That was all that she wanted when she walked into the huge wood-paneled office and met Marc-Edouard Duras for the very first time.

“Mademoiselle…” He had never had a case quite like hers. His field was corporate law, complex international business cases, but when the secretary had relayed her call, he had been intrigued. When he saw her, a delicate child-woman with a frightened beautiful face, he was fascinated. She moved with mystifying grace, and the eyes that looked into his were bottomless. He ushered her to a seat on the other side of the desk, and looked very grave. But his eyes danced as they talked their way through the hour. He too loved the Uffizi, he too had once spent days at a time in the Louvre; he had also been to São Paulo and Caracas and Deauville. She found herself sharing her world with him and opening windows and doors that she had thought were sealed forever. And she had explained about her father. She told him the whole dreadful tale, as she sat across from him, with the largest green eyes he had ever seen and a fragility that tore at his heart. He had been almost thirty-two at the time, certainly not old enough to be her father, and his feelings were certainly not paternal. But nonetheless he took her under his wing. Three months later she was his wife. The ceremony was small and held at city hall; the honeymoon was spent at his mother’s house in Antibes, followed by two weeks in Paris.

And by then she understood what she had done. She had married a country as well as a man. A way of life. She would have to be perfect, understanding-and silent. She would have to be charming and entertain his clients and friends. She would have to be lonely while he traveled. And she would have to give up the dream of making a name for herself with her art. Marc didn’t really approve. In the days when he courted her, he had been amused, but it was not a career he encouraged for his wife. She had become Madame Duras, and to Marc that meant a great deal.