It’s mesmerizing, almost hypnotic.
I look around the room, excited, and my eyes land on…yeah, you guessed it. Gustave. My throat goes dry.
It’s been two weeks since Pommard. We have seen each other twice since then. At my place. On Friday nights. Weekends are busy for Gustave with things hemustattend…like a fashion show, apparently,withhis ex-wife.
Simone is draped on Gustave’s arm like she never left it, glittering in high fashion, her smile dazzling for the cameras.
The sight knocks the air out of me.
He’s across the runway, seated with Philippe, both of them impossibly polished in tailored black. Philippe begins to clap, wave at the stage, and I see his girlfriend, Sigrid, walking the ramp, shimmering in a pink concoction of tulle and magic.
“Look, Phillippe Badeaux is here,” Jean remarks. “And de Valois….”
“With his ex-wife.” Cece’s voice drops. “I hear that he and Simone are heading for reconciliation.”
I school my face, force myself to breathe evenly. Right then, Gustave’s eyes catch mine for a fraction of a second.
The jolt is instant.
I feel small, exposed.
Philippe notices me. His gaze lingers, and he smiles, nods in greeting. I do the same, less cheerfully than he. He knows who I am, I realize. Gustave told him.
Does Simone know who I am?
The thought makes my skin prickle. The whole charade, Gustave pretending not to know me, feels like a game I never agreed to play.
The models keep walking, the music pounding, but the show might as well be invisible. All I can feel is the weight of Simone’s hand on his arm and the ache in my chest.
The cracks are showing. I can feel them widening.
When we’re together, anything is possible—everythingis, but now in the real world, it’s obvious what place I hold in his life.
I’m a side piece. A mistress.
Dios mio!How did I let this happen?
I want to leave, be alone to lick my wounds, but Cece and Jean insist that theafter-partyis where it’s at, and wemustgo.
Come on, Tara, don’t let him take your pleasureaway. Live a little. It’s probably your first and last Paris Fashion Week.
They take me to Maxim’s de Paris.
Once the domain of Belle Époque aristocrats and fashion royalty, it’s still all mirrors, velvet, and gold—dripping with old-world decadence. It’s where you instantly feel as if you don’t belong unless your last name is stitched into a designer label or is on a plaque in the Louvre.
It’s packed in here. Photographers, influencers, models, stylists, editors—anyone who matters in Paris tonight is in attendance.
A DJ in the corner spins something retro and cool, while champagne flows like tap water.
Cece flits through the crowd. Jean is chatting up an actress I vaguely recognize from a billboard about a Netflix movie.
I want to disappear…especially when I see Gustave…again!
I can’t escape him, it appears.
There’s a circle of people around him—laughing too brightly, leaning too close, basking in the rarefied air of those who believe they’reSomebody.
He’s standing near the bar, a tumbler with amber liquid in hand, the picture of ease and charm in his impeccably cut jacket. Philippe is beside him, saying something, and the crowd is hanging on his every word.
