by Jill Mansell
The following morning Bonnie, Jem and Cal came to see Josh in his office.
It was decision time.
‘OK, we’ve stuck to our side of the bargain.’ Cal had his charming face on. ‘We came all this way to see you, yeah? So you know how important this is to us. But we haven’t hassled you, have we? We’ve stepped back and given you the time and space to, like, make up your mind.’
‘Most generous of you,’ Josh murmured.
They gazed at him uncertainly; getting to grips with the British sense of humour had always been beyond them.
‘We’ve been nice to everyone.’ Mindful of the time he’d called them ill-mannered spoilt brats, Bonnie flashed her ultra-white smile. ‘Even the staff.’
‘The whole time we’ve been here,’ Jem chimed in. ‘Nice nice nice, signing stuff, posing for photos, even when people were being really annoying. We’ve been, like, so patient with them.’
‘Sounds like you’re reformed characters. That’s great,’ said Josh. ‘Good to know. Well done.’
‘So?’ Cal couldn’t contain himself a moment longer.
‘So what?’
‘We want you to manage us again, man. Will you do it?’
Josh looked at them for a moment. Then he shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Why not? We came all this way.’
‘That was your idea, not mine. You didn’t have to come over,’ said Josh. ‘Could have just asked me in a phone call.’
‘And you would have said no.’
‘Yes.’ He shrugged. ‘I’d have said no.’
Cal’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve been there, done that, don’t need to do it all over again. I like it better here.’
‘Is there anything we can do to change your mind?’ Bonnie’s face had fallen; she looked as if she might burst into tears.
Feeling sorry for her, but not that sorry, Josh said, ‘Afraid not.’
‘Oh for Chrissake, I fucking knew it.’ Cal aimed a vicious kick at the waste-paper basket next to the desk. ‘You selfish fucking bastard.’
It hadn’t taken him long to revert to his old ways. Faintly amused because it was no longer his problem, Josh pointed to Cal and said, ‘That, too.’
‘You think you’re such a smartarse, don’t you? Well you can kiss goodbye to the chrome limo,’ Cal snarled. ‘Loser.’
‘Can I? Really?’ Josh raised an eyebrow. ‘Thank God for that.’
Chapter 45
Fresh flowers had been laid on Aurora’s grave. Top-of-the-range ones, at that. No prizes for guessing who’d put them there.
Lawrence quelled the immature urge to hide them behind the black granite headstone. The elegant arrangement of creamy calla lilies, perfect roses and pale exotic orchids put his own modest offering to shame. Which had perhaps been the intention.
But they were Antoine’s style rather than Aurora’s. The reason Lawrence picked flowers from the garden was because home-grown flowers were what she’d liked best. An exuberant mix of colours, shapes and sizes bundled gloriously together and spilling out of their stone vase. Friendly flowers rather than the severe, better-than-you, too-perfect kind.
Bending down, Lawrence moved the other arrangement a couple of inches to the left and lifted last week’s dying bunch out of the vase. By the time he’d finished disposing of them, fetching fresh water from the tap at the far end of the graveyard and arranging today’s offering of daisies, forget-me-nots, hollyhocks, gentians and foxgloves, he was no longer alone.
‘Hello,’ said Antoine.
‘Hi.’ Lawrence turned to acknowledge his presence before making further adjustments to the pink and purple foxgloves. It was unlikely to be a chance encounter; this section of the graveyard was clearly visible from the end window on the second-floor landing of the hotel. At a guess, Antoine had spotted him and come down here to speak to him for some reason.
‘Do you still miss her?’
For a split second, Lawrence thought he meant Dot. Then he realised … of course Antoine was talking about Aurora.
‘Yes.’ He nodded; either way, the answer would have been the same.
‘I left those.’ Antoine indicated the lavish arrangement swathed in cellophane.
‘I guessed. Very nice.’ See? He could be polite.
‘Yours are charming too.’ There was a fractional pause before the word charming.
‘I know,’ said Lawrence.
‘It’s been wonderful, getting to know Dot. She’s an extraordinary person.’
Lawrence nodded briefly; he knew that too.
‘In fact I’m taking her to Paris tomorrow. She doesn’t even know this yet. It’s a surprise.’
‘Well, Paris is a great city.’ Seriously, how did Antoine expect him to react?
‘But of course. And Dot deserves a treat. She works hard.’
‘Will she want to go? Who’s going to run the hotel?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve cleared it with Josh. He says it’s fine.’
‘OK. Well, that’s good.’
‘And don’t worry about Dot either. I’ll treat her like a princess.’ A strategic pause. ‘You should know, Lawrence, that my intentions towards her are serious. I would never hurt her.’
Unlike me, you mean.
‘Right.’ What else could he say? Lawrence realised that his short fingernails were digging into his clenched palms. Straightening up from the flowers, he looked Antoine in the eye and said, ‘Well, have a nice time.’
As he walked away, he heard Antoine behind him say silkily, ‘Thank you, I know we will.’
‘Tula.’ Josh paused at the reception desk, where she was helping out. ‘OK to hold the fort for a bit? I’m taking Griff out for a walk.’ He held up his phone. ‘Any problems, just give me a call.’
‘No problem, will do. Ah, wasn’t it romantic this morning?’ Tula said dreamily. ‘I can’t stop thinking about it. The look on Dot’s face when she found out.’
‘I know.’ Josh smiled; it may have been orchestrated for maximum effect, but that was clearly Antoine’s way. He’d made sure plenty of people were around to witness the moment he’d told Dot to pack a case and make sure she didn’t forget her passport because they were off to Paris.
‘Oh my word.’ Dot’s blue eyes had widened as she’d realised Josh was in on it. ‘I can’t believe it … I’ve never been whisked away to Paris before! I’ve never been whisked away anywhere.’
‘Then that is a travesty,’ Antoine had pronounced. ‘And I’m very glad to be able to redress it. This shall be the first of many whisks away, I promise.’
An over-the-top declaration, but undoubtedly romantic.
Josh collected Griff, clipped the lead to his collar and was about to leave when Tula called out, ‘Ooh, you wouldn’t be going past Sophie’s place, would you?’
The mention of Sophie’s name sent a reflexive zing through his chest. ‘Why?’
‘I left my iPod at her flat yesterday. And I’m doing a double shift today, so I can’t get down there.’
She was doing the double shift as a favour to him, helping to cover Dot’s absence. Josh nodded and said, ‘OK, I’ll drop by and pick it up.’
‘That’d be brilliant. Thanks. You’re a star.’
Josh left with Griff. What if he rang the doorbell and the man who’d spent the night with Sophie was still there? And he had to be polite to him?
God, I must be some kind of masochist.
But in a weird way he did actually want to see him. This, after all, was the man who’d achieved the impossible task of seducing Sophie Wells. Masochistic it might be, but he needed to know who he was, what he looked like.
Sophie didn’t answer the door naked and wrapped in a sheet, which was something. Then again, it was four o’clock in the afternoon.
‘Oh, hi. Hello, lovely boy!’ She bent down and gave Griff’s ears the kind of enthusiastic scratch that sent him into a frenzy of delighted squirming and tail-wagging.
Lucky, lucky dog.
&nbs
p; ‘Tula asked me to drop by.’ Was the man upstairs? Was he about to come face to face with him? Josh mentally prepared himself for the worst. ‘She says she left her iPod here yesterday.’
‘She did.’ Straightening up, Sophie turned and beckoned for them to follow her. ‘Come on in. You’ll have to carry Griff – I’ve got stuff laid out all over the floor.’
Upstairs, there was no sign of last night’s visitor. Josh held on to Griff and made his way between the groups of photos littering the carpet.
‘Are you OK, can you manage? Sorry, it’s just the best way to sort them into order.’
‘No problem.’ He looked at the expanse of geranium-red wall above the sofa. ‘What happened to my favourite picture?’
Sophie had her back to him; she was busy rummaging through her oversized turquoise and silver bag. ‘Which picture?’ She turned to see where he was pointing. ‘Oh, that one. I gave it away to its rightful owners. You won’t believe what happened … I saw the two children sitting outside a café yesterday and recognised the girl from her hair. It wasn’t until I’d told their dad and brought them back here to give them the print that he told me his wife died not long after it was taken. And it was her foot in the corner of the picture. He was really pleased to have it.’
‘I bet he was. That’s amazing.’ Had she ended up sleeping with the man? It had certainly looked that way last night. Not that he could point this out. Josh said, ‘So they just took the print and left?’
‘He invited me out to dinner.’ Sophie shook her head slightly. ‘Poor guy, he’s really struggling. His mum and dad babysat to give him a break and we went out for something to eat. OK, this is annoying, I could have sworn I’d put Tula’s iPod in my bag, but now I can’t find it anywhere. Let me think, let me think … what did I do with it?’ She straightened up, clearly attempting to concentrate. ‘I’ve put it in a safe place and now I can’t remember where that is.’
The next twenty minutes were like a special form of torture for Josh, as Sophie searched all over the flat and changed the subject entirely to that of all the things she’d inexplicably lost over the years.
‘… and once I lost my front door key and didn’t find it again until I got the Christmas decorations out the next year and there it was all tangled up with the fairy lights – oh, here it is! Can you believe that? It was in the bottom of my bag all the time …’ She pulled out the iPod and waved it at him with relief. ‘I knew I’d put it in there!’
At last. At last he could casually return the conversation to the new owner of the framed print. ‘So you went out to a restaurant with this guy.’ His heart was speeding up but he maintained his outer cool. Drily he said, ‘You, on a date. That’s what I call a miracle.’
‘Except it wasn’t a date. In any shape or form. He just needed to talk to someone about the terrible time he’s going through. It got pretty emotional.’ Sophie paused and shrugged. ‘Well, why wouldn’t he be upset? Anyway, I’m glad I gave him the photograph …’
The words trailed away and Sophie gazed out of the window, mercifully oblivious to the tumultuous thoughts ricocheting around inside Josh’s head. He slowly exhaled with relief; what he’d seen last night wasn’t what he’d thought he’d seen. Just from the way she was, he now knew without question that there had been no sex, nothing physical of that nature. The prolonged embrace had happened because the man was grieving, overcome with emotion, possibly in tears and in need of sympathy.
And who better to comfort him than Sophie?
‘How did his wife die?’
She glanced at him, hesitated for a fraction of a second, then shrugged. ‘No idea. Didn’t ask.’
It was five o’clock in the morning and Lawrence had had a terrible night’s sleep. This was his punishment for buying a boeuf bourguignon ready meal for two and eating the whole lot himself. Indigestion had plagued him all evening and now he was awake again, unable to get comfortable in bed and haunted by thoughts of Dot in Paris, being treated like a princess by that smug French bastard Antoine Beauvais.
Lawrence exhaled and flexed his aching shoulders; all the tension in his muscles was making him bad-tempered. Because Antoine wasn’t a bastard, not really. He just wished the man hadn’t reappeared after all these years, turning up in St Carys like some knight in shining armour and effectively sweeping Dot off her feet.
Oh God, how had his life come to this? He’d done a bad thing and suffered a thousand times over ever since. And now, to put the tin lid on it, he was lying here all alone, battling with the worst case of indigestion known to man. The ache was worsening now, pulling at his chest, making it harder to breathe …
Lawrence stifled a groan of annoyance. Dear God, what was going on, what was happening to him? At this rate he was never going to get to sleep. If Dot were nearby he might have been tempted to give her a call … except she wasn’t, was she? She was in Paris. And who else could he wake up at this time of night? Talk about making yourself unpopular.
OK, never mind, mustn’t be a nuisance. Grit your teeth and get through it. If it was no better in a couple of hours, maybe he’d think about contacting Josh, asking him if he thought a visit from the GP might be in order.
Bloody hell, though, he’d never known indigestion like this before; it was like having cramp in your ribs …
Chapter 46
‘Well? What do you think?’ Antoine asked the question with justifiable pride.
The taxi had brought them up the steep twisting road and dropped them off just below the Sacré Coeur, at the best possible viewpoint. The sky was a cloudless cerulean blue, the sun blazed down and what looked like the whole of Paris was laid out before them.
Dot’s eyes prickled with emotion at the sheer beauty of the sight. This surely had to be one of the most stunning views on earth. Antoine tilted his head so he could glimpse beneath the broad brim of her straw hat, then smiled at the expression on her face.
‘It’s just … perfect.’ Dot shook her head. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’
Antoine gave her hand a squeeze. ‘And you are perfect too.’
Which could have sounded nauseating, but somehow, when it was spoken in a French accent, managed not to.
‘Thank you.’ She returned the squeeze; he had taken so much trouble. Every detail of their trip had been planned to the nth degree. The hotel was wonderful, unbelievably French and luxurious. Last night Antoine had taken her on a boat trip down the Seine, followed by dinner at a jewel of a restaurant tucked away in the back streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. This morning they had strolled through the Luxembourg Gardens, and now he’d brought her here to Montmartre. Antoine was an excellent guide, full of information, determined she should enjoy every moment.
‘I can’t believe you’ve never visited Paris before.’ He was shaking his head.
‘I know. It’s crazy.’ Dot was still gazing at the view. It wasn’t as if she and Lawrence hadn’t taken plenty of holidays, just that somehow they’d always ended up going … well, somewhere else.
‘And you see the Tour Eiffel?’ Of all the landmarks, it was the one that had first caught her eye, but Dot nodded and obediently followed the line of his pointing finger. ‘We’ll be there this evening.’
‘Really?’ Dot wondered how well her feet would hold out. ‘I’ve heard the queues for the lifts can be quite long.’
‘Oh Dot, do you think I’d do that to you?’ Antoine’s eyes twinkled as he shook his head. ‘We won’t be queuing, ma chérie. There’s a private lift that takes people up to the Jules Verne restaurant on the second level. It’s the most magical place to eat … Michelin-starred … quite superb.’
‘Oh my goodness, I’ve heard of it! One of our customers told me about the Jules Verne last year. But he said it’s always booked up months ahead.’
‘This is true, but sometimes it is possible to pull strings. For very special occasions and very special people.’ His voice caressing her like silk, Antoine murmured, ‘And some people are worth pulling string
s for. I promise you, mon ange, this will be an evening you’ll never forget.’
‘How lovely. We’ll have to take photos to show everyone! Ooh, and I can’t wait to be in it when all the lights go into overdrive and the whole thing lights up like a giant sparkler!’ As Dot mimicked the sparkling with dancing fingers, she heard her phone begin to ring inside her handbag. ‘Sorry, better just see who that is … Oh, it’s Josh. I hope everything’s OK with the hotel …’
One moment she was answering the call, her gaze fixed on the higgledy-piggledy rooftops of heat-hazed Montmartre, the next moment she was listening to Josh’s words and the ground was falling away beneath her feet. All around her, tourists joyfully exclaimed at the view, chattering away in a multitude of different languages as they held up their cameras and jostled for the best shots.
‘What is it?’ Antoine asked when she’d said, ‘I’ll call you back,’ and hung up.
‘Lawrence. He’s in hospital. Heart attack.’
‘Oh, that is a shame. Well, never mind. I’m sure he’ll be fine.’ He rested his hand in the small of her back. ‘Wait until you see the inside of the Sacré Coeur.’
Dot turned to stare at him. ‘What?’
‘Its beauty is astonishing, truly beyond compare. Come, you will love it. The architectural style is Romanesque-Byzantine and the great bell, the Savoyarde, is one of the heaviest in the world at nineteen tons—’
‘Antoine, did you hear what I said?’
He was looking at her, baffled. ‘Of course I did. But it isn’t going to affect our trip, surely. We’ll be back in St Carys on Sunday night; that’s—’
‘I can’t stay here,’ Dot interrupted, her heart thudding. ‘I have to go.’
‘But you can’t. Are you serious? Ma chérie, this is crazy; he’s your ex-husband. You divorced him.’
‘He’s ill, he could die …’ She could hear her voice wavering. No, stay calm, be strong.
‘If he’s going to die, it’ll happen regardless, whether you’re there or not. This is our weekend. Your weekend,’ Antoine amended. ‘Everything I’ve arranged is for you.’
