The butler : a novel
(Book)

When Joachim von Hartmann moved from Buenos Aires to Paris with his mother in his late teens, his twin stayed behind... and entered a dark world. Fascinated by the precision and intense demands of training to be a butler, Joachim went on to work in some of the grandest homes in England. His brother never reappeared. Olivia White has given ten years of her life to her failed magazine, and has come to Paris to reinvent herself. Joachim takes a job working for Olivia as a lark and enjoys the whimsy of a different life. Then he learns the family history he never knew: a criminal grandfather who died in prison, the wealthy father who abandoned him, and the dangerous criminal his twin has become. Stripped of their old roles, Olivia and Joachim are first employer and employee, then friends... then a man and woman who reach a place where the past doesn't matter and only what they are living now is true. -- adapted from jacket.