The morning after the masked ball, Annabel left Jack’s villa at sunrise, terrified that someone from the staff might spot her coming from the Villa Sanctuaire at this early hour.
Jack had stirred sleepily when she sat up in bed, and he said, “You’re so beautiful—heart, soul, and body.” He’d pulled her back down into his arms and started kissing her passionately, protesting when she told him that she had to leave. Then he understood why.
“All right,” he’d whispered, “I don’t want to cause any trouble for you—dear, sweet Annabel.” He stroked her hair and then watched her as she slipped out of the villa.
The lawns were still wet with the morning dew. She took a circuitous route to avoid seeing anyone as she stole away from the Grand Hotel. She did not have to work this morning. Most of the staff had “rotating weekends,” which meant that they took two days off, like a Sunday and a Monday on one week, and then a Friday and a Saturday the next. But since Annabel was doing office work, she had the usual weekend of Saturday and Sunday.
When she returned to her room at the boardinghouse, she had an odd moment when she felt as if she were entering the room of a stranger—the girl she used to be, who didn’t really know what she wanted from life. Now she knew she wanted a life with Jack, and she even felt as if she could become the kind of woman who could get what she wanted.
She floated through her Saturday routine of washing out some clothes and then going for a walk until she found a bench under a tree to read a book. On Sundays, Annabel often visited her uncle and little Delphine to share their cozy supper. But on two Sundays a month, Oncle JP went to see a friend of his—a widow who lived in Èze. At first, Annabel had found this liaison a bit shocking. Yet apparently in France it was not uncommon for a widower Oncle JP’s age to seek such discreet companionship.
So on this particular Sunday, Annabel had promised to visit Delphine, who loved to read a recipe aloud from the cookbook as Annabel prepared their dinner. Delphine was an excellent reader and took the job very seriously.
“Attention!” she chided. “You’re using more pepper than the book says!”
Cooking in that tidy kitchen, then eating with Delphine and tucking her into bed afterward, Annabel felt two ambitions warring within her. Part of her wanted to be a sophisticated, independent woman, free to go off to Hollywood for a far more lucrative career than she would have here in the hospitality business in France. But another part of her wanted her own version of this sweet domesticity, married to Jack with a lovely daughter of their own. Was it possible to have all of what life had to offer with the man she loved?
At the end of the day, when she returned to her own bed, she lay there remembering their night together. For the first time in her life she had made love to someone who wanted her to be exactly who she was—as passionate, hungry, and greedy as he.
“He liked me that way,” she whispered wonderingly to herself as she lay there recalling his caresses before drowsing off to a blissful, contented sleep.
* * *
So it wasn’t until the Monday after the masked ball that Annabel returned to the Grand Hotel. Entering this palace of beauty, she now felt taller, like a goddess returning to her castle, as if, for once, this paradise belonged to her, and she now had the stature to own it.
Oncle JP awaited her in his office, looking up expectantly. He gave her the brief smile of approval that a Frenchman often gives a female who has enough pride and self-respect to know how to enter a room. Annabel felt as if she’d just learned how.
Then he said, “Your screenwriter left a message that he only needs you for an hour today. This is good, because that man Sonny wants to speak to you personally, to get a report directly from you this time. He’s down by the pool today, playing cards with some men, but said you could come anytime before noon. Simply tell him what you’ve been telling me.”
She groaned. She could feel herself crashing back down to earth and tried valiantly to resist the sensation of being put in her place to resume her duties.
Oncle JP had a wry expression now as he said carefully, “And did you enjoy the dancing at Un Bal Masqué pour les Petites Colombes Blanches?”
Annabel felt her face growing hot with a telltale blush, so there was no use denying it. “Who told you?” she asked in a small voice, wondering which staff member had reported her presence that night—or, worse yet, seen her sneaking out of the villa the next morning.
“It was I who ‘told’ me. I stayed late awhile on Friday night to make sure that all was well at the ballroom. And I know the graceful way my niece moves, even when wearing a borrowed disguise. When I left, I saw that you dance well,” Oncle JP said with Gallic irony.
“Oh,” she said lamely. “I didn’t see you.”
“No,” he said, “you did not.” He waited patiently.
“I’m sorry, Oncle,” she said, but even now, it was hard to feel truly contrite.
“Annabel, we are not guests of the Grand Hotel. We are in service,” he reminded her.
She’d heard him say this to other staff members when they forgot their place, but she wished she didn’t have to hear it now. Usually, such an admonition was followed by Oncle JP pointing his right finger at his right eye and saying, I’ve got my eye on you, which meant that you were on his bad list. He did not say that now, but his tone of disapproval was enough.
“But you are American,” he said regretfully. “I have never yet met an American who understands the concept of service; that is why I avoid hiring them whenever possible. And,” he sighed philosophically, “you are young. I think you miss being young, and being in New York. You are like your father, in that way. I expect that one day you, too, will leave me, to seek your fortune by returning to ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave,’ as the song goes.”
He sounded so mournful that Annabel said hastily, “I won’t leave you in the lurch.”
“Well, at least not today,” he agreed. “At least not until summer’s end. So please, be careful, Annabel. Movie people and rich people can be dazzling, but like diamonds they often have sharp edges.”
She nodded, unable to look him in the eye. Then she remembered Rick’s big announcement at the ball. “Oncle JP, did you hear that Rick’s father bought the Grand Hotel?”
“Of course,” he said in a noncommittal tone.
“But what will happen to us—to you—to everybody?” she asked.
“So far, Rick has assured me that his family will continue to leave the management up to us, with business as usual,” he said in a tone that was not a hundred percent convincing.
Now she did look him in the eye to say, “And do you trust that man and his father?”
Oncle JP shrugged. “As much as one can trust anyone these days,” he replied. “If you see Rick, just be friendly in a professional way. He likes you, I think, because you don’t like him. But we are not here to ‘like’ or ‘dislike.’ We are here to serve.”
Annabel felt irritated by her uncle’s compliant attitude. She wished that, just once, he would lose his temper with a guest. Maybe tell Rick and his father where to get off. That would be impossible, of course. Yet some of the older staff had told her that her uncle could yell with the best of them when it was warranted. She’d like to see it for herself.
So she was glad to escape his office today. At the front desk the concierge, Raphael, looking as if he were juggling six things at once, stopped her; he had another telegram, this one to be delivered to Mr. Charles Laughton. “Have you seen him?” Raphael asked. “He doesn’t answer his telephone, but the maid says she thinks they’re still up in their room. Well, if he’s not up there, please bring the telegram back to me in case he comes through the lobby.”
Annabel couldn’t help being a little fascinated by Charles and Elsa. Their chipper, eccentric attitude was both liberating and reassuring. It was thrilling to be able to say that she’d met the brilliant actor who’d played everything from the Scottish king in Macbeth to Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty to a comic British valet in Ruggles of Red Gap.
She had just stepped off the elevator on the Laughtons’ floor when she saw a strange figure at the other end of the hall, outside a guest room near the staircase, making furtive movements that instantly put Annabel on the alert as she drew nearer.
It was a young woman dressed in a stylish swim coverall outfit, crouched over a room service cart that had someone’s discarded breakfast tray on it; and she was actually foraging among the plates, wolfing down half-eaten croissants and other breakfast pastries.
As Annabel drew nearer, she saw that it was Cissy, Sonny’s daughter. It was such a heartrending sight, like the homeless men Annabel had sometimes seen in New York City rummaging through garbage bins. This wealthy girl was acting like a starving animal, stuffing food into her mouth and fearfully glancing over her shoulder.
When Cissy saw Annabel, she froze, looking ashamed. Her face still had scratches on her forehead and chin from when she’d fallen at the party.
“Oh, please!” Cissy whimpered. “Don’t tell.”
“Of course not,” Annabel said. She assumed a voice that she hoped was somewhat like Oncle JP’s, kind but authoritative. “But this won’t do. Come with me—I’ll take you to the kitchen and we’ll give you some real food, and nobody will ever have to know.”
She had made this decision and didn’t care if it got her into trouble. Perhaps it was because Oncle JP had hinted that she might not work at the Grand Hotel forever, and the mere thought of release was what made her feel emboldened. Or perhaps she just didn’t like being told that she couldn’t go to the ball and be happy. She was feeling defiant.
“I have to deliver this telegram first,” she said. “Won’t you come with me?”
Something in her tone must have inspired Cissy to dare to commit full-out mutiny, for she looked intrigued and awed as she followed Annabel down the hall. “You’re American,” Cissy noted. “I thought you were French. What part of the States are you from?”
“New York,” Annabel replied.
“Oh! I went to finishing school there,” Cissy said, sounding wistful. “I liked New York. I liked the other girls. They all went on to college. Did you go to college? Where?”
“Vassar,” Annabel said.
“I wasn’t so good at school. I got mostly Bs and Cs,” Cissy said in a chatty way, as if she were starved not only for food but for female friendship. “I was good at music, though. Classical music. The teacher wanted me to take voice lessons and study opera, but Father wouldn’t hear of it. He says I don’t belong in the limelight.”
“Well,” Annabel suggested slyly, “lots of girls don’t listen to their fathers all the time. If you became a professional opera singer, nobody would insist that you go on a diet!”
Cissy looked astounded, then snorted with laughter. They were approaching the Laughtons’ room, but before they got there, the door opened and a small, dark young man came backing out of it, stealthily, his arms around something he’d hidden under his jacket.
“Oh! I’ve seen him before,” Cissy whispered. “He paid a ‘visit’ to a cowboy star I know, who told me that this boy steals things—he took a silver-and-turquoise belt buckle from the cowboy—who didn’t report it; he didn’t want that kind of publicity,” she added hastily.
Annabel did not know of this particular boy, but she’d been warned of his ilk skulking around the backstreets of Villefranche and Nice. There were all kinds of names for these young male prostitutes, and they absolutely were not permitted in the best hotels. But sometimes they found their way in, especially if a guest was paying to keep them; such boys were known to charge all kinds of expenses to their “sponsor,” ringing up a tab of prized champagne, cigars, even clothes and jewels sometimes.
“Arrête!” Annabel said to him. She noticed with some pity that he had his bare feet thrust into a battered pair of shoes that were too big for him.
The boy jerked his head in surprise, then lifted his chin resolutely.
She eyed his bulging jacket. “Hand it over,” she said in French, holding out her hand.
“The lady, she say I can take it,” the boy objected unconvincingly in uneducated French.
Annabel concluded that he might have been casing out the hotel for a door left open by a maid or a guest. She continued in French, saying severely, “Give me what you’re hiding there now; if security finds this in your jacket, you’ll be arrested and it will go harshly for you.”
With a pout, he handed Annabel the item. It was a brown, wooden sculpted African figure of a woman holding an urn on her head. It looked like an antique artifact that could be of some value. Annabel kept it.
“What else?” she asked sternly. The boy handed over a silver corkscrew from the hotel, then held his jacket open to show that there wasn’t anything else.
Annabel knocked on the Laughtons’ door. The silence that followed made it seem that they weren’t inside. She got a key from a passing maid, then went in, saying, “Housekeeping!”
Cissy remained in the hallway looking fascinated, but the boy followed Annabel into the room, too, looking around as if he was still sizing up what else might be worth taking.
The Laughtons were nowhere to be seen. The room was a good one, with the hotel’s artwork on the walls—prints of drawings by Matisse, Braque, and Picasso. Annabel saw that Charles and Elsa had rather artfully arranged those flowering branches they’d collected on their recent hike, putting them in vases they’d moved to various corners. The effect was Oriental, lovely.
Annabel put the corkscrew in the desk drawer where it belonged. She picked up a clean laundry bag provided by the hotel and put the artifact inside it, intending to lock it in a safe place until she could ask Elsa about it. It didn’t seem right to just leave it in the room.
Then she telephoned Raphael downstairs, to alert him that a certain unwanted visitor was up here. Raphael immediately sent a security man up to escort the boy to the security office via the service elevator, to search him and make sure he had nothing else. Annabel and Cissy took the fancy guest elevator, straight down to the lowest floor. Annabel led the way through the swinging kitchen door, where Albert, the chef, was busy with his team.
She said, “Albert, this is an important guest. Will you please give her breakfast at the chef’s table any day she wants it? How about fresh fruit, two boiled eggs, some toast, and tea?” She turned to Cissy. “The chef’s table is a special place in this kitchen. Only certain guests get to eat at it. But people don’t usually ask for breakfast here, so it should be available to you any morning. Breakfast is included in your room fee. But still, this must be our little secret. All right? Good. Bon appétit.” Cissy squeezed her hand gratefully and sat down.
Annabel hurried off to the lobby. She still had the artifact and thought it wise to put it somewhere safe. There was a regular lost-and-found cupboard, for abandoned umbrellas and forgotten hats; but items of greater value usually went into her uncle’s special private safe within his office closet, to which only he had the key. She would leave a note for the Laughtons along with the telegram and give it to Raphael so that someone could page them.
But in the lobby she spotted the Laughtons just returning from a morning swim. Elsa’s hair was ever more wild, and Charles was flushed red with sunburn, despite the straw hat he wore on the back of his head. Elsa was darting her head about in little birdlike motions, which reminded Annabel of the way the actress had performed in the movie Bride of Frankenstein.
“Oh, hallo there, Annabel! Dear me,” Elsa cried, “there’s been a terrific muddle here. They say they gave you a telegram for my husband?”
“Yes, here it is,” Annabel said, and she handed it over.
Charles tore it open and perused it, then said drolly to Elsa, “Hmm, it’s from Alfred Hitchcock, about the New York party in October for Jamaica Inn. I daresay we may never work together again. He sulked all through the filming, and I’m not sure Daphne du Maurier will recognize her novel on screen, as Hitch made my character quite perverse.”
Annabel turned to Elsa and said delicately, “I believe this belongs to you?” Discreetly she handed Elsa the sack with the little African artifact. “We have a hotel safe, if you’d like to keep it there.”
Elsa peered at it quickly and said sharply, “Yes, that’s mine. Where did you get it?”
Annabel said uncomfortably, “Well—a—boy removed it from your room. A stranger—not hotel staff,” she amended hastily. “I don’t know how he got into the hotel, but security will deal with him. You might want to inspect your room to make sure that nothing else is missing. I imagine security will want to talk to you—”
Elsa comprehended this swiftly. So did Charles. His smiling, expressive bulldog face changed suddenly, in a vulnerable way, and his eyes filled with quick tears that he winked away. “A search will not be necessary. Let the boy go,” he said. Shamefaced, and without another word, he turned and made his way speedily to the guest elevator.
Annabel suddenly realized her own faux pas. Clearly Charles knew the boy.
Elsa sighed and watched Charles go, then murmured to herself, “Poor lamb.” She recovered and gave Annabel the smile of a Girl Scout leader determined to forge ahead no matter what the obstacles. “You’ll handle security, yes? Thanks. And we’ll say no more about it to anyone else, then,” she said brightly, then added in a low voice, “Thanks a lot, ducks.”
* * *
When Annabel was heading for Scott’s cottage, she ran into Rick on the main path. As usual, he gave her a most charming smile.
“Have you heard the news?” he asked breezily.
“That your father has bought the Grand Hotel?” she said carefully.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be great,” he said, pleased that she’d taken an interest.
Annabel said rather tartly, “I hope you understand that there are people working here who have given their whole lives just to make the Grand Hotel what it is today.”
Rick had the surprised look of a man unaccustomed to being held to account. “And what exactly is it that the Grand Hotel ‘is today,’ would you say?” he asked.
“An oasis of beauty, elegance, and good taste,” she shot back, undeterred. “It takes years to train the staff to make it so.”
“Did your uncle tell you to tell me this?” Rick asked, amused.
Annabel said hastily, “Of course not. My uncle would never dream of saying such a thing. But I would.”
Rick said, “Well, Annabel, I can sure see the value of keeping you on.”
“Never mind me,” she said, annoyed. There was something about this man, with his smooth, untroubled brow, charming blue eyes, and insouciant attitude, that made her want to puncture that sublime confidence of his. “Just take care of this incredibly well-trained staff. You don’t want to drive them into the arms of the competition,” she added slyly.
Rick smiled gently. “You are so right,” he agreed. “Please don’t be angry, but you do have the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard.”
She remembered what he’d said about her singing in the garden and how it reminded him of his childhood governess. Despite his influential family, there was still something of the wistful orphan about him. In spite of herself, she felt sorry for him.
But as she left, Annabel reminded herself of what her uncle had just told her: Movie people and rich people can be dazzling, but like diamonds they often have sharp edges.
* * *
Annabel hurried over to the Jasmine Cottage and discovered why Scott only needed her for an hour today. He was back in bed, sitting up with a long writing pad against his knees. His hair was tousled and his face flushed.
“Are you ill?” she asked alertly. He nodded. “What’s your temperature?” she asked. She knew that he was careful to monitor it when he felt this way. She was reminded of the main character in that short story of his that he’d renamed “Temperature.”
“A hundred and two,” he admitted, but when she gasped and offered to call Dr. Gaspard, he said in alarm, “No, no! Last thing I need is a doctor buzzing around here like a fussy bee. If Sonny hears about it, he might replace me on these projects, and I’ll end up on some Hollywood sick list again. That’s how I lost out on Hitchcock’s script for Rebecca. No, I just had a little too much tennis today with Jack. I’ll be fine; I know what to do. There’s just some letters for you to type. Then come early tomorrow, and I’ll have plenty for you to do.”
She knew that he would, too. He was working on his new novel, on short stories, on rewrites for whatever scripts Sonny and Alan threw his way; and he was now advising Jack on his new film about the French village girl and the Great War, which Jack was writing himself.
“At least let me call room service for you,” Annabel insisted. “You should have some beef consommé to give you strength.” She was already dialing the phone to call in the order to Olga, the room service supervisor.
“Okay,” Scott said without looking up. “Ask for some cola and a bucket of ice, too, and some aspirin.”
As Annabel left the Jasmine Cottage, she could not help thinking that perhaps the fates were working in her favor today, to give her this extra time with Jack. They’d planned to go to see the little town high up in the mountains this afternoon. Jack wanted to take some home movies so he could determine the best locations for his next film.
All she had to do now was get through this little meeting with Sonny. She hurried over to the steep stone staircase that led to the pool area. An attendant told her that Sonny was in the white canvas cabana that he’d rented for the entirety of his stay. His tent was at the very end of a row of these exclusive spots on a lower terrace, closer to the sea. The canvas doors flapped in the breeze, looking like those of a rich sheikh’s tent.
She found the one that belonged to Sonny. You could not exactly knock on a tent door, so she called out, “Hello?”
“Come in,” said a male voice. She pushed aside the flap and entered. Alan, Sonny’s son-in-law, was sitting on a canvas chair that resembled the kind that film directors used. He was wearing a white towel around his hips, and his hair was wet.
“I was looking for Mr. Stanten,” Annabel said. “I mean, I heard he was looking for me.”
“Yeah, that’s right. He’ll be back in a little while; he’s expecting you.”
Annabel suppressed a groan. How long was she supposed to wait? This might mess up her outing with Jack today.
“Come here—you’ve got something funny in your hair,” Alan said.
She moved closer, despite a strange feeling that had come over her that she could not identify, until Alan, at first pretending to reach out to pluck something from her hair, stood up, made a sudden move, and released his towel, proudly showing her his alert penis as if he imagined she’d be delighted.
Annabel backed away, idiotically unable to say anything but “Well, goodbye.”
“Oh, come on!” Alan said in annoyance as he advanced purposefully toward her. “You did it for Jack, didn’t you?” he added in a sly, silky voice. “You can do it for me.”
Annabel grabbed the first weapon that she could find—a white wooden stool, which she brandished in the air between them, like a lion tamer.
“Keep away from me, you creep!” she said with more bravado than she actually felt, for she was trembling with outrage and fear, because Alan was now lunging toward her.
But at that moment Sonny opened the tent flap. “That phone call didn’t take long after all,” he began. But when he saw Annabel brandishing the stool at his naked son-in-law, Sonny said in exasperation, “What! Alan, not again. Will you never learn?”
He looked at Annabel with some amusement and said, “Attagirl. Crack the whip when a man acts like a mad lion.” Alan scowled and reached for his towel.
“If you don’t put a leash on him, I’ll tell my uncle to throw him out of the hotel,” Annabel said, her voice trembling now. Sonny saw how upset she was.
“Okay, okay, calm down, girlie,” he said hastily. “It won’t happen again, I promise you. Here, want a nice cold bottle of Coca-Cola? No? All right, all right. Look, just take this contract to Téa Marlo when you go to see Jack, and tell Téa I need her signature on it tonight.”
He handed her a manila envelope with a thick document inside it. “Thank you, Miss.”
At this point, Alan’s pride had evidently kicked in, for he looked at Annabel and, as if throwing down a trump card, said, “You’re not even my type. You’re not pretty enough—you’re too tall and skinny. I like ’em shaped like an hourglass.”
Annabel gave him a withering look and said, “Buster, I’m way out of your league.”
Sonny laughed heartily as she turned on her heel and went out.
* * *
When Annabel walked past the pool, she must have still had a distressed look because Yves, the lifeguard director who was busy assembling clean towels, glanced up, and his dark eyes seemed to register what he saw on her face. He raised his eyebrows and said astutely, “Something you want to report to me?” But when she shook her head, he sighed, glancing at the crowd. “Don’t worry, Annabel. Soon enough they will all go home.”
There was a sudden shout at the shallow end of the pool. “Now what?” Yves muttered.
A male guest stood at the edge of the pool gesticulating at Hugo, the young swim instructor, who was teaching some of the guests’ children how to swim.
Hugo was becoming legendary; he was an Austrian medical student who’d arrived in France just a few years ago with only a backpack of possessions but an ambition to excel. In his homeland he’d financed his studies by working as a lifeguard, and he’d developed an excellent swim technique. He could calm even the most rambunctious of children.
Today he’d been patiently instructing the little ones, who gazed up at Hugo with the utmost trust and adoration. But now more parents came to the edge of the pool and began pulling their children out of it.
“Maybe one of them had a little bathroom ‘accident,’” Yves said worriedly, as one set of parents came marching over to Yves with a furious expression.
The wife said loudly in a Germanic accent, “Our children will not be instructed by a Jew!”
“You ought to drain the entire pool!” her husband spat out.
There was a shocked silence. Annabel glanced back at the pool, where the trusting looks on the faces of the children had now been replaced with an expression of wary disgust; and it was the children’s reaction that seemed to affect Hugo more deeply than the ugly words that the parents had hurled at him. He looked as if he had been punched in the gut, and the expression on his face made Annabel want to cry for him.
“Well?” demanded the outraged father, glaring at Yves.
Yves looked straight back at him calmly, as if dealing with just another gauche guest. “Monsieur, you are not in Nazi Germany now. You are in France,” he said firmly. “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.”
There was a strange glint in the woman’s eyes as she hissed, “Not for long!” before she and her husband stalked off with their children, wrapped in hotel towels, trailing behind him.
* * *
Annabel left the pool area feeling shaken by everything she’d seen today. First Alan, then those nasty people yelling at Hugo. Who did these arrogant guests think they were, throwing their weight around with such a foul sense of entitlement?
She was halfway to the Villa Sanctuaire when a thought occurred to her. Who told Alan that I made love to Jack? She wondered uneasily if Jack had bragged about it over the weekend. She didn’t think he was that type—but what did she really know about Jack? She’d have to look him in the eye, perhaps even ask him, point blank, if he’d told anyone.
By the time she reached the villa, she had worked up a head of steam and was determined to confront Jack. But her indignation evaporated when she saw him sitting at the poolside table with Téa, leisurely finishing their morning coffee and croissants and laughing together. So Téa had returned from her jaunt on the yacht with the Nazi film distributor.
Annabel felt her resolve plummet. She just wanted Jack all to herself today. But how could any girl compete with a sensuous film star destined to be “the next Greta Garbo”?
Jack looked up at Annabel, and his expression softened, as if he perfectly well remembered their night of love. But when Téa glanced at him with a flick of those long eyelashes, he quickly assumed a more neutral expression. And in that moment, Annabel knew that no matter how much Jack cared for her, it was Téa who was his master.
“Sonny asked me to give you this,” Annabel said to Téa, placing the manila envelope with the contract on the table. “He says he needs your signature on it by tonight.”
Jack snorted. “Oh, he does, does he?” he said. “Well, you can just tell Sonny—”
“Tell him yourself,” she snapped, unable to suppress her tension any longer. “I don’t ever want to go near that man or that Alan ever again!”
Now both Jack and Téa looked up in surprise. Jack said quickly, “Annabel, come inside and have a look at a map I got for our trip today.”
She followed him into the kitchen area, where he poured a fresh cup of coffee and handed it to her. “Rough morning?” he asked in a soothing tone.
She was trying steadfastly not to be susceptible, but she found that she needed to tell somebody what had happened, and she simply could not tell Oncle JP. But all she said was, “Did you tell Alan that you and I—that we—the other night, the night of the ball?”
A look of comprehension crossed Jack’s handsome face. “Good God, no. Did that fucker try something with you?” Annabel nodded, trying to recover some iota of poise.
“Want me to sock him for you?” Jack inquired. “Alan is a man who ‘wants punching,’ as the Brits say.”
“No, I think I took care of it myself,” she said without elaborating.
Jack looked amused now. “Good for you, kid,” he said. “Use it as leverage against Sonny. He can’t afford to have his staff get arrested in France. You watch—from now on Sonny will be sweet as pie to you.”
Annabel had not considered that she’d gained some leverage from this situation. “The whole thing makes me sick,” she said, and that included participating in any power games.
“Look, if you don’t feel like going up in the mountains today, I’d completely understand,” Jack said consolingly.
She said quickly, “Oh, I want to get away from this hotel and all the people in it.” The idea of an entire afternoon alone with Jack, beyond any prying eyes, gave her the hope that such intimacy and privacy would allow them to really talk, heart to heart.
“Good!” Jack replied briskly. “Allons-y—isn’t that what you say here? I’ll load up the car. Téa had room service pack us a picnic hamper. There’s plenty of food.”
“That’s because I’m going with you,” Téa’s voice said unexpectedly. She was standing in the doorway. Jack grinned with some surprise.
Téa said softly, “You are right, Jack. I don’t want anything more to do with Sonny and his contract—it’s for seven years! And I’m sick of UFA and their Nazi producers. I want to be a real partner in your new company, Jack. We will make beautiful films together!”