Page 141 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 1-4

My breath rushes out. Even if I’m not confident in my future career, the habits I’ve developed won’t let me back down. That and an irrational desire to not see Gavriil connected to someone who might be a different kind of a monster than his father, but a monster nonetheless. I don’t know why I care. Only that I do. Which is why I sent a few texts to my most reliable sources. It’s probably nothing, but I’ve never left things like this up to chance.

And if you do find something? What then?

I don’t know if Gavriil would even believe me if I do uncover something. His accusations before our interlude on the couch showed me exactly how little he thinks of me. But he doesn’t seem the type to ignore hard evidence, even if he doesn’t like the findings. I’ve also caught glimpses now and then of a different side of him. The tender respect he gave Dessie after I introduced them after the ceremony. His genuine happiness when I saw him chatting with his sister-in-law Tessa during the reception. The man likes to act like he has no soul. From what I’ve seen, though, he has one. He’s just buried it so deep under what I can only suspect is years of hurt and rejection that most people don’t see it.

I stalk to the window and lean my forehead against the cool glass. I don’t want to see these glimpses. It twists my feelings for him up in knots, complicates what should be a case of simple lust and adds an edge to it. A very dangerous edge that can only lead to heartache.

My phone buzzes and my stomach drops. My fifteen-minute warning before I have to present myself like the dutiful wife and accompany my husband to whatever activity he’s planned for us to be seen by the general public.

The brunch had been casual but delicious, a welcome reprieve after being cooped up in a plane for hours on end. The private tour of the Louvre had also been fascinating. I’d kept my face passive throughout, not wanting to do something that would be untoward for the wife of a billionaire and betray that I was a complete and total fraud, like tear up at the sight of the headless winged goddess guarding the top of the Daru staircase or let my mouth drop open at the sight oftheMona Lisa.

No, the scheduled activities haven’t been excessive. While I’ve done my best to maintain the bored façade I’m sure most people in my position would assume, I’ve enjoyed our excursions, even if it irks me to admit it. But it still makes me feel like an experiment under a microscope.

After our encounter this morning, I got dressed and left the penthouse as quickly as possible. It took me a good hour of wandering up and down random streets for my heart to quiet and some of the ache to lessen. I spent the next hour with my camera, taking shots of the winding streets and shops. I snapped a dozen or so portraits, too, mostly of Paris residents, but a couple expatriates and a group of tourists.

The more time I’ve spent with my camera, drafting passages about the people I’ve met and the stories they’ve shared, the more I’ve felt my heart respond in a way it hasn’t in a long time. When I was younger, before Lucifer Drakos came to Grey House, I wanted to be an author. In middle school, I fell in love with photography. Sure, I took some of my own photos for my investigations, but that wasn’t the primary focus.

I glance at my camera. It’s nearly time to join Gavriil for whatever he has planned for this evening. But I can’t resist flipping the camera on and toggling through the photos. An old man with bronzed skin and a face covered in wrinkles sitting outside his coffee shop. A clay mug full of coffee brewed with cinnamon and sugar, steam curling up from the surface. Two kids standing with chocolate ice cream dripping down their hands as they smile in front of the crowds lining up to see the restored Notre-Dame Cathedral.

There are stories here. The everyday people I’d missed so much of in my quest to bring down the criminal elite. The shop owner emigrated from Mexico over forty years ago after he fell in love with a French woman on a trip to see Sinatra sing in Las Vegas. The two kids are here with their mother and grandparents after losing their father in a car accident. It’s the first time, their mother confided in me with tears in her eyes, that she’s seen them happy in nearly a year.

A part of me still clings to the possibility of jumping back into my investigative work. It doesn’t seem possible that something that has been such a huge part of my life, all the way back to my last years of high school when I started working for the school newspaper and applying for scholarship after scholarship, is over.

But as I turn the camera over in my hands, anticipation flickers through me. Not the demanding urgency of my investigative reporting. Not the thrill of elation when I knew I’d caught someone, a thrill that had turned into something ugly. My version of wealth was the knowledge I hoarded and the power I used to bring them down.

My fingers lightly trace the dials and buttons on top of the camera. This excitement is different. Innocent, new. Something wholly mine. Even if there are fewer jobs and less pay in the areas of photography and photojournalism, I don’t want this next chapter of my life to be rooted in money. I want it to be founded on something more than death and revenge.

I switch off the camera and tuck it back into its case. I still have time. Almost a whole year. Even after the renovations I’ll be making to Grey House, I’ll have a tidy sum left over that, with the right investments, can keep Dessie and me going while I try to figure the rest of my life out.

I walk toward my closet where I have some sensible flats tucked away. My eyes stray to the gold shopping bag, the red tissue paper peeping over the edge. I pause. The trip into the Louboutin store was a spur-of-the-moment decision following a text from Catherine that Dessie had started a new round of physical therapy and had already shown marked improvement. Her relapse appeared to be subsiding this time. I bought her a pair of blush-colored ballet flats with cute straps that wrapped around the heel and the signature red outsole.

And yes, I think with no small amount of acrimony, I bought a pair of heels for myself. A dress and shoes. Anyone would have thought I’d spent another three million dollars by the way Gavriil had snapped at me earlier.

The man really is a pompous jerk. The thought propels me across the room to the bag. I bought them with my money. Would I have bought them without two million sitting in a high-interest savings account? No.

But I bought them for me using money I had before I agreed to this ridiculous arrangement, and I’m going to wear them because I want to. If he doesn’t like it, I can just slip off a shoe and jab him with it.

A highly improbable scenario. I’m not going to jail over him. But it brings a smile to my face nonetheless as I set the bag on the bed and reach inside.

I pull out the heels, nude leather with the sole and stiletto heel colored red. Thankfully the store offered a variety of heel heights. The assistant who helped me, an older man with a thick silver beard and a kind smile, had helped me try on several before I found one I semitrusted myself not to tip over in.

I slip the heels on and stand. I glance at the mirror again. I’ve always believed vanity to be one of the worst sins, especially with how much I’ve seen it in the people I’ve investigated over the years.

But as I look at my reflection, I don’t try to stop the rush of pleasure and confidence. I look good. No, I look great.

With a smile on my face, I open my door and nearly walk straight into my husband.

“Good eve...”

His voice trails off as he rakes me from head to toe with a searing gaze. I clutch my handbag with both hands, willing myself not to feel anything at his blatantly appreciative appraisal.

“Ready?”

“Yes.” I strive for an indifferent tone, as if he hadn’t just had his mouth on my breasts a few hours ago. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise. The limo’s waiting downstairs.”

I give him the ghost of a smile. He holds out his arm and I slide my hand into the crook of his elbow as he escorts me out of the suite. I force the smile into something a little more lovesick when the elevator doors open to the lobby. Most people glance at us and look away. A few, though, stare. One pulls out their phone and snaps a photo.

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