I ought to hate him, she thought, but then shook it away. Dwelling on the past was unproductive. No, years of patient, cautious work, running parties, entertaining journalists, and they had finally made her a vice president. Judy had grown to love her work. The day she got that title, she felt some of the pain seep out of her. Loss of Pierre, first, and then loss of who she thought Pierre was. But anyway . . . she had received that title entirely on her own merit. Nobody could say she had earned it on her back.

Judy threw down a few euros and left the restaurant. She would walk to the Massot offices, the quiet eighteenth-century building on the rue Tricot, almost a mile from the nearest glittering Massot showroom. She had asked M. Lazard to see her at nine precisely, and she didn’t want to be late.

She smiled in anticipation as her pace quickened. Senior vice president, with the money to follow. Two hundred and fifty thousand a year. Yes! Judy wanted all that. She wanted to upgrade her smart little flat to a townhouse, wanted a few more outfits like the one she was wearing. Some classic Vuitton luggage, maybe a shopping spree in New York. She had learned the hard way that she could only rely on herself in this world. And her career, not a man, was going to give her everything she wanted.

There had not been a man for a long time.

Judy pulled her cardigan around her. What had it been, three years now. There was that unfortunate one-night stand with the London sales director. Ill-advised; neither of them could wait to bolt for the hotel door the next morning. And six months before that there was the folk guitarist she’d met in that jazz club on vacation, in New Orleans. But that didn’t count—vacation sex.

Both encounters had been empty for her. She felt the urge, sometimes, almost a clinical curiosity, just to check that she was still a fully functioning female. But pleasure, what pleasure was there in clumsy fumbling and a few thrusts?

None. She had none.

And so there were no boyfriends. Just the one man she thought of too often, although she tried to break the habit. Pierre, brilliant, sparkling Pierre, as golden as champagne. Her mentor in business, sex, and life.

There was the corner, and her offices. MAISON MASSOT engraved discreetly on a small brass plaque. She felt relief at the familiarity of it all. Her life would go on, quite comfortably, with more money and the settled achievement of her job, of having carved out a little niche in this business all for herself.

“I am glad you came to see me, Mademoiselle,” said M. Lazard.

“Thank you for making the time to see me, sir,” Judy replied, in her perfect French.