Passion in Paris by Allie Hayden

Author:Allie Hayden
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2019-10-28T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

(Cecilia)

I entered my lonely cottage feeling things I’d not felt in years. The stirrings of what I used to call inspiration were flooding through me. I opened the large cedar chest in which I stored my writings.

Inside, each story was carefully marked with a number and a letter, filed alphabetically, color-coded for date of completion, and lovingly bound in cloth. I chose a story that I hoped would inspire Cecilia, one that would make her think I was someone worth getting involved with.

At the same time, I was not too keen on being a homewrecker. I knew a little about her life story and the happy marriage I seemed to be ruining. Bill Palmer was a stand-up guy, I supposed. And he didn’t deserve this cuckolding. But Cecilia had made it clear that she desired me. I’d become a virtual recluse here in Provence.

Strangely, I had seen a lot of love, and years past, I had moved in the chicest circles. I remembered going to Hollywood parties put on by producers who took my father’s money and turned it into inane movies about action heroes and stupid, insipid American-pride garbage, and feeling honored to be among the Hollywood elite.

The very idea of it now turned my stomach. But I had maintained a few distant connections with Hollywood; I still emailed periodically with some of the more thoughtful stars I had met. I still used Facebook to connect to some of the writers.

Of course, Hollywood had undergone a considerable change and was not the place it used to be. It was less friendly to my father’s brand of jingoistic Americana, which, ironically, made him a little more sought-after, since he was remembered as a firebrand who, at several of these parties, took on the political and social quagmire that his money had created.

This ingratiated himself to the likes of Spike Lee and Rob Reiner, and that most liberal director of them all, Gabriella Bernard, the Franco-American feminist genius who had been rumored to be the one to break up Johnny Depp’s marriage to Vanessa Paradis.

The stories of his romance with her were written up in all the gossip columns and had not a shred of truth to them; no Hollywood gossip columnist would understand that a man could be friends and colleagues with a woman without falling into bed. He proved them all wrong.

I flipped through the pages of my work and settled on one about a cellist who brought memories of a lost past to an old man. This was the story I would send to Cecilia.

In his bedroom, Bedrich listened as Josefá held the final note of Dvorák's music and let it die away in the bushes around the gazebo. Smiling, he felt a tear tickle inside his ear. He rose and walked to the window.

Outside, Josefá sat on a wooden chair, leaning on her instrument, feeling the night chill. She hugged her arms and then rose, holding the cello in her right hand. Above her, she saw a trembling light up the steps.

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