Nevertheless, with Madalena’s generous blessing and her kiss burning upon his cheek—a little teaser for the cameras—they found themselves no later than a quarter hour later in one of Paris’s green, foul-smelling buses. No seats; these had been optioned by what looked like half the little old lady population in the city. Instead they stood, and swayed.

Lavalle curled both hands around the metal railing, balancing himself with familiar ease, and stared out the window with distinct interest, as though there was something captivating about the view. In profile, he looked abstracted and sad. Did he sweat, or was he utterly unaffected by the heat? Nicholas was mildly impressed. If this was a character he was playing, Lavalle had gone full method.

What the fuck was Chaudhuri thinking? Casting a model who’d never acted in anything much bigger than a late-night soap was courting misery. For a movie that was already heating up next year’s award season talk, of all things. Angelo ought to be played by a Frenchman—or at least someone who could speak the language well enough to bluff international audiences—but he was a baroque, interesting character, full of contradictions. He required talent. To have him played by a wannabe comedian with his sights on another Dior campaign was nothing short of an imposture.

Lavalle looked the part, at least. In a silken waistcoat, he would be the perfect Belle Époque debauchee. His proud manner, and the haughty curl of his mouth, would suit Angelo’s cynical nature to a fault. And he was deeply, notably beautiful—the kind of beauty that was not easily overlooked, not even in Hollywood. His eyes, most remarkably, were grey and clear as still water. All-seeing. Nicholas thought of classical statues, marble-white and merciless and blind.

But Nicholas knew The Throne inside and out, and he would not be fooled by appearances.

Angelo was no indifferent torso of Apollo, listless and diffident. He was a man who had been betrayed often, who had loved and who had lost. He did not show emotion easily. He kept his cards close to his chest, an act Nicholas doubted that Lavalle—who did not so much wear his heart on his sleeve as display it prominently on every social media platform known to man—could achieve with any kind of subtlety.

“I don’t get tired of it.”

“What?” Nicholas, torn from his preoccupations, was brusque. Lavalle didn’t seem offended.