, up the wooden steps to the deck and into the house.
    The phone was ringing.
    Lara froze. She knew it was Bill.
    Dan stared, astonished, at her as it shrilled on intothe silence. The wild, uninhibited sexy siren of the beach had disappeared. The color had drained from her face, and she seemed numb with fear. After a few more rings, it stopped, but the sound still echoed in the newly tense silence.
    Lara turned to him, her eyes dark with panic. “What shall I do? What am I doing?” She ran toward the stairs, away from him, but he caught her arm.
    â€œWhy are you running from me?” he yelled, angry because she was afraid of what they had done. “Dammit, Lara, you only did what you wanted to do. Just the way your selfish, unfaithful husband did.”
    â€œOh, what do
you
know,” she cried, furious. “How can you
possibly
know what is between people who have been married for twenty-five years? How can you possibly
know
how I feel?”
    She snatched herself away from him, eyes sparking anger. He stared at her, stunned into silence, betrayed by her guilt. Then he said quietly, “You’re right.”
    He picked up his sandy shoes and walked toward the door. “I’m sorry, Lara,” he said coldly. “But this is your call, not mine.”
    Then he opened the door and, without looking back at her, he walked out of her life. And like a fool, she just stood there and let him go.

CHAPTER 11
    D an did not show up for work the next afternoon and Lara paced the house, exhausted from a sleepless night, torn with guilt about what she had done—and remembering every detail of it.
    Confused, she took Dex for a walk on the beach. When she reached the place where she and Dan had made love she looked for their imprint in the sand, but the tide had washed it away. The moment was gone forever.
    When she returned it was already dark. There was no sign that Dan had been there, no note slipped under the door. She couldn’t blame him. She had destroyed something beautiful and she would never see him again.
    The phone rang and this time she leapt to answer it.
    â€œI called last night but I guess you were out.” Bill sounded as though he was at the other end of the world, which, of course, he was. Crackle on the line hid the tremor in Lara’s voice as she lied and said that she had gone to bed early with a headache and turned off the phone.
    â€œHow’s it going?” Nervous, she twisted a strand of hair around her finger then let it unravel, waiting to hear him say he was never coming