666 Park Avenue

by Gabriella Pierce

  “Now that’s quite a talent,” Malcolm said, an unreadable expression in his eyes.

  “Wouldn’t it be? I could redecorate without lifting a finger.” Jane chuckled, lifting a polished fingernail in demonstration. “It would certainly make my job a lot easier. Madame Godinaux has me running all over the city to pick up light fixtures and furniture. I don’t know how she thinks it’ll all fit into one house. I’d love to be able to get rid of a display nook or six without leaving fingerprints.”

  Malcolm leaned forward, his gaze suddenly intent. His abrupt intensity made her breath catch in her throat. “You’re amazing, Jane. Do you know that?” He reached across the table and grasped her hand. “I had this whole plan in place, but . . .” he trailed off, shaking his head ruefully.

  Jane’s heart started pounding, and her skin sizzled at his touch.

  “Jane, I’ve always believed that when you meet the one, you know it.”

  Jane glanced around, sure that her heartbeat must be echoing through the whole room.

  “I’m not a patient man,” Malcolm continued, “and a month is already too long.” He set a small box covered in deep blue velvet on the table between them like a challenge, and gave her one last long look before snapping it open. Set on a platinum band, the diamond—an emerald-cut solitaire of at least five carats—sparkled fiercely in the candlelight. “Jane,” Malcolm said, his voice throbbing with passion, “you’re the one. I don’t want to spend another day away from you, and I don’t want to wait. Please,” he added, but there was no pleading in his tone, “Jane, say you’ll be my wife.”

  The room spun fast. Jane’s heart was in her throat and her cheeks flamed, as though the heat had been turned up full-blast. Marrying Malcolm would mean leaving France behind: her job at Atelier Antoine, her adorable apartment in the fifth arrondissement with its charming view of Notre Dame from the fire escape, her friends, her entire life . . .

  The choice was easy.

  “Of course. Of course I will.” She held out her left hand so he could slip the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

  Chapter Three

  Jane sank lower in the bathtub, the bubbles tickling her collarbone. She lifted one lazy hand out of the water and turned it over: her engagement ring sparkled wildly even in the muted light. She stared at it, trying to convince herself that the evening had really happened. There was the evidence, certainly: the ring itself, for one thing, and then also the fact that she was lounging in a massive marble tub with a panoramic view of the Eiffel Tower, for another. But as soon as Malcolm had left the suite to pick up a quart of salted-caramel ice cream—Jane’s favorite—a feeling of unreality had set in.

  She glanced involuntarily toward the door; it was too soon for Malcolm to be back yet, but she couldn’t help hoping anyway. She had objected to his going out—wasn’t that what the hotel staff was there for?—but he had been too intent to talk down. He had insisted that this was the sort of thing that fiancés did, and Jane, who had never had a fiancé before, had been hard-pressed to argue otherwise.

  A curl of steam rose off the water, and outside a crow landed on the roof across the street. Jane wondered if it should bother her that she seemed to be adjusting to Malcolm’s lavish lifestyle of concierges and penthouse suites so quickly, but she inhaled the steam and brushed the worry aside. Why shouldn’t she be comfortable? It was her lifestyle now, too.

  There would be loose ends to tie up, of course. She had an apartment lease to terminate, and friends to say good-bye to. She began mentally tallying her projects at work, all in various stages of completion. And my very first solo client, she thought, feeling a tiny pang of regret, but she was a talented architect, and New York was a perfectly good place to be that . . . especially with some newly acquired family connections to smooth the way. I’ll have a family, she thought happily, and wiggled her toes to watch the ripples spread.

  Even when she had lived with Gran, she’d felt alone. Gran loved her, certainly, but in the old woman’s nervous mind, “love” seemed to mean “worry,” pretty much to the exclusion of anything else. Even if the standoffish villagers in their Alsatian town had wanted to be friends, Jane wouldn’t have been allowed to spend time with them unchaperoned. She hadn’t even been allowed to attend the half-timbered school in the center of town, and Gran would come looking for her if her market shopping took five minutes longer than usual. Gran had never been willing or able to explain what it was that she thought was so dangerous in the outside world, but her determination that Jane should never encounter it had formed a wedge between them, and every passing year had driven it deeper. Jane, beside herself with frustration, had left the little gray farmhouse nestled at the base of the foothills the day she’d received her letter of acceptance to the university. She had not gone back once in the six years since.

  The sconces lining the bathroom wall flickered, the shadows shifting like the branches of ancient trees. She’d have to tell Gran she was leaving, Jane realized, shivering a little in spite of the steam. They had exchanged a few stiff and awkward letters over the years, but the farmhouse didn’t have a phone. A visit felt more appropriate now—and, of course, Gran would want to meet her fiancé. But it would be so cold and dark this time of year . . .

  Gran might be happy for her, she reflected; stranger things had surely happened. She wouldn’t be thrilled about Jane moving all the way across an ocean. She had never even approved of Jane’s move to Paris, referring to it unfailingly as “when you ran away,” and Jane really wasn’t looking forward to breaking the news that she planned to leave the country entirely. But Gran’s main concern had always been Jane’s safety, and no parent (or grandparent) could ask for a better protector than Malcolm Doran. He was kind, caring, attentive, and had the resources to take very, very good care of her. All that aside, he was madly, desperately, head-over-heels in love with her, just as she was with him.

  As soon as Jane lowered her hand back under the water, a low, scratching sound snagged through the silence, interrupting her reverie. It was a small noise: a scrape of metal on metal, but in the silence it sounded hard . . . and close. The bathroom lights abruptly flashed and died. Water splashed around her, and moonlight streamed in through the windows, turning the room as flat and cold as Alsace’s landscape in wintertime. It took a few moments of listening to her heart pounding before she noticed that no light was coming in under the door. Somehow, the entire suite had gone dark.

  Then she heard another sound. It was soft at first, but as it drew closer, the steady fall of shoes on carpet became unmistakable.

  Someone’s here.

  Jane felt panic bubble up in her throat. There was no way Malcolm could be back yet. He’d only been gone ten minutes. She had just enough time to wonder if the panoramic windows behind her could be opened before the door of the bathroom swung toward her. In the deep shadows on the other side, there was an even deeper shadow in the unmistakable shape of a very tall man.

  Jane shrieked, and tried to stand up, but her feet skidded on the slick bottom of the tub. She fell back heavily into the bath, smashing her elbow hard on the marble and sending soapy water racing across the floor.

  “Jane?”

  She froze.

  The Eiffel Tower’s festive hourly sparkling lit up the sky, as well as the face of the intruder. “Malcolm, you scared me!” She sighed and cradled her elbow, feeling too foolish for words. “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

  “Clearly.” He chuckled. “The power went out right after I came in. No wonder you’re jumpy.” He moved quickly to the side of the tub, offering a hand to help her up. She noticed a frosted carton of ice cream in his other hand. “There’s nothing to be scared of,” he told her gently. He folded her tightly against him, and her shivering subsided in his warmth.

  “There is one thing, actually,” she murmured against his chest, remembering the wide, gray landscape that had invaded the room just ahead of Malcolm’s steadying presence.

  He drew away
sharply. “Did something happen? Are you hurt?”

  Her heart melted at his immediate concern. “Nothing like that,” she assured him quickly. “I was just thinking that I’d like to see my grandmother before I leave France. And I’d really like you to meet her.” She held up her left hand and wiggled her fingers meaningfully; the diamond threw the glittering tower lights around the room like merry, blue fireflies.

  She had expected him to relax a little at her explanation, but he remained in the same posture: holding her stiffly away, a line of worry creasing his forehead. They stayed that way for a few tense moments, and then he seemed to finally register that she was truly okay.

  “Of course,” he agreed hastily. “We could go for Christmas, if you’d like.” With that, he pressed his lips to hers and slid his hands lightly across the slick, wet skin of her breasts. She moaned softly. “I feel overdressed,” he added, smiling into her cheek.

  Agreeing wholeheartedly, she unbuttoned his shirt with the speed of frequent practice. His perfectly creased black pants followed easily to the floor while Jane kissed the golden skin of his chest, inhaling his spiced scent the way a drowning woman would inhale air. Maybe I should be scared, a tiny part of her brain told her. This can’t be normal.

  Then his fingers found her, stroking expertly, and she could feel him hard and ready in the darkness between them, and she shut off the thinking, worrying part of her brain entirely. With a wolfish grin, Malcolm lifted her by the hips and set her down on the counter next to the sink. She dug her nails into his back as he entered her, and wrapped her legs around his waist, trying to pull him as deeply inside as she could. He braced himself with one hand against the mirror, and with the other he began to stroke her again, so when they climaxed, it was together.

  The lights came back on as he carried her to the bed, kissing her sore elbow tenderly. It seemed as though every lamp in the suite was glowing—far more than she remembered turning on before—but Malcolm tapped the master switch beside the bed, and she was asleep almost as soon as the room was dark again.

  Chapter Four

  “You know, I’ve never actually seen you drive,” Jane pointed out as Malcolm slid behind the wheel of the rental car. It was Christmas Eve, and their flight had landed in Strasbourg ahead of schedule. From the air, the highways had looked reassuringly clear, but that wouldn’t help them much if Malcolm was as uncomfortable in the driver’s seat as he looked. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Malcolm insisted, fumbling with the keys. “Just because I have a chauffeur or three doesn’t mean—huh.” He gave the gearshift a dubious look. “Is this a manual transmission?”

  “Out,” Jane laughed, giving him a little shove as she hitched up her belted gray coat and slid across the seats. Once he was settled on the passenger side (looking a little chagrined, she thought), she started the car and began making her way to the parking lot’s exit. “It’s still a good two hours away,” she told him, feeling oddly giddy, as though her nerve endings were firing off at random.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, buckling his seatbelt and giving it an experimental tug. “You haven’t been yourself since we boarded the plane.”

  I’m not really sure, Jane thought, trying to suppress a shiver. “It’s just that when I left home, I really, really didn’t plan to come back,” she explained.

  “I thought we were talking ‘quaint French farm village’ here,” Malcolm said. “What could be so bad about that?”

  Jane forced a laugh; it came out as a nervous, high-pitched sound. “That’s why I don’t date Americans. You all think Europe is some kind of theme park—as long as you can go back to your glass high-rises with the never-ending supply of hot water, France is just adorable.”

  “You object to your hometown on architectural grounds?” Malcolm’s eyebrow was skeptically high.

  “Of course! And of course not just that,” she admitted. “My relationship with my grandmother is . . . complicated.”

  She frowned and changed lanes abruptly to pass a truck that was struggling on the incline. She knew that “complicated” didn’t really capture the years of conflict and strain between her and Gran, but that part of her life was over now. All she wanted to do was focus on her future with Malcolm. Just have to make it through this one little errand first, and then we’re home free.

  “I know a thing or two about complicated families,” Malcolm replied, startling her out of her thoughts.

  “Oh yeah? Did your mother ever chase the neighbor kids off with a broom, or read your diary and then yell at you about what you’d written?” At age nine, a precocious and very bored Jane had entertained herself by imagining an illicit affair between their neighbor Monsieur Dupuis (a thin man with an extremely long black beard) and Madame Foucheaux, the butcher’s wife (a round and rosy woman who seemed to have a meat cleaver perpetually in hand). Every time she had seen them together, she’d imagined a whole secret communication happening. The neighbor would say, “Half a kilo,” and Jane would hear: “Meet me at six so I can ravage you again.” When the reply came, “Like this much?” to Jane it would sound like “Make it seven.”

  She had written down every last lurid detail. When Gran had found the diary, she’d screamed herself hoarse about the evils of gossip and what happened to little girls who told vicious stories. Jane shuddered as she remembered the thunderstorm that had rolled in while Gran yelled. Although she never would have said so out loud, Jane always thought that Gran had the same kind of luck with the weather as Jane herself did with electronics. Crashing thunder had been the soundtrack to Jane’s in Trouble for her whole life, and even now she couldn’t hear a storm coming without flinching.

  Malcolm shook his head. “Well, no. Then again, I didn’t keep a diary, so . . .”

  Jane let out a mirthless laugh. “Smart boy.”

  “How did your boss take the news that you were leaving?” Malcolm asked, and Jane forced her mind to change gears.

  “Much better than I expected, actually.” Elodie had scowled around the office, referring to Malcolm as “that kidnapper,” but as soon as Jane had said, “I’m in love,” the renowned Antoine of Atelier Antoine had squealed with pure French joie. Within moments, he had gone racing through his Treo, e-mailing her contact after contact in Manhattan. Just that morning, she’d spoken to a bubbly-voiced woman named Pamela, who was ecstatic to meet Jane. Apparently, Jane’s overseas experience was crucial to Pamela’s business plan. “I have a promising lead at Conran and Associates; they’re in the Village somewhere,” she told Malcolm. She hoped that sounded right. Didn’t New Yorkers on TV talk about “the Village”?

  “That’s great.” She could hear his supportive smile, and she made her lips curve upward in a matching one.

  They rode that way for a while, talking about everything and nothing, passing from flat fields into a thick tangle of trees, whose greedy limbs seemed to reach out to swallow the road.

  Within moments, the sky was largely invisible. Ten in the morning and it might as well be nighttime. Welcome home. The air felt almost too oppressive to inhale. She opened the window a crack, hoping that it would help, but cold wind whipped around the car, making her ears and fingers numb, and she had to close it again. They rode the rest of the way in strained silence.

  When the red, black, and white sign for Saint-Croix-sur-Amaury appeared, Jane gripped the steering wheel tight. Within moments, they would be in the village’s tiny center, where the shops huddled together like old friends along the main route—the only road in the town large enough to rate a name of its own. Farther along, there would be the patchwork clusters of farmhouses, surrounded by amber, green, or brown fields, depending on the season. Gran’s place was even farther beyond that, down a long dirt track that was headed determinedly toward the mountain. Gran’s house, unlike the others, stood completely alone.

  “We should bring something,” Jane announced suddenly, trying not to hear how flat her words fell in the car’s
silence. As a Christmas present for her grandmother, she’d wrapped a warm wool shawl in metallic green paper, but she suspected that after six years and with no warning, a hostess gift was probably warranted. “She’s big on manners.” Gran may never have been friendly or even neighborly, but she had always insisted that Jane observe proper etiquette.

  “There’s a flower shop over there.” Malcolm pointed to a tired-looking building on the right. Dark tracks of a century’s worth of rain snaked down the stone façade, making it seem as though the upper windows were crying.

  Jane nodded, and jerked to an unsteady stop by the curb. The road was so narrow that the ancient black Mercedes behind her had barely enough room to squeeze by.

  Locking the car doors behind them, Malcolm and Jane entered the store. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. The tiny shop was overflowing with flowers—tulips, peonies, delphiniums, and rows and rows of waxy green fronds. The low beams of the ceiling seemed to press down on them, and the air was thick with growth.

  “These are fine,” she said randomly, grabbing the first wrapped bunch she passed and handing them to Malcolm. He nodded amiably and carried them to a pitted wooden counter that held an ancient-looking cash register.

  “Is strange,” a creaky voice said from behind her. The accent was thick to the point of being unrecognizable, but it was En-glish. Jane spun to see an old man sitting on a stool just inside the doorway, a high-crowned hat shoved down low on his forehead. Tufty eyebrows poked out from under the brim like opportunistic shrubs.