Chapter 16 Gustave
Gustave
Her light has dimmed. I’ve done that. Since Paris Fashion Week, when she’s with me, she seems subdued.
The affair…the secrets, they’re taking a toll on her. The truth is…they’re taking a toll on me as well. But not enough to give her up. I can’t. I’m ready to beg to keep her for as long as I can.
“You sure you want me to come to your apartment?” she asks for what feels like the hundredth time.
“S’il te pla?t*, Tara.”
I can hear her sigh across the phone line. “Fine. I…okay.”
It’s ending—I can feel it. The slow crush of reality pressing down, the inevitability of my world smothering hers.
But when we’re together, it’s as if the rest of it falls away. In that small, suspended space, I can breathe. I can be.
It’s selfish, I know. Yet, for once, I want to choose desire over duty.
I want Tara.
My apartment is in the 7th arrondissement, tucked behind a row of trees and a courtyard most people miss unless they know where to look. I like it that way. Privacy masquerading as elegance.
I open the door for Tara. “You look beautiful, chérie,” I say as I kiss her lips softly.
She steps inside, eyes sweeping across the space slowly, like she’s trying to memorize it.
I watch her take it in—the vaulted ceilings, the polished floors, the view of the Eiffel Tower, pulsing gold beyond the windows.
I’ve lived here for the past two years since Simone and I separated.
Her sandals make the softest sound against the wood. She has a bag tucked under her arm, and a white dress, her signature style, floating around her like she doesn’t quite belong in this century.
She doesn’t say anything for a moment. I take her hand in mine and kiss her again. She responds, warm and melting. I feel her mood shift—less brittle than it was outside, less wounded.
“Give me a tour, Gustave,” she says. The brightness in her voice isn’t faked; it’s deliberate. She’s doing what I’ve spent years perfecting—sealing the world outside, staying here with me, suspended in a fragile, borrowed peace.
We hold hands as we walk through my apartment.
I’m barefoot, sleeves pushed up, trying to shake off the heaviness of what she saw and how she feels; the weight of Simone on my arm, of things unspoken.
I show her my home, the one I made for myself and my son. There’s no trace of Simone here, but it screams de Valois.
In the library, she gestures toward an antique mirror leaning against the wall. “That’s gorgeous.”
“It belonged to my grand-mère. She used to say it saw more truth than people ever could.”
Tara grins and says cheekily, “Like Mirror, Mirror on the wall?”
“Exactly!” I feel relief loosen the knots in my heart, release me from the pain of losing her. I get to keep her a little longer.
“And did it tell her that she was the fairest of them all?”
“Grand-mère wasn’t into fairytales. Her statement, I believe, was in protest of Voltaire, who said the mirror is a worthless invention.”
She goes on tiptoe, kisses me, holds my gaze. “Good old Voltaire also said that the only way to truly see yourself is in the reflection of someone else's eyes.”
I want to tell her I love her, right here, right now. She must see it—how could she not? It’s written all over me, the same way her love burns, unmistakable, in her eyes.
I silence my mind and claim her mouth, let her taste comfort me.
When we head back to the living room, she pauses in the hallway in front of a photo—me at five or six, covered in sand, laughing at something long forgotten. She looks at it for a long moment, and says softly, “You look so happy.”
I don’t mean to respond the way I do, but the words fall out. “I didn’t know better yet.”
“Oh, baby.”
She hugs me, holds me, and I sink into her, let her comfort me when I’m the one who is doing her wrong. When I’m the one who is hurting her because I’m selfish and proud—too proud to let go of centuries of decorum and too selfish to let her go.
She doesn’t press me. That’s what I like about her. She listens without trying to fix anything.
I take her to my bedroom. The housekeeper has made the bed, but everything else is as it always is. Charcoal linens. Modern art. An original Picasso and a Miró. Books on the nightstand. Windows cracked open to let in the city’s breath.
“Will you stay the night, chérie?” I ask lightly, but still like I’m on my knees pleading. I want her here, in my bed, so that the long days without her will be less painful, less lonely.
“Yes.” She tilts her head and wrinkles her nose. “But I’m starving, and you promised dinner.”
“So, I did.”
I ordered dinner from Arpège. I can’t take her out to a Michelin-starred restaurant—that would be announcing our relationship from the rooftops of Notre-Dame—but I can make it special.
We eat an elaborate four-course meal, paired with wine from my family’s cellar.
We begin with Saint-Jacques scallops from Brittany, delicately seasoned with bay leaf oil and olive oil from Portugal. It’s complemented by a 2023 Philippe Pacalet Chassagne-Montrachet En Virondot.
Tara is duly impressed.
“These are sweet…so fresh!” Her eyes shine with pleasure as she takes another bite.
I love watching her savor, unpretentious and genuine, as though each taste is a small miracle.
We drink the white wine with the salad course, which features a fricassee of spring, with oyster foam from Saint-Coulomb, leeks, and turnips.
It’s fresh and light, the vegetables cooked perfectly, with the oyster foam adding that bit of exquisiteness, which makes her clean up her plate with a finger.
“I know it’s uncouth, but this is too delicious.”
“I’m with you. Give me a taste, mon amour.”
She smiles shyly, scooping up the last trace of sauce with her finger before holding it out to me. I take her hand, my gaze never leaving hers, and the air between us shifts—charged, breathless. Her eyes widen, and I know she feels it, too. The wanting. The waiting.
Before I pull the main course from the oven, I grab the wine that’s been resting in the pantry.
Her eyes all but fall out of her head when I place a bottle on the table.
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, La Tache 1999.
“Gustave—that’s…are you serious? Shouldn’t you save that?”
“For what?” I ask, as I begin to open one of my most treasured bottles, bought at auction years ago for twenty thousand euros.
“A special occasion,” she protests, horrified as the cork eases free.
I pour a taste. The aroma fills the room with velvet and earth, violets and spice.
“Having you in my apartment, sharing this meal with you, is more special than any event I could imagine.”
Her eyes fill with moisture. The truth between us remains unsaid.
Yes, we have fallen in love with each other. Madly. Deeply.
We drink the wine with Alain Passard’s legendary rotisserie chicken, smoked over hay, the skin crisp and fragrant, the meat tender and glistening with jus.
The La Tache wraps itself around every bite—dark cherry, rose petals, truffle, smoke, as though the vineyard itself has leaned in to kiss my lips.
“I’m in food heaven,” she declares, sinking back in her chair, bliss on her face.
I’m in heaven, too, and it’s because you’re with me.
We end the meal with profiteroles with hay ice cream, topped with shards of caramelized sugared almonds, and a glossy drizzle of caramel sauce.
“You said you have a healthy love for ice cream,” I remind her as I hold up a spoonful.
She takes the bite and moans.
I pour a chilled glass of Chateau d’Yquem 2001. I taste it and sigh with pleasure. The Sauternes hums with honey, apricot, and orange blossom, its sweetness cutting clean through the caramel’s richness, each sip bright as sunlight against the cool cream of the profiteroles.
Tara closes her eyes after her first taste. “This is…indecent.”
I can’t help but laugh, watching her surrender to joy, to hedonism, to us.
After dinner, we sit in the living room with our Sauternes.
“I like your place.” She curls against the velvet couch where we’re resting, looking sinfully lovely.
“I like you in it.”
She turns away like that might be too much. Maybe it is.
I brush my fingers against hers. She doesn’t pull away.
When I lean in, she meets me halfway.
The kiss is hungry and familiar. Like we’ve kissed a hundred times—and it still matters.
After she pulls away, she licks her lips.
She looks away from me and around at the room. “It’s more opulent than your place in Pommard, but still you. Especially your bedroom. Your art is very modern.”
“I like all art…when it’s good, that is.”
I can’t stop thinking about how good she looks in my space, and how she fits so well.
She tips her glass, eyes dancing. “I have a deep love for Miró.”
“Have you been to the Miró Foundation in Barcelona?”
She shakes her head, hair brushing her cheek.
“I’ll take you.” But we both know it’s a promise I can’t keep. When would I take her? She’ll be gone in a few weeks, and I’ll be here—alone again.
I slide my hand down her back and say softly, “Stay right there.”
She watches me as I cross the room and flip through the records.
I find what I’m looking for—Charles Aznavour. I set it on the carousel, and drop the needle onto the vinyl. A soft crackle gives way to melody, and then Aznavour’s voice fills the room, gravel and silk.
“Emmenez-moi au bout de la terre….”
I reach out a hand. “Dance with me.”
She laughs, already standing. “You want to dance now?”
“I want to dance with you now.”
She easily steps into my arms. Her hands slip around my neck, mine settle at her waist.
We move slowly—barefoot on eighteenth-century hardwood, with Paris glittering through the windows behind her.
She doesn’t lead. I don’t, either.
We move together.
“You’re not a bad dancer,” she teases when we fumble a little.
“I used to be better.”
“At dancing?”
My heart is in my throat. “At pretending I didn’t care.”
She goes quiet, and for a second I wonder if I’ve said too much. Then she pulls me closer, rests her cheek against my shoulder.
The song changes.
La Bohème.
We keep swaying.
I close my eyes. Breathe her in. This woman, who has no idea what she’s done to me.
She looks up at me suddenly, her eyes wide, searching. “You okay?”
“I want to remember this. Exactly like this.”
“Then let’s not stop.”
We dance through two more songs, barely speaking, barely breathing.
Music, movement, her body against mine, and the weight of knowing I’ll carry this night with me for a long, long time—long after she’s gone.
Later, in bed after we make love slowly, softly, gently, I trace the length of her arm. The light from the city glows along her skin like water.
She doesn’t speak for a long time. Neither do I.
Then I ask, “What are you thinking?”
She hesitates and then slowly says, “That I’m lucky.”
I exhale.
It’s a lie.
It has to be.
“Are you?”
“Yes. People live their whole lives without feeling…like…this. We’re lucky to feel this way, Gustave.”
I’m not a man who cries, but tears burn my eyes. I pull her closer, my face against her hair, breathing her in.
And in the silence that follows, my thoughts betray me. What would it take to keep her here, with me, in my world? I’m single. She’s single. On paper, there’s nothing to stop us.
Couldn’t we make it work?
But I know better.
My life isn’t mine alone. It belongs to my family name, to centuries of history and expectation, to boardrooms and foundations, and the endless glare of the press.
Everything about me is magnified, judged, dissected.
I’ve seen what that scrutiny did to Simone—and she was bred for it, raised in the same gilded cage.
And still, it destroyed us.
Our marriage wasn’t a union based on love—it was theater. Every argument leaked, every holiday photographed, every gesture twisted into a narrative. And when it collapsed, it did so spectacularly, like a palace burning, and I was left standing in the ashes while the world pointed and laughed.
It nearly broke me.
It nearly broke Aubert.
I’m not ready to do that. Not ready to hand someone my heart, only to watch the press feed on it like carrion. Not ready to fail another woman, or worse, watch her fail me.
I am boring the gossipmongers, now. They leave me alone. Sometimes they whisper about Simone still hanging off my arm, but I’m not exciting enough to sustain their interest. I like it this way. If I brought a woman into the fray….
After his divorce, Philippe fell for a woman from Madrid who had nothing to do with our world.
She was luminous, strong. A graphic designer at a software company.
Normal. The tabloids tore her apart until she left him, whispering through tears that no love was worth that kind of crucifixion.
Which is why he goes out with women like Sigrid, and lets the paps have a good time.
He doesn’t care much about her or what they say, and she enjoys the attention, sees it as a good thing for her career; everyone is happy.
So yes, I could ask Tara to stay. I could give in to this want that feels as essential as air. But she has no idea what it means to be pulled into my orbit. She’ll lose the freedom she wears like sunlight, piece by piece, until she no longer resembles herself.
I want her more than I’ve wanted anything. But wanting and keeping are not the same.
Also, I’ve only known Tara for a few short weeks. That’s not enough time to build anything real, I tell myself, trying to anchor reason somewhere in this madness.
But the truth presses back, calm and merciless. I've never known anyone better than I do Tara.
And perhaps most unsettling of all—I’ve never known myself more clearly than when I’m with her.
Tara makes me remember the man I might have been if the world hadn’t decided who I should become.
She turns into me in her sleep. Soft. Warm. Vulnerable.
She’ll leave in a few weeks. That’s the only definitive part of us—our expiration date.
But tonight, she’s here.
And I am a man who has made peace with wanting something temporary—because it’s easier than wanting something I can’t have.
So, I hold her close to a heart that is starting to beat for her.
* Please (French)