Sparkles

Judy savoured the moment. It was finally happening. A Massot was offering her the world. His hand—his name. Her gaze on Tom was feverish, bitter, and triumphant.

“Judy, please.” He was pleading with her, the little bastard—begging. I despise him, she thought; he’s not Pierre, he’s nothing. “We’re going to have a child . . .”

“I can do whatever I like.” She withdrew a packet of Gauloises from her Donna Karan jacket, enjoying his consternation, and lit up, daring Tom to say a word. It was a new habit, forced on her from stress at work. Now, Judy watched with relish as he shrank back, dismayed.

“That’s none of your concern.” She turned away. “You weren’t so bloody solicitous last time I saw you. Before you ran off to your maman.”

Tom struggled with his anger and fear. Now that he was here, he absolutely loathed her. She was threatening to kill their child. And this was the woman he was meant to marry?

“I just needed a little time to think. Judy—be reasonable.” He couldn’t stand to beg her, yet he must. “Isn’t this what you wanted—didn’t you tell me, I’d led you on?” Each word ripped at him. “So—I can offer you everything. Marriage, the name, the house.” He weakly attempted levity. “All the jewels you can wear.”

Tom gritted his teeth and ignored the insult. “She spoke warmly of her grandchild. She tells me there is nothing that cannot be patched up—you and I, you and her—she wanted me to propose. For the child’s sake, we can make a family.” He paused. “Judy, she said the past was in the past.”

“If you don’t want to marry me, I can still look after you. You can move into the château permanently; I will assign you an entire wing and set up a trust fund. You could live off that income. We will share custody of our baby and at least we could live in the same house. . . .”

“And parties?” Judy flashed him a lazy, contemptuous smile. “Would I be the hostess? What’s the precedence at Château des Étoiles? You’re the young king ... and if I don’t want to wed you? I won’t stand behind that old bitch Katherine. Or Sophie Massot.”

“You know, Tom, your grandmother has been a bitch to me. She’s certainly been a bitch to Sophie. Something you don’t choose to notice, I suppose.”

“So I’ll call her whatever the hell I please. And if you want to stop me from aborting your brat, you’re not exactly in any position to lay down the law. Are you?” Judy was laughing. “It seems that for once, in this fucked-up family, I hold all the cards.”

Tom walked to the window and stared out of the lead-paned glass, looking down on the kitchen garden; two of the cooks were out there gathering herbs for dinner. He did not want Judy to see the hatred that was brightly written on his face.

“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Judy said, twisting the knife. “I’m not sure I want to have your child. At any price. I can’t stand you, and I can’t stand your family. If I do go through with it, I’m going to want independence. You’ll be buying me an estate—in my own name, and you’ll pay all the taxes. I’m going to need staff....” she dragged one manicured finger across the back of a Louis XVI chair, rustling its velvet cushion. “You can keep me in the manner to which I’m going to be accustomed, if you want me to keep your baby.”

She smiled condescendingly. “Tom, darling, that’s such an ugly word—after all we’ve meant to each other.”

“Oh, I know you will,” Judy said coolly. “But I haven’t decided if that’s what I want to do. I’m not that maternal a person.”

There was the sound of the door closing. Tom stayed motionless, listening to the clack-clack of her Manolo spikes on the sweeping marble staircase.

He thought of how the day had started—watching his mother marry Hugh Montfort, watching the mutual love in their eyes, the profound happiness that had radiated from his mother, visible in every gesture, every glance.

He felt sick. And tired. He wanted to just lie down on the bed, go to sleep, and wake up back in his old life. Back at Oxford, back dating Polly, back before any of this had ever started.

Judy drove. It was fortunate that the journey back to the city was second nature to her now, because her mind was churning, like her belly; she was sick with excitement, and malice; she hardly saw the road.

There was no way she could ever marry the Massot boy. None. He was too like Pierre, and too different—a cheap mock-up, a cardboard cutout. He revolted her. The thought of him inside her sickened her. There was no dominance, no magic—just a cocky boy, easy to manipulate.

She ignored the repellent memories that crowded her and made her skin crawl: sucking up to him, seducing him, just to keep his interest—that of a man she couldn’t stand. In the beginning, Tom simply looked like Pierre. Later on, she could not forget that he was Sophie’s son—the child of the woman she hated—the evidence, walking and talking, that Pierre had never chosen her. . . .

And this was the perfect answer. A pregnancy, one he’d do anything to have her keep. She pressed her foot on the gas. She finally saw her way clear.

No more Massots. If she could not have Pierre, the love of her life—Pierre, her god, her king—she would have no other.

They would pay. They would pay, and go on paying. She would bleed them dry. Screw Montfort, screw all of them. It would be House Dean, why not? Great dynasties started somewhere.

She slowed as she hit traffic. Coming into Paris, where drivers regard red lights as merely polite suggestions, you have to be careful. Judy’s breathing steadied. Her mind, however, was clear, perfectly focussed, sharp with hate.

Judy reached rue des Cloches; the towering, elegant eighteenth-century facades that loomed over her, so familiar, seemed small, claustrophobic. She longed to get out of Paris, maybe France. But having been so long in the country, it was a part of her. She also desired to destroy the Massots, to supercede them, on their own territory. . . .

She parked on the street and fished her key from her Versace handbag; it had been a while since she’d been here. The plants would be dead. She tried to remember if she’d cleaned out the fridge, if there would be any foul-smelling foodstuffs rotting there. . . .

Housekeeping. It had been a while. Of course, with her new salary Judy could have bought a townhouse—someplace far nicer. But she would never give this place up. It would be her pied-à- terre forever. It was her connection with Pierre, the solid, enduring proof that he had loved her, that whatever Sophie and Katherine said, Judy wasn’t just another girl.

She nodded to the attendant in reception, whose head did not lift from Paris Match, and climbed into the ancient elevator, the twin of the creaky Victorian beauty in the office. It stopped at the top floor, and Judy got out. She had a two-bedroom penthouse and her own roof terrace; she had cherished her glass of wine there in the evenings, watching the sun sink over Paris’s lovely roofscape, dreaming of Pierre, dreaming of a great future. . . .

She slung her overnight bag over her shoulder and turned the key in the lock. She braced herself for the stink of decomposition and pushed the door open, dropping her bag in the lobby.