Free Three Weeks in Paris by Barbara Taylor Bradford Page A

straightened her jacket. What she saw was a tall young woman of thirty-one, not bad-looking, quite elegant in a white gabardine pantsuit and high-heeled mules, with a string of pearls around her neck and pearl studs in her ears. But it’s a slightly tired woman tonight, she muttered, then went back downstairs.
    Jessica’s brown leather handbag was on a Louis XIV bench in the front hall. Picking it up as she walked past the bench, she hurried down the carpeted corridor to her office. Pushing open the door, she turned on the light switch and moved forward to her eighteenth-century French
bureau plat
in front of the window.
    The first thing she saw, propped up against the Chinese-yellow porcelain lamp, was a FedEx envelope.
    ————
    JESSICA SAT STARING at the invitation for a long time, lost in her thoughts as she found herself carried back into the past.
    A decade fell away.
    She was young, just twenty-one, and starting out at the Anya Sedgwick School of Decorative Arts, Design, and
    Couture, situated on the rue de l’Université in Paris, where she had gone to study interior design.
    In her mind’s eye she could see herself as she was then … tall, very thin, with straight blond hair falling to her shoulder blades and skin without a blemish. A smalltown Texas girl on her first visit to Europe. An innocent abroad.
    She had been captivated by Paris, the school, Anya of course, and the little family pension on the Left Bank, where she lived. It had all been new, different, and stimulating. So very exciting, and far removed from San Antonio and her parents. She missed them a lot, while managing to enjoy every new experience at the school and in her daily life.
    And it was in Paris that she met Lucien Girard and fell in love for the first time. It was at the end of her first year that she and Lucien were introduced by Larry Sedgwick, Anya’s nephew. She was just twenty-two; he was four years older, an actor by profession. She smiled inwardly now, thinking of the way she teased Merle unmercifully about living with an actor.
    Lucien and she had been the perfect match, completely compatible. They liked the same movies, books, music, and art, and got on so well, it was almost uncanny. They shared the same philosophy of life, wanted similar things, and were ambitious for themselves.
    Jessica had believed she knew Paris well— until she met Lucien; he had quickly shown her she knew it hardly at all. He took her to wonderful out-of-the-way places, charming bistros, unique little boutiques, art galleries, and shops, and obscure pretty corners filled with peacefulness. He showed her interesting churches, little-known museums, and he had taken her on trips to Brittany, Provence, and the Côte d’Azur.
    Their days together had been golden, filled with blue skies and sunshine, tranquil days and passion-filled nights.
    He had taught her so much … about so many different things … sex and love … the best wines and food, and how to savor them … with him she had eaten mussels in a delicious tangy broth, omelettes so light and fluffy they were like air, soft aromatic cheeses from the countryside, and tiny
fraises du bois
, minuscule wood strawberries fragrant with an indefinable perfume, sumptuous to eat with thick clotted cream.
    With him, everything was bliss.
    He had called her his long-stemmed American beauty, had utterly loved and adored her, as she had him, and their days together had been sublime, so in tune were they, and happy. They made so many plans.…
    But one day he was gone.
    Lucien disappeared.
    Distraught, she tried to find him, teaming up with his best friend, Alain Bonnal. His apartment was undisturbed; nothing had been removed. His agent had no idea where he was and was as baffled and worried as they were. He was an orphan; they knew of no family member to go to, no one to appeal to for information. She and Alain checked hospitals, the morgue, listed him as a missing person. To no avail. He was