Chapter 10
Gustave
The auction ended in a blur of applause and champagne. But what kept me at the Fondation was Simone and her relentless socializing with me.
Merde!
It took an hour for me to get rid of her, so by the time Philippe and I stepped through the inconspicuous entrance of the Jockey Club de Paris, I was exhausted.
Wasn’t the whole point of getting divorced that you didn’t have to spend time with your ex-fucking-wife?
But after the debacle of the tabloids snapping pictures of Simone screaming at me last year, which had put Aubert in the crosshairs of photographers, I’d decided to keep it as pleasant as possible with her.
I didn’t want my son to be impacted by her crazy. Better me than him.
The doorman at the Jockey Club bows us in, his expression carved from centuries of discretion.
Inside, the club is a world apart, as it has been since opening its doors in 1834.
A traditional gentlemen’s club, the Jockey Club remains one of the most prestigious private institutions in Paris.
Once the exclusive domain of aristocrats, it has loosened its reins—slightly—but still serves as a sanctuary for the men who steer the machinery of French power.
Men in perfectly cut suits murmur over cognac, some bent over a game of cards, others scanning the Figaro.
Gilded sconces cast pools of warm light over velvet chairs and gleaming mahogany tables.
Paintings of racehorses and long-dead aristocrats watch us, reminders that nothing here has really changed in nearly two centuries—because nothing has had to.
Beeswax, leather, and the ghost of fine cigars seem woven into the paneled walls—as if the room has breathed them in for centuries.
We hadn’t made it to the lounge before I was stopped half a dozen times.
Hands clapped my shoulder, voices overlapping in congratulations. “Superbe*, de Valois, superbe.”
One patron remarked he hadn’t seen bidding like that since the Rockefeller sales in New York.
Another chuckled that I’d saved him from ruin by driving the price too high; otherwise, his wife had insisted on getting her hands on the Cimabue.
It was theater, all of it—rituals of wealth disguised as wit.
The act continued with Baron Hunt, the American tech magnate who had tried—and failed—to wrest the painting from me.
A broad man, red-faced from champagne, his French polished but edged with effort.
“Comte de Valois.” He extended his hand with the brashness of someone used to conquering rooms. “Congratulations. You won that Cimabue fair and square…but the next time, watch out.”
I took his hand firmly, my lips curving without warmth. “Gustave, please. The Republic did away with titles a long time ago.”
His mouth quirked. “You know as well as I do that titles still mean something…like giving you access to the Jockey Club.” He raised his glass in a mocking salute, then moved off toward a knot of diplomats by the fire.
I watched him go, jaw tight, until Philippe’s voice cut through my irritation. “Quel imbécile pompeux*.”
“He doesn’t bother me,” I say, and I mean it.
There are always those who secretly crave the hierarchies they claim to despise—Baron Hunt is one of them.
Rumor has it he’s shopping for a third wife, preferably one with a title.
He has the money; she’ll have the pedigree. A match made in aristocratic hell.
We sat by the tall windows that looked onto Rue Rabelais.
I leaned back into a leather armchair as a server set down our cognac and tray of cigars.
Philippe picked up a cigar and a cutter, rolling the thick cylinder between his fingers before snapping the blade with a practiced flick. He looked at me through the curl of tobacco, one brow arched. “What was that with Simone and that girl from the Louvre?”
I bite my lip from correcting him and saying woman. Tara is twenty-eight. She has a fucking PhD in art history. She’s no ingenue.
I watch as the neat edge he cut from the cigar falls onto the tray. “It’s Simone being Simone.”
Philippe strikes a match and holds the flame to the end of his cigar. He draws in the ember, flaring red, then blows out a ribbon of smoke that hangs between us like a veil.
I don’t smoke, but I enjoy the aroma of a good Cuban, which Philippe favors.
I pick up my cognac and cup the glass between my palms to warm the amber liquid.
“You have to cut Simone loose.” He releases two small smoke circles. “Two years you’ve been separated, Gustave. Two. She shouldn’t still be on your arm.”
“I’m trying to keep the peace.”
“Oui, mon ami. But it doesn’t change the fact that you don’t like your ex-wife, and being with her grates on you. You need someone who makes you feel alive.” He shoots me a long, knowing look full of quiet amusement.
I’ve known Philippe most of my life, and I don’t have many secrets from him. I don’t tell him about my sexcapades because that is inappropriate and crude, but Tara isn’t that, is she?
I take a slow sip of cognac. “There is someone.”
Philippe slides forward in his chair, interest sparking. “Enfin*. Who?”
“The…girl from the Louvre.” Pour l'amour de Dieu*, now I’m calling her a girl.
His brows shoot up. “The American?”
A dry, cutting chuckle slips past my lips.
“She is beautiful,” he muses.
“Oui.”
“And?”
“And? She’s just twenty-eight. She’s working on the Carriera pastel that I’m loaning to the Louvre.”
Families often gift or loan works of art. It’s a good way to support cultural institutions, yes—but also to keep the works visible, documented, and protected without losing ownership. A painting in a museum’s care has conservation, insurance, and prestige that a private collection can’t match.
“And?” he prods.
“Dieu*, Philippe. She works for me. The tabloids will go crazy. Art restorer working on my painting…they’ll reduce her to a mistress.”
Philippe narrows his eyes. “I’m still not understanding the problem.”
The problem? I don’t want a mistress, and Tara is not the mistress type. Oh no! She’s a queen amongst women.
“I don’t want Aubert to get caught up in the paparazzi nonsense like he was, and I don’t want my life to be in upheaval,” I say flatly.
He grins, shaking his head. “How far has this…gone?”
I tell him about the one-night stand, and then how I was an ass to her at the Pyramid.
He whistles softly and puffs on his cigar.
“You and Sigrid are photographed everywhere, and it’s not because of her; it’s primarily you,” I remind him. He, like me, is of interest to the tabloids because of his wealth, his family, and his penchant, since his divorce, for young women.
“I don’t mind.”
I shoot him a glare brimming with frustration.
He laughs softly. “That’s the price of being Comte de Valois. It’s the price of being a Marquis* for me. This is how our world works.”
“She’s….” I lift a shoulder and let it drop. “She’s not of our world and—”
“Are you talking about status?” he drawls, cutting me off.
I roll my eyes. “You know that’s not it. But…she’s so young and so…not French. The curiosity will be immense. Why should I put my life in the crosshairs of a camera lens for an affair?”
“You can always be discreet,” he offers.
I finish my cognac in a single swallow. Around us, men laugh, gamble, and plot as they always have. Many of them would take a mistress without hesitation. I’m not one of them. Neither is Philippe. Which is why we’re both divorced.
“I don’t know if I can stomach such subterfuge. She deserves better than to be hidden.”
Philippe swirls his cognac. “How do you feel about her, vraiment*?”
I lean back, the leather creaking behind my shoulders. It is a dangerous question as it’s perilous to even form an answer. But I find myself saying the truth I’ve been feeling. “I’ve never been this drawn to a woman. Not in years. Perhaps not ever.”
Philippe’s brows arched, but his smile was wry. “Alors*…that is not nothing, Gustave.”
“And I have to worry about Simone. How will she react? She’ll crush her…try to, at least.”
“You can protect her,” Philippe points out.
I shake my head. “All this for a short affair? She leaves in a few months. Goes back to America. This is not a relationship.”
“Maybe a quiet affair, then? Keep her close without raising Simone’s claws.”
“I…it feels wrong.”
“You can’t go on staying single and only fucking women when you’re out of Paris. You deserve to enjoy a woman’s company without fearing Simone’s reaction. Or the paparazzi’s.”
He has a point, but he didn’t have to deal with Aubert being chased around Paris.
My son had been frightened out of his mind.
Confused that the world had turned against him, all because his parents decided to divorce.
It would be another circus—and a pointless one, when Tara was going to be just some sex and fun… nothing more.
“I have to think about Aubert.”
Philippe groans. “I have it on good authority that Aubert would be happy for you. He thinks you brood too much. He is his mother’s son in profile, but in spirit—he is you. He wants you happy.” He takes another sip of his drink, his eyes softening. “You are fortunate.”
I know what he means. Philippe's ex-wife married within a year of the divorce, and his children, who were never close to their parents, are now even more distant. Philippe feels that he is only their banker, not a father.
I glance at him. “But how do I know that Tara makes me happy?”
“Your eyes light up every time you talk about her.”
“I barely know her.”
“And you will continue not to know her if you don’t spend time with her.
Take the opportunity, Gustave. You have every right to be happy.
” He shakes his head, bitter amusement tugging at his mouth.
“You know the problem with our world is that marriage is a job. We take the wife who suits the family, we play the husband in public, and when it’s done, there’s nothing left but emptiness. ”
I knew this as well as he did. “Do you know of any marriages that are happy?”
He thinks about it and then sighs. “I thought Sabine for sure…but then we find out that her husband is screwing around on her.”
Sabine, my sister, appeared to have a good marriage…appeared being the operative word. She lives in Geneva with her husband, a banker, whom we recently discovered has a mistress, a French opera singer, whom he’s tucked away in Vienna.
My mother holds up Sabine as the example of a good wife. “See, she stays married while you shirked your responsibilities.”
Sabine’s husband all but bought her every jewel ever made by Cartier to make it up to her when the affair was revealed by the opera singer, who was hoping to cause trouble and become the wife.
Sabine took the baubles and forgave her husband. They have two children, grown, living their own lives, and yet, Sabine feels she has to keep up appearances.
I see them once or twice a year, when duty demands. We are cordial but not close.
She didn’t approve of my divorce, either.
“She’s wearing a brand-new Chopard necklace, according to Maman…
so maybe he’s found a new mistress.” I raise my empty glass and nod at a server whose job is to keep an eye on the patron he’s assigned, ensuring they have what they need as soon as they need it.
“I hope that Aubert is not bound to this world of titles, money, and appearances. I don’t want that for him. ”
Philippe’s gaze lingers on me. “You mean you with Simone still on your arm, and me with girls half my age.” His laugh is humorless. “I chase beauty because I never found love.”
Love! What a quaint word.
Unbidden, Tara’s laughter, her gypsy-like style, and the warmth in her eyes when she spoke of her family run through my mind like a film.
“You think people like us fall in love?” I wonder aloud.
Philippe sets his glass on the low table with a deliberate click. “I believe that real love—if we can even find it—comes at a price. In our world, everything does. Money, position, a name like ours—it all exacts a cost. And love, mon ami, may be the dearest of all.”
“Maybe I’m too old, too jaded, too damaged for love.”
“I feel the same, which is why I make do with lust.” He nods at the server, who replaces Philippe’s ashtray.
“Or do we learn to survive without it?” I lift a shoulder and let it drop. “With Simone, I played the role of husband, but there was no joy. With Aubert, what I feel is honest, and there is joy.”
“And with Tara?”
I huff out a breath. “I don’t know.” But I suspect.
“Then find out,” he urges. “You deserve more than Simone’s shadow.”
The image of Tara at her little kitchen table flickers in my mind—her mismatched plates, the warmth of her hands as she pushed a dish toward me. That world, so far from mine, so free.
“I bring her into our world, I place her on a battlefield.”
“Maybe that should be her choice to make.”
I hear a bark of laughter from somewhere in the club. I don’t look for the source of it because I’m mesmerized by the idea that it’s possible—that I can risk it all, reputation, empire, title, for the chance at…love?
* Superb (French)
* What a pompous fool (French)
* Finally (French)
* For the love of God (French)
* God (French)
* Marquis, usually at the same level as a count, and below a duke (French)
* Really (French)
* So (French)