Glitter Baby (Wynette, Texas #3)(27)

Alexi seemed amused. “Is this blackmail, chérie? Have you forgotten how much you love your luxuries? If anyone learns the truth about Fleur, I’ll cut you off without a penny, and you know you can’t survive without money. How would you keep yourself in scotch?”

Belinda walked slowly toward him. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

“Oh, I know you, chérie.” His fingers trailed a path down her arm. “I know you better than you know yourself.”

She gazed into his face, searching for some softness there. But she could only see the mouth that had crushed her daughter’s lips.



The morning after Solange’s funeral, Fleur woke up before dawn to the sound of someone in her room. As she eased her eyes open, she saw Belinda throwing clothes in her suitcase. “Get up, baby,” she whispered. “I have your things all packed. Don’t make any noise.”

Belinda wouldn’t explain where they were going until they’d reached the outskirts of Paris. “We’re staying with Bunny Duverge for a while at her estate in Fontainebleau.” Her eyes darted nervously to the rearview mirror, and lines of strain pulled at the corners of her mouth. “You met her when we were on Mykonos this summer, remember? The woman who kept taking your picture.”

“I asked her not to. I hate having my picture taken.” Fleur couldn’t smell any liquor, but she wondered if Belinda had been drinking. It wasn’t even seven o’clock. The idea upset her nearly as much as being awakened at dawn and dragged away from the house without an explanation.

“Fortunately Bunny ignored you.” Once again, Belinda’s eyes darted to the rearview mirror. “She called me a couple of times after I got back to Paris. She thought you were my niece, remember? All she could talk about was how striking you were and how you should be a model. She wanted your phone number.”

“A model!” Fleur leaned forward in her seat and stared at Belinda. “That’s crazy.”

“She says you have exactly the face and body designers want.”

“I’m six feet tall!”

“Bunny used to be a famous model, so she should know.” Belinda dug into her purse with one hand and pulled out her cigarette case. “When she saw that photo of you in Le Monde after the fire, she realized you weren’t my niece. At first she was angry, but two days ago she called and admitted she’d sent the Mykonos pictures to Gretchen Casimir, the woman who owns one of the most exclusive modeling agencies in New York.”

“Modeling agency! Why?”

“Gretchen loved the photos, and she wants Bunny to get some proper test shots of you.”

“I don’t believe it. She’s putting you on.”

“I told her the truth. That Alexi would never permit you to model.” She pulled the cigarette lighter from the dashboard. “But after what’s happened…” She filled her lungs with smoke. “We have to be able to support ourselves. And we need to get as far away from him as we can, which means New York. This is going to be our ticket out, baby. I just know it.”

“I can’t be a model! I don’t look anything like one.” She planted her loafers against the dash and drew her knees to her chest, hoping the pressure would ease the knots in her stomach. “I—I don’t understand why we have to go right now. I need to finish school.” She clasped her knees tighter. “And…Alexi doesn’t…He doesn’t seem to hate me so much anymore.”

Belinda’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the steering wheel, and Fleur knew she’d said the wrong thing. “I only mean—”

“He’s a snake. You’ve been begging me for years to leave him. Now I’ve finally done it, and I don’t want to hear another word. If those test shots are good, you’ll make more than enough to support us.”

Fleur had always intended to support them, but not like this. She wanted to use her math and language skills in business, or maybe be a translator at NATO. Belinda’s plan was a fantasy. Fashion models were beautiful women, not clumsy, too-tall sixteen-year-olds.

She rested her chin on her knees. Why did they have to leave now? Why did they have to leave just when her father had started to like her?



Bunny Duverge lectured Fleur on makeup, on how to walk, on who was who in New York fashion, as if Fleur cared about any of it. She clucked over Fleur’s ragged fingernails, her lack of interest in clothes, and her habit of bumping into furniture.

“I can’t help it,” Fleur said at the end of her first miserable week at the Duverge Fontainebleau estate. “I’m a lot more graceful on a horse.”

Bunny rolled her eyes and complained to Belinda about Fleur’s American accent. “A French accent is so much more appealing.”

But despite all that, Bunny swore to Belinda that Fleur had it. When Fleur asked what it was, Bunny waved her hands and said it was elusive. “One simply knows.”

For all her faults, Bunny knew how to keep a secret, and she was as determined as Belinda to prevent Alexi from finding them. Instead of choosing a Parisian coiffeur, Bunny flew in a famous London hairdresser who began snipping at Fleur’s hair, a quarter of an inch here, a half inch there. When he was done, Fleur thought her hair looked pretty much the same, but Bunny had tears in her eyes and called him “maestro.”