Summer’s End

less. And it had been that way between them for five years.

She was twenty-nine now. She had been twenty-four when they met. It was the first summer that Deanna had refused to join him in France. He had felt odd to spend a summer without her; it had been awkward to explain to his family, insisting that she hadn’t felt well enough to travel that year. No one believed it, but they had only said so behind his back, wondering if she were leaving Marc-Edouard or merely had a lover in the States. They would never have understood the truth-that she hated them, that she felt ill at ease, that she had wanted to stay at home, to be alone, to paint, because she detested sharing Marc with them, detested the way he was when he was with them, and detested even more watching the way Pilar became like them. It had been a shock for Marc-Edouard when she refused to come, a shock that left him wondering what it would mean now that she would no longer spend the summers with his family in France. He had decided to send her something beautiful, along with a letter asking her to change her mind. Remembering the eighteen-year-old wistful beauty who had sat in his office that day so long ago, he had gone to Dior.

He sat through the entire collection, making notes, watching the models, carefully studying the clothes, trying to decide which ones were most her style, but his attention had incessantly wandered from the outfits to the models, and in particular, one spectacular girl. She had been dazzling, and she had moved in a way that spoke only to him. She was a genius at what she did, whirling, turning, beckoning-to him alone, it seemed-and he had sat breathless in his seat. At the end of the show he had asked to see her, feeling uncomfortable for a moment, but barely longer. When she walked out to meet him in a starkly narrow, black jersey dress, her auburn hair swept up on her lovely head, those remarkable blue eyes alternately clawing and caressing, he had wanted to seize her and watch her melt in his embrace. He was a rational man, a man of power and control, and he had never felt that way before. It frightened him and fascinated him, and Chantal seemed very much aware of the power she had. She wielded it gracefully, but with crushing force.

And instead of buying Deanna a dress, Marc had bought Chantal a drink, and another, and another. They had finished with champagne at the bar of the hotel George V, and then much to his own astonishment, he heard himself ask her if she would let him take a room. But she had only giggled and gently touched his face with one long, delicate hand.

“Ah, non, mon amour, pas encore.” Not yet.

Then when? He had wanted to shout the words at her, but he hadn’t. Instead he had courted her, cajoled her, showered her with gifts, until at last she acquiesced, demurely, shyly, in just the way that turned his heart and soul and flesh to fire beneath her touch. They had spent the weekend in an apartment he had borrowed from a friend, in the posh surroundings of the Avenue Foch, with a miraculously romantic bedroom, and a balcony looking out on gently whispering trees.

He would remember for a lifetime every sound and smell and moment of that weekend. He had known then that he would never have enough of Mademoiselle Chantal Martin. She had woven herself like thread beneath his skin, and he would never be quite comfortable again except with her. She drained him and enchanted him, and made him almost mad with a desire he had never felt before. Elusive, exotic, exquisite Chantal. It had gone on for five years. In Paris, and Athens, and Rome. Wherever he went in Europe, he took her and of course presented her in hotels and restaurants and shops as “Madame Duras.” They had both grown used to it over the years. It was simply a part of his life now, and hers. A part of which his partner, Jim Sullivan, was acutely aware, and his wife, thank heaven, was not. Deanna would never know. There was no reason to tell her. It took nothing away from her, he told himself. She had San Francisco and her own little world. He had Chantal, and a much wider one. He had everything he wanted. As long as he had Chantal. He only prayed that it would go on for a lifetime. But that was a promise Chantal would never make.

“Alors, mon amour, your present, your present, open it!” Her eyes teased and his heart soared. He pulled open the box. It was the diver’s watch he had admired that morning, saying it would be fun to have for their trips to the beach and his stays in Cap d’Antibes.

“My God, you’re mad! Chantal!” It had been monstrously expensive, but she waved his objections away with a disinterested hand. She could afford it now that she was no longer at Dior. Three years before she had retired from the runway and opened her own modeling agency. She wouldn’t let him set her up in an apartment in Paris to do nothing except her hair and nails and wait for him. She refused to be dependent on anyone, least of all him. It irritated him sometimes, and frightened him as well. She didn’t need him, she only loved him, but at least of that he was sure. No matter what she did when he was in the States, she loved him. He was certain of it. And the perfection of their time together cemented that belief.

“Do you like it?” She eyed him coyly over her Campari.

“I adore it.” He dropped his voice, “But I love you more.”

“Do you, m’lord?” She arched an eyebrow, and he felt a rising at his crotch.

“Do you require proof?”

“Perhaps. What did you have in mind?” She eyed him evilly from beneath her hat.

“I was planning to suggest lunch out in the country somewhere, but perhaps…” His smile matched hers.

“Room service, darling?”

“An excellent idea.” He waved to the cameriere and quickly paid their bill.

She stood up languidly, letting her body sway gently against his for a tantalizing instant, then began to weave her way through the crowded tables, casting a glance at him over her shoulder now and then. He could hardly wait to get her home. He wanted to run back to the hotel, holding fast to her hand, but she walked at her own pace, in her own style, knowing that she had Marc-Edouard Duras precisely where she wanted him. He watched her, amused. In a very few moments he would have her precisely where he wanted her. In his arms, in bed.

In their room he began unbuttoning her blouse with alarming speed, and she brushed him away playfully, making him wait before she’d let him reveal what he was so hungry for. She fondled him with one hand and nipped gently at his neck, until at last he found the button to her skirt and it dropped to the floor, leaving her in transparent pink lace. He almost tore at the blouse now. In a moment she stood naked in front of him as he softly moaned. She undressed him, quickly and expertly, and they fell together on the bed. Each time they made love was better than the time before, and ever reminiscent of the first. It left him sated, yet still hungry, eager to know that they would soon be joined again.

She rolled over in bed, lying on one elbow, her hair tousled but still beautiful. She watched him silently, smiling. Her voice was a husky whisper near his ear as her fingers played slowly across his chest and down toward his stomach. “I love you, you know.”

He looked at her intently, his eyes searching hers. “I love you too, Chantal. Too much perhaps. But I do.” It was a remarkable admission for a man like Marc-Edouard Duras. No one who knew him would have believed it. Least of all Deanna.

Chantal smiled and then lay back with her eyes closed for a moment, and there was concern in his eyes. “Are you all right?”

“Of course.”

“You’d lie to me, though. I know it. Tell me seriously. Are you all right, Chantal?” A look of almost frantic worry crossed his face. She smiled.

“I’m fine.”

“You took your insulin properly today?” He was all fatherly concern now, the passion of the moment before forgotten.

“Yes, I took it. Stop worrying. Want to try your new watch in the bathtub?”

“Now?”

“Why not?” She smiled happily at him, and for once he felt totally at peace. “Or did you have something else in mind?”

“I always have something else in mind. But you’re tired.”

“Never too tired for you, mon amour.” And he was never too tired for her. The years between them vanished as he made love to her again.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon when they lay quietly side by side again. “Well, we’ve taken care of this afternoon.” She smiled mischievously at him, and he grinned in answer.

“You had other plans?”

“Absolutely none.”

“Want to do some more shopping?” He loved to indulge her, to spoil her, to be with her, admire her, drink her