Chapter 22 Gustave
Gustave
The silence of my apartment is unbearable.
Every corner echoes with her—her laugh, her bright eyes, the way she filled this space with warmth simply by being in it.
So, I spend hour after hour in my office, working.
I can’t sleep. I can’t think.
When I close my eyes, I see her.
Tara.
I miss her. God help me, I miss her.
And I hate myself for it—for letting her in, for believing, even for one fragile moment, that I could live beyond the cage I was born into.
A storm brews outside my window, Paris is slick with rain, the city lights smeared on the glass. I stand watching it, whiskey in hand, until the knock comes at my door.
My assistant pokes her head in. “Ah…Mademoiselle Giselle Durand is here.”
I nod. “Ask her to come in.”
I finish the whiskey and take my seat. I school my face to not show emotion. She’ll want to find out, like all the gossipers, how I feel about what happened…about the scandal.
My parents called and told me how inappropriate I've been.
Simone has yelled at me for not being discreet enough.
Aubert has told me I’m a fool—he doesn’t believe that Tara would sell me out. But he’s a boy, what does he know?
Giselle walks in, immaculate as always. “Thank you for seeing me.”
I wave a hand at a chair, the same one Tara had sat in…a few days…or was it weeks?…ago.
The days are blending into one another, and I’m losing track of time. It is better this way. If I work all the time, I’m tired all the time. And if I’m exhausted, there’s a chance I won’t dream of her.
“What can I do for you, Giselle?”
“Gustave. I owe you an apology.”
I glance at her, keeping my expression flat. “Do you?”
“Yes. I thought Tara was a professional. I can’t believe she did what she did.” Her tone is contrite but calculated, as if she’s rehearsed the words in front of a mirror.
“What do you think she did?”
Giselle swallows. She didn’t expect me to be this intractable about Tara. But damn if I’m not feeling protective of her. I don’t delve into why that is.
“Well.” Giselle straightens. “She obviously seduced you.”
I let out a harsh laugh. “Giselle, you’ve been trying to get me into your bed for the past two years, and you haven’t succeeded. Do I look like the kind of man who does anything he doesn’t want to do?”
She goes pale. “Gustave—”
“Is there anything else?” I cut her off. I’m getting a headache—probably due to lack of sleep. The drinking isn’t helping, either.
“Well…what she did, selling that photo and story…we can’t have that. The museum’s board wanted it handled, and I did.”
The back of my neck prickles. “Did what?”
“Well, we fired her.”
It takes me a moment to understand what she’s saying. Until now, I thought of Tara still at the Louvre, not too far away from me.
I didn’t expect this. I should have, though. Imbecile!
“How could you fire her without running it by me?” I lounge back in my chair, keeping my tone casual.
Again, she looks surprised, like she was expecting me to be grateful for her interference.
Where was Tara? Was she still in Paris? Did she leave? Merde!
Giselle let out a long sigh as I was a recalcitrant child. “I know how your family works, Gustave. So, we let her go. And I also made sure that the museum in Philadelphia knew what she did. The Louvre has a lot of power, and rest assured, she won’t get a job as a restorer anywhere in the world.”
She looks so proud of herself that it disgusts me.
“You blacklisted her.” It wasn’t a question.
Mon dieu! Poor Tara.
She sold you out to the tabloids, Gustave. This is what she deserves.
“Yes. Simone asked that it be done and—”
What the fuck?
“Simone isn’t paying for the restoration, Giselle, I am,” I snap.
“But it is—"
“Unacceptable,” I finish, my voice hard as steel.
Giselle’s face folds into a pinch. She doesn’t look attractive in the least.
“Gustave, the Louvre can’t afford a scandal. Neither can you.”
For a moment, I can’t breathe.
The image of Tara, sitting alone somewhere, her career burning because of me hits like a blade between the ribs.
“You don’t know what I can afford.” My voice shakes at the edges.
She looks at me uncertainly. There are no accolades from me, which she was expecting. “I’m going to find another restorer for the Carriera. I don’t want you to worry about it.”
A storm of anger breaks inside me, but I tamp it down. Defending Tara to Giselle, defending the indefensible would only feed the fires of gossip, and Giselle was prone to talking too much to the wrong and right people.
“If that’s all, Giselle, I have a meeting shortly.” I rise, making it clear that the conversation is over.
She’s not happy about how this turned out. Well, bitch, neither am I!
“Au revoir*, Gustave.”
Her heels click across the floor as she leaves. When the door shuts, the silence crashes back in. I pour another drink. I don’t know if I’m angrier at Giselle or Simone…or at myself.
Philippe finds me in my office late in the evening. I’ve finished half the whiskey bottle. As a de Valois, a man of power, I can drink at work. Who the fuck is going to stop me?
“Drowning your sorrows, I see.”
I shrug. “What do you want?”
“Drinking alone is a dangerous avocation, mon ami.”
His words strikes a memory. Didn’t I say something similar to Tara that first night my life changed?
“It seems appropriate…when one”—I close my eyes as the truth of my situation screams inside of me—“is dealing with a broken heart.”
Philippe is not sympathetic, not in the least.
“Get up. We need to go.”
“Where?”
He doesn’t say and just gets me out of my office.
He takes me to Cercle de l’Union Interalliée, the private club where men like us go when we want time away from our wives and mistresses.
The scent of cigars and cognac saturates the air. The chandeliers drip gold light over navy velvet and walnut paneling. Men in tailored suits nod as I pass—polite, curious, predatory.
Yes, everyone knows about de Valois’s American mistress who sold him out.
“Food?” Philippe asks when we’re seated by the windows at a plush table for two.
I shake my head. The thought of eating anything makes my stomach turn.
Philippe exhales a groan, signaling the waiter with a flick of his hand.
“Deux steaks tartare, et du pain grillé*,” he says firmly to the formally dressed server and then explains to me, “You need protein, not more whiskey.”
I glare at him. “I’m not hungry.”
“C’est pas une question de faim*,” he replies. “This is not about hunger; it’s a question of survival.”
The waiter keeps his face clear of emotion as he’s been trained to.
“Get us a bottle of Chateau Margaux 2005.” If I have to eat, I want to do it with a damn good glass of wine.
Philippe shoots me a look of near horror. “We’re having raw meat, not absolution. Order something less dramatic.”
I ignore him. “Chateau Margaux, 2005,” I repeat. “Decanted.”
The waiter bows slightly and glides away.
Philippe leans back in his chair. “Only you, mon ami, would treat heartbreak with an expensive Bordeaux.”
“I’ve treated less with more,” I mutter.
Philippe pours me a glass of water. “Hydrate.” And when I do, he adds, “You look like hell.”
“Merci,” I mutter, sinking into the leather chair. “Giselle came by today.”
“And?”
“She fired Tara.”
He studies me for a long moment. “On your say so?”
“No. Simone’s.”
His brows lift. “You let her.”
It’s not a question. It’s the truth. I didn’t stop Simone. I could have—should have—but I didn’t because I was furious and humiliated and didn’t think about it.
“She also blacklisted her.”
“Merde!” Philippe slapped a hand on the table. “Do you really think Tara sent that photo to the tabloids?”
“She took that photograph,” I retort.
“Please! This has Simone written all over it.”
It isn’t like my mind didn’t go there. It did. “She wouldn’t put Aubert in jeopardy."
“Yes, she would,” he protests. “You know, Gustave, you never think when Simone’s involved. You react. And you do it poorly.”
Before I can answer, a voice interrupts—smooth, oily, familiar.
Benoit Clérisseau.
The publisher of Le Monde du Luxe, the same publication that splashed Tara’s face across every newsstand in Paris.
“Comte de Valois,” he says, smiling with false charm. “I apologize for the problems caused by my newspaper.”
He’s gleeful! Le putain de connard*!
“I have to say, you chose well,” he continues, ignoring the look of murderous rage I send his way. “Young and tender, that’s the way mistresses should be, non?”
I’m about to stand up and rearrange the man’s face when Philippe’s hand clamps around my wrist. “Don’t,” he warns under his breath.
I stare at the man, every muscle in my body coiled. “Fuck off, Clérisseau.”
“Now, now, de Valois—”
“Fuck off before I have Cercle Interalliée ban you.” He knows I can do it. I have that kind of power.
The man’s smirk falters. He backs away, grumbling about my lack of a sense of humor.
Philippe lets out a slow breath. “At this rate, you are going to end up on the front page for being an asshole, mon ami.”
“Clérisseau won’t dare!”
“He already did,” Philippe points out.
Our wine arrives, and I can barely taste the beauty of it.
I miss her.
I want her to be here with me, tasting the wine, telling me that there is minerality on the nose.
“He had no choice with that. But he’s not going to announce that I threatened him, and he ran away with his tail between his legs. He knows if he fucks with me, I will have his membership revoked every fucking where.”
I might still do it, I think, just because he’s an asshole, and he deserves it.
Philippe studies me for a long moment, swirling the wine in his glass.
“That’s a twenty-year-old wine, Philippe, I think it’s got enough fucking air,” I snap.
He drinks some of the wine and nods appreciatively, and then, to piss me off, swirls the wine again. “She didn’t leak that story, Gustave. You know that don’t you?”
“I don’t know anything anymore.”
“Conneries*!” Philippe gives me a withering look. “You know her, Gustave. You. Know. Her.”
I stare into my glass. The whiskey trembles faintly because my hand is shaking. “I can’t believe that Simone would bring Aubert into this nonsense.”
“You don’t want to,” he accuses.
I close my eyes for a moment, and I see Tara’s face when I asked her to get out of my office.
“I broke her.”
“Oui!”
“She broke me first.” I sound like a toddler when I say that.
“What if she didn’t?” he asks.
Thankfully, the server comes with our steak tartares and saves me from answering his question that I have no answer for.
* Goodbye (French)
* Two steak tartars and toast (French)
* It’s not a question of hunger (French)
* The fucking asshole (French)
* Bullshit (French)