thank you and came from a good family. The one who saved a soldier from dying in the mud.’
Gérard swallowed, his face looking very hard. ‘It was the Phoney War, Adèle. We were all in the mud. Not a single battle.’
‘The Battle of Sedan wasn’t part of the Phoney War, Gérard, and I know it was very bloody. You changed when you came home. You’re not the man you were, or the boy I remember from all those years ago.’
He tossed my hand to the side. ‘Women know nothing about this war. Phoney or otherwise.’
I looked at him squarely. ‘One thing I’d bet my life on.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘If it weren’t for the crafty ways of your uncle, you would’ve been on a train with the rest of the army headed to a German munitions factory after the armistice.’
He looked surprised. ‘Who told you that?’
I wasn’t sure if he knew Mme Dubois, but if I mentioned her name I was positive he’d seek her out and punish her. ‘Does it matter?’
He touched the lapel of his expensive-looking black suit. ‘It’s not a secret, Adèle. I take opportunities when I can.’
I shrugged one shoulder. ‘Hmm.’
‘Hmm,’ he said, shrugging his shoulder back.
‘If you want me to marry you, you’ll have to woo me like any man would.’
He swept my hair back with his hand and then curled a lock of it around his finger, pulling ever so subtly. ‘You won’t last.’
‘You think I’ll want to marry you sooner?’
He let go of my hair after a quick jerk. ‘With the finer things in life becoming scarcer by the day…’ A chauvinistic laugh matched the look on his face. ‘Seriously, Adèle, who else can get champagne and black caviar when there are food riots in Clermont-Ferrand?’
He opened his desk drawer to show me the Moët & Chandon bottle he had stashed next to a round tin with Russian writing on it. I reached for them, but he shut the drawer before my fingers had a chance to grace the labels.
‘Russian caviar? Where did you get that from?’
‘I have friends in the Reich, and the black market.’
‘Mmm.’ I looked at my nails, rubbing them together. ‘I told you I didn’t want anything black at my reception.’
‘The war may drag on for years. Soon enough you’ll be begging me to keep your bed warm and your family from scraping the bottom. The old vineyards in the Vichy hills won’t be around much longer—there’s no water—unless Albert can make water from wine. Everyone knows those hill grapes are inferior to the vineyards in Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule.’ He laughed. ‘But who knows, perhaps by the end of it I’ll have my eye on someone else.’
‘Is that a bet, Gérard Baudoin?’ I folded my arms, holding my tongue—Papa’s wine was inferior to no one’s. ‘I never thought of you as a gambling man.’
He took me by the hair, pulling my head back, and we locked eyes. ‘Maybe I should take you right now,’ he said, ‘right here in my office.’
I swatted at him. ‘You know I’m not that kind of woman,’ I said, glaring, and he laughed deep from his throat, and it was then I realized that was what he loved the most. The chase.
He smelled me first, nuzzling his face against my neck, kissing me softly, then his knee pried my legs apart, and his hand slid between my legs. I shot up, locking my knees together and books tumbled from the bookcase onto the ground, flopping on top of each other.
The door flew open. ‘Did you call me, sir?’
His secretary filled every space of the open door, holding her notepad.
‘Get out of here!’ Gérard yelled at her, and while his head was turned, I hooked my finger on the corner of the cigar box and tipped it over. Cigars tumbled out of it and rolled on the floor. I dove to reach the box, but he beat me to it, grabbing my wrist, squeezing tightly, my whole arm shaking. ‘Look what you did!’
The head of the police walked back in, and Gérard stood up with a fine jolt. I glanced at the box and read the three numbers off the back before standing up to straighten my dress.
‘Emergency meeting, down the corridor,’ he said. ‘Now.’
Gérard snatched the box off the floor and left with it tucked under his arm. I straightened up, smoothing my dress flat and fixing my hair. ‘He’s very strong,’ I said to his secretary. I reached for the lunch tin and hooked it on my