VIII
ALLEGRO
“It is well known, and a sad fact, that in no profession is jealousy displayed with more bitterness than among fencing masters.”
— Egerton Castle, 1885
Jarrod dreamed of Paris.
A smoky bar on Rue Champollion, two weeks before the Fencing World Cup. The stink of those awful brown cigarettes and the peal of French women laughing in his ear. The oily aftertaste of Jasmine Flynn’s lipstick as he sipped Bordeaux so gentle and mellow that it went down like rosewater.
Jasmine Flynn. Nickelodeon princess all grown up, Hollywood darling, gracer of teen magazines and red carpets. Astonishingly lovely and Tinsel Town tough, she was his better judgment personified and a bulwark against the rumbling, brake-squealing catastrophe of his life. They were the ideal storybook couple: rogue
