Page 83 of The Muse (Beautiful Magic 1)
“But I share the flat with my sister,” he says, laughing.
“Oh.” Had he not been asking what I thought?
“It’s all right. It’s a big flat, with our rooms on opposite sides. Adaline won’t mind, but maybe you would.”
“I don’t care. It’s with you.” I feel weightless and buoyant, like the world is new and everything is possible. “Don’t you see? You’re the reason why I’m not a Muse anymore. I wanted to be with you. I want to be with you outside of the gardens. I want this city to be ours.”
He slides his hands around my waist and pulls me close. “It will be. We’ll walk around Paris, see everything. All the art—it’s everywhere, and it’s incredible. And you’ll meet my friends.” He gives a rueful laugh. “They’ll certainly be dying to meet you.”
It sounds amazing to me.
I loop my arms around his neck, and I can’t stop smiling either. “I can’t wait. And I think I might try my hand at painting. I have quite a good eye, and lots of ideas about what to make,” I say, and slant a sly smile up at him. “The only thing missing is . . . a muse. Maybe you can fit me into your schedule?”
“Yes, I think I could work you in.” He kisses my forehead, and when I close my eyes in happiness, he drops kisses onto my eyelids, my cheeks, my lips. “It’s exclusive though. You can’t have any other muse.”
I shake my head, still smiling. “I don’t want anyone but you.”
That leads to more kissing, and after a while, we continue our walk. “Are you hungry?” Julien asks. “Because I could really go for a chocolate croissant. Funny thing—I know this great bakery, and I’d love to take you there.”
“Take me there, Julien.”
We amble along the river to the best bakery in Paris, together, outside the museum and free from the curse.
Free to be together.
Free to do what any other man and woman in this city might do.
Kiss.
And touch.
And laugh.
And love.
It’s a wonderful world, this one. Full of art and love and food and friends and a new kind of magic.
The kind that love makes possible.
Epilogue
December 25—Four months later
* * *
Clio
* * *
“Christmas is my new favorite thing,” I say between deep inhales of spicy-sweet steam curling up from the mug of mulled cider cradled in my hands. I’m bundled up in flannel pajamas, a thick sweater of Julien’s, and fluffy wool socks, and tucked into the corner of the sofa for warmth.
“You say that about everything,” Julien teases, mirroring me in the opposite corner.
“Not about wintertime,” I reply. Perpetual summer in Monet’s garden has thinned my blood.
“Me? I have only one favorite thing.” He sips his cider, slanting a mischievous look at me from under his lashes. “My favorite thing never changes, because my favorite thing is you.”
“Oh, Julien,” I say, my heart melting, “that is the sweetest, cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He wiggles his ice-cold foot into my bundle of blankets and finds bare skin, and I shriek, trying to wiggle away without spilling my drink.
“Incoming!” Adaline calls from the hall. “Should I avert my eyes?”
“No need,” says Julien, but his grin promises we’ll be scandalous later, and thinking about later warms me as much as the cider.
His sister ducks into the kitchen and comes out with her own drink.
It’s rare that all three of us are home at the same time, between the hours Adaline puts in at the museum, the hours Julien puts in at the museum, plus his graduate classes and the occasional summons to troubleshoot a misbehaving painting, and the hours I put in at school.
I don’t go to school.
I teach now.
Painting mostly. But drawing classes, too, at an art school in Montmartre.
I thought I’d become a painter, and while I do love creating, I find I love teaching even more. So much more that it feels like this was what I was always meant to do. I suppose in some ways that’s true.
Perhaps in most ways.
Guiding others in their passion, helping them see the way through creation, is my new joy.
I’m, quite simply, happy as an art teacher.
Julien is happy too.
And together we squeeze so much life and love into every moment we’re together. Also, there are practical matters to attend to. Things like protection, and we use it now, since I suspect I can conceive now that I’m human. But there will be time for babies down the road. Of that I’m sure.
For now, it’s been good for me to discover who I am, beyond art, in this modern human world. I don’t just mean learning to use the Metro or the time I exploded the microwave.
I’m learning what I love besides art and Julien.
I love meeting Remy and his husband, Rafe, in the park and playing with their new puppy, Rosa. Rafe brings me homemade pastries, and Remy occasionally brings regards from my sisters. They are happy for me and wish me well, even if they cannot fathom my choice. But having never experienced the kind of love I have with Julien, of course, they don’t understand the despair of facing an eternity without it. Remy and Rafe get it – they have that love. Simon and Lucy understand too. They are wrapped up in each other.
