The evening her 20-year-old daughter walked into her office waving an engagement ring, Claire Delmas felt a chill run down her spine instead of joy.
Élise burst into her mother’s private clinic like a spring breeze, her cheeks rosy, her eyes sparkling, her coat still damp from the Parisian rain. On her finger, an enormous diamond flashed almost defiantly under the fluorescent lights.
“Mom, he proposed!”
Claire slowly removed her glasses. For 25 years, she had seen families crumble, husbands lie in the hallways, women save children with silent strength. Yet, nothing had prepared her for this fear.
“Adrien?” she asked.
Élise nodded, overjoyed.
Adrien Lemaire, 27, a lawyer at a prestigious firm near Boulevard Haussmann. Charming, polite, impeccable. Too impeccable. Elise had only known him for six months. They had met in a bookstore in the Latin Quarter, in front of a poetry section, and since then, the young literature student spoke of him as if he were a man sent by fate.
Claire tried to smile. “Don’t you think this is all happening a bit fast?”
Elise’s face immediately hardened.
“You and Dad got married after a month. You always tell this story as the greatest risk of your life. Why would your love be romantic, and mine irresponsible?”
Claire remained silent. Because Elise was right about the facts. Her husband, Marc Delmas, an heir who became a respected real estate developer in Lyon and then Paris, had married her after a month. Together they had built a fortune, a family, a stable life.
