Three Weeks in Paris Read Online Free PDF Page B

underneath this Long Dress. All the information she needed was right there, including what to wear; with the engraved invitation was a small RSVP card and an envelope addressed to Madame Suzette Laugen, 158 Boulevard St. Germain, Paris.
    So she had the rest of February and most of March to make up her mind, to think about Anya’s birthday and decide what to do, whether to go or not. That was a relief. But she knew she would spend the next few weeks vacillating back and forth.
    Deep down she wanted to go, wanted to celebrate this special birthday with Anya, an extraordinary woman who had had such an enormous influence on her life. But there was the problem of Tom Conners, and also of her former friends … Jessica, Kay, and Maria. Three women once so close to her, and she to them, they were inseparable, but they were sworn enemies now. She couldn’t bear the thought of seeing any of them.
    April the first, she mused. An anniversary of sorts, since she had met Tom Conners on April the first. In 1996. She had been twenty-five, he thirty-seven.
    April Fool, she thought with a wry smile. But she wasn’t sure if she meant herself or him.
    Placing the invitation back on the mantel, she knelt down in front of the fireplace, struck a match, and brought it to the paper and small chips of wood stuffed in the grate. Within minutes she had the fire going, the logs catching quickly, the flames leaping up the chimney.
    Pushing herself to her feet, Alexandra turned on a lamp. Along with the fire, it helped to bring a warm, roseate glow to the living room, already shadowed as it was by the murky winter light of late afternoon. She felt tired. After leaving her mother, she had walked down Park
    Avenue from Seventy-ninth Street to Thirty-ninth. Forty blocks of good exercise, but she had finally given in and taken a cab back to the loft.
    After glancing out of the window at the lights of Manhattan slowly coming on, Alexa sat down on the sofa in front of the fire, staring into the flames flickering and dancing in the grate. Her mind was awash with so many diverse thoughts, but the most prominent were centered on Tom.
    It was Nicky Sedgwick who had introduced them when Tom had come out to the studios in Billancourt to see his client Jacques Durand, who was producing the movie. It was a French-American coproduction, very elaborate and costly. Nicky and his brother Larry were the art directors and were designing the sets, and at Anya’s suggestion they had hired Alexa as their assistant. But she had become more like an associate because of all the work and responsibility they had heaped on her.
    What a challenge the movie had been, and what a lot she had learned. It was a historical drama about Napoleon and Josephine in the early part of their relationship, and Nicky, who was in charge, was a stickler for historical accuracy and detail. Even now, when she thought of the endless hours she had spent at Malmaison, she cringed. She had taken countless notes, knew that house inside out, and had often wondered why the famous couple had ever lived there. Its parkland and closeness to Paris, she supposed. Nicky had been thrilled with her … with her work, her overall input, and most of all with her set designs. In general, it had been a positive experience, and she worked on most of their movies and plays after that, until she left Paris.
    The day Tom Conners came out to the studios, shooting was going well, and Jacques Durand had been elated. He and Tom had invited the Sedgwick brothers to dinnerwhen they wrapped up for the day, and she had been included in the invitation, since Anya’s nephews had by then adopted her, in a sense.
    She had been struck dumb by Tom’s extraordinary looks, his charm and sophistication. So much so, she had felt like a little schoolgirl with him. But he had treated her as a grown-up, with gallantry and grace, and she had been smitten with him before the dinner was over. Later that night she found herself in his arms