Things fell into motion quickly. My personal assistant, a guy named Michael, took Margot’s number off me swiftly, getting in contact with her about her passport and other relevant travel details. It was understood that Gigi would be coming to stay with me for a full week, regardless, when Kelsey flew out to Los Angeles to film the sequel of an already very bad film. We would leave during that week, making our home during Gigi’s summer vacation and making it up as we went along.

At least until Kelsey found out about my plans.

It made my stomach yank with anxiety, just thinking about it. We’d be an entire ocean away from New York, yes. But Kelsey had a way of getting her nasty claws into everything, affecting my very way of life. If I didn’t play this right, she would be more forceful about taking away my custody, once and for all. But if I played it really well, she would remember what a nuisance she found parenting. She would fall back into her party-girl mentality, leaving Gigi and I to rebuild in Europe.

“You’re fucking crazy,” my best friend of fifteen years, Marcus Andrews, told me over a pint in the East Village. “You can’t just take your daughter to France and expect Kelsey not to do anything. You know who you’re dealing with, don’t you?”

I grinned madly. Marcus and I had met in high school, of all places. We’d been rivals, both football jocks who’d dated and slept with all the prettiest girls in the school. When my career had taken off, he’d fallen into Wall Street, becoming one of the richest men in New York. We’d both fallen into slippery, slimy lives. Sometimes, I resented it. Other times, we toasted our success with one hundred dollar drinks. It just depended on the season.

“I just need to take a chance, Marcus,” I said, brooding over my beer. “I need to get out of New York and see what kind of man I can be, elsewhere. And I haven’t even told you the strangest part yet.”

“That seems hard to believe,” Marcus sighed.

“The other night, I went into that smoky bar around the corner. The one with Rodney, the bartender. You know the one?”

“That asshole with the neck tattoos?”

“The very one. But he wasn’t working. Or rather, he’d been working before he ran out on this waitress who was having the worst first day in the history of first days. She didn’t know how to make a single drink, and she went into the bathroom to hide from all the orders. Really, the most ridiculous and adorable thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Sounds like an idiot,” Marcus scoffed.

“Just inexperienced,” I said, feeling my heart bump with anger. “Anyway, I ran behind the bar and just worked the entire shift with her, like I was a bartender again. It was hilarious. All these assholes, coming up and asking me for my autographs. All I could say was, I had too many orders. Too busy. Couldn’t fucking worry about celebrity life. There were drinks to mix and stir and shake.”

“So you stepped back into normal life for a few minutes,” Marcus said. “It’s never a bad idea, I guess. Although I’ve never gotten so gritty with it.”

“The best part was, the girl didn’t even know my name. Didn’t recognize my face.”

“Was she actually an idiot, then?” Marcus laughed.

“No, she is not. She just hasn’t been paying attention, for the past ten years. She’s been hiding under some kind of rock in the Midwest and didn’t dare come out till now. But anyway, I asked her to come to Paris with me, to be a kind of au pair for Gigi during the summer. Until I can arrange everything.”

Marcus scoffed. He tipped the rest of the beer down his throat, giving me a last, outrageous cackle. “So you want to sleep with your babysitter.”

“That’s not it,” I said, sensing the lie.

“You aren’t a very good actor,” Marcus said, running his nail up and down a crease in the table. “I haven’t known you to spend even a minute with a woman you didn’t want to sleep with. You’re like me.”

“Well, it’s different this time,” I stammered. “Margot needs guidance, almost. She knows nothing about the world, and I want to show her. Plus, she’s working for me, now. I can’t very well get involved.”

“You should really just marry her,” Marcus joked, smacking a hundred-dollar bill on the table between us. “It’ll look good in the eyes of this custody lawyer, or whoever Kelsey has breathing down your neck. It’ll give you a reason why the three of you took off to Paris. Spontaneous love, and all that. And plus, if you don’t want to sleep with her now, you really won’t, then. Nobody wants to sleep with their wife. It’s a matter of science.”

Marcus’ words hammered in my brain the next few days. Asking Margot to marry me seemed dramatic, too drastic, and plus—I wasn’t entirely sure she would go for it, especially with her entire life stretched out before her. She hadn’t even wanted to sleep with me when it was so obvious we were both into it. I hadn’t spoken to her personally since she’d slept over at my apartment. Her note to me, with the phone number, still remained on the counter, even as I swirled around it, packing bags and helping Gigi organize her things.

Kelsey’s personal assistant, Monica, brought Gigi to the usual meeting place the evening before we left. She was bright, almost too clean, with a plastic, botox-ed forehead and shimmering teeth. She passed Gigi to me like a commodity, and said, “Kelsey would like me to inform you that she’s flying out to Los Angeles this evening and will be filming till next Friday, at which time, she will return and collect Miss Gigi. Also, she’s in discussion with your custody lawyer, who wants to have a meeting with you, alone, on Wednesday of this week. I’ve sent you two calendar reminders.”

As I watched her speak, a memory flashed through my mind. Kelsey and I had been married for three years, and things were tenuous at best. Fights, bickering, horrible names tossed over the dinner table—we were dealing with all of it. After one particularly raucous party, I remembered Kelsey diving into a side bedroom with a good friend of mine, at the time. I wasn’t sure what they were doing, but I could guess. Only the personal assistant, Monica, remained. She approached me, sly, like a cat, and started speaking to me in an earnest, flirtatious voice. Her tongue flicked between her teeth. Her cheeks were tinged red with drink. She pressed me against the wall, reached up, and tried to kiss me. But I shoved her back, shaking my head. I hadn’t cheated on Kelsey. I wouldn’t begin with her personal assistant.

Monica had never really forgiven me for that. Especially when my own revenge affair started later and it wasn’t her in my sheets.

“Well, thanks so much for those calendar reminders,” I said, my voice sarcastic. “I’ll make sure not to miss my very important, high-priority engagements.”

Gigi was on the swing set, a good twenty feet away. The moment she saw me, she leapt off and raced into my arms, wrapping herself around my leg. Her blue eyes seemed to swallow me, memorizing my face, my every line. I wondered if I looked different to her than I had before. I didn’t want that distance any longer. I didn’t want days to pass without her.

“Pumpkin, what if I told you we were going on a trip together?” I asked her as we walked away, hand in hand. I held onto her backpack with my other one, letting it swing near my feet. I felt the flash of the cameras from the far side of the playground, memorizing Gigi and I in these moments. I wondered which magazine they wrote for. It didn’t matter.

“Like when we went to that theme park?” she asked.

“Kind of like that, yeah,” I said. “Only a bit longer, and a ton more fun.”

My driver took us to the airport the following morning, early, just after seven. Gigi fell asleep against my shoulder. My eyes tried to capture the last of the city, unsure of when I’d arrive back. It looked tired, washed out in the summer. Exhausted from inhaling so much sun. I helped the driver move the bags from the back, piling them into a carrier at the front of the airport. Afterwards, I shook his hand with finality. “I’ll call when I’m back in the city,” I told him. He would remain on the payroll, and I’m sure he would appreciate the paid break.

Margot awaited us at the airport’s main entrance. A single suitcase was at her feet, small, just enough for a few changes of clothes. A backpack stretched over her shoulders. She smiled at me, making me feel like I was the only person in the world she’d ever put her trust in. I was absolutely ecstatic to see her.

When Gigi and I reached her, I wasn’t sure what to do. Kiss on the cheek? Hug? I reached forward and gripped her suitcase, without knowing what to do, and placed it on top of our luggage rack.

“Glad to see you made it. Michael arranged everything with your passport?”

“He sped up the process. It was incredible,” she said. Her voice was soft, demure. She slipped off her backpack and flung it on the luggage rack as well. “And this must be Gigi! I’ve heard so much about you.”

Margot knelt down and shook Gigi’s hand. Gigi giggled, looking at her with round, orb-like eyes.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“This is Margot,” I said, taking over. “She’s going to be our new friend over in Paris. You like new friends, don’t you?”

“Of course!” Gigi said, her voice high-pitched. “This is going to be the best trip ever.” She linked her hands with Margot’s and led her inside, taking the familiar route toward the private landing strips. Our plane awaited us, already stocked with our favorite foods. Smoked salmon and vegetables and delicious breads and cheeses for me, along with bottles of wine, and for Gigi, macaroni and cheese, sparkling juices that made her feel “refined” and “fancy,” and several package snacks—disgusting things she adored.

Once inside the plane, Margot chose to sit next to Gigi, instead of me. She cradled Gigi as the plane swept up from the ground, thrusting into the wide, blue sky above. In the hours after, as I sipped my wine, read my books, brooded over what the next few weeks would hold, Margot threw herself into her position: reading to my daughter, giggling with her, telling her made-up stories based on Gigi’s requests. Already, I was falling in love with the way Margot took to my daughter.

Kelsey had certainly never been this way with our daughter. She’d been a cold, formidable figure, always instructing her maids or assistants to play with Gigi. The role of “mother” hadn’t suited her.

But with Margot, it was as if they’d known each other for ages. Our new world was opening up, deleting bad New York memories in its wake. For the first time in a long time, I had the sense that things would be okay.