Easy to defraud.

She ignored the repellent memories that crowded her and made her skin crawl: sucking up to him, seducing him, just to keep his interest—that of a man she couldn’t stand. In the beginning, Tom simply looked like Pierre. Later on, she could not forget that he was Sophie’s son—the child of the woman she hated—the evidence, walking and talking, that Pierre had never chosen her. . . .

It had been a mania—a sickness—not to lose twice, not to let Katherine join Sophie in triumphing over her.

And this was the perfect answer. A pregnancy, one he’d do anything to have her keep. She pressed her foot on the gas. She finally saw her way clear.

No more Massots. If she could not have Pierre, the love of her life—Pierre, her god, her king—she would have no other.

But for fifteen years of longing, fifteen years of pain . . .

For her lost career, and her broken heart . . .

They would pay. They would pay, and go on paying. She would bleed them dry. Screw Montfort, screw all of them. It would be House Dean, why not? Great dynasties started somewhere.

She slowed as she hit traffic. Coming into Paris, where drivers regard red lights as merely polite suggestions, you have to be careful. Judy’s breathing steadied. Her mind, however, was clear, perfectly focussed, sharp with hate.

She would take the Massots, mother and son, for whatever she could. And then wash her hands of the lot of them.

Judy reached rue des Cloches; the towering, elegant eighteenth-century facades that loomed over her, so familiar, seemed small, claustrophobic. She longed to get out of Paris, maybe France. But having been so long in the country, it was a part of her. She also desired to destroy the Massots, to supercede them, on their own territory. . . .

She parked on the street and fished her key from her Versace handbag; it had been a while since she’d been here. The plants would be dead. She tried to remember if she’d cleaned out the fridge, if there would be any foul-smelling foodstuffs rotting there. . . .

Housekeeping. It had been a while. Of course, with her new salary Judy could have bought a townhouse—someplace far nicer. But she would never give this place up. It would be her pied-à- terre forever. It was her connection with Pierre, the solid, enduring proof that he had loved her, that whatever Sophie and Katherine said, Judy wasn’t just another girl.

Pierre bought her this apartment, and when she looked at its cool grey walls, Judy chose to see love.