It seemed more like four days until we were able to make our escape. We were sent off in a shower of rose petals and bubbles and arrived twenty minutes later at the Ritz, where our room had been lit with candles and strewn with roses at my request. The only big event that remained—other than the obvious Big Event—was the honeymoon, and Grace still didn’t know where I was taking her.

“If I guess it right, will you tell me?” she asked sleepily for the umpteenth time at 2:00 a.m. I removed the champagne glass from her hand and set it on the night table before pulling her beside me and turning out the light.

“No, and if you don’t go to sleep, you’re not going to be awake enough to enjoy it once you know.”

She nestled her head on my chest and kissed my chin. “If you loved me you’d tell me,” she purred.

“I am a master at keeping secrets. Don’t even try it.”

“Oh, you’re not fun.”

I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her hair. “That’s not what you said an hour ago.”

She laughed. “I was wrong.”

“Yeah, you’ll be singing a different tune when we get to the airport.”

“Tell me the tune, and I’ll sing it, baby.”

“Okay, how about, ‘Good Night, Sweetheart’?” She breathed a laugh, and I knew she was about gone. I took the few minutes left before sleep caught up to me to mentally run through the list of things I’d told Missy to pack for Grace, in case there was something I’d forgotten. Her passport was the only truly important thing; any forgotten items could be purchased once we got there. France was hardly a third-world country.

GRACE

PARIS WAS HEAVEN on earth. At first I thought this because of course it’s Paris, and of course its wonderful, but then after coming home and living married life in California, I discovered it was heaven because the American paparazzi didn’t live there.

I came to loathe cameras. I couldn’t escape them: at the beach, at the grocery store, at the mall. Everywhere we went, it was just a matter of time before we’d spot one pointing our way. It took months before I got used to seeing photos in Us magazine of myself lugging shopping bags to the car with Jack, and even longer before I could just let myself live my life without worrying what might be caught on film.

We bought a house in Beverly Hills a month after the wedding. It was like living in a neighborhood of castles: everyone stayed inside, and the moats of fences and impossibly green lawns kept the world at bay. Not the kinds of houses you ran to when you needed a cup of sugar or someone to have coffee with.