Jessica's Fate

Chapter 133

I basically threw myself into planning and running the hotel pastry pop up as a means to distract myself on a daily basis from the fact my relationship was a ticking time bomb due to explode on Saturday. It was beneficial for one, it allowed me to send Carrie for a crash course on how to run things the way chef expected things to run at the patisserie.

He'd called immediately after her first day, pleased as punch with her skill level and letting me know what a good choice it had been to bring her on board.

It was also necessary. It allowed me to be free every evening for dinner and time to spend with Sam. We went out a few times, stayed in and had what amounted to family game night with Serina and Cam at the penthouse... had him and Serina over for movie night with Cam and I. Lots of wine, cheese and pastry to be honest.

Everything anyone could ever need from a two week-long good bye.

I couldn't help but determine that he planned it that way.

We were hardly alone. We'd go out to eat, just the two of us, but it was always short lived. We had to get back after because he'd not been able to secure the way for us to be together overnight the way we had a couple times before while they'd been in Paris.

Granted, I understood.

Those opportunities had existed because Cam had enough advance notice to rearrange some schedules and give Sam a hand with extra security in the lobby which meant that he hadn't had to worry about anyone sneaking up to the penthouse.

Because after the movie premiere, yeah, someone had figured out just where Serina was staying and it had somewhat become a bit tricky and difficult to maintain a firmly secure circle of protection for her.

But he'd managed to fix everything so that we could have a final day, a full start in the morning and end at the very end of the night or the next morning final day.

It was Saturday and my day off and Cam agreed to take the crazy extended shift at the hotel in exchange for having Sunday off as far as how he arranged his own schedule. So I insisted, that we start with breakfast at the hotel so that I could say good-bye to Serina and give her a container of all her favorite pastry treats to take home with her and Cam and Sam could spend a little time together because they were friends back home and deserved to be able to say good bye too.

There were a few tears.

Lots of hugs.

And Serina promised to consider relocation to Charleston if I couldn't manage to send her a regular shipment of croissants to California.

It wasn't going to be a problem to ship croissants to her.

I just wanted to get her to consider relocating. I really wanted to introduce her to Sang because I thought the two of them would hit it off just well.

After the extended brunch, Cam went to work and Sam and I headed out for our day date. We rented bicycles and took a ride around town, stopping to pick out things from the markets and some specialty shops we found to make a decent picnic to go with a favored bottle of wine.

And then after a bit more riding around, we picnicked on the lawn at the park in front of the Eiffel tower.

It was such a beautiful day and the view was amazing. I couldn't have been more delighted that he'd decided that this sort of quietly public way to spend the afternoon was the right way to spend our last day together.

We nibbled and... yes, well, cuddled... and drank wine and talked all afternoon. It would be a major understatement to just leave it at "cuddled" there was quite a bit of kissing going on between eating chocolate covered strawberries and drinking wine.