Unbidden, Tara’s laughter, her gypsy-like style, and the warmth in her eyes when she spoke of her family run through my mind like a film.
“You think people like us fall in love?” I wonder aloud.
Philippe sets his glass on the low table with a deliberate click. “I believe that real love—if we can even find it—comes at a price. In our world, everything does. Money, position, a name like ours—it all exacts a cost. And love,mon ami, may be the dearest of all.”
“Maybe I’m too old, too jaded, too damaged for love.”
“I feel the same, which is why I make do with lust.” He nods at the server, who replaces Philippe’s ashtray.
“Or do we learn to survive without it?” I lift a shoulder and let it drop. “With Simone, I played the role of husband, but there was no joy. With Aubert, what I feel is honest, and there is joy.”
“And with Tara?”
I huff out a breath. “I don’t know.”But I suspect.
“Then find out,” he urges. “You deserve more than Simone’s shadow.”
The image of Tara at her little kitchen table flickers in my mind—her mismatched plates, the warmth of her hands as she pushed a dish toward me. That world, so far from mine, so free.
“I bring her into our world, I place her on a battlefield.”
“Maybe that should be her choice to make.”
I hear a bark of laughter from somewhere in the club. I don’t look for the source of it because I’mmesmerized by the idea that it’s possible—that I can risk it all, reputation, empire, title, for the chance at…love?
* Superb (French)
* What a pompous fool (French)
* Finally (French)
* For the love of God (French)
* God (French)
* Marquis, usually at the same level as a count, and below a duke (French)
* Really (French)
* So (French)
CHAPTER 11
Tara
Paris isn’t that small. At least, it shouldn’t be. And yet, somehow, it always conspires to placehimin my path.
The air is cool this late afternoon, brisk enough that my scarf is looped twice around my neck. But it’s not bitter, not the way March gnaws at Philadelphia. Here, even the chill is soft, as though the city has decided beauty should never sting too much.
I walk along the Seine, past the stalls of thebouquinistes. Most are shuttered, their wooden lids locked down like treasure chests. But a few linger open, offering faded postcards, battered Balzac paperbacks, and prints of old masters, which tourists buy and locals dismiss.
I stop at one stall, fingers brushing over a pile of engravings, and try to imagine who else has stood hereacross the centuries—students, poets, lovers stealing moments by the river.
Paris has a way of making you feel part of a story older than yourself.
“Looking for something particular?” The voice slides over me like warm velvet. I don’t need to turn to know its owner, but when I do, I see that he’s, as always, the epitome of effortless grace in a camel coat tailored within an inch of its life.
But…it’s a banner day because it is the first time I’ve seen him in a pair of jeans. Designer, probably. A cashmere sweater, and a scarf hanging loose. Gustave is quintessential Paris. He belongs here, with the bridge arches framing him, storm-gray eyes catching the last light.
