No, it couldn’t be.
Was it really him? In the flesh, sitting next to me on my way home?
I blinked. And continued blinking, enough times that I probably looked like I was having a minor seizure.
But it was, in fact,him.
Second son of one of the richest families in New York (otherwise known as the employers who sent me to Paris).
Constant gossip fodderwith a parade of models, actresses, and socialites on his arm.
Singular object of my fantasies for literally ten years.
I shook my head, still not convinced that I wasn’t imagining him. “Daniel?”
The toothpaste-ad smile that only seemed to belong to really rich people faltered slightly, then grew bigger when our eyes met, his sky-blue confidence colliding with my murky green shock. “Well, well. Do we know each other?”
Those lips, soft and pink, curved into a knowing smile.
He was even more gorgeous than I remembered. His floppy, sun-streaked hair had grown out likeBridget Jones-era Hugh Grant. His high cheekbones and softly chiseled jaw were dappled with gold-toned stubble and a deep tan, courtesy of a summer spent on his family’s yacht on the Amalfi coast, if the tabloids were to be believed. He looked sun-kissed and impossiblyperfect in just-worn jeans, unmarked sneakers, and a Gucci sweater that probably cost more than my monthly stipend.
The sheer combination of luck, fortune, and charm should have caused a rip in the space-time continuum. But, like everything else in Daniel Lyons’s charmed life, it all just worked.
My mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again like an animatronic toy as I processed the fact that one of two things was true:
Daniel Lyons had never actually known who I was (even though I had personally done his laundry or made his favorite grilled gruyere on sourdough for ten years),or
Daniel Lyons didn’t recognize me because my makeover wasthat good.
I went with number two. Louis would be ecstatic.
So, I did something that, until recently, wasn’t very Marie of me.
I smiled at him.
And was immediately rewarded when Daniel-freaking-Lyons’s elbow fell off the armrest, like my grin stunned him just as much as his blinded me.
“I—shit.” He yanked at the collar of his sweater. “I mean, shoot. Wow.”
“From Westchester?” I offered, hoping it would jog his memory.
His cocky smile snapped back into place. “Oh, sure. Yeah. From last…summer, right? At the Hunt party? Or was it the Sinai benefit?”
Yeah, he definitely didn’t know who I was. Somehow, that made it easier to talk to him.
To Daniel Lyons, Iwaschic. I was a pretty girl he’d taken it upon himself to approach, like any other I’d watched him seduce. For the first time, I—Marie Zola, family drudge, neighborhood wallflower—was worthy of conquest by someone likehim.
I’d be living on this moment for years.
“Doesn’t the family usually fly private?” I asked, conscious of the fact that it was the first complete sentence I’d ever managed to get out in this man’s presence.
