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“I just uncorked an award-winning Bordeaux,” Arnaud said to Jewel in French. “I understand you’re a connoisseur of reds.”
“Particularly vintage Bordeaux,” she told him with a smile.
“Then allow me to pour?”
“I’d be honored.”
Arnaud served the glasses. Meanwhile, the teams performed their duty of ensuring all was on the up-and-up with the decanter of scotch she sought.
As Jewel, Rogen, Vin, and Arnaud enjoyed the wine, Arnaud engaged Rogen in conversation about the history of the legendary scotch and the Angelini distilleries. Jewel was impressed by Rogen’s knowledgeable dissertation—and Vin’s informat
ive sidebars.
She could sense the allegiance Vin held toward the Angelinis. Jewel knew losing his parents had been horrifically painful. Just like losing Taylor had been for Rogen.
Her heart had always gone out to them both. And she’d always found something awe-inspiring about how they’d embraced the pain, suffered through it, found the strength to rise above it. Perhaps it touched her so deeply because she knew their agony had been a part of them from the time they were teens to this very day. For the rest of their lives.
When the transaction was concluded and Jewel soared from the completion of connecting her dots, the threesome slipped into the limo and enjoyed some of Paris’s finest offerings, including Notre Dame and a stroll along the Seine. They sat on a few patios and sipped champagne while people-watching, which was always fascinating in this city.
The sun set and they headed to dinner at Les Ombres, with a table at the window looking out onto the spectacularly lit Eiffel Tower.
Afterward, they returned to the hotel and Jewel changed into a silky red nightgown. She sent a text to Bayli and Scarlet to confirm all was in order and they’d be heading back to New York in the morning. Scarlet returned a lengthy note telling Jewel she’d be in town, since she was now investigating the disappearance of an entire art collection from an estate in the Hamptons.
Apparently, the heist had been percolating in the back of Scarlet’s mind for some time. She’d consulted with her grandmother, who had numerous law-enforcement contacts, and Scarlet now strongly suspected that perhaps the two stepbrothers of the tycoon who’d owned the collection might be able to shed some light on the cold case.
Jewel made a date with the girls and invited Rogen and Vin along.
Then she settled on a sofa with sparkling water and once again broached her forbidden subject.
“So, did you both agonize over what I mentioned on the plane, or is it a nonissue?”
Vin let out a hollow laugh. “I think Paris has gone to your head.”
She smiled. “Perhaps.”
Rogen sipped cognac, then set his glass on an end table next to his chair. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, and captured her gaze. “What do you want specifically, Jewel?”
“I’ve been mulling that over myself for the past week,” she admitted. “It’s incredibly difficult to reconcile, let alone articulate. Except to say that being with you both—on the plane, during a business transaction, dinner, whatever—fixes things inside me. The way we were torn apart from one another. The different destinies we had. The years we’ve spent engrossed in corporate affairs instead of personal ones. There’s such a defining element to all that we’ve held out for these past ten years.” She gave Rogen an imploring look. Then slid it toward Vin. “Right?”
Vin stood. He refreshed his cognac and sipped. She didn’t press him. Though she awaited his response with bated breath.
He was halfway through his nightcap when he turned to her and said, “I’m not going to stand here and say the only reason I haven’t been in a relationship since you, Jewel, is strictly related to college, law school, and work.”
Rogen sat back in his chair. He let out a long breath. “I’m not interested in committing to another woman for a reason, either.”
Jewel’s pulse picked up. But like with Bayli, she knew to rein in her emotions and not let them intervene with the sound judgement she attempted to reach. No easy feat. Because she was wholly emotional when it came to Rogen and Vin.
But this discussion transcended emotion. Even transcended sex.
There was something more critical at stake here.
She said, “I can’t be with anyone else. It’s a pathetic thing to say from the standpoint of me being so bound to the two of you that I’d rather be alone than with anyone else. Yet…” She gnawed her lower lip. She pushed the overwhelming feelings to the depths of her soul so that she didn’t appear so vulnerable that Rogen and Vin would cave to her whim strictly to placate her. That wasn’t what she wanted.
This wasn’t about getting her way.
It was about finding a way.
A way to assuage all the pain. To bring them together after all they’d been through.
