“God, these look good,” Dev murmured, his gaze on the colorful display. “Are you up for a coffee and an éclair?”
“Always. But my favorite patisserie in all Paris is just a couple of blocks away. Can you hold out a little longer?”
“I’ll try,” he said, assuming an expression of heroic resolution.
Laughing, Sarah pressed his arm closer to her side and guided him the few blocks. The tiny patisserie was nested between a bookstore and a bank. Three dime-size wrought-iron tables sat under the striped awning out front; three more were wedged inside. Luckily two women were getting up from one of the tables when Dev and Sarah entered.
Sarah ordered an espresso and tart au citron for herself, and a café au lait for Dev, then left him debating his choice of pastries while she claimed the table. She loosed the flaps of her cape and let it drift over the back of her chair while she observed the drama taking place at the pastry case.
With no other customers waiting, the young woman behind the counter inspected Dev with wide eyes while he checked out the colorful offerings. When he made his selection, she slid the pastry onto a plate and offered it with a question.
“You are American?”
He flashed her a friendly smile. “I am.”
Sarah guessed what was coming even before the woman’s face lit up with eager recognition.
“Aah, I knew it. You are Number Three, yes?”
Dev’s smile tipped into a groan, but he held his cool as she called excitedly to her coworkers.
“C’est lui! C’est lui! Monsieur Hunter. Numéro trois.”
Sarah bit her lip as a small bevy of females in white aprons converged at the counter. Dev took the fuss with good grace and even autographed a couple of paper napkins before retreating to the table with his chocolate éclair.
Sarah felt the urge to apologize but merely nodded when he asked grimly if Beguile had a wide circulation in France.
“It’s our third-largest market.”
“Great.”
He stabbed his éclair and had to dig deep for a smile when the server delivered their coffees.
“In fact,” Sarah said after the girl giggled and departed, “Beguile has an office here in the city. I was going to swing by there when you go for your meeting.”
“I’ll arrange a car for you.”
The reply was polite, but perfunctory. The enchantment of their stroll through Paris’s rain-washed streets had dissipated with the mist.
“No need. I’ll take the subway.”
“Your call,” Dev replied. “I’ll contact you later and let you know what time we’re meeting the Giraults for dinner tonight.”
The French offices of Beguile were located only a few blocks from the Arc de Triomphe, on rue Balzac. Sarah always wondered what that famed French novelist and keen observer of human absurdities would think of a glossy publication that pandered to so many of those absurdities.
The receptionist charged with keeping the masses at bay glanced up from her desk with a polite expression that morphed into a welcoming smile when she spotted Sarah.
“Bonjour, Sarah! So good to see you again!”
“Bonjour, Madeline. Good to see you, too. How are the twins?”
“Horrors,” the receptionist replied with a half laugh, half groan. “Absolute horrors. Here are their latest pictures.”
After duly admiring the impish-looking three-year-olds, Sarah rounded the receptionist’s desk and walked a corridor lined with framed, poster-size copies of Beguile covers. Paul Vincent, the senior editor, was pacing his glass cage of an office and using both hands to emphasize whatever point he was trying to make to the person on the speakerphone. Sarah tipped him a wave and would have proceeded to the production unit, but Paul gestured her inside and abruptly terminated his call.
“Sarah!”
Grasping her hands, he kissed her on both cheeks. She bent just a bit so he could hit the mark. At five-four, Paul tended to be as sensitive about his height as he was about the kidney-shaped birthmark discoloring a good portion of his jaw. Yet despite what he called his little imperfections, his unerring eye for color and style had propelled him from the designers’ cutting rooms to his present exalted position.
“Alexis emailed to say you would be in Paris,” he informed Sarah. “She’s instructed me to put François and his crew at your complete disposal.”
“For what?”
“To take photos of you and your fiancé. She wants all candids, no posed shots and plenty of romantic backdrop in both shallow and distant depth of field. François says he’ll use wide aperture at the Eiffel Tower, perhaps F2.8 to...”
“No, Paul.”
“No F2.8? Well, you’ll have to speak with François about that.”
“No, Paul. No wide aperture, no candids, no Eiffel Tower, no François!”
“But Alexis....”
“Wants to capitalize on my engagement to Number Three. Yes, I know. My fiancé agreed to a photo shoot in New York, but that’s as far as either he or I will go. We told Alexis that before we left.”
“Then you had better tell her again.”
“I will,” she said grimly. “In the meantime, I need to use Production’s monitors to take a last look at the layout I’ve been working on. When I zap it to Alexis, I’ll remind her of our agreement.”
She turned to leave, but Paul stopped her. “What can you tell me of the Chicago meeting?”
The odd inflection in his voice gave Sarah pause. Wondering what was behind it, she searched her mind. So much had happened in the past few days that she’d forgotten about the shuttle Alexis had jumped for an unscheduled meeting with the head of their publishing group. All she’d thought about her boss’s unscheduled absence at the time was that it had provided a short reprieve. Paul’s question now brought the Chicago meeting forcibly to mind.
“I can’t tell you anything,” she said honestly. “I didn’t have a chance to talk to Alexis about it before I left. Why, what have you heard?”
He folded his arms, bent an elbow and tapped two fingers against the birthmark on his chin. It was a nervous gesture, one he rarely allowed. That he would give in to it now generated a distinct unease in Sarah.
“I’ve heard rumors,” he admitted. “Only rumors, you understand.”
“What rumors?”
The fingers picked up speed, machine-gunning his chin.
“Some say... Not me, I assure you! But some say that Alexis is too old. Too out of touch with our target readership. Some say the romance has gone out of her, and out of our magazine. Before, we used to beguile, to tantalize. Now we titillate.”
Much to her chagrin, Sarah couldn’t argue the point. The butt shot of Dev that Alexis had insisted on was case in point. In the most secret corners of her heart, she agreed with the ambiguous, unnamed “some” Paul referenced.
Despite