They were standing on a landing pad outside a vast, glorious old château in the middle of a park. It was lit with torches, blazing in the gravel drive; the size of a palace, and just as beautiful.

“Right there.” He smiled.

“That? Isn’t that a . . . a monument? Or a museum?”

“It’s a château. Château des Étoiles, to be precise—the castle of the stars. My home.” A thin smile. “Maybe, one day, yours, too.”

Sophie laughed nervously. “You’re joking.”

“I never joke.” He offered her his arm again. “I called ahead. My servants have found some clothes in your style, and you will find night things and toiletries in the guest suite, the Orléans suite. There are also fresh clothes for tomorrow, when you may call your parents.”

“My dad’s going to kill me,” Sophie whispered.

Massot shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

She looked shyly up at him. Perhaps she’d been wrong. Perhaps Prince Charming did exist, after all. . . .

And in fact, Pierre had rescued her. Less than two months later she had moved out of her parents’ cramped, dingy house, and been shipped off to France and married in church, like Cinderella, in a huge ball gown personally designed for her at Givenchy haute couture, a tiara of pear-shaped diamonds, and antique satin slippers, and taken in a horse and carriage to her very own castle, where in exchange for this fairy tale—and a man who said he loved her—she offered up nothing more exciting than her own virginity.

Pierre was an ideal husband. He gave her everything and made no excessive demands. And Sophie, although terrified of her new mother-in-law, was an ideal wife: obedient, eager to please, ready to learn. She had let him shape her.There were no fights. The first year it was even pleasant. She still felt like she had escaped.

After that . . . yes, the bloom had come off, just a little—a very little. Sophie hated the idea of disloyalty; however cold Pierre might have been, however much of a worker, he had been a good husband, given her everything, given her Tom, and Tom was truly, truly everything—her baby and the love of her life. Sophie believed she had fulfilled her part of the bargain. She had spent almost twenty years becoming the perfect spouse, the last seven of them on her own. She had done everything exactly as Pierre would wish.

That, then, was her last marriage. Sophie thought of Gregoire. Was she really ready for another one?

Sophie wondered, later, why she had chosen to leave the office, why she hadn’t gone straight in to Gregoire and asked him about what Judy said. Perhaps it was the faintest stirring of suspicion, or intuition. But, as Sophie reflected, she had not wanted to hear that stirring. Not then.