They don’t see that I dislike her intensely, that all Iever was to her was something expensive and good-looking to drape on her arm, like an Hermes bag.
“Aubert mentioned you’re taking him with you to Chamonix?” she asks, her smile bright, her head inclining graciously to the people watching. I breathe deeply, steadying myself, and allow her to steer me toward the Spanish ambassador.
“Aubert is eighteen, Simone. He decides where he goes.”
Her lips barely twitch, but I know her well enough to read it: displeasure hidden under layers of lipstick and gloss. “So, you didn’t influence him at all?”
Thankfully, we’ve reached her quarry, so I don’t have to dignify her accusation with a response or be chastised for not having one.
Ambassador Perez is all warmth and diplomacy, but his eyes sharpen when he mentions artificial intelligence and the de Valois portfolio. Simone closes the space between us as if we’re still cohorts in every sense—as if she’s still my wife.
And with a single breath, I slip back into my role—Gustave de Valois: heir, investor, figurehead.
The man who cannot afford to want Tara Gayarre.
* Miss (French)
CHAPTER 5
Tara
“Simone, this is Tara Gayarre, the American who is working on the Carriera. And Tara, this isComtesse deValois…you just met her…ah…le Comte.”
Comtesse de Valois? His freaking wife?
I had wondered who she was when I first spotted her with him. Her fingers had been curled around his arm like she owned it, like she ownedhim. Close. Familiar. Proprietary. My brain had supplied and rejected the obvious answer: girlfriend…orwife!
Well, that explains why he was so bent out of shape about the tabloids—why he treated me like some scheming scandal-chaser.
Dios mio! I have the sense of an ant, sleeping with a married man.
Well, you know what, I didn’t know he was married. And to this woman who is…well, she’s so French and impossibly classy. Smells like she fell into a vat of perfume and then straight into a vat of diamonds—because she’sbejeweledfrom head to toe. With the six…no, seven-carat rock on her finger as thepièce de résistance.
So, my mystery man is a freaking count. A rich one, too, since that ring—I know my jewelry as my mother designs them—is worth five or six million dollars, easy.
“How wonderful to meet you.” Simone de Valois shakes my hand. She’s skinny. Size zero. Probably can fit right into couture straight off the runway.
Is this his type?He must’ve been slumming with me, I think, chagrined. After all, I’m a size eight with a healthy affection for ice cream.
Simone’s grip is cool, her smile honed like a chisel against marble.
She moves on to someone else, more interesting and more on her level, without missing a beat, her diamonds catching the light as though mocking me.
I’m shook up, first by Gustave’s unfair vitriol and now the knowledge that he’s married, until Cece materializes at my side, her arm looped through mine.
“Come on,” she murmurs. “We’ve done our duty. Let’s get out of here!”
Jean is waiting near the cloakroom, already tugging at his tie. “I vote for Chez Castel. Proper music, proper drinks.”
I have no idea what Chez Castel is, but I let themsweep me out of the Louvre and into the cool Paris night.
We take a taxi, which drops us on Rue Princesse in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
Late-night bars send laughter and happy, drink-loosened patrons into the night. Halfway down, almost hidden, a discreet black door bears a tiny brass plaque. You’d probably walk past without noticing it unless you knew exactly where to look.
Jean raps on the door. “Chez Castel is one of the most exclusive private clubs in all of Paris,” he explains, with an effortless smugness only trust-fund babies can pull off. According to Cece, Jean’s family’s money buys him access to Paris’s most exclusive haunts. Tonight, it buys me one, too.
Yippie! My new friend is filthy rich like my one-night stand. I’m definitely attracting a particular type in Paris.
