"It's not cold there now, is it?" I asked Ava.
She stood in front of my suitcase as she helped me pack for the three days. It had come around quickly and the last two weeks at work involved Clarke and I preparing for the deal he would hopefully be looking to make. We figured out the numbers we were after and the type of company that would help Clarke keep his position, and now he had to put that into action.
"No colder than here I don't think," Ava admitted. "One coat should be enough. What time does your flight leave again?"
"Four," I answered her. "So it gets us there early Friday morning. I forgot that we were leaving Thursday when I first agreed to this. Luckily my professors were okay for me to miss one class."
"So you have time to explore the city then?" Ava asked me.
"Yes," I said slowly, "and don't worry I will take your advice and do it, okay?'
"Good," she smiled.
I smiled back her slightly as I went to my closest. I had decided to embrace this time with Clarke, and hope I'd see a good side of him that I could actually like. His recent attempt at doing his job had helped, but I still saw that bad side of him that I couldn't stand.
"Oh shit," I said suddenly turning to Ava. "What the hell am I going to wear to the party?"
"Well, it's a party, you have dresses," Ava shrugged, folding up my shirt into the suitcase.
"This isn't a normal party, Ava. I need a nice dress, a formal dress," I stressed, looking through all my dresses, "which apparently I don't have."
"Well, you could borrow one of mine?" Ava suggested.
That made me laugh. "Ava, you pick dresses that... tend to leave little to the imagination."
"I know," Ava smiled as I glanced at her.
"These aren't those type of people though," I told her, sighing and turning around.
"So you can't be sexy, at all?" Ava asked.
"No, not necessarily. You can't be obvious about it, is more like it," I shrugged a little.
"Well, there's the red dress," Ava mused. "It's probably not as formal as you'd like, but it's not bad."
I realised the dress she meant and turned around to found it in my closest. I pulled it out and frowned slightly at it. I bought it for a dinner party once Henry insisted I attend. It was short with a flare below the waist and the chest line came down, making it a little booby. Ava was right, it was the best I had.
"Well, I definitely don't have time to go searching for anything else," I said glancing at the clock in my room.
"Hey, don't stress about it," Ava told me. "Seriously, you have one day of work there and the rest you get to enjoy one of the most famous cities in the world. Please, for crying out loud, enjoy it, for me."
I sighed slightly but smiled at her. "I will. As long as I can deal with Clarke, this will be great."
"That's the spirit."
Clarke had a car pick me up to take me to the airport. He wasn't in the car that picked me up, but he was already at the airport when I arrived.
"Do I detect a hint of nervousness?" Clarke asked, as we sat in the first class lounge waiting for our flight, which felt far too fancy for me.
"Why would you say that?" I asked him, glancing at him.
"You keep playing with your phone, but not actually using it," he noted.
I looked down at my hands and realised he was right and I was continuously rolling my phone in my hands.
"Well...if you must know, I've never flown before," I admitted to him.
"What, really?" he frowned.
I nodded slightly. "We were going go to on holiday when I was younger but the flight got cancelled because of engine troubles, I literally refused to get on the plane. I was four then though."
I could see Clarke wanted to laugh me but he held it back. "Well, personally I love flying."
"Really?" I asked, focusing my vision ahead of me rather than looking at Clarke.
"Yeah," he answered me. "I've always loved the feeling of knowing that in only a matter of hours you can be in one great place to another. I like how peaceful it is up there. It's nice to know some guy with camera isn't going to jump out, that I don't have to look over my back. The best part though, is getting to look at that window and seeing what's below...because it's always different."
I turned to him as he sipped on the drink he ordered.
"That was kind of...deep," I told him.
"Yeah, well it's definitely all you're ever getting out of me."
It took just over seven hours on the plane to get to Paris and I thought it would kill me to sit on the plane that long, but I was wrong. I started out the flight sleeping, as it was an overnight flight, and that killed half the flight, and it also settled my nerves a little. Once I was awake, I was completely awake, but it didn't matter because in front of me I had a TV screen with more movies than I had on my computer. So I was easily able to preoccupy my time with two movies. In the middle of that breakfast was served too, another distraction. I would glance at Clarke throughout the flight. He was in the seat behind me, as we had a lot of room in first class and saw he was asleep until breakfast, and we didn't talk the whole flight.
Finally landing I realised I was tired as hell as we got to the ground but I was also extremely excited. I had never been to another country before. I wanted to see everything, all of it, but as I walked behind Clarke I remembered I was here for work.
"You booked the car to take us straight to the hotel, yes?" Clarke asked as we waited for our bags.
"Well, yeah," I shrugged a little. "Thought that's what you wanted."
"Yes, it is," Clarke nodded, "but can we use the car all day?"
"Sure," I shrugged. "Just got to pay them a little more probably, why?"
"Are you telling me you don't want to go see the sights?" Clarke asked me.
"Well...sure I would," I said to him with a slight frown. "I thought you wouldn't want to, I mean surely you've been here before."
"I have," he nodded at me, "but if I'm totally honest with you most times I was here I didn't exactly take in the sights."
I rolled my eyes at him. "Of course."
"Rory, I am offering to take you on a trip through Paris, are you really going to be stubborn and say no?" he sighed slightly.
I could hear Ava in my head telling me to go and explore, like I should. She probably kill me if she found out I was stubborn again and said no.
"Okay, fine," I said eventually. "But I want to get some study tonight."
I saw Clarke smile sightly as he spotted his bag. "You got it, grandma."
"Hey-!"
We got out bags and met the driver who Clarke instructed to take us around Paris. I thought about insisting on going back to the hotel first to get dressed or something, so I could make an excuse and stay, because spending time with Clarke wasn't ideal. However, once I laid my eyes on the city I found myself in awe. I couldn't put it onto words but there was something about the tall steel structure of the Eiffel tower that had me in a trance. It ended up being one of our first stops around the city and we had to hang out there for a bit so the driver could drop our bags off at the hotel instead of bringing them around, which was fine with me.
To pass the time Clarke bought me a crape from a little cart near the Eiffel tower, which tasted like literal heaven.
"You're really telling me you never been here before?" I asked Clarke, as we sat up on a bench underneath the tower.
He shrugged a bit. "I've driven past it. Seeing this stuff was never the focus for me."
I rolled my eyes slightly. "Well, what a waste. This...is amazing, I love it."
"Do you want to go up it?" Clarke asked me with a smile.
"Seriously?" I asked him surprised.
"We've got all night if you want," Clarke shrugged. "Plus, we can take the elevator, so it won't take long."
Suddenly I was very excited, and for a moment I actually forgot I was with Clarke. Well, I didn't forget, but it was more like he was suddenly so different that I didn't recognise him. He wasn't being the same Clarke that showed up late to work because he didn't care, he wasn't hanging around multiple girls and getting in trouble, in fact I hadn't even heard a whisper of his beard of a girlfriend, Alicia. When he wasn't doing all those things, he suddenly wasn't the person I hated.
"Holy crap," I commented loudly.
I was captivated by the view. The buildings were exactly the same height meaning you could see across for miles, and the other way you could the buildings all the same again and then in the background the city, which felt like a whole other part of Paris entirely. It was however the lights that got me, all the lights from the buildings shone brightly as the daylight started to disappear.
"And you didn't want to come," Clarke muttered under his breath as he lent on the guard rail.
I gave him a stare.
"What?" he shrugged. "You didn't, and I know why, and it's not because you need to study."
"I do need to study though," I said quickly.
He smiled slightly. "I know, but you didn't want to come because you don't like me."
I was cornered, well not so much cornered as I had a height disadvantage. I mean I couldn't run away from this conversation while I was up the top of this tower.
"That's not necessarily true," I told him calmly, staring at the city the whole time.
I saw him roll his eyes however in the corner of my eyes. "You're not the most subtle person, who know. That first day when I was late I could see the hated in your eyes, and I honestly I couldn't care less, I didn't want you to like me."
"So that's why you were rude to me and didn't appreciate any work I did?" I asked him, slightly turning my head to look at him.
"That and the will," Clarke reminded me, "but...things have changed."
I turned him, surprised in his change in tone. I saw him with facing the city like I was but his head was down and his voice was sombre and even his body language seemed a bit defeated.
"What do you mean?" I frowned.
"I wish I could tell you it was your constant nagging and judgement that made me start to realise where I am is important," Clarke told me calmly, "and I mean a little of it was, but it was my father's work in the end. When you told me about Paris, I decided to look into the work he's done every time he was here, and that was when I saw it. My father signed nearly forty percent of companies that we own here. I realised how passionate he was about this company, how every single company he signed was important and how it impacted every person. I realised if I continued to do nothing...I would lose my position and the company wouldn't be Watson International anymore and that would just...disgrace my father's memory."
I sighed but in a way of sympathy. I had never seen Clarke so venerable and to be honest, and I hadn't seen him talk about his father this way. They're relationship while Henry was alive was extremely strained. Henry loved his son, I always knew that, but he and Clarke barely talked. It wasn't a father and son relationship, definitely not in the way Henry wanted anyway.
"I think he'd be proud you know," I finally said.
Clarke frowned slightly and looked at me with a confused look.
"Not with the way you started obviously, but what you're trying to do now," I said quickly. "I mean, you're making an effort being here, and trying to change your reputation. I mean, whilst I don't love the idea of fake dating Alicia Moore, it's only going to help your character."
"I don't think it's something he would love the idea of too," Clarke admitted.
I smiled slightly. "Look, I think there was this unrealistic expectation on you when you first started. Everyone expected you to step up and do this job, but in reality you had no idea how, plus you just lost someone. It wasn't fair to expect that of you straight away and it probably made you want to it less, but doing it for your father...is the right thing to do, but it should be for you too."
"I think it's the right thing for me too, Rory," Clarke said confidently.
"Good."
"Right, now do you want to see something else?"
We got lucky, since it was Friday, the Louvre museum stayed open later that night and that was the next place Clarke took me. We didn't stay there too long though, whilst I enjoyed art it wasn't my focus. We b-lined for the Mona Lisa which was hard because this palace was a maze. Once we found it, I was surprised how small it was, for some reason I pictured it bigger, but that was probably due to the large empty wall it was on. It was hard to get super close to it because it was roped off, but also cause there was like fifty other people in the room.
After we left the rest of the night started to get interesting. I was now hungry and for a moment I forgot Clarke had money until he took us into a fancier restaurant than I was dressed for. I wasn't sure I would like fancy French food but I was completely wrong. It wasn't just the food though, it was the company I was with. Clarke and I were having conversations about things I never thought we would talk about. He asked me about college, and about law school, about where I grew up, even how he grew up and what it was like with Henry when he was a child. I was kind of in awe of the how our relationship had changed, but what I should've realised was that it was a rare moment, and that people don't really change.