Page 9 of She's Like the Wind
CHAPTER 4
Naomi
I’d had my heart broken before—when my parents died. The shock of it, the emptiness, the chaos—it was devastating. I’d had to regroup fast, adjust to a new way of life, and survive.
There had been other challenges in my life. There had been ups and downs, highs and lows. This was the lowest I’d been since my parents passed. For ten months, I lived in a cloud, in a dream, where the man I was in love with loved me back.
Now, that was taken away from me.
Gage hadn’t been ambiguous.
He’d been clear both with his actions and his words.
Once again, I remembered him kissing that woman, and shards of glass scraped over my skin.
I couldn’t stand it.
Absolutely couldn’t stand the idea of him beingwith another woman—and yet, he would be—and I’d have to find a way to stand it.
New Orleans was a small town, and we had common friends, so it wasverylikely we’d bump into each other.
How would I keep myself together if he had a woman with him? If he held her hand as he’d held mine, if he made love to her, the way he….
Aurelie had asked me if I wanted to meet after work, but I told her I was busy.
Not a lie.
With Mardi Gras on our heels, I had to change the window display at Aire Noire. I wanted it to be bold and loud, so I could somehow get out of this funk that made me want to hide under the covers and lick my wounds.
I’d recently come across a photograph of a Parisian lingerie boutique on Pinterest—a tiny shop tucked into a cobbled corner of Le Marais. The window was artful, a little theatrical—like the lingerie had attitude. Not just to be worn but to be wielded.
Inspired by that image, I decided to take some of my power back.
I looked through the new inventory and picked up a robe in pale peach silk, bias-cut with hand-embroidered orchids that fell like secrets down the spine. I matched it with a soft bralette top and short-set in storm gray lace—feminine but edgy.
I positioned the mannequin so she was seated onan antique chair, her legs spread just a little, almost in invitation. I put her hand on her thigh as if she were going to pleasure herself. I draped her wrist in a long strand of pearls so it fell between her thighs. I tucked a pair of satin heels at her feet like she’d just stepped out of them.
I placed a single coupe glass with a dark lipstick stain at the rim and scattered handwritten love notes—inked in French, torn at the edges—which I’d made on Canva, on an antique pedestal next to her.
On the window with a gold acrylic pen, I wrote in French:C’est Mardi Gras, chérie—sois audacieuse,and added in a smaller-sized font in English:It’s Mardi Gras, darling—be bold.
Let the tourists gawk, I thought rebelliously.
Let the women pause and smirk to themselves. Let them feel like the window was a reflection—not of who they were supposed to be, but of everything they still could be.
This was mine.
My body.
My power.
My heart.
The shop was closed for the evening, so I switched the music from soft jazz to something slower, darker, sexy.
French.
Gainsbourg’sJe t’aime…moi non plusdriftedthrough the speakers first, all breathy tension and forbidden heat. After that, it was Françoise Hardy’sComment te dire adieu, Édith Piaf’s smokyLa Vie en Rose, and a slow, aching cover ofNe Me Quitte Pasby Jacques Brel.
