"MOM, I CAN'T TALK right now. I'll call you when I get back to the hotel, okay?" I hold the phone to my ear, trying not to get too jostled by the crowds of tourists thronging around me. "I love you, too."

Just as I hang up, Thyra returns, wearing dark sunglasses and carrying two Eiffel Tower keychains. One is pink, the other black. "Which one do you want?"

"Do you have to ask?" I say with a laugh as I shove my phone back into the pocket of my black jeans. I take the black one, looping the keyring onto the strap of my bag.

"No, but I had to be sure." Thyra smiles, but the expression doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Want to go see la Tour Eiffel?"

A group of men walk by in suits, chattering in Italian, and I stiffen.

"Of course, that's what we're here for." I try to sound cheerful.

"Awesome." She loops her arm through mine and we mill about the grounds, buying street food and carnival snacks.

When I'm munching on a soft pretzel and she's eating fluffy blue cotton candy, we decide to go up the Eiffel Tower.

I cast a surreptitious glance around me as we walk arm-in-arm. The same men who have been following me since I got off of Antonio Cavalli's private jet and into the Parisian airport are still with us. If Thyra ghas noticed them, she hasn't mentioned it. I've been in Paris for nearly a month now, and I've updated my mother as to my location, even facetiming her to show her that I was with Thyra, and she seems to have relaxed somewhat. She's even suggested taking time off work to come visit us and sightsee with us, which sounds fun. I miss my mother. I miss New York.

But I don't know if I'lll ever be able to go back. Not even for the chicken Caesar salad pizza that I had at one incredible pizza place. Not even for the Cold Stone ice cream with oreos. No matter how good the food is or how many people I know and love are there... my heart would still ache from the one person who I fell in love with.

And then promptly abandoned. And rejected.

I can be happy without him. I can live without him.

But I don't know if I want to.

Another thing I don't know is if the men following me are Martell's men or Cavalli guards, but either way, I'm not sure if I should feel safe or spied on. Every time I've tried to approach one of them, I've been foiled they always escape into a busy crowd. When I try to talk to them, they pretend they don't speak English. Which they very well might not.

Still, I've tried French, even some rudimentary Italian. Nothing.

"What are you thinking about?" Thyra says, snapping a picture of the view. We're a few thousand feet above the ground, and down far below us is the cobblestone streets, the Arc de Triomphe with its gorgeous intricately carved stone surface; even the pigeons pecking at tourists' crumbs and the tourists milling around with selfie sticks look beautiful and romantic from this height.

"What? Oh... nothing. Just my mom," I say, trying to smile. It's only half-false.

Thyra sighs. "I wish you knew you could tell me anything, Christina."

The thing is, I know I can. I know she would listen. But what happened with Antonio just feels too personal, too shameful, too intimate to share with anyone. Except maybe him, and I'll never see him again. He's probably in jail or escaped to some exotic location or maybe even in Italy.

He's nowhere near me, and I can't ever let him get that close again. It would kill me.

"I know... Maybe I'll be ready to share with you, soon," I offer weakly.

She nods, understanding. "Do you want to stop by Laduree later and get macarons?"

"Yeah." I smile. "I can't believe this is your life. Macarons, Paris, the Eiffel Tower... it sounds like a dream."

Thyra elbows me. "Yours sounds like one, too, you know?"

I nod. Last week, I received news that Pierre Martell was dead. Along with the ten million dollars and a house in Provence that I got, my mom received a sizeable nest egg of one million and a vault of jewelry. She's spent it modestly, since years of frugality are hard to shake off, but she did go on a shopping spree the other day and she definitely won't let me pay for her plane ticket to France, either.

I'm glad we're comfortable, now. Part of me thinks I might never have found out who I was--whose daughter I was--without Antonio. But who knows? Maybe I would have?

"I mean, being a secret mafia heiress and all that," she jokes. "The only things I get are crotchety afghans from my great-aunts."

I laugh. "At least the afghans aren't soaked in blood."

"No, just cat litter."

We arrive at the top and stare out at the view. From this vantage point, I can see the whole city. The glittering pyramid of the Louvre; the Champs-Elysees; I even imagine that I can see far enough to the fabled palace of Versailles, the gilded cage for Louis XIV's trapped courtiers.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

I almost jump out of my skin at the tenor of the speaker's voice.

It's a sound I would know anywhere.

It's Antonio Cavalli.

"Antonio?" Christina twists the scarf around her neck, looking up at me wide-eyed.

"Christina," I say. "Who's your friend?"

The petite, sunglasses-clad girl with tan skin and dark curls pipes up. "I'm Thyra, Christina's best friend. I'm guessing you're the heartbroken lover she cruelly rejected?"

I choke on air. Christina looks torn between killing her best friend and running away. "Yes..."

"It's nice to meet you. I'm Thyra." She shakes my hand before glancing me and Christina. "I'm going to go over there. But no funny business, mister. I don't want my best friend to be kidnapped... again."

"Ha. Ha. Ha." Christina seems to have recovered enough to laugh at her friend's bad jokes. "I'll be fine."

Still, she stares at her best friend's retreating figure as if to say, don't leave me here with this psychopath. Or maybe that's just my imagination.

"What are you doing here, Antonio?" She stuffs her hands deep into the pockets of her beige trench coat, her expression shifting from deer in headlights to defensive and about to sic the alligators in my moat on you.

"I came to see you, obviously." I take a cautious step closer, ignoring the swarms of sightseers milling around us.

"But..." she bites her lip. "Are you the one who sent those men after me? The ones who've been following me around?"

"There are men following you around?" I say. That is genuinely a surprise to me.

"How else would you have found me?" she says, eyebrows rising.

"A wild guess," I say. "Okay, fine, your mother told me."

"My mother?" she repeats. "Why would she do that? She hates you!"

"First of all, ouch." I press a hand to my chest. "Second of all, she started liking me when we attended the same church."

"You--you go to church now ? Why? When?" Now we're back to deer in the headlights. Make that an adorable deer in the headlights. She moves toward me, as if proximity alone will answer her questions.

"Since you left, Christina, I've turned my life around. I know it might be hard to believe, but... I realized I wanted to be a better man. Not for you--not to get you back, but because... You inspired me, Christina. I wanted to have what you had, this deep, abiding, unwavering hope in the goodness of things, in the goodness of life... in the goodness of God." I take another step toward her.

Her lower lip quivers. I realize that all of a sudden, less than a foot separates us. "Did you find it? Did you find that hope?"

"Yes," I say honestly. "I found God, and salvation, and hope, and all of it. I found His love, and now... I want to love you, Christina, the way you deserve to be loved. I'm not perfect, and I never will be, but... if you give me a chance, I can try to be good. For you."

She wraps her arms around herself. "Why don't we have dinner tonight?"

"Christina Martell, are you asking me on a date?" A smile curves my lips upwards.

"Why, Antonio Cavalli, I think I am."