room for all the other dark and twisted thoughts. For a while, at least.
But I couldn’t chase Emma Maron out of my head. Which was a problem. It was my own fault for continuing to engage with her. But what was I supposed to do when I walked into my temporary home and found a fairy princess gazing around with wide blue eyes? I had to get her out of my space. I thought she’d scare easily and run.
Instead she’d called my bluff and left me hard and aching for her. She’d wanted to know if it mattered who saw me naked. As if there was any doubt.
I’d caught sight of her on the little balcony the moment I’d walked up to the pool. It had been a mild shock but not enough to stop me. Knowing she was watching had been a bit of titillation, a small thrill in my otherwise staid life. I even played it up, getting out of the pool in a way I knew would let her see everything. It hadn’t turned me on, exactly. My heart had been too heavy with old memories last night. But it had been something different, something outside the simmering rage and frustration I usually carried.
When I’d looked up to find her gone, I’d been weirdly disappointed. Foolish. Despite our heated exchange, I wasn’t about to try anything with Emma. I just wanted to be alone.
Yeah, a regular Greta Garbo I was. I was also a liar.
The truth had barely crystalized in my head when Sal sauntered in, wearing a purple-and-blue silk caftan that was the same as the one Amalie wore today.
“You gotta stop dressing exactly like Mamie,” I said by way of greeting. “It’s doing my head in.”
He stopped on the other side of the counter. “Don’t tell me you have a problem with men who have fabulous taste in clothes.”
“Please. Who brought you that overpriced banana-yellow drapey dress you just had to have when we were hanging out in Paris five years ago? If it was fabulous is debatable.”
Sal’s look of disgust almost made me smile. “Only you would refer to a gorgeous Tadashi Shoji couture gown as an overpriced banana-yellow drapey dress. Really, Luc, the disrespect.”
“It draped and was yellow.”
“Ugh.” Sal sighed dramatically, then eyed me. “I am not dressing like Amalie.”
“Yes, you are. To a T, as Amalie would say.” I glanced at him before going back to my dough. “You’re even wearing the same shade of lipstick she has on today.”
Sal peered at himself in the reflection of a hanging copper pot and then frowned. “Shit. You’re right. We’re merging.”
“I can’t handle two Mamies right now. One is more than enough.”
His laugh was self-deprecating, because we both knew the power of Mamie; without even trying she had a way of enfolding you into her world. “Fine. I’ll leave the Pucci to Amalie. But I’m not giving up my Dolce or Chanel.”
“Aside from Chanel, I don’t know what any of those things are.”
“But you do know Chanel.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” I didn’t bother mentioning that Cassandra loved all things Chanel—not Amalie’s particular perfume, thank Christ—but I’d been on the receiving end of enough bills to know the fashion house and fear it. Cassandra liked to shop. A lot.
It was a relief to realize I didn’t miss her. Not even the idea of her. I slapped the dough on the counter with a satisfying thwap and then looked at Sal. I’d known him half my life by this point, yet while I was becoming a shadow of who I’d once been, he’d come into his own.
My fingers sank into the smooth, springing mass of dough. “You know and like yourself exactly as you are, Sallie. That’s a rare thing.”
As soon as the words were out, I felt exposed. Raw. Biting back a grimace, I focused on my task. But I felt his quiet pity along my skin. It invaded my lungs like the sour stink of scorched milk.
But when I glanced up, I found his eyes were filled with understanding and a solemn affection that made me realize we were more like brothers than either of us had ever acknowledged.
“Luc, did it ever occur to you that I found that confidence, in part, because of you?”
Shocked, I shook my head woodenly.
Sal smiled faintly. “It meant something to this queer boy that a big brute of a hockey player accepted him without question. It meant something that you were ready to throw down if someone so much as