The Paris Mysteries (Confessions #3)(43)

She turned her head, and looking past her, I saw a body in the bed, sheets draped over his midsection.

The body moved, sat up.

My heart unlocked and started galloping in place. It was more like a giant jackrabbit thumping against my rib cage, desperately trying to get out. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, or if I was going to be able to handle it.

“Hi, Tandy,” James said, lazily getting out of bed and pulling a pair of jeans on over his naked hips. When he got to the doorway, he looked at me, flicking his eyes over my hair, back to my fire-reddened skin.

He said, “Whoa. What happened to you?”

“Tell her, James,” said C.P. “Tell her she’s not welcome here.”

James stepped between us, before I had a chance to smack C.P. again.





James stood between C.P. and me, using his outstretched arms to keep us apart.

He looked like the boy I loved entirely. And at the same time, he was so unbelievably detached I didn’t recognize him at all. He was the perfect stranger: handsome, cool, unknowable.

And this did not compute. It was like finding a sign on your closet door reading FOURTH DIMENSION. ENTER HERE.

“You okay, C.P.?” he asked.

Was C.P. okay? I was the one who’d been betrayed. I was the one who’d been wronged. And so I just lost it—again.

“You owe me an explanation, James. Because I don’t get any of this, at all.”

He grunted, “Hunh.” Then said, “What do you want, Tandy? Romance or the truth?”

That stung. Much worse than a slap across the face.

James clearly meant that romance and the truth were at opposite poles. That our relationship was a pretty story but a lie. And that the truth was going to crush me.

C.P. smirked, then stepped away from the doorway. She was out of my direct view, but I saw her put on James’s shirt. Like she owned him.

I shouted at James, “What do you know about the truth? You lied to me from the start. You came to Paris to see me. Why did you tell me you loved me? Why would you do that? Why did you lead me on?”

James looked uncomfortable, maybe even flustered.

He said, “You might be crediting me with more forethought than I have, Tandy. I was glad to see you. I was with you when I was with you. And I do care about you. That’s all true.

“You don’t know how powerful my father is. He said he’d hurt you and the rest of your family. I believe what my father says. You should, too. And by the way, your uncle Peter is a hundred times worse than my father.”

I listened intently, but nothing James said connected with the feelings I’d thought we had shared. What he seemed to be telling me was that he was done. That I was dispensable. Disposable.

That I was history.

That should have been enough answer for me, but I had to ask the most wrenching question of all.

“How could you hook up with C.P.? She was my best friend.”

James turned to watch C.P. put on a pair of jeans, then turned back and said softly, “What we had was good, Tandy. Right? So why does it have to be more than that?”

C.P. came out of the shadows and stood behind James. She looped an arm around his waist, pressed her cheek to his shoulder. I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I spat, “C.P., you’re dead to me. James, obviously, I don’t ever want to see you again.”

Then James said the strangest, nastiest thing of all. “Try to understand, Tandy. I have to live at a certain level. My father was going to cut me off and disinherit me if I didn’t stop seeing you.”

I understood. He chose money over me. What could possibly be colder or clearer than that?

I turned away from them and walked down the stairs with some of my dignity intact. No tears. No tears at all. At least those two didn’t see me cry. My parents’ training had finally come in handy.

I strong-armed the front door and marched down the steps to the narrow little road. And although I didn’t turn around, I was pretty sure James and C.P. were watching me through the upstairs dormer window.

But the car wasn’t there.

About then, I remembered to phone Anton. It took a few minutes for the Lincoln to round the corner, but then it was coming for me like a great blue chariot sent by the forces of good.

Anton opened the door and I got in.

“Please take me home, Anton,” I said.

“You bet, Ms. Angel.”

I looked at my phone. I’d been inside that house for a total of twelve soul-searing minutes. But as horrific as those minutes had been, it was a cure for that lying, cheating snake, James Rampling.

Who, by the way, was nothing to me.





My mind was resolved, but my heart was shredded.

I put my hands over my face and wept, and I didn’t even care that Anton could hear me. I pretended the car was driving itself and wrapped myself in my shattered illusions.

How had I been so blinded by James? How had C.P. been able to betray me with no remorse at all? How could I ever trust anyone again, ever?

The parkway wound through a wide cut in a woodland. As the leafy miles breezed by, I dried my eyes and gathered my strength. I began to analyze both the facts and the holes in the story in the hope that I would arrive at some giant breakthrough.

To start with, Royal Rampling and Peter Angel were our sworn enemies.