Chapter 5 Tara
Tara
“Simone, this is Tara Gayarre, the American who is working on the Carriera. And Tara, this is Comtesse de Valois…you just met her…ah…le Comte.”
Comtesse de Valois? His freaking wife?
I had wondered who she was when I first spotted her with him. Her fingers had been curled around his arm like she owned it, like she owned him. Close. Familiar. Proprietary. My brain had supplied and rejected the obvious answer: girlfriend…or wife!
Well, that explains why he was so bent out of shape about the tabloids—why he treated me like some scheming scandal-chaser.
Dios mio! I have the sense of an ant, sleeping with a married man.
Well, you know what, I didn’t know he was married.
And to this woman who is…well, she’s so French and impossibly classy.
Smells like she fell into a vat of perfume and then straight into a vat of diamonds—because she’s bejeweled from head to toe.
With the six…no, seven-carat rock on her finger as the pièce de résistance.
So, my mystery man is a freaking count. A rich one, too, since that ring—I know my jewelry as my mother designs them—is worth five or six million dollars, easy.
“How wonderful to meet you.” Simone de Valois shakes my hand. She’s skinny. Size zero. Probably can fit right into couture straight off the runway.
Is this his type? He must’ve been slumming with me, I think, chagrined. After all, I’m a size eight with a healthy affection for ice cream.
Simone’s grip is cool, her smile honed like a chisel against marble.
She moves on to someone else, more interesting and more on her level, without missing a beat, her diamonds catching the light as though mocking me.
I’m shook up, first by Gustave’s unfair vitriol and now the knowledge that he’s married, until Cece materializes at my side, her arm looped through mine.
“Come on,” she murmurs. “We’ve done our duty. Let’s get out of here!”
Jean is waiting near the cloakroom, already tugging at his tie. “I vote for Chez Castel. Proper music, proper drinks.”
I have no idea what Chez Castel is, but I let them sweep me out of the Louvre and into the cool Paris night.
We take a taxi, which drops us on Rue Princesse in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
Late-night bars send laughter and happy, drink-loosened patrons into the night. Halfway down, almost hidden, a discreet black door bears a tiny brass plaque. You’d probably walk past without noticing it unless you knew exactly where to look.
Jean raps on the door. “Chez Castel is one of the most exclusive private clubs in all of Paris,” he explains, with an effortless smugness only trust-fund babies can pull off. According to Cece, Jean’s family’s money buys him access to Paris’s most exclusive haunts. Tonight, it buys me one, too.
Yippie! My new friend is filthy rich like my one-night stand. I’m definitely attracting a particular type in Paris.
Inside, the club is velvet banquettes, low lighting, the thrum of bass, and beautiful people who look like they were born knowing how to pose under colored lights.
We snag a corner table with a view of the dance floor.
We order, and despite how lax service in France can be, we get our drinks très vite*—a small miracle, really.
There is something neon and citrusy for Cece, whiskey for Jean, and a glass of champagne for me, which I feel is expensive as all get out, especially since I used to live in Los Angeles, another super expensive city.
“Did you see Madame Devereaux tonight?” Cece asks Jean, leaning close.
Since my French is barely passable, my colleagues speak English around me, which is extremely courteous. Even when Giselle shifts to French, which I think she does on purpose to exclude me, they reply to her in English if I’m around.
“Who is Madame Devereaux?” I ask.
“The woman who was wearing a Halston dress that cut to her navel.” Cece is obviously equal parts scandalized and impressed. “She’s eighty if she’s a day! But she carries herself so well.”
I noticed the woman she’s talking about. Impossible not to—silver hair piled high like a crown, skin like crumpled silk, but with a posture so straight it could have been carved in marble. Her gown glittered with sequins under the lights, plunging way low.
“Well, no surprise there.” Jean laughs. “Tara, Madame Devereaux was the muse in the sixties and seventies—painters, photographers, sculptors, you name it. I think she’s been immortalized in more nudes than any of Botticelli’s models.
There are still half a dozen fashion houses that would kill to put her in a campaign, if only for the shock value. ”
“She married into money young,” Cece adds, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “but rumor has it she never stayed ah…monogamous. She’s outlived two husbands. One was a banker and the other a shipping magnate. Now she spends her fortune traveling, collecting art, and scandalizing the French elite.”
“Basically,” Jean says with a grin, “she’s proof that you can be eighty, outrageous, dripping in diamonds, and still the most talked-about woman in the room.”
“I like her style,” I admit. I picture the woman again, lifting her champagne flute, rings sparkling, daring anyone to call her too old or too bold.
“I want to be like her when I’m older,” Cece declares as she picks up her drink.
“You mean as the widow of a wealthy man or two?” Jean teases.
“Exactement*!” Cece shoots back, eyes sparkling.
“Speaking of wealthy old men, did you see Henri Marchand?” Jean rolls his eyes. “He was flirting with every woman under the age of twenty-five.”
Cece raises her glass and clinks it against Jean’s and then mine. “Merde…missed his attentions by two years. But…he’s too old. Maybe I should aim for de Valois.”
“If he can get rid of Simone, that is.” Jean smirks, shaking his head.
My stomach does a ridiculous flip.
“You met Gustave de Valois, didn’t you?” Cece nudges my shoulder. “He’s the one who is loaning your Carriera to the Louvre.”
I lick my lips and nod vaguely. Yeah, I met him, up close and personal!
Jean whistles. “Every man in Paris wants to be him, and every woman wants to be with him. He’s—how do you say? Le célibataire le plus sexy de la ville*.”
“Sexy, rich, and single,” Cece confirms, swirling her drink. “Well, as single as Simone will let him be. They’ve been divorced for a year, and still, she’s glued to him at every party, pretending she’s still Comtesse de Valois in more than name.”
I blink.
He’s divorced?
Jean raises a brow. “The rumor is that he wanted the divorce, and she didn’t. Simone is still angling for a reconciliation.”
“Did you see how Giselle was all but rubbing her tits against de Valois?” Cece makes a face. “There’s nothing more desperate than a woman who keeps throwing herself at a man who isn’t interested in her.”
I sit back, my mind reeling. He’s divorced. Which means…he’s not married. Not technically off-limits. Not a cheat.
Just paranoid, rude, and infuriating, Tara.
“Giselle should be careful.” Jean downs his drink. “Simone will slice to ribbons any woman who looks at Gustave twice.”
I force a smile, trying to look casual, but my pulse is hammering away. Because divorced or not, I’ve already looked at le Comte de Valois more than twice…and naked.
Cece knocks back the last of her cocktail, her eyes sparkling. “Enough about work. We need to get to the dance floor. Maintenant*!”
Before I can protest, Cece tugs me by the wrist. Jean is right behind us, already shrugging out of his jacket.
The bass grows louder as we thread our way through the crowd—thick velvet curtains parting to reveal a room bathed in red light and shadows.
The floor is packed, couples and clusters moving in that effortless Parisian way that makes everything look chic, even the drunk hip swaying.
Cece dives straight in, her slick hair gleaming, her arms in the air, while Jean spins me with a flourish that makes me laugh out loud.
For a while, I let myself forget.
Forget Simone’s diamond glare.
Forget Gustave’s clipped words.
Forget the fact that my life has somehow tangled itself with aristocrats and their scandals.
The music is pulsing through my body, my hair sticking to my cheeks, my bangles clinking with every movement.
I’m simply Tara—art nerd, dancing in a Parisian nightclub with new friends.
Jean grins brightly. “Better than cleaning canvas?”
I laugh, breathless. “Much better!”
Cece twirls into us, colliding. She throws her head back with a wild laugh. “à Paris, ma belle*, everything is better!”
I feel it, too—the shimmer, the possibility, the freedom.
But then, through the press of bodies, I think of storm-gray eyes, and a tender pressure swells in the hollow of my core—because I can’t quite shake the memory of Gustave de Valois.
* Very quickly (French)
* Exactly
* The hottest bachelor in town
* Now! (French)
* In Paris, my dear (French)