Inside, the club is velvet banquettes, low lighting, the thrum of bass, and beautiful people who look like they were born knowing how to pose under colored lights.
We snag a corner table with a view of the dance floor.
We order, and despite how lax service in France can be, we get our drinkstrès vite?*—a small miracle, really. There is something neon and citrusyfor Cece, whiskey for Jean, and a glass of champagne for me, which I feel is expensive as all get out, especially since I used to live in Los Angeles, another super expensive city.
“Did you see Madame Devereaux tonight?” Cece asks Jean, leaning close.
Since my French is barely passable, my colleagues speak English around me, which is extremely courteous. Even when Giselle shifts to French, which I think she does on purpose to exclude me, they reply to her in English if I’m around.
“Who is Madame Devereaux?” I ask.
“The woman who was wearing a Halston dress that cut to her navel.” Cece is obviously equal parts scandalized and impressed. “She’s eighty if she’s a day! But she carries herself so well.”
I noticed the woman she’s talking about. Impossible not to—silver hair piled high like a crown, skin like crumpled silk, but with a posture so straight it could have been carved in marble. Her gown glittered with sequins under the lights, plunging way low.
“Well, no surprise there.” Jean laughs. “Tara, Madame Devereaux wasthemuse in the sixties and seventies—painters, photographers, sculptors, you name it. I think she’s been immortalized in more nudes than any of Botticelli’s models. There are still half a dozen fashion houses that would kill to put her in a campaign, if only for the shock value.”
“She married into money young,” Cece adds,lowering her voice conspiratorially, “but rumor has it she never stayed ah…monogamous. She’s outlived two husbands. One was a banker and the other a shipping magnate. Now she spends her fortune traveling, collecting art, and scandalizing the French elite.”
“Basically,” Jean says with a grin, “she’s proof that you can be eighty, outrageous, dripping in diamonds, and still the most talked-about woman in the room.”
“I like her style,” I admit. I picture the woman again, lifting her champagne flute, rings sparkling, daring anyone to call her too old or too bold.
“I want to be like her when I’m older,” Cece declares as she picks up her drink.
“You mean as the widow of a wealthy man or two?” Jean teases.
“Exactement?*!” Cece shoots back, eyes sparkling.
“Speaking of wealthy old men, did you see Henri Marchand?” Jean rolls his eyes. “He was flirting with every woman under the age of twenty-five.”
Cece raises her glass and clinks it against Jean’s and then mine. “Merde…missed his attentions by two years. But…he’s too old. Maybe I should aim for de Valois.”
“If he can get rid of Simone, that is.” Jean smirks, shaking his head.
My stomach does a ridiculous flip.
“You met Gustave de Valois, didn’tyou?” Cece nudges my shoulder. “He’s the one who is loaning your Carriera to the Louvre.”
I lick my lips and nod vaguely.Yeah, I met him, up close and personal!
Jean whistles. “Every man in Paris wants to be him, and every woman wants to be with him. He’s—how do you say?Le célibataire le plus sexy de la ville?*.”
“Sexy, rich, and single,” Cece confirms, swirling her drink. “Well, as single as Simone will let him be. They’ve been divorced for a year, and still, she’s glued to him at every party, pretending she’s stillComtessede Valois in more than name.”
I blink.
He’s divorced?
Jean raises a brow. “The rumor is thathewanted the divorce, and she didn’t. Simone is still angling for a reconciliation.”
“Did you see how Giselle was all but rubbing her tits against de Valois?” Cece makes a face. “There’s nothing more desperate than a woman who keeps throwing herself at a man who isn’t interested in her.”
I sit back, my mind reeling. He’s divorced. Which means…he’snotmarried. Not technically off-limits. Not a cheat.
Just paranoid, rude, and infuriating, Tara.
“Giselle should be careful.” Jean downs hisdrink. “Simone will slice to ribbons any woman who looks at Gustave twice.”
