BooksBarbecue
Back Broken French Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
  1. Cover
  2. Full Page Image
  3. Dedication
  4. Chapter One
  5. Chapter Two
  6. Chapter Three
  7. Chapter Four
  8. Chapter Five
  9. Chapter Six
  10. Chapter Seven
  11. Chapter Eight
  12. Chapter Nine
  13. Chapter Ten
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Chapter Fourteen
  18. Chapter Fifteen
  19. Chapter Sixteen
  20. Chapter Seventeen
  21. Chapter Eighteen
  22. Chapter Nineteen
  23. Chapter Twenty
  24. Chapter Twenty-One
  25. Chapter Twenty-Two
  26. Chapter Twenty-Three
  27. Chapter Twenty-Four
  28. Chapter Twenty-Five
  29. Chapter Twenty-Six
  30. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  31. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  32. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  33. Chapter Thirty
  34. Chapter Thirty-One
  35. Chapter Thirty-Two
  36. Chapter Thirty-Three
  37. Chapter Thirty-Four
  38. Chapter Thirty-Five
  39. Chapter Thirty-Six
  40. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  41. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  42. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  43. Chapter Forty
  44. Chapter Forty-One
  45. Chapter Forty-Two
  46. Chapter Forty-Three
  47. Chapter Forty-Four
  48. Chapter Forty-Five
  49. Chapter Forty-Six
  50. Chapter Forty-Seven
  51. Chapter Forty-Eight
  52. Chapter Forty-Nine
  53. Chapter Fifty
  54. Chapter Fifty-One
  55. Chapter Fifty-Two
  56. Chapter Fifty-Three
  57. Chapter Fifty-Four
  58. NEXT
  59. EXCERPT STOLEN ENGLISH
  60. Acknowledgments
  61. ALSO BY TASHA BOYD
  62. About the Author

“The way Arriette died was horrible. Awful. She overdosed at a nightclub in Paris. She’d wanted me to go with her. I refused. I had a big day the next day. Every day was a big day, of course. The real reason was I didn’t want that life anymore. We fought. She went without me. I got the call from someone who’d found her on the floor of the bathroom and called the ambulance. I showed up at the same time they did. I saw her.” I hissed in a breath at the pain of the vision. “It was too late. It will haunt me for all of my days that I didn’t go with her that night. That I could have done more to save her. And I hurt for Dauphine that her mother’s sickness was stronger than her love for her daughter. That love couldn’t win. But the thing that haunts me the most is that my marriage had died in front of my eyes, and I did not see it until it was too late. I did not see it! How does one, how do I, ever trust this emotion again when all it does is blind you and wait until you are at its mercy, and then kick away the earth beneath you? I know better now, I think to myself. I will not fall for it again. Jamais. Jamais … ensuite il y a eu toi. But then you. But then … there was you.”

All I heard was my own breath.

She was gone. Our calls had dropped every now and again over the intervening days since our nighttime calls had begun. It was an annoyance of long distance over apps. And that was okay now. I waited and heard nothing.

I needed to do this next part alone, anyway.

It was like being in a confessional of darkness. Of forgiveness. Without judgment or repercussion. “I want … I want to love you, Josephine. Maybe I do. But I don’t trust that it’s real. I’m sorry. Mon dieu. I’m so fucking sorry.”

I squeezed my eyes closed against the burning behind them, my free hand coming to rest over them for a moment—a useless instinct.

The phone was pointless now too, and I slipped it from my ear to turn it off. But then I saw the call was still connected. My breath froze in my chest, and I slowly brought it back to my ear. It was milliseconds before I realized the call was now truly gone. But not before I heard the quiet sob before she ended it.

What had I done?

Chapter Fifty

JOSIE

Charleston, SC, USA