Margeaux had been friends with the three women since their junior year in high school at LeClaire Academy, one of the boarding schools to which her father had packed her off after her mother died. The four of them liked to joke that the reason Margeaux had raised such hell getting herself kicked out of the French boarding school she’d attended before LeClaire Academy was because she was simply making her way to Texas so that she could complete their quartet—be the fourth leg of their table.
But now that they were in St. Michel, they were a long way from Texas—and light years away from their rambunctious high school days. The four of them were like family, but the one thing Pepper, A.J. and Caroline didn’t know about their friend was that she’d harbored a secret for as long as she’d known them. And that secret, which she’d relegated to the deep recesses of her mind and heart, was doing its very best to push its way out into the golden St. Michel sun.
“I’m guessing if he’s in that magazine, it means he’s still local,” Pepper said. “Why don’t you call him and invite him to meet us down in the casino tonight?”
Margeaux took one last wistful look at Henri’s broad smile before closing the magazine and turning the figurative lock on the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. She didn’t need the sharp reminder of what happened when she allowed her heart to lead her past the point of no return. She was a grown woman now, and she had no intention of backtracking down that fateful path.
“I can’t go to the casino tonight,” she said. “But you all go ahead without me. I have to go to the hospital to visit my father, and I don’t know how long I’ll be. If he’s well enough to talk, I have a feeling we’ll spend a lot of time catching up. If he’s not…I’ll need to sit with him.”
Her father was the reason she found herself back in St. Michel after all this time. They’d been estranged for more years than she could count on both hands. But all it took was a call to tell her that her father was in the hospital—that he’d suffered a stroke—and she’d been on a plane to him. No more oceans between them. All the harsh words fired like weapons were forgotten. It was a new chapter. Margeaux was grateful it wasn’t too late. Sure, he’d been absent from her life all those years. But one of them had to be the first to extend the olive branch.
She might as well be the one.
“You can join us after you do that,” Pepper insisted.
“Pepper, don’t,” A.J. reprimanded. “This isn’t a pleasure trip for Margeaux and the last thing she needs right now is you nagging her to shirk responsibility.”
Despite how much she wanted to wave off what A.J. was saying, her friend was right. Margeaux hadn’t come here on vacation. Her father needed her to step up and do the right thing. It had been so long since she’d been the good daughter—actually, had she ever attempted that role? If she had, maybe he wouldn’t have sent her away all those years ago.
Now that he was sick, all the rules were changing. She was the prodigal daughter returned home. Even though her friends had accompanied her this far, she had to make the next leg of the journey—the trip to the hospital—alone.
Henri Lejardin glanced at the screen of his BlackBerry: one missed call.
Earlier, when his phone rang, he’d been in the middle of a Musée du St. Michel staff meeting, firming up specifics for the Impressionist Retrospective’s exhibition, which would celebrate the museum’s centennial anniversary. It had been a long day overseeing the installation of the exhibit on loan from museums from all across Europe. The collection was set to open next week. Yet three key paintings were detained in customs, held back by a mountain of red tape Henri had yet to unravel. His career and reputation hinged on this show, and since it was coming down to the wire, he needed to focus on pulling it together.
When his brother Luc’s number had appeared on the screen, Henri had sensed what the call was about, resisted the urge to answer and let it go to voice mail.
Now that the meeting had adjourned, he remained at the conference room table and listened to his messages.
“Henri, it’s Luc. Please call me as soon as possible. Margeaux Broussard is back in St. Michel.”
Henri’s insides shifted like falling dominos and he tightened his grip on the phone, a visceral reaction to the news.
It was exactly the message he’d both feared and anticipated since the moment Colbert Broussard had fallen ill.
As he disconnected from voice mail and dialed Luc, Sydney James, the gallery curator, caught his eye as she lingered in the conference room doorway. A slow, seductive smile spread over her red-glossed lips as she arched a well-shaped brow.
It was a look that suggested so much more than Henri could deal with right now. In an attempt to own his composure, he shook his head and looked away. As the phone rang, he pushed away from the table in the rolling leather chair, leaned back and stretched his legs out in front of him. A posture that suggested he was perfectly at ease. Even though he wasn’t.
Fake it until you make it had always been his motto, and it had served him well, considering he was St. Michel’s youngest Minister of Arts, Culture and Education. His next goal was to become the youngest member of the Crown Council—St. Michel’s version of Parliament. All in due time. First, he had to get his brother on the phone and find out the particulars of Margeaux Broussard’s visit.
“Henri?” Luc’s anxious voice sounded through the BlackBerry. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I know. I’m sorry; I’ve been in meetings all day. I got your message. So, she’s here?”
To steady himself, Henri doodled on the legal pad in the cordovan leather folio that lay open on the table.
“Yes, she is. She and three friends arrived today around eleven and they checked into a suite at the Hotel de St. Michel.”
As Henri wrote the words Margeaux—Hotel de St. Michel, he sensed someone reading over his shoulder. He looked up and there was Sydney staring down at his notes.
“Hold on a moment, Luc.” Henri closed the folio and took the phone away from his ear. “I’ll catch up with you as soon as I’m finished.”
She regarded him for a moment. Her predatory gaze meandered the length of his body. She bit her bottom lip.
“I’ll wait for you in the Ferdinand Gallery.”
Her proper British accent was a strange juxtaposition to the seductive glint in her wide-set green eyes, which stirred an uncomfortable, not-at-work reaction in Henri that made him want to retreat.
But he didn’t. He simply frowned and shook his head—trying to remind her that he was the boss. Games like this were not okay. They’d had that discussion more than once in the month since he’d allowed the lines of propriety to blur.
True to form, Sydney winked and turned away, her snug black pencil skirt—wasn’t that what they called those body-hugging contraptions that accentuated all the right curves in all the right places?—an animated reminder of why he’d made an exception to his no-fraternizing rule for Sydney James.
She was a beautiful woman and a force to be reckoned with. There was no doubt about that. Normally, he went to great lengths to keep his personal and professional lives separate—especially when it came to getting involved with subordinates. But Sydney had a way of pushing the envelope and crossing lines—if she wasn’t so damn good at her job Henri might consider having her relocated to a department not under his watch.
That would make matters so much simpler.
But the truth was he needed her. In more than one way. Certain members of the Crown Council had been breathing down his neck, suggesting it was time for him to settle down, to tidy up his personal life so that the other, more traditional, council members—namely Colbert Broussard—would take him seriously