Alessia Sorelli and Philippe de Chagny seemed genetically engineered to form the perfect couple.

They drew stares as they walked down the street—Alessia with her impossibly graceful balletic glide, Philippe with the confident stride of a man who had been blessed with infinite privilege and the opportunity that followed it. Physically, they couldn't have been a more beautiful match. Philippe, like the rest of the men in his family, was classically handsome: tall, muscular, blonde and too charismatic for his own good. He was in his early thirties and boasted the beginnings of rugged fine lines around his eyes and his mouth. Like his brother, he was capable of great warmth. Unlike his brother, he was often hard-pressed to show it. Raoul's laugh came easily; Philippe's needed coaxing. His eyes—the same vivid blue as Raoul's—were colder somehow, sterner, sharply focused on his business endeavors and familial duty. There were only two people in the world capable of immediately thawing that deeply-embedded firmness: Raoul and Alessia.

Little wonder that Alessia could break through Philippe's granite exterior. She was delicately pale with full lips, high cheekbones, large black eyes, and black hair that swung to her waist when not pulled into an elegant chignon at the nape of her swan-like neck. Long, lithe, and deeply in tune with every expressive movement of her body, there was a reason she had quickly risen to become prima ballerina at the Garnier. She was amazing to watch onstage, a true artist when it came to dance.

But when it came to anything else, well…Raoul did have a point…

She was painfully vapid.

That sounds harsh, I know. I was certainly no genius myself and hardly one to talk, but Alessia Sorelli was so aggressively airheaded that when I first met her, I, like most people, assumed she was putting on some sort of act. There was no conceivable way that anyone was that stupid. There was just no way.

Alessia seemed to have made it her life's purpose to prove everyone otherwise.

Despite having lived in France for nearly her entire life, she continually insisted that it was a separate continent. She persisted in her belief that penguins were stylishly-colored chickens. She had no idea how to pump gas even though Philippe had shown her how to do so twenty seven times. She refused to change light bulbs because "they're made from frozen lava so if you touch them they'll burn off your fingers." She maintained not only that the Bible was God's diary, but that he had also included several passages within it advocating breast implants. She insisted it wasn't her fault that child-proof medicine bottles confused her because, "Confucius invented confusion and that guy was, like, pretty much the smartest Japanese grandpa in the world."

Raoul was one of the most tolerant people I'd ever met, but whenever Alessia was around, he looked like he wanted to punch a hole in the wall.

What was worse, her arrogance knew no bounds. She was inordinately talented and inordinately beautiful and she knew it. She dominated rehearsals like the ringleader of an overgrown high school clique, and the other dancers simultaneously revered and despised her. There was little anyone could do about it—she was one of the most gifted dancers the Garnier had seen in decades, and ballet masters didn't dare fire her for fear of sparking some sort of public outcry.

Had Antoinette still been the ballet mistress, she wouldn't have stood for it for a second. When the current managers called her into the rehearsal room for advice, Antoinette had been quick to give her two cents.

"Fire that little upstart bitch," she'd said loudly, well-aware that Alessia was within earshot.

Raoul's sentiments weren't much different.

"Why won't that pissy bimbo leave my brother alone?" he cried one night during dinner at Meg's.

"Because your brother likes him some pissy bimbo action," Meg said with a nonchalant flip of a magazine page.

I tried and failed to suppress a snort. Raoul glowered at Meg from across the table. She raised an eyebrow.

"What?" she said with a shrug. "Look, man, it's no secret that Philippe is gettin' some. And by 'some,' I'm talking a lot. I'm talking grand-scale 'a lot.' I'm talking 'Pissy Bimbo's staging an entire bedroom ballet for your big broth—'"

"Shut up!" Raoul shouted, his chair screeching across the floor as he stood and pointed one finger at Meg. "You just shut up about my brother! Were you born without a filter, or something? What is wrong with you?"

She held up her hands defensively. "Hey, I'm not the one banging brainless ballerinas."

"She's got a point, you know," I said.

He groaned, tearing his fingers through his hair.

"I know. Why do you think I'm upset?" he muttered furiously. "I just—I always thought Philippe was better than this, you know? This is Philippe we're talking about. He plans his meals by the month. Alphabetically. He irons his jeans. He asked for an accounting textbook for Christmas when he was twelve. He's Mr. Duty and Honor. He's Mr. 'Do the Smart Thing.'"

"I'll tell you this much," Meg said, her blue eyes bright with mirth, "He's definitely not doing the smart thing right now."

Raoul glared daggers at her. There was a pregnant pause.

"I'm sorry, but you just left that window wide open and I had to take it," she said.

He plopped back into his chair and stared angrily at his plate.

"I don't get it. I don't get it. Alessia's so—"

"Bitchy?" Meg offered.

"Stuck-up?" I suggested.

"Stupid?"

"Inconsiderate?"

"Conveniently flexible?"

We both nearly dissolved into a fit of giggles at that last one. Raoul was not amused.

"Meg, I swear, this meatball is on a fast track to colliding with your head and I will not do anything to stop it," Raoul hissed.

"Meg, save your meatball bullets for Alessia, how's that?" I suggested.

"Deal," she chirped.

"Sounds good to me," Raoul grumbled bitterly. "You'll still talk to Philippe?"

Raoul had been hounding me for weeks to try to convince his brother to sever ties with Alessia. I felt uncomfortable acting as the liaison between the quarreling brothers, but Raoul was assured me Philippe would at least hear me out. I sincerely doubted it. I was about as persuasive as Piglet.

"I will still talk to Philippe," I sighed. Admittedly, I'd been putting it off. I wasn't fond of Alessia, either, but in the end, it was Philippe's decision. It felt inappropriate to meddle. I'd been hoping that Raoul would just let it go, but he was nothing if not persistent.

"You promise?" he said.

"Raoul!" I said, squeezing the bridge of my nose. "I said I promise. I will talk to Philippe."

"Okay. Good." He took a breath. "Because he's taking Alessia to lunch tomorrow at the restaurant in the opera during your shift, so you could do it then."

I stared at him incredulously. Meg was watching the two of us with the air of an amused spectator at a tennis match.

"You want me," I began slowly, "to tell your brother to break up with his girlfriend while he's on a date with her? While I'm working? "

"...How about right before they leave, then?"

I laughed incredulously.

"Right before they leave? 'Well, nice seeing you two, thanks for coming. By the way, Philippe, Raoul thinks your girlfriend is an idiot and wants you to kick her to the curb, have a complimentary breath mint on your way out!'"

He threw up his hands in defeat.
"I don't know! Do something. Can't you pull him aside or tell him to meet you somewhere later? And didn't you say that your shift ended right after 1:00?"

"Sure, but what does that have to do with-?"

"They're coming at about that time. So once you pack up for the day, stop by their table all nonchalantly and ask if you can speak to Philippe in private and that way you're not doing it while you're actually working."

"That makes absolutely no sense at all."

"What if I was there? Like, watching in the background? For moral support?"

"If you're going to be there, why don't you tell him?"

"I told you, he won't listen to me!" He huffed in frustration. "I'm running out of options here, Christine. He might reconsider if he hears it from a third party."

It was my turn to glare daggers at him.

"Okay, look, how about this?" he began, rolling up his shirt sleeves. "I'll meet you at the restaurant when your shift's over. We'll catch them as they're leaving. We can pull him aside and have a nice group discussion about it. I'll start it. I'll start it, and he'll probably tell me to stuff it, but then you can jump in and he hasn't heard your argument yet, so he'll have to listen to that. We'll do it together. It can't hurt to try."

I pointed to Meg.

"Why can't she do it? She'd tell it like it is."

"That is true," Meg said. "I would tell it like it is."

"She would also probably beat Alessia's face in the second she saw her," Raoul said.

"That is also true," Meg said, folding her hands primly. "I would probably beat Alessia's face in the second I saw her."

Meg and Alessia had been in the children's ballet at the opera together. Alessia was several years older, but that hadn't stopped her from tormenting Meg whenever Antoinette was out of sight.

Naturally, Meg didn't put up with it for long.

She was eleven when she head-butted Alessia off the stage and into the orchestra pit during a live performance. After a wailing Sorelli landed on a less-than-sympathetic cello player, Meg had triumphantly marched off into the wings, her fingers held high in Nixon-esque peace signs, her tutu flouncing proudly as her fellow ballerinas showered her with reverent applause. Meg had become somewhat of a legend in local ballet circles. She'd since given up professional dancing for journalism, but she still longed for the opportunity to clock her old rival in the jaw.

I found myself harboring a similar desire the next day as I was finishing my shift at the restaurant. Raoul had yet to show up for "moral support," but his brother and his lovely companion had, and the second she passed through the door, she wasted no time making herself as obnoxious as possible.

"Excuse me," she said to a passing busser, "You need to not walk by me with all that steak. I'm a vegetarian. I don't associate with meat. It clogs your pores, and once all those calories are in there, you can't get them out."

Philippe simply smiled mildly and asked the host for a window seat.

"No, no, no," Alessia said snippily. "I can't sit by the sun. Remember? I'm on a diet."

"Right," said Philippe with a little smirk. He turned to the host. "Any table away from the window, then."

The host obliged, and I thanked God that another waiter dashed over to their table once they were seated because I was already struggling not to quake with laughter.

"God," I heard her complain loudly as she surveyed the menu. "What is with this place? What kind of a sick restaurant kills innocent carrots just to make a soup?"

I lost it then. I completely lost it. I wasn't alone—nearly everyone in the kitchen struggled mightily to contain their peals of laughter. I thought it was a tribute to our fortitude that we managed to conduct ourselves with some semblance of professionalism throughout the duration of their meal. A few rogue, inelegant snickers were inevitable, though. At one point, the waiter tasked with serving Alessia almost collapsed when he returned to the kitchen with their empty plates, tears of mirth glittering in his eyes as he breathlessly proclaimed, "She told me I looked like the king of America."

I was laughing so hard as I clocked out that I nearly forgot the task at hand. Alessia and Phillippe made their way to the outdoor seating area and paused as she took a call. Raoul was nowhere to be found. Taking a cue from Alessia, I pulled out my phone and dialed his number. He answered on the first ring.

"Christine!" He answered breathlessly.

"Raoul, where are you?" I hissed. "They're going to leave—"

"I know, I know, I'm sorry—hey, buddy, stop pushing—!"

"Where are you?"

"Metro station. One of the trains is down. It's a complete mob over here."

"Oh, no."

"There's no way I'm going to make it there in time."

"I figured." What a stinker. Moral support, my butt

"Look, you don't have to say anything to them, just forget it—will you stop with the pushing?—don't worry about it."

"No, no." I sighed. "I might as well. They're right here, after all."

"You really don't—"

"What's the worst that can happen?" I ventured, now more to myself than to him. "Alessia will stink-eye me to death?"

Raoul's reception was giving out at that point, and so I only heard a few scattered phrases—"won't—worry—thanks—ouch!"—before the call dropped. I shoved my phone back in my pocket with a sigh and heaved my backpack over my shoulder as I made my way outside.

Philippe's arm candy was leaning against a lamp post and chattering away on her phone. He stood nearby, his thumb rapidly scrolling through his own phone. I had a sneaking suspicion that he was closing yet another business deal or booking yet another flight to yet another marketing summit. According to Raoul, those summits were "snooze-fests," so perhaps I was doing him a favor by unceremoniously interrupting what was sure to be his umpteenth Incredibly Important Business Initiative of the day.

"Philippe?"

He looked up, his eyebrows raised in an expression of innocent curiosity that momentarily rendered him uncannily similar to his younger brother.

"Christine," he said with a friendly, if somewhat guarded smile. "Hello. How are you?"

"Oh, you know…hanging in there," I said, feeling the urge to fidget. Philippe had a knack for making me feel as if I was being reprimanded by a long-suffering parent. "How are you?"

"Doing well, thank you." He turned off his phone and placed it neatly in the breast pocket of his immaculately ironed blazer. "Were you having lunch in the restaurant? I didn't see you."

"No, no—I work there. I was on kitchen duty, so—"

"Ah," he said with a nod. "That's right. My mistake—I'd forgotten. It's really a prime location, you know."

"It is—"

"Quite a bit of traffic this time of year, I expect?"

"Um…well, no more than usual. We do get a lot during the summer months, but fall's a bit slower—"

"Revving up for the holiday influx, right?"

"Right—"

"You know," he said, scratching his chin, his eyes sweeping admirably over the restaurant's ornate façade. "I really admire what they've done with the place. Infusing a modern interior with the old architecture. It's a great dichotomy. The place certainly photographs well. I should ask for a press kit…"

I was losing him. If he carried on this way, he'd be out of commission for hours—the lure of pondering the complexities of rebranding was too strong for him to resist. I cleared my throat.

"Philippe." I swallowed. He reluctantly snapped his gaze back to mine. Alessia was still immersed in her phone conversation, oblivious to all else. Good. "Philippe, do you mind if I have a word with you? Privately?"

He frowned, but it only took a second for understanding to harden his features.

"I know what this is about," he said sharply. "And I know Raoul put you up to it."

"Philippe—"

"And I know you probably didn't want to say anything because you're too polite," he continued. I balked at the rare compliment. "And I know that Raoul probably badgered you incessantly until you gave in because you always give in."

Ah. There was the familiar disdain. Philippe had never been overly fond of me, probably because growing up, Raoul favored pillow fights and picnics in the attic with me over business brainstorming sessions with his brother. Philippe de Chagny was not a pillow fighting, picnicking-in-the-attic sort of guy. He did, after all, open a franchise of lemonade stands at age thirteen. His efforts made it into the paper, and he used the considerable proceeds to finance a trip to Wall Street.

For fun.

"Philippe," I tried again, but he would have none of it.

"Look, Christine, I mean no disrespect, but I won't tolerate this." I half expected him to shake a disapproving finger in my face and send me to my room without supper. "I've told Raoul a million times that my relationship is none of his business. And frankly, it's none of yours, either."

"You're right," I conceded. "I feel the same way. I don't want to meddle."

"Good. Don't."

"But I promised your brother I would say something," I said hurriedly.

He scoffed. "Of course you did."

"All I'm going to say," I said, "is that Raoul loves you. He wants you to be happy, but—"

"If he really wanted me to be happy, he'd stay out of my love life. It is absolutely none of his business." He raised his eyebrows. "It's petty jealousy, if you ask me."

"Jealousy?" My voice went up an octave in disbelief. "What are you talking about?"

"Raoul is my brother. I love him. I do," Philippe said sincerely. "But he's aimless. He's been off gallivanting around the globe—"

"He was on active duty with the navy!" I protested, genuinely irritated. "You did the same thing!"

"But Imade something of it," he stressed. "That's the key. I came back, finished my degree, started several successful businesses, and fell in love. But Raoul—"

"If you're suggesting that Raoul isn't doing anything worthwhile, you're wrong—"

"Now, I didn't say that. He's finishing his degree, yes, and I commend him for it. But what comes after that?" He shook his head. "That's the problem with Raoul—he never thinks these things through. He doesn't have a plan. You ask him where he wants to be in five years, ten years, twenty years, and he has no idea. He'd rather live on that godforsaken boat of his than commit to a solid, financially secure career.

"And do you know something? I think he's finally realized that he's been wandering around aimlessly with no goals, no plan, and it's starting to worry him." Philippe inhaled with a decided air of self-importance. "And he's jealous. He's jealous that I've settled down, that I've been successful, that I've fallen in love and made something of myself, and he hasn't. He knows the value of commitment, of dedicating yourself to a lucrative career and to a steady relationship, but he can't commit to anything. Not really. Not yet, at least. Not until he gets his priorities in order—which he hasn't done yet, and it's making him panic and so he's lashing out at Alessia."

"There is no problem with Raoul!" I shot back. I wasn't usually one to allow my temper to get the better of me, but how dare Philippe dismiss his brother as a good-for-nothing lay about? How dare he? "Philippe, you have a problem if you think your brother's dreams and worries don't have as much worth as your own."

"I did not say that, I—"

"No, but you might as well have." I heaved a sigh and ran a hand through my hair. "Look. I didn't come here to cause any trouble. I didn't come here to argue with you. Raoul asked me to speak to you because he didn't think you were listening to him—as a brother. As his best friend, his role model. He's badgering you about Alessia because you are his brother and he loves you and he wants to make sure that you're thinking things through before you make any big decisions. He wants you to be happy and he doesn't think that Alessia can make you happy in the long r—"

"He wants to make sure that I'm thinking things through?" I could tell he was struggling to maintain his professional demeanor. The muscles in his jaw were tense, and he was fighting the urge to clench his fists. "Raoul hasn't thought a single thing through in his entire life! Yes, he did well in the navy, but he'd prefer to be discharged. I know it. He knows it. Yes, he does well in his classes, but not as well as I know he could. What's next? He's smart, talented—he could be such an asset to the company."

"But Philippe, maybe he doesn't want that life—"

"Of course he does," Philippe said dismissively. "He just doesn't see it yet. He refuses to see it. Instead, he just doles out judgment, but I can't value his opinion when he refuses to realize his full potential. He criticizes Alessia despite the fact that she's an extraordinarily well-respected member of this community. He criticizes my choices when he hasn't made any of his own. It's ridiculous. He should be striving to make our family proud but instead he's just idling, flying by the seat of his pants, condemning my choices and my girlfriend when he's done nothing that will make an impact, nothing to make a name for himself! He'd rather throw it all away and waste his life sailing around the world in a boat with y—"

He stopped abruptly, looking utterly taken aback that he'd almost finished that sentence.

I blinked. Something inside me felt as if it had deflated.

Philippe cleared his throat, straightened his tie. Inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth. There was a long, calculated, painful pause before he spoke once more.

"I love Raoul," he said carefully, his business-like manner firmly back in place. "But he needs to sort out his priorities. He's a de Chagny whether he likes it or not and with that heritage comes a certain set of obligations, a certain set of expectations that…well, that…"

Don't include me, I finished silently.

I had always suspected that Philippe thought as much—that he believed I was hindering his brother's chances at success. That he frowned upon my upbringing. That in his eyes, and the eyes of his tradition-steeped family, I was nothing more than a distraction subject to deeply-ingrained old-world prejudices that rendered me unfit to meld with their wealth.

A poor companion, indeed, for a de Chagny.

"Look," Philippe began again, clearly immensely uncomfortable. "I didn't mean to suggest—"

"You did," I said, unable to completely disguise the anger in my voice. "You meant to suggest that exactly."

"Now, Christine…" His chiding tone had returned, and he surveyed me as if he was disciplining a rowdy employee. "You know I didn't mean anything offensive. You know that."

"I don't want to hear it, Philippe."

Maybe I should have given him the benefit of the doubt. He was harmless, after all, just a bit of an old codger since birth. Just a slave to tradition, stuck in the old ways, and I knew he truly did love Raoul, probably more than anything in the world. I knew that he truly did want the best for his brother. I couldn't find him at fault for that, because I wanted the same thing.

But I couldn't forgive him for voicing what I'd feared for years.

That I wasn't good enough for Raoul. That I never would be.

That someday, inevitably, we would be forced to go our separate ways.

"Christine—"

I shook my head curtly. Swallowed. Looked him squarely in the face.

"All I'm asking," I said quietly, "is that you listen to your brother. Really listen to him, Philippe. He has no right to dictate your choices, just like you have no right to dictate his…But he has a right to be heard because he loves you. And if you love him, you'll listen."

A line appeared between Philippe's eyebrows. His eyes looked pained, and for a brief moment, I wondered if he was going to apologize.

Instead, he offered a small, sharp nod, stared at me as if I was a mildly vexing jigsaw puzzle, and ran a hand through his hair.

"I've got to go," I said, fighting the urge to slap his perfectly chiseled face. So like his brother's, yet so different.

Fighting the urge to kick the stubbornness out of him, I hiked my bag up higher on my shoulder and brushed past him, barely registering Alessia's distant "Who was that?" as I crossed the street.

The cracked sidewalk slid past my scuffed black shoes as I pounded forward, huffing errant curls out of my face. Philippe's comments stung, but they hadn't come unexpectedly. That was simply who he was.

So then why was I so angry? Why was I so hurt?

Because I believed him?

A breeze brushed against my throat, cooling the sweat on the back of my neck. I needed a place to think. Or a place where I didn't have to think at all. I needed silence, however brief. Solitude. I couldn't go to the university. I didn't want to run into anyone I knew. I couldn't go to my apartment—Meg or Raoul or Antoinette could drop in at any moment, and I needed quiet.

I stopped abruptly in front of the Metro station. Thought a minute. Turned on my heel and sped up.

I was going to the bookstore.