Page 1 of Wished

Prologue

Max

This has to be a joke. I can’t think of any other explanation. Exactly one minute ago my life was perfectly logical, perfectly ordered. Everything made sense.

I knew exactly where I fit, who I was, and what I was doing.

The world made sense.

In fact, for most of my life the world has made sense.

For example, I’m Max Barone, son, brother, and friend. Born in Geneva, Switzerland. Still live in Geneva, Switzerland, in the same drafty chateau generations of Barones have lived in. Boarding school in Britain. University in Paris. Took over the family business after my parents and brother were careless enough to die on me.

I’m often friendly, usually charming, and sometimes cynical—but only about relationships.

I’m single by choice. Well, perhaps not entirely by choice. But when your best friend turns down your proposal and marries another man, you tell yourself it’s by choice.

In the world I live in, everyone knows exactly who I am, what I do, and what I want.

Which is why thishas to be a joke.

What else can I believe when my entirely sane, incredibly competent assistant of ten years calls to say something like this?

But just in case ... “Say that again?”

I lean forward and watch the red light on the phone’s speaker. The black office phone sits unobtrusively on my dark walnut desk—a massive antique piece my father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather, all the way back to my great-great, too many greats grandfather, sat behind to run the esteemed Barone Jewelry International (as far back to when it wasn’t international, it was just a man with a dream).

The desk matches the office. Dark burgundy walls, heavy navy curtains framing the view of Lake Geneva, the Jet D’eau sending up its endless spray of water, and the tour boats gliding past. Even with the late morning sun reflecting off the lake and the cloudless pale blue sky the office is still drafty, cool, and dark. It’s always been dark.

Dark navy-and-burgundy rug, dark leather chairs, a wall of shelves full of dark leather-bound books. The decades-old scent of tobacco and cognac sunk into the walls and furnishings. It smells just like my father, and probably just like his father before him.

Sometimes I think about gutting the office, airing it out and filling it with light. I’d paint it white, put the behemoth furnishings in storage, open the windows to feel the breeze and hear the gulls on the water, the hum of the traffic, and the tour boat announcers as they pass . . .

“On your right you’ll see Barone Jewelry, the largest family-owned jeweler in the world. Note the four-foot circumference engagement ring above the door. It’s covered in twenty-four-karat gold leaf. And the glittering stone? That’s the largest crystal gemstone in the world, a foot and a half in diameter, 315,000 karats, with 124 facets. Ladies, if you’re looking for a husband, Maximillian Barone is quite the catch.”

I can hear them when they sail by. Their script is always the same. I took a tour boat cruise once with Fiona and her daughter Mila. While two dozen people snapped photos of my building and bet on which one of them would “catch me,” Fiona covered her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

None of them would “catch me.” The only woman I’d ever wanted to marry was Fiona. She was perfect for me. We’d been friends for years, we trusted each other, we would never hurt each other. That was all I ever wanted.

No passion. No sparks. A heated love affair is my idea of hell. They’re both hot, and they both will torment you to no end.

There isn’t anything I want or need from that horrific state called l’amour.

If I ever said to a woman, “Tu es ma joie de vivre—”(You are the joy of my life.)

If I ever claimed, “Tu es l'amour de ma vie—”(You are the love of my life.)

—something would be deeply, desperately wrong with me.

That may surprise some. Surely a man who makes a living from selling engagement rings and expensive jewelry would be a connoisseur of passion. An aficionado of desire. An arbiter of amour.

Right.

Well, if this office is any indicator, the allure of romantic love doesn’t extend beyond the showroom. The glittering light of all those diamonds never quite penetrates this office. Which is fine by me.

I leave the décor of the office the way it is to remind myself exactly why I feel the way I do.

No passion. No heated love. No wife.

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