The Billionaire's Fake Engagement (Durand Billionaire Brothers Book 1) by Leslie North

Author:Leslie North [North, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

14

Violet’s nerves itched with excitement as they walked through the square toward the mirrored pyramid that was the entrance to the Louvre.

“I can’t believe I’m actually here,” she said, her voice quaking. “Both times my grandfather planned to take me fell through. Once, when I was twelve, I got sick, and we couldn’t go. The second time, my grandfather had an emergency at his house. Some kind of flooding if I remember correctly. We couldn’t leave. This has been on my bucket list for twenty years.”

“You had a bucket list when you were ten?” Philippe joked.

“Well, maybe I didn’t know it yet, but I definitely had one, and visiting the Louvre was close to the top.”

She’d studied prints and textbooks and digital images of several works of art that were housed in this historic building, and she couldn’t wait to see them in person. As they entered the museum, an antiseptic smell hit her in the face. She wasn’t shocked by the chill in the air, as she knew it was best for the temperature to be cold to preserve the artwork.

“Brrrr,” she said and found herself sidling up to Philippe, who, surprisingly, moved a bit away from her.

“Would you like my jacket?” he asked politely and began to remove it from his shoulders.

“Thanks,” she said and took it.

That was strange. Why was he being so stiff?

She wanted to ask him if something was wrong but decided against it and turned her attention to the map in her hands.

“I truly don’t know where to start,” she said.

“It would take one hundred days to see every piece of art in the Louvre,” he said. “Piece of trivia.”

She nodded. “I know. There’s just so much beauty here.”

“We could start with the Mona Lisa,” he said. “It’s a must-see I think.”

She shook her head. She did want to lay eyes on the iconic Mona Lisa, but the piece she really wanted to see was in the Denon wing, which was on the first floor if she remembered correctly from her Neoclassics course.

“Une Odalisque,” she said. “I’ve always loved this painting.”

They made their way to the masterpiece painted by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. As they stood in front of the oil painting, Violet let her eyes caress each quadrant of the canvas. The story told in the painting was about a nude harem woman, lying so that only her back and one breast were exposed, seductively eyeing the source of her attention.

“She was a scandal when she was unveiled in France,” Violet said to Philippe.

“Surely not because she was nude—haven’t there always been nudes?”

“Spoken like a true Frenchman,” Violet said with a laugh. “But no, not that.” She pointed to the harem woman’s long sinuous back. “The artist deviated from anatomical realism. She has fewer vertebrae than she should. This painting opened up the door to abstraction,” Violet said.

Philippe nodded. “Interesting,” he said.

Violet tilted her head and continued to stare at the work. “I’ve always loved how comfortable she looks, with her feet crossed

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