Giselle’s face folds into a pinch. She doesn’t look attractive in the least.
“Gustave, the Louvre can’t afford a scandal. Neither can you.”
For a moment, I can’t breathe.
The image of Tara, sitting alone somewhere, her career burning because of me hits like a blade between the ribs.
“You don’t know what I can afford.” My voice shakes at the edges.
She looks at me uncertainly. There are no accolades from me, which she was expecting. “I’m going to find another restorer for the Carriera. I don’t want you to worry about it.”
A storm of anger breaks inside me, but I tamp it down. Defending Tara to Giselle, defending the indefensible would only feed the fires of gossip, and Giselle was prone to talking too much to the wrong and right people.
“If that’s all, Giselle, I have a meeting shortly.” I rise, making it clear that the conversation is over.
She’s not happy about how this turned out.Well, bitch, neither am I!
“Au revoir?*, Gustave.”
Her heels click across the floor as she leaves. When the door shuts, the silence crashes back in. I pour another drink. I don’t know if I’m angrier at Giselle or Simone…or at myself.
Philippe finds me in my office late in the evening. I’ve finished half the whiskey bottle. As a de Valois, a man of power, I can drink at work. Who the fuck is going to stop me?
“Drowning your sorrows, I see.”
I shrug. “What doyou want?”
“Drinking alone is a dangerous avocation,mon ami.”
His words strikes a memory. Didn’t I say something similar to Tara that first night my life changed?
“It seems appropriate…when one”—I close my eyes as the truth of my situation screams inside of me—“is dealing with a broken heart.”
Philippe is not sympathetic, not in the least.
“Get up. We need to go.”
“Where?”
He doesn’t say and just gets me out of my office.
He takes me to Cercle de l’Union Interalliée, the private club where men like us go when we want time away from our wives and mistresses.
The scent of cigars and cognac saturates the air. The chandeliers drip gold light over navy velvet and walnut paneling. Men in tailored suits nod as I pass—polite, curious, predatory.
Yes, everyone knows about de Valois’s American mistress who sold him out.
“Food?” Philippe asks when we’re seated by the windows at a plush table for two.
I shake my head. The thought of eating anything makes my stomach turn.
Philippe exhales a groan, signaling the waiter with a flick of his hand.
“Deux steaks tartare, et du paingrillé?*,” he says firmly to the formally dressed server and then explains to me, “You need protein, not more whiskey.”
I glare at him. “I’m not hungry.”
“C’est pas une question de faim?*,” he replies. “This is not about hunger; it’s a question of survival.”
