The Hotel Riviera by Elizabeth Adler

charming every mother there, beaming his “shy” smile while looking searchingly into their eyes. Looking for what? I wondered. It was a long time before I found out it was “would the answer be yes? Or no?”
    After Mom left, somehow too, it was always me looking after Dad, instead of the other way around, making sure he got to appointments on time; that he’d booked the sitter; that there was milk for the breakfast cereal.
    â€œYou have to make a left turn here,” I’d remind him from the backseat of the car, because even at age six I realized he had zero sense of direction. “I have to be at school by eight,” I’d say, or “What shall we have for supper tonight, Daddy?” I knew if I didn’t remind him he’d forget all about it and it would be take-out pizza one more time. Even a little kid can get awfully sick of pizza.
    Anyhow, Mr. Charm or not, I adored him, and of course, he was the standard by which I measured every other man. I found out too late he wasn’t the best yardstick to go by.
    When I met Patrick I was at a vulnerable point in my life, but then somehow I always was. Vulnerable, that is. I’m sure a therapist would tell me it all stemmed from my childhood, it’s simple common sense; though of course common sense has never stopped me from falling for the wrong man.
    I was just emerging from a two-year odyssey with a movie actor ( odyssey was the only way to describe that long, hard haul) when I’d arrived at this conclusion. The “actor” was a wanna-be actor when I met him, then he started to climb the ladder: a small part in a small film; then another, larger part; soon he was escorting young actresses to premieres and parties and showing up in People magazine and the tabloids. Even blinded by love, I guessed where it was heading—absolutely nowhere—and called an end to it.
    With a pang of genuine grief, I decided there was no such thing as “true love.” It was a myth invented for novels and movies, perpetrated by poets who wrote sonnets about it, and by writers of popular songs. True love did not exist. It was gone from my life forever. And then I met Patrick Laforêt and plunged in, Eyes Wide Open, Head Over Heels. All the clichés. All Over Again.

Chapter 14
    It was stardust all the way, that first year we were married, and Patrick made me feel like a bride every day of it.
    I wish I could explain why a man falls out of love with a woman. With Patrick it was as quick as this. One day we were laughing and holding hands as we walked through the steep streets of Eze, a village perched on a mountainside above Cap-Ferrat, where we had gone for a precious day off from the demands of renovating our hotel. The next, he was heading off alone for Saint-Tropez with a casual “be back later, chérie. ”
    For a year we had made love, morning, noon, and night, and as often as we could in-between times, when the workers weren’t around and we could sneak some privacy in our still-unfinished cottage. And then suddenly we didn’t make love so much anymore. It was as though Patrick had turned out the lights and left me in a puzzling twilight zone, not knowing why or what or how.
    Of course, my first thought was there was another woman. After all, Patrick couldn’t pass any woman without giving her the eye, and it would be a rare woman who could resist his looks and gentle charm.
    Plus, let’s not forget I was a simple, amber-haired, round-eyed chef from the suburbs when Patrick met me, and he was French, and handsome, and rich (at least I thought he was then), as well as a man of the world. I don’t think a day went by that I didn’t question why he’d picked me to marry.
    It wasn’t all bad. I mean, there were times when it would be perfect again, just for a day or so, and Patrick would be his old self, flirting and laughing and enjoying life and enjoying me. We would drive to a