“We?” I’m on the word like Grandma on a can of Bud. “You two are getting married?”

“Well, certainly,” Dominique says. “Someday.”

It’s ridiculous that this statement sends a shaft of pain through my heart. I barely know him. I only met him yesterday.

But then I’m the same girl who traveled all the way to England to see a guy I had only spent twenty-four hours with three months earlier.

And look how that turned out.

“Oh,” Shari finally pipes up, “you and Luke are engaged? That’s funny, Chaz never mentioned that to me. I’d have thought Luke would have told him.”

“Well, nothing so formal as an engagement,” Dominique says with obvious reluctance. “Who even gets engaged anymore? It’s so old-fashioned. Today’s couples, they form partnerships, not marriages. It’s all about combining incomes and investing in a shared future. And I knew, from the first moment I saw Mirac, that this is a future I wanted to invest in.”

I blink at her. Today’s couples form partnerships, not marriages? They combine incomes and invest in a shared future?

And what’s this about from the first moment I saw Mirac? Doesn’t she mean from the first moment I saw Jean-Luc?

“It is a beautiful place,” Shari says, turning a page of her book that I know she hasn’t read. “Why do you think it is that Luke doesn’t want to move to Paris?”

“Because Jean-Luc doesn’t know what he wants,” Dominique says with a frustrated sigh.

“Does any man?” Shari asks mildly. And I can tell, from her tone, that she is highly amused by the conversation.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be that far away from you,” I offer-very generously, in my opinion, considering my little crush on her boyfriend. Since that’s all it is. Just a crush. Really.

Dominique turns her head to look at me. “I have offered to transfer to Paris with him,” she says tonelessly.

“Oh,” I say. “Well. His mom lives in Houston, right? Maybe he doesn’t want to leave her.”

“That’s not it,” Dominique says. “It’s that if he puts in a request to transfer to Paris and it goes through, he’ll have to go. And then he’ll be stuck there. And there’ll be no chance for him ever to pursue the career he really wants.”

“What’s the career he really wants?” I ask.

“He wants,” Dominique says, picking up the bottle of water she has by her chaise longue and raising it to her lips, then swallowing, “to be a doctor.”

“A doctor?” I’m thrilled. I can’t believe Luke didn’t mention this on the train when I said all those bad things about investment bankers. “Really? But that’s so great. I mean, doctors…they heal people.”

Dominique looks at me as if I’ve just said the most obvious thing in the world. Which, of course, I have.

But she obviously hasn’t figured out that I routinely say the first thing that pops into my head. Seriously. It’s like a disease.

“What I mean is,” I hasten to add, “doctors are so important. You know. To society. Because without them, we’d all…be a lot sicker.”

I look over at her to see what she thinks of this stroke of deductive brilliance on my part. Dominique has leaned up on her elbows-though the movement, mysteriously enough, did not cause her breasts to move at all-to look past me, over at Shari.

“Your friend,” she says to Shari, “talks very much.”

“Yes,” Shari says. “Lizzie does have a tendency to do that.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling myself blush. But it’s not like I’m going to shut up. Because I physically can’t. “But why doesn’t Luke go to medical school? I mean, if that’s what he wants to do? Because it can’t be that doctors don’t make enough money.” The Luke I know-the one who let me, a total stranger, cry on his shoulder on that train yesterday-and shared his nuts with me-would never choose a career based on what kind of salary he might earn in said career.

I mean, would he?

No. No way. Hugo instead of Hugo Boss! Come on! That is the choice of a man who prefers personal comfort over style…

“Is it the cost of medical school?” I ask. “Because surely Luke’s parents would support him while he was in school. Have you thought of talking about it to Luke’s mom and dad?”

Dominique’s expression changes from one of mild disgust-with me, apparently-to one of horror.

“Why would I do that?” Dominique looks completely perplexed. “I want Luke to transfer to Paris with me and work at Lazard Freres so that he and I can turn this place into a five-star hotel, turn over a considerable profit, and come here on weekends. I don’t want to be a doctor’s wife and continue to live in Texas. Is that so hard to understand?”

I blink at her. “Um,” I say, “no.”

But inwardly, I’m thinking, Wow. This is one lady who knows what she wants. I bet SHE wouldn’t have any reservations about moving to New York City with no degree, no job, and no place to stay already lined up.

In fact, I bet she’d EAT New York City.

It’s at this point Agnes returns from the kitchen, holding a plate of snacks.

“Voila,” she says to me, looking extremely pleased with herself as she hands me the creation she’s prepared for me.

Which appears to be half a French baguette, sliced down the middle and stuffed with-

“Hershey bar!” Agnes cries, excited to be using the only English words she apparently knows.

I have just been handed a Hershey bar sandwich.

Agnes holds out the plate to Shari, who takes one look and says, “No thank you.”

Shrugging, Agnes then offers the plate to Dominique. The teenager doesn’t appear the least shocked that her boss’s girlfriend is half naked, proving that French people of all ages are way cooler about nudity than I am.

Dominique takes one look at the sandwich on the platter in front of her, shudders, and says, “Mon Dieu. Non.”

Well, okay. Maybe she wouldn’t eat New York City after all. Too fattening.

Agnes shrugs again, takes her own chocolate sandwich off the plate, sinks back down onto her chaise longue, and digs in. Crispy bits of crust fall all over the front of her bathing suit as she takes her first bite. Chewing, she gives me a chocolaty smile.

“C’est bon, ca,” she says, indicating the sandwich.

That much is obvious. The real question, of course, is how could it not be good?

Also, how can I say no to such a thoughtful and lovingly prepared snack? I don’t want to hurt the girl’s feelings.

There’s really only one thing I can do, of course. And so I do it.

And it is, without a doubt, the best sandwich I have ever eaten.

But it’s the kind of sandwich I can tell that Dominique-if she were to sink her business-oriented claws into this place-would outlaw immediately! Women recovering from lipo don’t want to be offered Hershey bar and baguette sandwiches! People on a corporate retreat can’t be served candy bars! I can practically see Dominique thinking this, even as she lifts a bottle of sunscreen and resolutely sprays her chest with it.

Agnes, and her Hershey bar sandwiches, will soon be a thing of the past if Dominique has her way with the running of Mirac.

Unless, of course, someone stops her.

“Ladies.”

I nearly choke on the huge bite of chocolate bar sandwich I’ve just taken. That’s because Luke and Chaz have just shown up at the far end of the pool, looking sweaty and dirt-smeared from their morning spent hacking at the underbrush along the driveway.

“Salut,” Dominique says, lifting a darkly tanned arm to wave at them. Her breasts, I notice, don’t move at all as she does this. It is a miracle of gravity.

“Hello, boys,” Shari says.

I don’t say anything for once, because I’m still too busy trying to swallow.

“Are you girls having a nice time?” Chaz wants to know. He is grinning, and I know why: half-naked Dominique. It’s hard to miss the amused glance he throws Shari, who only says, mildly, “Oh, we’re having a dandy time. You?”

“Dandy,” Chaz replied. “Thought we’d go for a swim to cool off a little.” Even as he says it, he’s peeling off his shirt.

One thing I’ll say about Chaz. He may have a master’s in philosophy, but he’s got the body of a physical trainer.

But Luke-I’m able to note all too clearly when he, too, pulls off his shirt a second later-is an even more spectacular example of athletic masculinity than Chaz. There’s not an ounce of body fat on his tanned, well-muscled body, and his dark chest hair, while not copious, still forms a very distinct arrow that seems to point directly down to his…

SPLASH! Both guys leap into the sparkling water, not bothering to drop their shorts first, robbing me of the pleasure of seeing just what that trail of hair from Luke’s chest down into his waistband leads to.

“Christ, that feels good,” Chaz says when he surfaces. “Shar, get in here.”

“Your wish is my command, master,” Shari says. She lays down her book, stands up, and jumps. Some of the spray from the splash she makes gets on Dominique, who flicks it off.

“Dominique,” Luke calls from where he surfaces at the deep end. “Come on in. The water’s great.”

Dominique prattles something in French that I don’t completely catch, although the word cheveux is mentioned several times. I try to remember if cheveux means hair or horses. Somehow I don’t think Dominique is saying that she doesn’t want to get her horses wet.

Shari swims to the side of the pool and, folding her arms on the edge, leans out to say to me, “Lizzie, you have to get in here. The water is fabulous.”

“Let me finish my sandwich first,” I say, since I’m still working on the messy-but sinfully delicious-concoction Agnes handed me.