Alec glanced at the sketch of a cocker spaniel dressed in board shorts and balancing on a surfboard and grimaced. Lately drawing everything Gus did—jumping out of an airplane, sailing a catamaran, wrestling a ten-pound trout on his fishing line—seemed exhausting. Sometimes he wished he could draw Gus curled up on a dog bed in front of the fire or watching cartoons on a large-screen television.
He paced around the suite and thought he just needed a good night’s sleep. He couldn’t keep waking up at two AM and working until midmorning. And he couldn’t exist on a diet of wheat crackers and raspberry jam from the minibar.
He could usually make a check from his publisher last for months, and still enjoy a bowl of café au lait at La Poilâne and a chunk of Roquefort cheese from Pascal Beillevaire. But he had paid for the engraved wedding bands and two nights at Auberge de Cassagne in Avignon and the white angora sweater Celine adored in Le Printemps’s window.
He ate a handful of cashews and wished he hadn’t splurged on two glasses of Hennessey. But Isabel was so distraught. And it really was his fault; a gentleman always took a woman’s arm when they crossed the street.
He gazed down at the boulevard jammed with cars and thought it would be lovely to move to the country. He pictured a gabled cottage with an attic room for his colored pens and sketch pads. He imagined playing bowls in the village square and smoking Gauloises with old men wearing straw hats and fisherman sweaters.
But he had been raised in Paris and he thrived on museums and galleries. He hated mosquitoes, and the sound of silence was worse than the symphony of taxis and buses. And where would he get inspiration for Gus if he didn’t read the headlines in Le Monde or watch the parade of people on the Rue de Seine?
He noticed a diamond teardrop earring on the marble sideboard and smiled. Only Celine would lose a two-carat diamond and not bother to call and ask if he found it. He pictured her honey-blond hair and long legs and groaned. God, she was beautiful, like a championship racehorse at Ascot.
He remembered when they met, at a gallery opening in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Alec hated art openings with waiters passing around crystal champagne flutes and trays of canapés. It was impossible get close to the paintings, and if he stood in one place too long, someone was bound to step on his foot.
But his publisher believed the best way to make fashionable Parisian mothers buy his books was to compliment them on their taste in avant-garde art. Alec was young and good-looking, and it wouldn’t hurt for women to imagine his dark hair and green eyes when they were purchasing a selection of bedtime stories.
* * *
“YOU AREN’T LOOKING at the paintings,” a woman said, approaching him. She had violet eyes and a full red mouth. She wore a neon minidress and silver stilettos.
“It’s impossible to get near the artwork without being elbowed in the ribs or hit in the thigh by a ten-kilo Hermès bag.” Alec nibbled salmon and bell peppers.
“Then why are you here?” the woman asked. She had red fingernails and wore a diamond-and-ruby bracelet.
“I’m a children’s book illustrator and my publisher thinks I should mingle with mothers who can afford to pay ten thousand euros for a splash of orange.” Alec waved at a gold frame. “But this crowd is too young to have children. The men look like they just returned from heli-skiing in St. Moritz and the women seem like they stepped off the runway at Chanel.” He studied her high cheekbones and slender neck. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being a model. One of my sister’s friends models for Lanvin and makes a fortune. I’m sure women see you on the runway and line up to buy a new swimsuit.”
“You think I’m a model because I have thick hair and good legs?” she demanded.
“Well, yes.” Alec suddenly felt sick. “Aren’t you a model?”
“I’m a translator at UNESCO at the United Nations and fluent in four languages.” Her eyes flashed.
“I see.” Alec drained his champagne glass. He ran his hands through his hair and said feebly, “I tried learning Chinese, but studying the characters gave me vertigo.”
* * *
IT WAS CELINE’S idea to drink Bombay sapphire gin at Le Bar in the George V. Waiters carried platters of foie gras and caviar, and Alec was afraid he’d have to max out his credit card. But when the bill arrived, Celine murmured to the bartender in French and he smiled and crumpled up the paper.
Alec offered to walk her home and they strolled along the Rue Saint-Honoré. She stopped in front of a stone mansion divided into four flats.
“I didn’t know a translator’s salary paid for a garden apartment on one of the most elegant streets in Paris.” Alec gazed at the slate roof and double front doors.
“My father is a jeweler, he owns diamond mines in South Africa and Brazil.” Celine fiddled with her key. “Would you mind coming inside? I hate turning on the lights by myself.”
Alec glanced at her lips, which were like plump cherries, and had the sudden urge to kiss her. He followed her into the hallway and flicked the light on in the living room. The floor was polished wood and there was a floral sofa and an Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe on the wall.
“Would you like an aperitif?” She slipped off her stilettos.
“I have to go,” he mumbled. “I’m working on a deadline, I left Gus hanging off a cliff in Algeria.”
The next morning Celine called and said she needed a date to Aida at the Palais Garnier. When he picked her up, she stood in her narrow entry in a turquoise gown and gold sandals. Her blond hair fell to her shoulders and she wore a diamond pendant around her neck. He gazed at her creamy skin and high breasts and sucked in his breath.
He drew her into the living room and kissed her on the mouth. He loosened his tie and thought he was acting like an oversexed schoolboy. Love had to be entered into slowly, or it became like a soufflé you left in the oven too long that suddenly exploded.
He ran his hands through his hair and said they didn’t want to miss the opening act. Celine placed one hand between his legs and stroked the hardness beneath his slacks. He inhaled her scent of floral perfume and his last trace of willpower dissolved.
He slipped his hand beneath her panties and felt the sweet wetness and delicious warmth. When his fingers slid inside her, he felt her press against his chest. Then she dug her nails into his back and her whole body shattered.
They moved to the bedroom and tore at each other’s clothes. Alec remembered the joy of new sex: discovering a birthmark on her neck and an indentation in her thigh and the glistening curve of her stomach.
She drew him onto the bed and wrapped her arms around his back. He opened her thighs and plunged deep inside her. He felt the wild rush and then the feeling of exquisite joy. She clutched his shoulders and they came together like two sprinters gasping at the finish line.
* * *
AFTERWARD THEY LAY against the quilted headboard and he wondered what he had done. The last thing he needed was to fall in love with a beautiful, wealthy girl who had first edition copies of Balzac on her bookshelf and Prada shoes at the foot of her bed. But he gazed at her long eyelashes and full mouth and wondered how he could do anything else.
* * *
THE NEXT TWO months were a frenzy of delicious sex. Alec came over after Celine returned from work, and they attempted to toss a salad or boil pasta. But Celine would brush against his chest or Alec would inhale her exotic scent, and they would turn off the pot of spaghetti or put the Camembert back in the fridge and race to the bedroom.
Sometimes they pulled on sweaters and slacks and went to the cinema or browsed in a bookstore. But what was the point of watching a romantic movie or reading a love story when what they had was better than fiction?
The only drawback was, wherever they went, men flocked to Celine like insects to flypaper. Every time Alec collected their drinks at a bar, or lingered at a newsagent while she sat at a café, he returned to find a man in his chair.
* * *
“I WAS EATING my pain au chocolat when Hans insisted I read Death in Venice,” Celine explained when Alec returned from buying a packet of Mentos and found Celine sitting across from a blond tourist at Café Verlet.
“No one pulls up a chair and discusses classical literature without an invitation,” Alec grumbled, popping a Mentos in his mouth.
“I was reading Goethe to practice my German,” Celine said. “He must have noticed the cover.”
“Then read Madame Figaro,” Alec suggested. “No man wants to discuss bra cup sizes or the new season’s style in cashmere sweaters.”
“All men talk to single women, it doesn’t mean anything.” Celine shrugged. “The only way to stop them is to wear a diamond ring on your finger and have a round bump in your stomach.”
Alec gazed at couples strolling along the boulevard and jumped up. He knew exactly how to stop men from flirting with Celine! Why didn’t he think of it sooner?
He hopped on the metro and went to see his mother. He found her in the garden, bending over a row of butter lettuce.
“Alec darling!” She kissed him on the cheek. “I haven’t seen you in weeks. Ever since you said you met a girl, you disappeared.”
“You’d like Celine.” He suddenly remembered when he arrived home from kindergarten and declared he had a crush on his teacher. He begged his mother to let him use his allowance to buy Mademoiselle Egret a glass necklace.
“Invite her over for dinner,” Claudia suggested. “I’ll make pumpkin soup and a summer salad.”
“I wanted to ask you something.” Alec wiped his brow. “You said I could have Bertie’s ring when I got married.”
“Of course you can have my mother’s ring. I’m counting on you to give me grandchildren.” She smiled. “What better reason to reread The Little Prince and the Paddington books?”
“I’d like to have it now,” Alec continued. “I’m going to ask Celine to marry me.”
“You want to give my mother’s antique sapphire-and-diamond ring to a girl you just met?”
“I’m thirty and she’s twenty-seven, she’s hardly a child bride,” Alec protested. “She’s beautiful and smart and everything I dreamed of.”
“But you’ve known her for less than two months. When you were a child you spent weeks perfecting your Christmas list and you always ordered last at a restaurant.” She paused. “Why the rush?”
“Celine is like a jar of the sweetest honey or a bowl of the richest cream,” he said. “Men will do anything to approach her. I thought…”
“That if she wore a wedding ring, they would think she was off the market?” Claudia raised her eyebrow.
“Something like that.” Alec shrugged.
“That’s not a good reason to marry someone.” His mother frowned.
Alec pictured Celine’s clear violet eyes and long legs. He saw the way she looked in the morning, with her hair in a high ponytail and her face free of makeup and her smile that was like the Cheshire Cat’s.
“I have a better reason,” he groaned. “I can’t live without her.”
* * *
ALEC SPENT THE next week in a state of giddy anticipation. It was spring and Paris bloomed with lilacs and daffodils. He spent hours debating with himself where to propose: On the Pont des Arts, with the Louvre rising like a modern pyramid. In front of the Sacré-Coeur, with all of Paris laid out at their feet. Under the Eiffel Tower, so they could look up at the steel structure and remember they were in the most romantic city in the world.
He finally decided on Parc Monceau in the eighth arrondissement. It wasn’t overrun by tourists, and Celine loved the rose gardens and willow trees and lake surrounded by Corinthian columns.
He packed a picnic of olive baguettes and Brie and capers. There were peaches and berries and a jar of whipped cream. He added a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and Celine’s favorite chocolate torte.
The morning of the proposal, clouds hung low over the Seine. Alec wore a pale blue blazer and beige slacks. He felt the jewelry box in his pocket and a lump formed in his throat.
* * *
“IT’S NOT the best day for a picnic,” Celine said when he picked her up at her flat.
She wore blue jeans and a navy sweater and Alec felt a twinge of disappointment. He had imagined her in a sleeveless linen dress and leather sandals. Her hair would fall loosely to her shoulders and she would smell of lavender shampoo.
Instead her hair was wound into a bun and held back with an enamel clip. She wore low boots and an orange turtleneck under the navy sweater.
“Why don’t we see a movie?” she suggested. “The new Mission: Impossible is playing at Cinema Le Rex and we can eat popcorn and Raisinets.”
“The last time we saw an American movie with French subtitles, the actors sounded like chipmunks,” Alec grumbled. “It can’t rain, I bought sausages and kumquats from the outdoor market in the Marais.”
The first drops fell as they entered the stone gates. They rushed under the rotunda and Alec gazed at the wet grass. He could hardly expect Celine to sit on a muddy blanket and eat soggy ham and cheese.
He took her hand and suddenly had an idea. They would go to the Passage Jouffroy and eat escargot and baba au rhum at one of the elegant cafés. When he was a child, he loved visiting Boîte à Joujoux with its giant erector sets and Le Petit Roi crammed with children’s books and eating almond cakes at Le Valentin.
They crossed the Boulevard Haussmann and entered the iron doors. Alec saw the black-and-white marble floor and glass ceiling and let out his breath. What could be more romantic than a covered passageway built in 1836 by one of France’s greatest architects?
“Let’s go to Bouillon Chartier and eat carrot mousse and country terrine,” Alec suggested, picturing the quaint restaurant with its red velvet walls and steaming bowls of bouillabaisse.
“I feel like pizza,” Celine said. “Nick’s Pizza has the best pizza margherita in Paris.”
“Pizza?” Alec shuddered. He could hardly pull out the jewelry box with greasy fingers.
“When was the last time we had pizza?” Celine took his arm. “We’ll share strawberry gelato for dessert.”
* * *
THEY SAT ON wooden chairs and Alec glanced miserably at the menu. He could propose another day, but he was so nervous, he could barely concentrate on his work. All week he had sketched a companion for Gus: a fluffy French poodle named Monique. Finally he crumpled it in the garbage. His readers wanted Gus to fight fiery dragons, not hold hands on a barge gliding along the Seine.
* * *
“THE WAITER ASKED you three times what you wanted to order,” Celine said, interrupting his thoughts.
“Sorry?” Alec looked up. He pointed to the pizza Napoletana and handed the waiter his menu.
“Maybe we should go home.” Celine sipped a glass of water. “You look like you are coming down with a cold.”
Alec studied her high cheekbones and slender neck and caught his breath. Even with her mascara smudged and hair damp from the rain, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He fumbled in his pocket and brought out the velvet jewelry box.
“I wanted to ask you this with the sun streaming on the lake and the air filled with the scent of lilacs and roses,” he began. “You are elegant and stunning, like a shooting star that somehow landed on my doorstep.” He drew out the pear-shaped diamond ring. “Celine Du Mond, will you marry me?”
“Marry you?” Celine exclaimed. “We haven’t even met each other’s families.”
Celine was right. Alec had wanted to ask Celine’s father for his blessing, but when he called his office, his secretary said he was in Brazil until July. And he knew he should have taken her to lunch with his mother, but that would mean meeting his sister. Somehow he wanted to keep Celine away from Bettina until the diamond ring was safely on Celine’s finger.
“We’ll visit my mother this afternoon,” he said eagerly. “She gave me her mother’s ring, she can’t wait to meet you.”
“Are you asking me to marry you so men will stop flirting with me?” Celine asked.
“Of course not!” He bristled. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to have babies and push a pram through the Luxembourg Gardens. I want to rent a cottage in the country and play backgammon in front of the fire.”
She studied the diamond ring as if she was debating what topping to put on her pizza. She looked at Alec and a smile lit up her face.
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?” Alec asked.
“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
“You will?” Alec realized he didn’t know what to do next. Did he slip the ring on her finger or kiss her on the mouth?
“You sound surprised,” Celine replied. “What did you expect me to say?”
Alec glanced at the rain smudging the window and couples huddling under umbrellas and took a deep breath. The most incredible woman in Paris was agreeing to be his wife; this wasn’t the time to discuss whether they would live on his salary, or if she slept under a down duvet in the summer.
He slipped the ring on her finger and gathered her in his arms. He inhaled her scent of jasmine and vanilla and thought he was the happiest man in the world.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I knew you were going to say yes.”
* * *
CELINE WAS THE easiest bride. Her father insisted on paying for the wedding, so Celine was happy to let her stepmother, Mathilde, plan the elaborate reception at the George V.
Sometimes Alec passed boutiques filled with chiffon wedding dresses and lace stockings and wished she wanted his opinion on the flowers or strawberry meringue. But then he pictured the glorious nights in Celine’s bed and thought he was being ridiculous.
Everyone knew spending too much time planning the wedding was the fastest way to get a divorce. He should be grateful all he had to do was slip on the gray morning suit and yellow boutonniere and show up at Cathédrale Notre-Dame at three o’clock.
* * *
ALEC ATE THE last bite of wheat cracker and thought if only Patrick hadn’t appeared. It seemed perfectly innocent when Celine’s boss asked her to show his Australian nephew around Paris. Alec pictured a boy with sandy hair and freckles clutching a cricket bat.
He remembered when he arrived in the Place Vendôme at six o’clock. Celine asked him to meet them at a café and then they would take a dinner cruise on the Seine.
* * *
ALEC BUTTONED HIS coat and thought it really was too cold to sit on a barge at night. There was never decent heating and you could barely see out of the windows because of the fog. And why would a boy have any interest in seeing Paris after dark? Alec was sure he’d rather visit Cirque d’Hiver or to see the Christmas lights at Disneyland Paris.
He turned the corner and saw Celine sitting across from a man with wavy blond hair and blue eyes. He wore a blue cashmere sweater and gray slacks.
Alec approached the café and wondered why Celine had her hands in her pockets. Was she hiding her diamond ring or just keeping warm? And where was Patrick? Did she send her boss’s nephew away so she could flirt with the guy who looked like he had stepped out of a Ralph Lauren catalog?
“God, it’s freezing.” Alec rubbed his hands together. “I hope Patrick didn’t stop at a newsagent to buy a packet of sweets. He won’t appreciate the braised duck and sliced beets if he’s stuffed with caramels.”
Celine looked up and smoothed her hair. She wore a teal sweater and cream slacks and Alec thought she had never looked more beautiful. Diamond teardrop earrings glittered in her ears and she resembled an angel on top of a Christmas tree.
“This is my fiancé, Alec,” she said to the man sitting across the table. She turned to Alec and her mouth puckered. “This is Edgar’s nephew Patrick.”
* * *
“HOW ON EARTH can that blond Adonis be Edgar’s nephew?” Alec spluttered. “I pictured some knobby-kneed kid with bangs, not one of People’s fifty most beautiful people.”
“Edgar is almost sixty, why shouldn’t he have a grown nephew?” Celine retorted. They had returned from the dinner cruise and were standing in Celine’s living room.
Alec thought he’d never had a more miserable evening. The Cabernet had been off, and when the waiter placed the chocolate soufflé in front of him, it collapsed. Patrick insisted on standing on the deck to see the Christmas lights, and Alec was so cold, he almost asked the woman next to them if he could borrow her mink coat.
“How can he be so tan in the middle of winter?” he continued. “I felt like a wax figure at Madame Tussauds.”
“He’s from Melbourne, it’s the middle of summer in Australia.”
“Well, someone needs to tell him to wear a hat.” He scowled. “If he stands on a cricket mound without protection, he’s going to get a terrible sunburn.”
Celine took the ribbon out of her hair. “It sounds like you are jealous.”
“Jealous?” Alec started. He gazed at her high breasts and small waist and felt like the Wicked Witch dissolving into a puddle. “Why on earth would I be jealous?”
“You tell me,” she said, unzipping her slacks and letting them fall to the floor. “You were the one who was sulking like a child who didn’t receive any Christmas presents.”
“I was not sulking,” Alec muttered. “It was freezing, and I was trying to stop my teeth from chattering.”
She took his hand and led him into the bedroom. Alec watched her unsnap her bra and forgot about the bad wine and limp dessert. He slipped his hand under her panties and thought he had discovered a hidden treasure. He pressed his fingers in deeper and watching her face open, like a flower in springtime.
She drew him onto the ivory bedspread and pulled him inside her. She urged him to go faster, and he felt the slow build and sudden terror of not being able to stop. He pulled her hands over her head and their legs twisted on the silk sheets. Then he collapsed on her breasts and heard her cry out.
God, it was incredible! Like they were the only two lovers in Paris. He waited until she stopped shaking, and then he closed his eyes and for a moment he knew perfect happiness.
“You’re not a child at all,” Celine murmured. “You’re very much a man.”
Alec suddenly felt invincible. He tucked her against his chest and whispered, “How could I ever be jealous when I get to hold you in my arms?”
* * *
ALEC SCREWED THE lid on the jar of preserves and thought that if he had known that was the last time they would have sex, he would have made it last longer. How was he to know that three days later she would board a plane to Melbourne?
And now he was alone in a honeymoon suite at the Hôtel de Crillon. He remembered Isabel stepping onto the boulevard and was glad she wasn’t hurt. It was bad enough his fiancée had deserted him; it would be terrible if he were responsible for Isabel getting run over by a taxi.
That was the thing about life. You thought everything was moving in the right direction. And then something appeared out of the blue and changed your course forever.
He thought of the night he and Celine checked into the Crillon. He couldn’t get over the welcoming basket of exotic nuts and fresh fruits from Mexico. He moved around the suite, examining the Armani shaving cream in the bathroom and the heated floor in the bidet closet.
* * *
ALEC POPPED A handful of macadamia nuts in his mouth and glanced at his watch. They were meeting Celine’s parents for dinner at Le Meurice and she had gone to the salon to get her hair done. But now it was almost six o’clock and they’d never get through pre-Christmas traffic if they didn’t hurry.
He grabbed the key and took the elevator to the lobby. He crossed the Persian rug and approached the concierge.
“Could you direct me to the salon?” he asked. “My fiancée had an appointment hours ago, and hasn’t returned.”
“Are you in suite five-twenty?” The man looked up from his computer.
“Yes, how did you know?”
“The mademoiselle told me to expect a tall man wearing a red sweater.” He handed Alec an envelope. “She left you a letter.”
“My mother bought me this sweater,” Alec snapped, stuffing the envelope in his pocket. “It’s Shetland wool, hand-knit in Scotland.”
Alec took the letter up to the suite and ripped it open. He scanned it quickly and groaned. How could a woman with a degree from the Sorbonne write a Dear John letter like a bad romance author? And how could she decide eleven days before their wedding to fly to another continent?
“Who moves to Australia? It’s a bunch of scrub and marsupials.” He tossed the paper in the garbage. “There’s no decent culture and the weather is the same three hundred sixty-five days a year.”
He glanced out the window at the rain falling on the Champs-Élysées and felt a sharp pain in his chest. He knew why she had decided to spend twenty-four hours in a pressurized airline cabin when they could be sharing the marble bathtub in their suite: because she had met the only person he had ever seen who was more beautiful than Celine herself, and she couldn’t resist him.
* * *
HE OPENED THE bottle of scotch and sank onto the sofa. He really shouldn’t cry, Celine would think it was unmanly. Then he remembered Celine was on her way to an Australian beach and a sob escaped his throat.
He filled his glass and gazed at the silver platter of mangoes and kiwis. He picked up a slice of melon and wondered if he would ever be hungry again.
* * *
NOW ALEC MOVED to the Regency desk and studied a sketch of Gus throwing a boomerang. It had been three days since Celine left. If that had been love, he never wanted to experience it again.
For the first time since he and Celine met, he was surprised that he felt completely normal. He was like a ship passenger who has survived a transatlantic voyage and finally reached solid ground.
He thought of all the things about Celine he missed: the way she peeled an orange and read the Sunday comics out loud. How she would overhear a conversation at a café and invent a story about the couple talking.
And God, he loved the way she stepped out of the shower and lathered her body with lotion. As if she didn’t know that every move she made was like the most glorious ballet.
There was a knock at the door and he stood up to answer it.
“Here you are.” Mathieu entered the suite. His brown hair was slicked back and he wore a wool overcoat. “I thought you might be walking into the Seine with rocks in your coat pocket.” He glanced at Alec’s smooth cheeks and freshly washed hair. “You look pretty good for someone who was left at the altar. I guess sleeping under thousand-thread-count sheets and eating room service cracked lobster does wonders for a broken heart.”
“I wasn’t left at the altar, we never made it to the church,” Alec said irritably. “And I can’t afford room service, I’ve been eating crackers and jam.”
“I was afraid of that.” He examined the empty preserve jars. “Helene suggested you join us for dinner. She’s making Nicoise salad with hard-boiled eggs, and strawberry melba for dessert.”
“As much as I enjoy the company of my best friend and his Cordon Bleu–trained wife, I’m not ready for an evening of discussing the joys of marital sex and the pregnant woman’s libido.” Alec sank onto a velvet love seat.
“Helene thought you would say that.” He grinned. “She authorized me to take you to Le Reservoir in Montmartre. We’re going to get drunk on pomegranate martinis.”
“I’d as soon stand under strobe lights in a nightclub as lock myself into a prison cell in the Bastille.”
“You can’t stay here eating salted nuts, you have to get on with your life,” he replied. “It’s Celine’s loss. Helene says if she met you before we fell in love, she would have been smitten. You’re good-looking and charming and you’re the only man she knows who can hang a shower curtain.”
“You and Helene are childhood sweethearts, she would have had to meet me in kindergarten.” Alec’s face broke into a smile. “You are a good friend, Mathieu. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Mathieu took off his overcoat and folded it over a brocade armchair.
“I’m not just here as your friend, I also came as your attorney.”
“I see.” Alec felt something hard press against his chest.
“In two weeks it will be the first anniversary of your father’s death,” he began. “You will be quite a wealthy man.”
“Who goes parasailing at the age of sixty-five?” Alec’s eyes glistened. “He should have celebrated his birthday like a normal Frenchman by eating beef bourguignon made with too much butter and drinking too many glasses of port.”
“His doctor said his heart could have given out anywhere,” Mathieu replied.
“Have you ever gazed down at the Mediterranean from six hundred feet?” Alec asked. “My mother tried to dissuade him. She told him the Greek myth about Icarus and he insisted it was perfectly safe. He said a ninety-year-old man went up the day before.”
“Your father led a wonderful life. Two handsome children, a successful business, a beautiful house in Paris’s most exclusive arrondissement.”
“You forgot the two wives.” Alec bristled. “The first one who deserted him and the second one whose stepdaughter never let her forget she wasn’t the love of his life.” His eyes narrowed. “Stepmothers are vilified, but stepdaughters can be worse. Was it my mother’s fault that Bettina’s mother left my father for a farmer who lived in a thatched cottage like Mellors in Lady Chatterley’s Lover?”
“Family histories can be as convoluted as abstract paintings at the Centre Pompidou.” Mathieu shrugged. “But it doesn’t change the law.”
“Ah, yes, French inheritance laws.” Alec walked to the bar and poured a glass of scotch. “It’s no wonder the French are the most unfaithful race. What wife wants to devote thirty years of her life to a man, only to be kicked out into the street the moment he’s dead?”
“The laws were created to protect the children,” Mathieu explained. “And to dissuade mistresses of wealthy patrons from demanding a wedding ring.”
“My mother was the most caring wife and mother,” he sighed. “Bettina is behaving as if she was a stray dog that didn’t work out.”
“The law says you and Bettina inherit two-thirds of Alain’s estate and your mother receives a third. She is allowed to live in the family home for a year after his death and then she must relinquish it to his children…” Mathieu paused. “Unless she gives up her portion of the estate in exchange for living there for the rest of her life. But then she couldn’t afford to live in the house.”
“You know that’s all she wants. Forty Rue de Passy has been her home for thirty years.” Alec fiddled with his glass. “She has her vegetable garden and rooms filled with Alain’s favorite things. If she leaves, estate taxes will eat up her principal and she’ll end up in a walk-up in Pigalle.”
“Your father stipulated in his will that whichever child marries first could live in the house.” Mathieu poured a glass of soda water. “He wanted the gardens filled with children playing on swings and catching butterflies.”
“We wouldn’t have lived there, I would never make my mother leave.” Alec shook his head. “Celine’s father gave her the flat on the Rue Saint-Honoré. It has a sunny front room that would have made a perfect nursery.”
“Now Bettina has an equal claim.” Mathieu sipped his water. “Alain’s will is ironclad, you couldn’t tear it apart with a crowbar.”
“I can’t imagine what Bettina will say when she discovers the wedding is canceled and she can evict my mother.” Alec shuddered. “She’ll be so happy, it will be like Santa Claus coming twice.”
“You haven’t told her the wedding is off?” Mathieu spluttered.
“I was waiting for the right moment.” Alec shrugged. “Hopefully after she spent a thousand euros on her couture gown and designer shoes.” He paused. “The only high point of Celine’s defection would be to see my sister’s face when she steps out of her mint-green Jaguar and realizes Cathédrale Notre-Dame is empty.”
“But you told Helene and me the wedding was canceled.” Mathieu frowned.
“How am I supposed to remember to call everyone?” Alec refilled his glass and sighed. “I suppose I couldn’t stand Bettina gloating that Celine traded her ivory Oscar de la Renta wedding gown for a nylon swimsuit.”
“Bettina can’t be that bad,” Mathieu insisted. “You are related and you’re one of the most generous people I know.”
“When I was five years old, I snuck downstairs early and opened my Christmas stocking. I reached inside and all I found was rocks.” Alec downed his scotch. “The next day I discovered a packet of colored pencils and English toffees under Bettina’s pillow. She had taken out my stocking stuffers and replaced them with rocks from the garden.”
“Her mother left when she was three years old,” Mathieu mused. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
“My mother tried so hard, once a month she took Bettina to the Ritz for afternoon tea.” Alec paused. “I was quite jealous, I adored the petits fours and chocolate éclairs.”
“Unless you find another woman to marry in the next two weeks, you have to tell her.” Mathieu gathered his overcoat and walked to the door. “If you don’t want to have dinner, I should go. I promised I’d bring Helene dill pickles and horseradish.”
“I’m never getting married,” Alec said. “I stuck my head in the mouth of the beast once and that was enough. I’ll be the godfather who shows up with a football and lacrosse stick.”
“You hate organized sports.” Mathieu grinned. “You said at school you spent all your time doodling in your math book.”
Alec glanced at Celine’s diamond teardrop earring on the sideboard and grimaced. “I won’t let my godson make the same mistakes. If I’d learned to play cricket, everything might be different.”
* * *
ALEC SCOOPED UP a handful of Brazil nuts and picked up his colored pencil. It had been nice of Mathieu to stop by, but he didn’t want to think about Bettina and the house on Rue de Passy.
He washed the nuts down with soda water and decided he really should go for a walk. He could stop in a café and have a plate of ratatouille and a bowl of café au lait.
But he had bought Isabel the glass of cognac, and even an espresso was ten euros on the Champs-Élysées. He thought fleetingly of giving up the suite and returning to his flat. But then his feet touched the white carpet and he remembered the steaming hot shower and wondered why he would trade a four-poster bed and marble bath for a fifth-floor walk-up.
He sat at the desk and drew Gus standing next to a guillotine. He sketched the wood scaffolding and pale faces in the crowd.
“You’re drawing for bloody six-year-olds.” He tossed it in the garbage. He selected a fresh sheet of paper and tried again.