I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Should be a quick lunch then. Because obviously the answer is no.” Hopefully my assistant at my office in Sophia Antipolis had gotten us an out of the way table. I was beginning to hate the who’s who feel the beach club Le Cinquante-Cinq had. People wanting to see and be seen. It was worse at this time of year, right after the Cannes Film Festival, too. It helped that my family had been going there every summer for over fifty years, back when it was the only beach club of its type on Pampelone Beach, otherwise getting a reservation would have been a joke. Of course, it had new owners now. They’d tried hard to keep the laid-back atmosphere. I wondered what Josie would think of it. I didn’t think money and celebrity turned her on, but of course, I’d gotten that wrong about women before.

“I’ll meet you on the back deck,” Evan said.

Christ, I couldn’t think of anything without my mind wandering to Josephine Marin. I nodded at him absently.

“Papa?” Dauphine darted into the room, brushing past Evan who ruffled her hair.

“Yes, mon ange?”

She flung herself on my bed and began to chatter. Of course, it all centered around Josie. Josie was so nice. Josie was so talented. Josie was teaching her English, and Dauphine was teaching Josie French. Josie had been teaching Dauphine to draw. Dauphine might want to be an architect like Josie one day. Josie was running out of blank pages on her sketchbook, and Dauphine wanted paper as fine as Josie’s because the paper we used for the printer was not good for drawing. And she wanted watercolor pencils just like Josie’s. It went on like a stream of consciousness.

I smiled to myself at her happiness and exuberance as I changed into a pair of turquoise swim shorts and a white linen button down in the closet. Pausing at the door to the dressing room though, I suddenly frowned. I fingered the beaded evening dress, one of so many items of Arriette’s things I had never dealt with.

“Papa? What are you doing?” Dauphine appeared at the edge of the door. My hand dropped from her mother’s dress. Her eyes tracked to my hand.

“Mon ange,” I began and cleared my throat. “I was thinking perhaps I would move maman’s things. Would that be okay with you?”

She chewed her bottom lip, her blue eyes big. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Where will we put them?”

“I don’t know yet. But there are many people who don’t have such fine things and maybe we could give—”

She shook her head vigorously, her eyes filling. “Non,” she whispered.

“Come here,” I said gently, and she fell face first into my belly. “Shh. It’s okay. Tell me, what are you thinking?”