“Love on the Seine”

A short story of romance a tale of love overcoming hurdles of career and distance. Paris, with its timeless charm, provides the perfect backdrop for falling in love.

In the heart of the most beautiful city in the world, where the Seine River gently flows, was a quaint little bookshop named Les Mots du Coeur. Among stacks of love-worn pages was where Juliette, a beautiful, passionate bibliophile, spent most of her time. Her life was filled with routines of coffee, books, and occasional. glances out the beautiful, decorated window with its curtains of white lace draped back in order to see out into the passersby in the city on the busy sidewalks and daydreams about love that seemed as unreal to happen as the fictional story she read.

Across the city, in a sleek office overlooking the Eiffel Tower, worked the handsome, attractive, tall, dark-haired Marc. He was dedicated and ambitious as a businessman, having a life filled with blurred meetings, contracts, and endless traveling. So, love was a luxury he could not afford, or so he thought.

Even though their worlds were miles of poles of the earth far apart, fate had its own plan for bringing the two together. A chance of having an encounter because of a misplaced manuscript was so out of context for him ever being brought together with the beautiful Juliette. Marc had wandered into the Les Mots du Coeur one rainy afternoon, seeking refuge and warmth as he began to get a chill. Perhaps he thought this was a nostalgic moment from his youth as he had spent most of his time in the pages of adventure novels.

Sitting in a corner of the cozy cafe, the two began sparking conversations that neither one realized were beginning to connect them. But as quickly as their romance began, it was threatened by the very things that defined them. Marc’s job demanded relocation, a move from Paris to London that would tear him away from the love budding like a rose in the summer that he found himself as he began falling in love with Juliette.

Months passed, seasons changed, and winter began to find its way back into the city as the distance took its toll. Even calls became more infrequent, texts began to go unanswered, and the memory of their brief romance began fading into the distance. Yet somehow, the city of its glamourous lights and warm, inviting cafes had its own plans with its own magic for lovers.

Their paths crossed again during the Fete de la Musique, one warm summer evening filled with melodies.

With her heart on her sleeve, Juliette had penned a novel inspired by their love story, a tale of two souls separated by circumstances but bound by affection. Marc, who had returned to Paris on a business trip, was drawn back to the little bookshop.

There, amidst the crowd, he saw her, a vision with a book in her hand, reading aloud to an enchanted audience.

As their eyes met, he realized the story she was reading was there, having the same connection they thought they had lost, only to find it rekindled. Marc knew then that no job, no location, could keep him from the love they shared. He made a choice as he promised Juliette and himself that Paris, with her, would be their forever home.

And so, under the Parisian sky, by the beautiful Seine River that had witnessed their first meeting, Marc and Juliette found their way back to each other. Love had triumphed, as it had done so many times over time, in the city that masters the art of romance, Paris.

By

Felicity Da_ Lockwood

(aka Frances)