“So what happened, Aunt Maddy?” Lauren asked gently. “What happened to break you up?”

Maddy closed her eyes briefly before pouring another shot of vodka and tossing it down. “We had been seeing each other for almost a year,” she recalled. “My contract with Lanvin was nearly up, and I was considering moving to London so that we could be together all the time. James had introduced me to his children by then, and they were all very sweet to me. I think perhaps living with their mother tried their patience as well, and it was a relief for them to be around someone more calming.” She paused and took a deep breath before continuing. “James had made an appointment to see his attorney, was ready to take the next step and initiate formal divorce proceedings. He would be free then, free to marry me, to have children of our own. And then the accident happened.”

Maddy took a third shot of vodka, her still flawless complexion paling beneath the strain of her story. “His oldest child – Christine – had just turned eighteen. She was a beautiful girl – kind, gentle, but full of life. Very much like her father. And – oh, God, it was tragic, Lauren, just heartbreaking. She was driving home from a party with several friends and their car was hit head on by a drunk driver. Four of them in all – all so young, with so much to live for – all of them killed instantly.”

Lauren, who had never met or even heard of this girl until now, nonetheless felt the same pangs of sorrow that her aunt had undoubtedly known for years, and wrapped her arms around Maddy’s waist. “I’m so sorry, Aunt Maddy,” she whispered. “How awful.”

Maddy pressed a kiss to Lauren’s forehead. “It was awful, darling. For everyone. James was devastated, especially since Christine had been his favorite. But he couldn’t afford to mourn, to grieve, because he had to be the strong one. His other children – a boy and another girl – were so upset while his wife – well, she was so distraught that she had to be sedated round the clock for some time. Between comforting his family, taking care of the children, and making funeral arrangements, I didn’t see or speak to James for weeks. But I understood, I knew all the responsibilities he had, and just wished I could have been there to help him get through it all. I didn’t dare, however, given how far gone his wife already was. If I had been in the picture, there’s no telling how much deeper she would have sunk. So I stayed in Paris, working hard, telling myself that James didn’t really want to be away from me, and that he would call or see me as soon as he could. And then, almost a month after Christine died, he came to Paris one final time.”

Lauren hugged her beloved aunt a little tighter. “What happened?”

Maddy blew out a breath. “What I’d expected would happen ever since I’d heard about Christine. He was terribly upset, dreadfully sorry, but with his wife – her name was Miranda – so incapacitated there was no possible way he could proceed with a divorce at that time. His children needed him too badly, needed at least one stable parent in their lives. And he couldn’t in all good conscience divorce Miranda when she was in such bad shape. He told me that maybe one day we could still be together, one day when Miranda was better and the children were a little older. But until then he had to do the right thing for all of us and not see me again. And that was the last time I ever saw or heard from James again.”

Lauren had tears in her eyes again, having cried more in the last few hours than she had in decades. But this time the tears weren’t for herself. “Oh, God, Aunt Maddy – I’m so, so sorry. You must have been devastated.”

Maddy nodded. “It was heartbreaking. I’ve never known pain like that in my life, never lost something so precious before. I begged James not to end things, told him I didn’t care if I could only see or talk to him once in awhile, so long as we could still be together. But he refused, saying that it wouldn’t be fair to me, that I was too young and beautiful and talented to waste my life waiting around for something that would probably never happen. He wouldn’t even kiss me good-by, told me that if he started he wouldn’t be able to stop. So he walked out of my tiny little apartment and out of my life.”

“How awful for both of you,” murmured Lauren. “Because I know without being told how much he must have loved you, too. But what I don’t know is why you kept this secret for so long, why Mom never told Julia and I anything about it. Did she - ”

“Yes. Your mother knew everything. As did your father, eventually. And part of the reason you girls never knew is because I was more than a little ashamed of myself. I mean, James was officially separated from Miranda when I met him, had lived apart from her for months, and fully intended to divorce her. But, well, he was still a married man, and like it or not there is a stigma attached. And – that’s not quite all of it, I’m afraid.”

Lauren frowned. “That sounds like plenty of heartache for one lifetime to me.”

Maddy smiled sadly. “You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you? But not quite, darling. Because a couple of weeks after James left me, I realized I was pregnant.”

Lauren cursed softly. “Shit, Aunt Maddy. Not that. What – what did you do?”

Tears welled up again in Maddy’s eyes. “At first I was beside myself, had no idea what to do. I was alone and pregnant in a foreign country, my job was going to end soon, and I didn’t have much money of my own at the time. There was no possible way I could tell my parents. You remember how strict and old-fashioned Papa and Maman were. And so very Catholic. The very idea that their daughter was pregnant out of wedlock, and that the father was married to someone else whom he couldn’t divorce – well, there was no way I could bring myself to tell them.”

“So what on earth did you do?”

Maddy sighed. “What twins always do – when one of them is in trouble they call the other one up and cry on their shoulder. Your mother was wonderful to me, even though she was pregnant herself at the time with you and Julia. Told me to come out to California, that I could live with all of you, and that she and your father would take care of me and the baby, that we’d all get through it together.”

Lauren shook her head. “But that’s not what happened, is it? I don’t ever recall a time when you lived with us. We would have heard about something like that.”

“No, I didn’t wind up in California,” confirmed Maddy quietly. “Because less than two weeks later I suffered a miscarriage. I lost James’s child just like I’d lost him.”

Lauren couldn’t think of any words that would come close to expressing the sorrow, the anguish, she felt for her much loved aunt. Instead, the two women simply held each other, consoling the other silently, sharing their mutual heartache.

It was long minutes later before Lauren ventured to ask, “So all this time you’ve never been tempted to look James up, see if he’s still married, that sort of thing?”

“Of course I’ve been tempted,” admitted Maddy. “Each time I was in London on business, I had to force myself not to go by his house or office or to one of the clubs or restaurants I knew he frequented. But I never did, or tried to contact him in other ways. I figured that if things had changed, if he and Miranda weren’t together any longer, that he would have called me, come to see me. But here we are, twenty seven years later, and not a word. However, I came to terms with all that a long time ago, darling, realized that James was in my past and forever destined to remain there.”

Lauren stroked her aunt’s cheek tenderly. “But you’ve never stopped loving him, have you? He’s the one for you – your one and only.”

Maddy nodded. “There have been other men, of course, but no one special, no one that I ever felt the same way about. I do believe – firmly – that each of us has that one special someone in our lives, our soulmate. And James was mine, just like Ben is yours. The only difference is that it might not be too late for you, Lauren. That’s why you need to talk to Ben, to listen to him, and tell him how you feel. You can have the happy ending that I never got.”