* Darling, feminine (Spanish)
* My God (Spanish)
* Sir (French)
* No (French)
* My darling, feminine (French)
CHAPTER 2
Gustave
It’s reckless.
It’sveryreckless.
The tabloids had a field day with my divorce, and it will be another field day if someone sees me walking into a hotel with amysterywoman.
Butshe is perfection, drinking her cocktail in that blue dress that makes her look like an enchantress from an old fairytale—only she’s real, warm, alive. Her legs, impossibly long and smooth, are crossed to tease. Her lips, painted a deep crimson, are an invitation to sin.
Her skin glowed, bronzed like sun-lit terracotta, her dark hair tumbling in rich, loose waves that I doubt even Degas would be able to capture.
Her beauty pulls in the light, leaving the rest of the room in shadow.
A modern princess, though not the fragile kind, trapped in towers. No, this one carries her crown in thetilt of her chin, in the spark of melancholy in her honey-brown eyes.
When I ask her if she’ll come with me, she hesitates, and I almost back out. But then she smiles and says, “Lead the way, Gustave.”
Merde?*! That voice of hers is erotic.
We leave the bar together, the Parisian night wrapping around us like a velvet cloak.
I tell her I have a suite, but I don’t mention that Ialwayshave a suite at Hôtel de l’Île—the presidential suite, unless a president of a country is in Paris. This is a family hotel—a de Valois property.
It’s a safe space for me. No one will talk to the tabloids. Guests won’t see us because we’ll take the private elevator.
There will be champagne in the suite. There will be a bed.
“This is a beautiful hotel,” she murmurs as we walk to the elevator.
“It’s been a hotel since the eighteenth century,” I remark as I wait for her to step into the opulent elevator cabin.
“And a count or duke used to own it?” Her eyes are bright.
“A count,” I tell her, but don’t mention that I am a direct descendent of said count.
Shelooks nervous.
There is something honest about her.
I’m usually not the kind of man who pursues women, and it’s been a while since I’ve bedded a woman.
After Simone and the divorce from hell, I’ve been reticent to put myselfout there, as my son says I should. But he’s eighteen, what the fuck does he know about the scars I carry for being married to hismaman?* for nearly two decades?
It was a dynastic marriage—planned by our families, though we pretended to date and tried to fall in love. The honeymoon lasted exactly a year until she got pregnant. Once she had Aubert, it got worse.
First, I thought it was postpartum depression—but then I learned that it’s a damn stupid idea to marry at the age of twenty-two. Dumber to have a child so young.
