“I remember.”

“No one could believe it when you disappeared. Then Belinda…” A calculating expression crossed her face. “Have you seen her lately?”

Fleur wouldn’t talk about Belinda. “I was in Europe most of the time. I needed to sort out some things.”

“Sorting out I can understand. You were a young girl. It was your first movie, and you’d hardly had a normal childhood. Hollywood people aren’t always sensitive, not like us New Yorkers. Six years, then you come back, and you’re not yourself. What kind of sorting takes six years?”

“Things got complicated.” She gazed across the room to signal the subject was closed.

Adelaide switched direction. “So tell me, mystery lady, what’s your secret? Hard to believe, but you look even better now than you did at nineteen.”

The compliment interested Fleur. Sometimes when she looked at her photographs, she could glimpse the beauty others saw in her, but only in a detached way, as if the image belonged to someone else. Although she wanted to believe the years had brought greater strength and maturity to her face, she hadn’t known how others would view the changes.

Fleur had no personal vanity, simply because she’d never been able to see what all the fuss was about. She found her face too strong. The bones that photographers and fashion editors raved about looked masculine to her. As for her height, her large hands, her long feet…They were simply impossible.

“You’re the one with secrets,” she said. “Your skin is amazing.”

Adelaide allowed herself to be flattered for only a moment before she waved off the compliment. “Tell me about that gown. Nobody’s worn anything like it in years. It reminds me of what fashion used to be about…” She tilted her head toward the unzipped producer’s wife. “…before vulgarity replaced style.”