CHAPTER TWELVE

As Sam walked with Kendra down the marble, gilded halls of Versailles, he was having a hard time concentrating. After the two of them had met, and Polly had rushed off, they had been left alone. Kendra hadn’t said anything else to him, but she had looked at him in such a way, that he felt she was beckoning him to stay with her.

So when she had turned, without a word, and had begun to slowly walk away, he felt like he should accompany her. He hurried to catch up, and had been walking beside her ever since. She hadn’t looked surprised that he had done so, and she had not asked him to leave. At the same time, she had not explicitly invited him, either.

She was a confusing person, hard to read. Sam marveled at how this woman—if he could even call her that at 17—already had such an effect upon him. After being transfixed by her eyes, a light, mysterious aqua blue, he had fallen hard, and had a hard time thinking of anything else. It was as if she’d had a power to transfix him.

And yet, h