had written many of the greatest screenplays ever put on celluloid and for some of the most talented stars, male stars especially. During his most-celebrated career he had made, lost and made several fortunes, married two famous movie stars, divorced them, and fathered a daughter with one who no longer spoke to him.
And now, at the age of fifty-one he was courting her and entreating her to marry him.
When he was sober.
Quite frequently these days he was drunk. And because of this addiction, which he refused to admit was an illness, she knew deep down she would never marry him. In her innermost soul she knew she would never be able to cope with an alcoholic on a long-term basis, and that was what he was on his way to becoming, if he wasn’t already there.
Constantly Jessica begged him to go to AA, but he merely laughed at her, and somehow managed to charm her into believing he didn’t need Alcoholics Anonymous. In her quiet moments, when she was alone, she knew with absolute sureness that he did. Just as she knew she should break up with him.
On two occasions Jessica had thrown him out; he had managed to charm his way back into her life. Well, he was a charmer personified, everyone knew that, and the master when it came to words. He had earned millions and millions from his words, hadn’t he?
‘Don’t forget, he’s a writer, he knows exactly what to say to press your buttons,’ her friend Merle was always saying. Her retort to Merle never varied. ‘And don’t you forget that Jeremy’s an actor. He knows which role to play to punch yours. Once an actor always an actor, Merle.’
Merle usually laughed, and so did she. They knew their men, that was a certainty. And they’re both wrong for us, Jessica thought; she turned swiftly on her high heels, went out of the den and closed the door quietly behind her.
She was still furious with Gary for being in this inebriated state when she got home, and the best thing was to let him sleep it off.
Jessica had been in Santa Barbara for five days, supervising an installation at a client’s new house, and Gary had promised her dinner tête-à-tête at home tonight…no matter what time she arrived. A dinner he would cook. He was a great chef when he wanted to be, and a great lover when he was stone-cold sober.
Yes, she loved him, with certain qualifications. Nevertheless, he made her madder than a wet hen at times. Like right now.
When she reached the circular front hall, with its glassy black granite floor and elegant, curving staircase, Jessica picked up her hanging clothes bag and overnight holdall and headed upstairs to her dressing room next door to the bedroom.
As she went into the octagonal-shaped room she caught sight of herself in one of the four mirrors, and after hanging up the clothes bag and putting the other one in a corner, she turned and stared at herself in the nearest glass.
Stepping closer, she moved her long blonde hair back over her shoulders, then straightened her jacket. What she saw was a tall young woman of thirty-one, not bad-looking, quite elegant in a white gabardine trouser suit and high-heeled mules, with a string of pearls around her neck and pearl studs on her ears. But it’s a slightly tired woman tonight, she muttered, then went back downstairs.
Jessica’s brown leather handbag was on a Louis XIV bench in the front hall. Picking it up as she walked past the bench, she hurried down the carpeted corridor to her office. Pushing open the door, she turned on the light switch and moved forward to her eighteenth-century French bureau plat in front of the window.
The first thing she saw, propped up against the Chinese yellow porcelain lamp, was a FedEx envelope.
Jessica sat staring at the invitation for a long time, lost in her thoughts as she found herself carried back into the past.
A decade fell away.
She was young, just twenty-one, and starting out at the Anya Sedgwick School of Decorative Arts, Design and Couture, on the rue de l’Université in Paris, where she had gone to study interior design.
In her mind’s eye she could see herself as she was then…tall, very thin, with straight blonde hair falling to her shoulder blades and a skin without a blemish. A small-town Texas girl on her first visit to Europe. An innocent abroad.
She had been captivated by Paris, the school, Anya, of course, and the little family pension on the Left Bank where she lived. It had all been new, different, and stimulating. So very exciting, and far removed from San Antonio and her parents. She missed them a lot, whilst managing to enjoy every new experience at the school and in her daily life.
And it was in Paris that she met Lucien Girard and fell in love for the first time. It was at the end of her first year that she and Lucien were introduced by Larry Sedgwick, Anya’s nephew. She was just twenty-two; he was four years older, an actor by profession. She smiled now, thinking of the way she teased Merle unmercifully about living with an actor.
Lucien and she had been the perfect match, completely compatible. They liked the same movies, books, music and art, and got on so well it was almost uncanny. They shared the same philosophy of life, wanted similar things and were ambitious for themselves.
Jessica had believed she knew Paris well–until she met Lucien; he had quickly shown her she knew it hardly at all. He took her to wonderful out-of-the-way places–charming bistros, unique little boutiques, art galleries and shops, and obscure pretty corners filled with peacefulness. He showed her interesting churches, little-known museums, and he had taken her on trips to Brittany, Provence and the Cotê d’Azur.
Their days together had been golden, filled with blue skies and sunshine, tranquil days and passion-filled nights.
He had taught her so much, about so many different things…sex and love…the best wines and food, and how to savour them…with him she had eaten mussels in a delicious tangy broth, omelettes so light and fluffy they were like air, soft aromatic cheeses from the countryside, and tiny fraises des bois, minuscule wood strawberries fragrant with an indefinable perfume, sumptuous to eat with thick clotted cream.
With him, everything was bliss.
He had called her his long-stemmed American beauty, had utterly loved and adored her, as she had him, and their days together had been sublime, so in tune were they, and happy. They made so many plans…
But one day he was gone.
Lucien disappeared.
Distraught, she tried to find him, teaming up with his best friend Alain Bonnal. His apartment was undisturbed, nothing had been removed. His agent had no idea where he was and was as baffled and worried as they were. He was an orphan; they knew of no family member to go to, no one to appeal to for information. She and Alain checked hospitals, the morgue, listed him as a missing person. To no avail. He was never found, either living or dead.
That spring of 1994 Lucien Girard had disappeared off the face of the earth. He might never have existed. But she knew very well that he had…
Suddenly jumping up, Jessica hurried across the office to the large French armoire where she kept fabric samples, opened the drawer at the bottom and pulled out a red leather photograph album. Carrying it back to the desk, she sat down, opened the album and began turning the pages…it was a full and complete record of her three years in Paris studying interior design. Almost everyone she had met and cared about was in here.
There we are, Lucien and me, she said under her breath, staring down at the photograph of them on the banks of the Seine, just near the Pont des Arts, the only metal bridge in Paris. She peered at the picture, instantly struck by their likeness to each other; Lucien had been tall and slender also, with fair colouring and bluish-grey eyes. The love of my life, she thought, and swiftly turned the page.
Here were she and Alexa, Kay, Maria and Anya, in the garden of Anya’s house. And here was a fun picture of Nicky and Larry clowning it up with Alexa, and Maria Franconi looking mournful at the back.
Jessica experienced an unexpected feeling of great sadness…Lucien had disappeared and everything had gone wrong after