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“Several times. She’s quite frantic. I told her you were on your way to the Greek islands, but you wouldn’t tell me which one. I also told her to leave you alone.”
“Which means she’s on her way to Greece.”
“Naturellement.”
They were silent for a moment and then Alexi asked, “Does all this have anything to do with a certain actor?”
“How did you know?”
“I make it my business to know everything that affects those who belong to me.”
She looked down into her coffee, trying to hide the fact that her eyes were once again filling with tears. She was tired of crying, tired of the wrenching pain inside her. “I fell in love with him,” she said. “We went to bed together.”
“Inevitable.”
She couldn’t contain her bitterness. “My mother had been there first.”
Two narrow ribbons of smoke curled from Alexi’s nostrils. “Also inevitable, I’m afraid. Your mother is a woman of little willpower where movie stars are concerned.”
“They struck a deal.”
“Suppose you tell me.”
Alexi listened as Fleur repeated the conversation she’d overheard between Jake and Belinda. When she was done, he said, “Your mother’s motivations seem clear, but what about your lover’s?”
She flinched at his choice of words. “His motivations were crystal-clear. This movie meant everything to him. The love scene had to work. When I froze, he saw the whole project bombing.”
“Unfortunate, chérie, that you didn’t make a better choice for your first lover.”
“Obviously I’m not the world’s best judge of character.”
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. On another man the gesture would have looked effeminate, but Alexi made it elegantly masculine. “You are planning to stay with me for some time, I hope. I think it would be best for you.”
&
nbsp; “For a while anyway. Until I can get my bearings. That is, if you’ll have me.”
“I’ve waited for this longer than you can imagine, chérie. It would be my pleasure.” He stood. “There’s something I want to show you. I’ve been feeling a bit like a child waiting for Christmas.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll see.” She followed him through the house and across the gardens toward the museum. He put the key in the lock and turned it. “Close your eyes.”
She did as he asked. He led her through the doorway into the cool, faintly musty interior of the museum. She remembered the last time she’d been here, the day she’d met her brother. She didn’t know whether her father had ever found Michel. She should have asked, but she hadn’t.
“This has been a fortunate time for me,” Alexi said. “I’m seeing all my dreams fulfilled.” She heard him flick a switch. “Open your eyes.”
The museum was dark except for a pair of spotlights in the center. They shone down on the platform that had been empty the last time she was there. Now it held the most magnificent automobile she’d ever seen. It was gleaming black, exquisitely balanced, with an endlessly long hood that looked like a cartoon of a millionaire’s car. She would have recognized it anywhere, and she let out a soft exclamation. “It’s the Royale. You found it!”
“I had not seen it since 1940.” He repeated the story he’d told her so many times. “There were three of us, chérie. We drove it deep into the sewers of Paris and wrapped it in canvas and straw. All through the war, I didn’t go near it for fear I’d be followed. Then, when I went back after the Liberation, the car was gone. The other two men who knew about it were killed in North Africa. I think now that the Germans found it. It has taken me more than thirty years to locate it.”
“But how? What happened?”
“Decades of inquiries, money applied in proper and improper places.” He flicked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped an invisible fleck of dust from the fender. “All that matters is that I now own the most important collection of pur sang Bugattis in the world, and the Royale is the crown jewel.”
Much later, after he’d shown her every feature on the Bugatti, she went to her room where a hairdresser was waiting. The man asked no questions but cut Fleur’s hair close to her head and told her he could do no more until it grew. She looked horrible, like a prisoner—big eyes smudged with dark circles, oversized head, no hair. Still, her ugly reflection gave her a perverse sense of pleasure. Now her exterior matched the way she felt inside.
Alexi frowned when he saw her and sent her back to her room to put on makeup, but it didn’t help much. They went for a walk around the grounds and talked about what they would do when she felt better. She took a nap in the afternoon. At dinner, she picked at breast of veal then went to Alexi’s study to listen to Sibelius. He held her hand, and as the music washed over her, some of the painful knots inside her began to loosen. She’d been stupid to let Belinda keep her apart from her father these past few years, but she’d always let her mother manipulate her. She’d been afraid to rebel in even the smallest way for fear she’d lose Belinda’s love. A love she knew now that she’d never really had.
