Chapter 33
Tara
Ialmost don’t get on the plane.
If it weren’t for Aubert—who marched me to the gate while I groaned about this being a bad idea and that I didn’t have the right shoes for a freaking ball—I would’ve stayed in Los Angeles.
“He’s accepted your world, Tara, now you need to accept his,” Mama had been on Aubert’s side when he insisted that I surprise his father with an impromptu trip to Paris.
“And it’s a ball, hermana. What is your problem?” Marisol was now completely Team Gustave.
“I don’t have a dress,” I mumbled.
“I think we can fix that,” Tia Camila said and added, clapping, “Let’s go shopping.”
So now I’m here. In Paris. In a gilded salon steeped in old perfume and expensive history—for the famed and historic Bal des Beaux-Arts. I’m wearing a dress that cost more than I want to think about, and still, I might as well be holding a sign that says ‘outsider’.
“But is this the right dress?” I asked Mama, Marisol, and Tia Camila as I looked at myself in the dressing room of the boutique.
“For you or this party you’re going to?” Mama asked.
I slumped. “This is me…but these parties are fancy, Mama.”
“You be you,” Marisol insisted. “I say buy the dress, and fuck the Paris elite.”
Thanks to that advice, I am the only person in the room in a flowing bohemian dress, hair loose, wrists stacked with the silver bracelets my mother made.
And what a room it is! The chandeliers drip light like molten glass, scattering it across gilt mirrors, marble statues, and an audience of people who look like they’ve stepped out of a Fragonard painting.
Every man is in tailored midnight, every woman glitters.
“This is your bad idea!” I pinch Aubert’s arm.
“Ouch.” Aubert rubs the area. “Relax! It’s going to be alright.”
“Nothing is ever going to be that.” I look around, looking for the man I’m here for. “Are you sure they won’t kick me out?”
“Papa is hosting the ball and you’re his…you know…his.”
“His what?” I ask panicked, as my eyes land on Gustave.
His storm-gray eyes are hard, glinting—until they find me.
Then everything in him softens; surprise gives way to joy, bright and unguarded, incandescent.
In that instant, I know I owe Aubert the biggest thank-you of my life—because this, right here, is precisely where I’m meant to be.
Gustave crosses the salon with the sure stride of a man who’s finally decided to stop running from what he wants. Conversations falter. Heads turn.
I swear the air between us hums. Weeks apart dissolve in a heartbeat.
And when he reaches me, he doesn’t hesitate.
He takes my hand and presses a kiss to my knuckles, soft, reverent, possessive. His thumb lingers on my skin.
He then kisses my mouth once, then again. And then again, longer.
“Papa, you’ve got to maintain decorum,” we hear Aubert say. There is laughter in his voice.
Gustave takes my hand in his and waves at the band. Almost immediately, the music softens.
“Mesdames et messieurs*,” he says, his voice deep and steady, the kind of voice that makes people listen. “Permettez-moi de vous présenter Tara Gayarre. La femme que j’aime*.”
Did he just say to the whole world and Paris that he’s presenting me, Tara Gayarre, the woman he loves?
Dios mio! This, I’m not prepared for. Not at all.
The room reacts like it’s been electrified.
A ripple of gasps, murmurs, the faint clatter of someone dropping a glass.
Gustave de Valois has publicly declared love for the American scandal.
He brings my hand to his lips again, his eyes locked on mine. “You’re trembling.”
I laugh softly, nerves and emotion tangling in my throat. “You just told half the French aristocracy you love me, Gustave. Naturally, I’m trembling.”
“I meant every word.” His hand slides to my waist, his breath warm against my ear.
My heart stutters. This is the kind of rush you can’t prepare for.
He kisses me, deeply this time, as if we’re alone in the middle of the gilded chaos. I break away before we risk being arrested for public indecency.
“You taste like heaven,” he murmurs, eyes alight. He looks so happy it’s impossible not to catch it.
“You taste like champagne,” I whisper back.
He chuckles low in his throat. “I want you…but we can’t leave. Not yet. I’m hosting this damned ball.” The regret in his voice is rich, tender.
I grin, wide and helpless—until my gaze snags on…Simone.
And the air in the room cools by several degrees.
Her gown is perfect, her pearls immaculate, but I see, to my satisfaction, rage, envy, and disbelief.
Suck it, woman! You did a lot of harm, and for what? The man is still mine!
Once the hoopla tamps down and everyone is back to regular programming, Aubert walks up to his mother.
“She’s angry,” I say when I see her speak to her son.
“Yes.” Gustave kisses my temple. “But she has no reason to be.”
Heads turn. Eyes flick from Aubert and Simone to Gustave and me.
That’s when Philippe swaggers up to us. He looks half amused, half proud, a champagne flute dangling from his hand. “Now, both of you will be on the cover of every tabloid.”
“Oui.” Gustave squeezes my waist. “I’m sorry for that, Tara.”
“Don’t be. I knew what was going to happen if I came here. I came anyway.”
We watch as Simone opens her mouth in response to something her son said, then closes it again. After a beat, she turns on her heel and glides out of the room. Her exit is followed by a collective exhale.
Philippe raises his glass. “Well,” he drawls, “that was long overdue.”
As if sensing the tension, the musicians strike up something livelier—violins bright, piano teasing. The scandalous moment ripples, softens, and is soon swept away in the familiar swirl of champagne, laughter, and gossip.
Aubert insists he’s fine when he joins us.
“I’m an adult. I can handle her,” he states. “In fact, I want to.”
After the ball, Gustave takes me to his apartment. It’s familiar in the best way. Like home.
A fire dances in the marble hearth, softening the September chill. The door closes behind us, and I shed my shoes and sink onto the couch with a long, grateful sigh.
“Well, that was surreal.” I unfasten my earrings that Mama made for me. I lay them one by one on the salon table.
Gustave loosens his tie, still smiling faintly. “Surreal?”
“You introduced me to your parents and half of Paris as the woman you love.”
He leans on the mantel, looking pleased with himself. “Should I have introduced you as my mistress instead? For tradition’s sake?”
I laugh. “Sometimes, querido*, you’re so French.”
He crosses the room and sits beside me, his hand finding my knee. “They needed to know who you are.”
“They didn’t look thrilled, Gustave. Your father barely smiled, and your mother was polite but—Dios mío, if looks could kill! I think she’d rather have seen you declare bankruptcy in Le Figaro.”
His eyes soften. “They were raised in a different world, mon amour. Their version of love looks like alliances and family crests.”
“I’m afraid”—I curl closer to him—“I’m more tacos and paint stains than tiaras.”
He chuckles, brushing a lock of hair from my face. “And I love you more because of it.”
I look at him then, serious now. “You don’t care that they don’t approve?”
He tilts his head, considering. “I care that you’re here. That’s all.”
I try to hold on to my doubts. I do. But then he takes my hand, intertwines our fingers, and says with that infuriating calm, “When we have children, they’ll spend their holidays with Juan and Estrella.
I want them to learn how to dance before they can walk, to know the taste of tortillas before foie gras. ”
I laugh, startled. “You’ve already planned our children’s holidays?”
“Bien s?r*.” He grins. “They’ll speak French, Spanish, and sarcasm fluently.”
“Poor kids.” I smile through the lump in my throat.
“On the contrary, fortunate ones. Like me and like you.”
* Ladies and gentlemen (French)
* Permit me to present Tara Gayarre, the woman I love. (French)
* Darling, male (Spanish)
* Of course