Read Chapter 15: A Jealous Reaction

The evening air had turned cool and damp, carrying the scent of rain off the Seine. Julien had waited outside the Hôtel de Vaudreuil for nearly an hour, leaning against the iron fence across the street, watching the lit windows of the salon where Evie sang for aristocrats who would never clap for her at Chez Nous.

He told himself he was being protective. The crowd inside was old money, old blood, old prejudices. They would look at her the way they looked at any performer—as furniture that could sing. He wanted to be there when she came out, to walk her home through the crooked streets of the Latin Quarter, to watch her face soften when she saw him.

The doors opened. Evie stepped out onto the marble steps, her shawl pulled tight around her shoulders. But she wasn't alone. A man followed close behind her, silver-haired and tall, wearing the kind of coat that cost more than Julien's piano. The baron. Julien had heard the name whispered at the salon's edge when he'd slipped in earlier, just to catch her set from the back—Baron de Vilmorin, a patron of the arts, a collector of singers.

The baron took Evie's hand. Held it too long. Said something that made her laugh, that low warm laugh that Julien knew, that laugh she gave him when he played a chord progression she loved.

Something cold settled in Julien's chest.

He crossed the street before he knew he was moving. Evie saw him first, her eyes widening with surprise—and was that guilt? She pulled her hand back from the baron's grip.

"Julien," she said. "I didn't know you'd—"

"The salon ended an hour ago." His voice came out flatter than he intended. "I've been waiting in the cold."

The baron looked between them with the easy amusement of a man who never waited for anything. "Ah, the pianist. Mademoiselle Hart speaks highly of your talents." The word *talents* dripped with condescension. "We were just discussing her future."

"Her future." Julien stepped closer. "You mean your offer."

"Julien, stop." Evie moved between them. "The baron was kind enough to walk me out, that's all."

"Is that all?" Julien heard the edge in his own voice and couldn't blunt it. "You've been gone for hours. I sent word through the servants three times. Each time they said you were 'engaged.' With him?"

The baron smiled a thin smile. "Mademoiselle, I'll send my car around for our appointment Thursday. We can discuss the details further." He inclined his head to Julien—barely—and walked toward his waiting automobile.

Evie rounded on Julien the moment the baron was out of earshot. "What was that? You made me look like a liar in front of a man who could double our income."

"I don't care about his money."

"I do." She hugged her shawl tighter, her voice dropping. "I have five hundred francs to find by the end of next month. I have a threat hanging over Chez Nous. I have a sister somewhere in this city and no way to search for her except through people like him. So yes, I care about his money, and I don't have the luxury of pretending otherwise."

"And I told you I'd help. I offered my family's—"

"You offered to make me beholden to your mother." She spat the words. "To the very world that treats me as entertainment. Baron de Vilmorin's offer is honest. He wants to fund a concert tour, a proper one, with a proper stage. He wants to showcase jazz in Paris—not hide it in a cellar like we're ashamed of it."

"Showcase you." Julien heard the words come out ugly and couldn't take them back. "He wants to showcase you, Evie. A beautiful American singer with an exotic voice and a pretty smile. And you'll smile for him, and sing for him, and climb his social ladder one rung at a time until you forget the cramped little club where you started."

Her face went pale. "You think that's what I'm doing? Using you as a stepping stone?"

"I think you're ambitious," he said. "I've always known that. I just didn't think I'd be the one you stepped on."

"Julien—"

"Every moment we've had—every song we've written, every hour we've spent building something together—was that practice for this? For a baron who can give you a better stage, a bigger audience, a richer patron?"

"I was negotiating," she said, her voice shaking now. "Not for a patron. For a performance space. He knows of a theater in the ninth that hosts experimental music. I was trying to secure it for us. For Chez Nous."

"For us." He laughed, hollow. "You didn't tell me. You didn't even tell me you were meeting him tonight. I had to wait outside like some jealous schoolboy to find out what my own partner was doing with her evenings."

"Because I knew you'd react exactly like this!" Her eyes blazed. "I knew you'd see conspiracy where there's just survival. I'm trying to save us, Julien. Us. But you're so wrapped up in your pride, in your wounded artist's ego, that you can't see I'm fighting for what we built."

"What we built is a few songs in a basement and a dream that we could make something no one's ever heard before." He stepped back, shaking his head. "Maybe that's all it was. A dream."

"Don't you dare." Her voice cracked. "Don't you dare cheapen what we've done because you're afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Of me." She held his gaze. "Of what I might become if I'm not always just yours—your discovery, your project, your little American singer who needs saving."

The words hit like a slap. He stood there, breathing hard, feeling the cold night air against his burning face.

"Fine," he said quietly. "Then you don't need me at all."

He turned and walked away, fast, his heels striking the pavement. Behind him he heard her call his name—once, twice—and then the sound of her footsteps running after him.

He didn't slow down. He crossed the street without looking, his mind a storm of imagined betrayals and wounded pride.

The headlights came from nowhere.

A sleek black Citroën roared around the corner, horn blaring, its driver swerving wildly. Julien froze, his feet rooted to the cobblestones, the light washing over him like a wave.

Then hands slammed into his chest—small, fierce hands—and he was yanked backward off his feet. He hit the pavement hard, Evie's body on top of him, the wind of the passing car whipping her hair across his face.

The Citroën screeched to a stop twenty feet past them. The driver shouted something in French, profane, before roaring off into the night.

For a moment, neither of them moved. He could feel her heartbeat against his chest, rapid as a drum roll. Her breath came in ragged gasps.

"Are you—" she started.

"You nearly got yourself killed." His voice came out raw. "You could have been hit."

"I couldn't let you—" She pushed herself up, her hands still pressed against his chest. "I didn't come to Paris to lose you, Julien. Not to a baron, not to a car, not to my own stupid pride."

He reached up and touched her face, his thumb tracing her cheekbone. In the dim streetlight, her eyes glistened.

"I thought you were leaving me," he said. "For him. For everything I can't give you."

"I'm not going anywhere." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Unless you want me to."

Above them, a window opened in a neighboring building. A man's voice called out in annoyance, demanding silence.

Evie laughed—a broken, watery sound—and so did he, the tension cracking like ice in a thawing river. She rolled off him onto the cobblestones, lying on her back beside him, staring up at the slice of starless sky between the roofs of Paris.

"I negotiated for the theater," she said quietly. "Thursday. He wants to hear us both—not just me. He said if we're as good together as rumor suggests, he'll sponsor a full season."

Julien turned his head to look at her. Her profile was silver in the lamplight.

"You didn't tell me because you thought I'd refuse."

"I thought you'd see it as selling out." She turned to face him. "I thought you'd hear 'baron' and 'wealth' and think I'd forgotten everything we're building."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he reached out and took her hand, feeling her fingers curl around his.

"I was jealous," he admitted. "Watching him hold your hand on those steps—I wasn't seeing a patron. I was seeing everything I'm not. Everything I might never be."

"You're everything I need," she said. "Just not the only thing. And that's not a betrayal, Julien. That's just life."

He squeezed her hand. They lay there on the cold stones, two musicians in a city that had swallowed them whole, and for a moment the silence between them was not an argument but a truce.

Then a new sound cut through the night—footsteps, fast and purposeful. A figure emerged from the shadows near the baron's hotel, a man in a dark coat moving toward them with the easy confidence of someone who knew exactly who he was looking for.

"Aubanel," Evie breathed.

The debt collector stopped at the edge of the lamplight. His face was half in shadow, but his voice carried clearly.

"Mademoiselle Hart." He tipped his hat. "I was hoping to find you alone. But this is perhaps better." His gaze moved to Julien. "You should both know: I represent interests that extend well beyond Mademoiselle's passage. There are those who have been watching your little club with great attention."

Julien rose to his feet, pulling Evie up beside him. "What interests?"

Aubanel smiled—thin, humorless. "Chez Nous has a benefactor. That benefactor has been patient. But patience has limits, and the debt is not merely financial." He looked at Evie. "Your sister's whereabouts are of considerable interest to my employer. He believes—and I am inclined to agree—that you know more than you've told."

Evie's blood ran cold. "Lily? You know where Lily is?"

Aubanel stepped back into the shadows. "I know where she was. Where she is now—that, mademoiselle, is a question worth more than five hundred francs. Ask your baron about the orphanage. Ask him what he knows about the donations that came to fund it."

He was gone before she could respond, vanished into the night like he'd never been there at all.

Julien's hand found hers again, steady and warm.

"Thursday," he said. "We'll ask the baron everything."

Evie nodded, her mind racing. The locket Lucien gave her pressed against her collarbone—still sealed, still locked, still holding whatever secrets her past refused to release.

Tomorrow could wait. Tonight, she had Julien, and a thread she could finally pull.