A Doll's Choice

From the fields of rural France to the glittering ballrooms of New York, Maribelle du Bellay has traveled further than she ever imagined—but at what cost?
Born to an old but impoverished farming family, young Belle possesses a beauty that becomes her ticket out. What begins as weekend modeling for a local art teacher blossoms into a portfolio that opens doors in Paris. For years, she works the lower rungs of the modeling world, earning just enough to survive and send money home, but never quite breaking through to the stardom she seeks.
When Bertrand de Baux enters her life—wealthy, distinguished, decades her senior—Belle makes a calculated choice. She trades her dreams of independence for the security of marriage to a prominent foreign service officer. It seems a fair exchange: comfort and status in place of passion.
In New York, as the wife of a diplomat and mother of two, Belle inhabits a world of elegant receptions and exclusive society. The life she once coveted now feels like a gilded cage. She has become an ornament in her husband's world, her own identity slipping away with each passing year.
One reckless encounter, one stranger, one choice—and Belle's carefully constructed life begins to fracture.
Then Zachary Conroy appears. Younger, vital, dangerous in ways that have nothing to do with scandal and everything to do with awakening something Belle thought she had buried forever. She knows she should keep her distance. She knows what she stands to lose.
But knowing and doing have never been the same thing.