“I knew my life wouldn’t really begin until his was over. He went on and on, like one of his pairs of boots. But then, one day, he was gone. And so I came to Paris. I was twenty-four, and so hungry for life—you can’t imagine.”

“Can’t I?”

Again he looked at her. And this time he smiled. A smile that utterly transformed his face. Made it soft and golden, like butter.

“At first I did well at the theater. I worked on other people’s costumes, cutting and stitching and dyeing, and then they let me make some of my own designs. My costumes were good. But I ruined everything with the shoes. My career as a theatrical costumier was over almost before it began.”

“Your shoes were no good?”

“My shoes were too good. They distracted the audience from the action on stage. Sometimes my shoes were getting more review space than the shows. They asked me to tone them down, make them inconspicuous. And when I wouldn’t, they fired me.”

“So, what then?”

“I knew what I wanted—a place to make shoes. A business of my own. I wrote to my uncle, and he loaned me some money. I borrowed some more money from a couple of rich theater people who had liked my shoes so much that I’d taken private commissions from them. And Olga helped me, of course.”

Olga—sitting behind that desk in the shop, with her dead person’s expression…

“At first I shared space in a tiny workshop with three other designers. It was hard to see how I was ever going to establish myself, and progress was slow, but gradually people began to talk about my shoes, the customers started dribbling in. Eventually I was able to get my own premises. That’s it, really. Business got better and better and I had some commissions from one or two prominent society women…”

A black Lea-Francis car slid across Genevieve’s thoughts.

“My shoes became famous, and I moved to the Fashion Quarter.” Zachari turned onto his side to face her. “So now you know. No Calabrian wolves. No baby in a basket. No blood feud.”

“Paolo.”

“I don’t tell these things to people, Genevieve.” He moved closer to her—brushed his lips against her face. “You and Olga—you’re the only people who know my story. That’s the truth.”

“There’s something I want to tell you too. Something I’ve never told my husband.”

“Is that why you want to tell me? Because you’ve never told him?”

For answer she kissed the freckle at the base of his neck. And then she began to tell him about the day of the school photographs and what had followed.

The Bentley had been parked outside the hotel for almost twenty minutes now. Robert was sitting with his face in his hands.