Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

three high. I am by no means a connoisseur, but the massive collection looked impressive.

Aside from the art, the home was not fancy. Yet everything—the books, the statuary, the flowers in vases—seemed to have a purpose.

Maybe that’s why I felt so out of place.

Especially when Miss Stein began talking to Pierre about me as if I weren’t there, telling him I was quite comely and that she was eager to call at his studio to view the paintings and perhaps add one to her collection.

When I agreed to model for Pierre, I hadn’t considered that a rendering of my naked body might hang in someone’s home in full view—in a place like this.

I tried to find my voice and explain that I was more than a model, but Miss Stein interrupted me to introduce her partner, Alice Toklas, the tiny, wiry woman sitting on the small chair across the hearth from her. I didn’t understand what she meant by partner. Did they invest in art together? Or perhaps another business venture? I meant to ask Pierre on the way home, but he ended up leaving without me. Can you believe that?

Before that happened, others arrived. At the first break in conversation, I gathered all my courage and addressed Miss Stein. “Pierre tells me you are acquainted with leaders in the fashion world?”

She squinted at me as if she didn’t understand and asked Alice to fetch me some tea and make me comfortable. I thought she was inviting me to join the circle of men that was forming around her, but soon I realized I was not to converse with her and the men; I was to join Alice at the ladies’ table.

Foolishly, I tried to snare Pierre’s gaze, but he was deep in an animated conversation with another man. The next thing I knew, Pierre had stalked out of the room, looking angry. The man he’d been talking to went after him looking just as disgruntled.

The lone curio that did not have a place in this room, I decided it was time for me to leave.

In the foyer, I glanced around for Pierre, but he was not there. Then suddenly, the front door swung open. The man Pierre had been arguing with nearly knocked me down in his haste.

He excused himself. I asked him if he knew where Pierre had gone.

He asked if I was a friend of Pierre’s. I was so irritated I said not anymore.

He laughed a laugh that reached all the way to his gold-flecked brown eyes and said that anyone who disliked the man was a friend of his. He took my hand and introduced himself as Andres Armand.

That’s when I realized he was quite possibly the most handsome man I’d ever met.

He offered to escort me home because he said it wasn’t safe for a young woman to walk alone after dark. When I asked him why should I trust him, he told me he hoped I would give him a chance to prove himself worthy.

I have never believed in love at first sight. Until now.

I wanted to trust Monsieur Armand. Maybe it was his handsome face or the fine way he dressed. Though, Jack the Ripper was rumored to have been an aristocrat.

Even so, I allowed him to walk me home. My heart broke when he bid me adieu without asking to call on me again. He knows where I live, but I fear I might never see him again… unless I venture back to Miss Stein’s salon, which appeals to me about as much as posing naked for Pierre Jean.

To see the charming Andres Armand again, though, I might risk it.

Fourteen

January 3, 2019—8:45 p.m.

Paris, France

Why are you home so early?” Marla asks as I let myself into the hotel room. She looks from the TV to the clock on the nightstand between the full-sized beds.

“Gabriel is married.”

I figure there’s no sense pretending.

“What?” My mother’s mouth falls open and she pushes to a sitting position. She looks truly horrified.

I nod. “His wife, Veronique, came home before we even had a chance to sit down for dinner.”

“Tell me what happened.”

I sit down on my bed, remove my boots, then lean against the headboard and hug my knees to my chest. “Obviously he wasn’t expecting her. The worst part is that I’m not his first ‘dinner guest,’ as she called me. Not that being the first would make it any better. Marla, what kind of a man invites another woman to the home he shares with his wife while she’s away? It was so awkward. I feel so dirty.”

“Did something happen?” Marla sits up. “He didn’t—”

“No. Nothing happened. But if she hadn’t come home so early, who knows where things might have ended up?”

Marla stands and starts pacing. “I’m furious. I’m going to call that law office tomorrow and report him.”

“Marla, he’s a named partner. Really, it’s fine. Nothing happened. He invited me over for dinner. I went of my own volition and then I left. He didn’t touch me. End of story.”

“Well, then, we are changing law firms first thing tomorrow.”

“Marla, no. That would be too messy. He mentioned that Monsieur Levesque is back in town and will be our point person. I’ll bet we’ll never hear from Gabriel Cerny again.”

THE NEXT DAY, MARLA and I check out of the hotel and move into the apartment. The plan is to spend the rest of our time here going through the contents of Ivy’s place—looking in every drawer, searching every nook and cranny for more information about her secret life.

Maybe it should be enough that we inherited the apartment, but one thing Marla and I agree on is that we want to know more about Ivy’s life in Paris. It’s the first time my mother and I have had a common goal.

Today, with my new direction, I won’t dwell on the fact that I lost an entire day of my weeklong vacation—valuable time—playing with a married man rather than