“Ah, Maman,” he said with a little smile. “She has not yet resigned herself to the reality of the situation. How is your second summer in New York shaping up? Have you found the time yet to wait in line for tickets to Shakespeare in the Park? Daria Russell is getting incredible reviews.”
Daria Russell was in the air, like an expensive perfume, or pollen. It was extremely awkward to have everyone focused on the circumstances surrounding the one person you really didn’t want to talk about. But Simone knew she wouldn’t be sitting in line under the big trees lining the walking paths by the Delacorte Theater, watching delivery boys come and go from delis on the Upper West Side, sharing the New York Times with neighbors to her right and her left, calculating the odds of whether or not she would get a ticket. She wouldn’t take her seat in the audience as the sun was setting, and watch Shakespeare played out against the backdrop of the Midtown skyline. She should be bigger than that, able to go and watch the performance without thinking of the story Ryan told her about Daria. But she couldn’t. She was jealous, pure and simple, and she wasn’t sure she could bear to watch Daria be brilliant.
“No,” she said ruefully, “I don’t have time. Perhaps next season.”
“You work too hard, cherie,” he said.
They shared the oysters, and chatted until their appetizers arrived. “I see you’re beginning to get a fair bit of social media chatter,” Stéphane said.
Thanks, in great part, to Ryan Hamilton’s presence in her showroom with a supermodel and an actress. “It’s the kind of publicity I can’t buy,” she said ruefully. “Oh, thank you for the sun catcher. It’s hanging in the showroom window.”
Stéphane’s brow wrinkled. He reached across the table to take her hand and lift it to his lips. “Cherie,” he said, his eyes twinkling in the candlelight, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Simone lifted one eyebrow, her thumb automatically caressing his. Stéphane did this, wooed her each time as if it were the first time. At some level, she supposed, it was romantic, sending her expensive gifts, denying his role. Normally she enjoyed it. She was woman enough, French enough, old-fashioned enough, to believe she should be wooed. But somehow there seemed to be more truth in Ryan’s stories than in Stéphane’s games. She frowned at him, intending to push the matter, when Stéphane’s gaze lifted from her face to focus behind her and above her head. Still holding Stéphane’s hand, she turned slowly, with her whole torso, feeling the wide collar of her jacket gap as she did.
Ryan stood behind her. His hair was tousled, the button at his collar undone and his tie loosened, his eyes glittering and cheeks flushed. He looked at her, either anger or anguish flashing in his eyes.
“Stéphane,” she said, disengaging their hands, “allow me to introduce Ryan Hamilton. Ryan, this is Stéphane, a very old and dear friend of mine.”
Stéphane pushed his chair back and rose to his feet, offering his hand to Ryan. After a pause that stopped just short of being insulting, Ryan took it and gave it one brisk shake.
“Always a pleasure to meet one of Simone’s admirers,” Stéphane said.
It should have been a safe topic of conversation. Stéphane followed her career and had no doubt seen the blog posts, tweets, and other social media chatter naming Ryan as the man who brought Daria and Jade to Irresistible. Clearly Ryan was a client who enjoyed her work, or he wouldn’t bring woman after woman to the boutique. But something about the innocuous conversational overture made Ryan’s mouth tighten.
“Is that what I am? One of your admirers?”
She wasn’t sure what he objected to: being lumped in with other admirers, the fact that she was out in public with another man, or something she knew nothing about. She suspected all of the above, but that the bulk of the blame went to the secrets he was keeping. Still.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, her tone sharp enough to freeze beer warmed by a summer night and a hot story.
He dropped to his heels beside her chair. He had one arm on the back, and the other elbow landed on the white linen tablecloth with a thump that rattled the silverware against the china, but his breath smelled of the sauce on the mahi mahi, and liquor. He was drunk, and angry. Furious enough to make a scene. “Is this tone more to your liking?”
It was the soft, intimate tone, a low rumble intended for her ears alone, the tone he told stories in. It was, she could tell now, the voice he would use to seduce someone, the voice he would use if he had her face-first against a wall, or flat on her back on a mattress, murmuring in her ear as he unfastened the buttons running from between her breasts to the top of her skirt, and the rough cat’s-tongue tone stole her breath.