Read Online Invitation to Provence by Elizabeth Adler - Free Book Online
Authors: Elizabeth Adler
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forgotten. She was walking on air, smiling as she remembered her night with Jake. It hadn’t been the usual sort of encounter between a man and a woman, but there again, if it weren’t for the ankle, she might never havereally gotten to know him. She was sure he would call her later.
But Jake still hadn’t called by the time she went to bed. She didn’t change the sheets because, like a smitten teen, she wanted to lay her head on the pillow where his head had lain. Now she buried her face in it, seeking his scent, dreaming of him. She knew he would call tomorrow. But he did not. Nor the next day, nor the next. An unsmiling Franny thought about calling him, even though she knew she shouldn’t. But when she asked the secretary for his number, Lindsey told her that Jake hadn’t left an address or a number because he’d only come to the clinic to check out Franny as a vet for his dog.
“Criminal,” Franny said, biting her lip.
“Jeez, what a name to give a dog,” Lindsey added.
But Franny wasn’t even listening. She turned miserably away. She had reached a new low. She was just a foolish woman who didn’t know how to handle men. She always gave too much, and look what had happened to her. Again. She wished Clare were here, but Clare was back in Atlanta, picking up some more of her stuff. She decided she wouldn’t tell Clare about Jake, though, because she just couldn’t admit she’d made a fool of herself again, so soon after Marcus.
A LL THE WAY BACK to New York, Jake thought about Franny. He knew how much it would hurt when he didn’t call, after how wonderful she had been to him and what had happened between them. But there was nothing he could doexcept send her flowers. And damn it, he missed her already. He wished he could tell her the truth, but he’d have to wait and trust he could work it all out when they met again at the château.
10
A S RAFAELLA WALKED ALONG the path beneath the chestnut trees, with the dogs romping ahead, she imagined life as it used to be on hot summer days like this. In the old days there were always house parties, and she would gather friends around her and they’d ride their horses out to the vineyard for picnics or have long lunches at Café des Colombes. They would take up all the terrace tables, making a racket, capping one another’s jokes and tall tales, laughing and drinking Pernod.
Then, there always seemed to be laughter and food and wine and glamorous clothes, because Rafaella had been a clotheshorse right from the age of three, when her notorious aunt, Marguerite (her mother’s sister who was always said to be “no good”), brought her a winter outfit from Paris. It was a red velvet coat with a matching little hat trimmed in snow-white ermine, and for the first time she had seen herself reflected in those same hall mirrors as glamorous and gorgeous and feminine all at once. Of course her mother had said she looked like a cheap little Santa Claus, but her mother was like that. Maritée Marten could never have been called a freespirit the way her sister was, and besides, she never liked her daughter.
When Rafaella finally hit her stride in her teens, tall and too thin with a neck like a swan that looked so fragile it might bend under the weight of all that piled-up dark hair, she embarked on a lifelong love affair with clothes, buying from Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy, and Valentino. She still had most of them stashed away in the cedar-lined attics set aside for just that purpose because she couldn’t bear to give her beloveds away.
The young men in her crowd were all in love with her. They met her eyes with a sexy question, which of course she’d laughed at, thrilled with their attention and a little afraid of it at the same time. They told her she was a beauty, which she knew not to be true, but she liked it anyway and became an expert flirt, enjoying herself, enjoying being young, enjoying life.
Then she’d married Henri de Roquebrune, who
But Jake still hadn’t called by the time she went to bed. She didn’t change the sheets because, like a smitten teen, she wanted to lay her head on the pillow where his head had lain. Now she buried her face in it, seeking his scent, dreaming of him. She knew he would call tomorrow. But he did not. Nor the next day, nor the next. An unsmiling Franny thought about calling him, even though she knew she shouldn’t. But when she asked the secretary for his number, Lindsey told her that Jake hadn’t left an address or a number because he’d only come to the clinic to check out Franny as a vet for his dog.
“Criminal,” Franny said, biting her lip.
“Jeez, what a name to give a dog,” Lindsey added.
But Franny wasn’t even listening. She turned miserably away. She had reached a new low. She was just a foolish woman who didn’t know how to handle men. She always gave too much, and look what had happened to her. Again. She wished Clare were here, but Clare was back in Atlanta, picking up some more of her stuff. She decided she wouldn’t tell Clare about Jake, though, because she just couldn’t admit she’d made a fool of herself again, so soon after Marcus.
A LL THE WAY BACK to New York, Jake thought about Franny. He knew how much it would hurt when he didn’t call, after how wonderful she had been to him and what had happened between them. But there was nothing he could doexcept send her flowers. And damn it, he missed her already. He wished he could tell her the truth, but he’d have to wait and trust he could work it all out when they met again at the château.
10
A S RAFAELLA WALKED ALONG the path beneath the chestnut trees, with the dogs romping ahead, she imagined life as it used to be on hot summer days like this. In the old days there were always house parties, and she would gather friends around her and they’d ride their horses out to the vineyard for picnics or have long lunches at Café des Colombes. They would take up all the terrace tables, making a racket, capping one another’s jokes and tall tales, laughing and drinking Pernod.
Then, there always seemed to be laughter and food and wine and glamorous clothes, because Rafaella had been a clotheshorse right from the age of three, when her notorious aunt, Marguerite (her mother’s sister who was always said to be “no good”), brought her a winter outfit from Paris. It was a red velvet coat with a matching little hat trimmed in snow-white ermine, and for the first time she had seen herself reflected in those same hall mirrors as glamorous and gorgeous and feminine all at once. Of course her mother had said she looked like a cheap little Santa Claus, but her mother was like that. Maritée Marten could never have been called a freespirit the way her sister was, and besides, she never liked her daughter.
When Rafaella finally hit her stride in her teens, tall and too thin with a neck like a swan that looked so fragile it might bend under the weight of all that piled-up dark hair, she embarked on a lifelong love affair with clothes, buying from Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy, and Valentino. She still had most of them stashed away in the cedar-lined attics set aside for just that purpose because she couldn’t bear to give her beloveds away.
The young men in her crowd were all in love with her. They met her eyes with a sexy question, which of course she’d laughed at, thrilled with their attention and a little afraid of it at the same time. They told her she was a beauty, which she knew not to be true, but she liked it anyway and became an expert flirt, enjoying herself, enjoying being young, enjoying life.
Then she’d married Henri de Roquebrune, who
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