Haydon wrapped himself in the towel and went inside. Ella grinned at him, angling her head at the shopping bags on the kitchen counter, eggs next to them.
‘Bugger,’ he said. ‘That’s chicken off the menu,’ he added, pulling a pack of breasts out and sniffing at them.
‘Are they bad?’ Ella asked.
‘I have no idea, but I daren’t cook them up now. How about we go and find a restaurant – and don’t worry,’ he added, seeing the look on her face, ‘I can drive this time.’
‘We could go to the house across the way – they did ask us.’
‘I think we’re a little bit late for a seven o’clock start,’ he said. ‘Did you really want to go?’
‘I had a good time here,’ Ella said. ‘It was just a thought.’
‘So you don’t mind we missed it?’
‘It might have been a bit weird I suppose, because we didn’t know them at all.’
‘My feelings exactly. So how about we find a pizza parlour or something? Sound good?’
Ella nodded. ‘I’ll go and get dressed!’
They’d found a cute little place on the coast road and they’d eaten to bursting, getting back late and falling into bed. In the morning, however, despite the lateness of their bedtime, Ella was up first and made so much noise clattering about that it was obvious she was keen for Haydon to get up too. But he was happy to oblige, in a great mood and enthusiastic for what the day might hold after their great start in Saint-Raphaël.
It was while they ate Audrey’s buttery croissants with apricot jam for breakfast that the knock echoed through the house. Haydon looked at Ella and she returned his puzzled expression. Visitors? Here?
‘It might be someone checking on the house,’ Ella offered.
‘Maybe,’ Haydon agreed, silently chiding himself for the vague sense of alarm. What he didn’t say to Ella was that maybe it was their over-familiar neighbour from the pink house across the fields. He was beginning to wish he’d never gone over to investigate and had stayed firmly on his own side of the grass. It had been enough of a trauma deciding whether to accept the invitation issued the night before and he’d tussled with the idea of not going long after he’d settled on it, certain that a huge room full of people they didn’t know wasn’t the most relaxing way to spend an evening, nice as Nanette seemed. So if it was her now then he faced the mortifying prospect of explaining to her why he hadn’t turned up. What if she’d come to express her deepest disgust at his no-show? Offending the neighbours hadn’t exactly been at the top of his to-do list this week. Then again, it would be a pretty weird thing to do if she had.
His thoughts were interrupted by another rap at the door. Glad that he’d decided to dress early, he got up from the breakfast table and went to get it, his worst suspicions confirmed as the woman they’d met the day before stood smiling at the doorway with two teenagers in tow.
‘Bonjour, Monsieur…’
‘Stokes,’ Haydon replied, forgetting that usually he would dispense with formalities and get people to use his first name.
‘Monsieur Stokes, bon. And here’ – she gestured to the teenagers – ‘Molly and Bastien. We are all here to celebrate my aunt’s birthday for one week only – I think I told you this last evening. But perhaps a week is a long time for the children, yes? You have only one daughter?’ Nanette asked, trying to see past him into the house.
‘Yes, just me and Ella.’
‘Ella – a beautiful name. We are going to the beach today. Would you like to come? Perhaps Ella would like to make new friends.’
Haydon wondered vaguely if this woman was some sort of self-appointed kids’ entertainer for the area or whether she was trying to collect them for some sinister project. But she looked harmless enough – in fact, more than charming – and perhaps she was just trying to be friendly after all. He had to stop this silly notion that somehow all of Ella’s time belonged to him alone. She’d have a much better holiday if she had some people her own age to socialise with and it didn’t mean he had to give her up for the whole week.
He turned to call her to the door and she arrived within seconds – clearly she’d been listening.
She gave the visitors a shy smile.
‘I am pleased to make your official acquaintance, Ella,’ Nanette said. ‘Here I have Molly and Bastien. We would love for you to come to the beach with us.’
Ella turned to Haydon as Molly and Bastien appeared to size her up. ‘Are you coming, Dad?’
‘But of course!’ Nanette cut in. ‘You are both invited!’
Haydon swallowed his doubts and nodded brightly. ‘Sounds like a good plan to me. Nanette obviously knows the area well and she can show us all the best bits we might have missed by ourselves.’
‘Then it is settled!’ Nanette clapped her hands. ‘What time shall we say to come back?’
‘Give us an hour to finish breakfast and clean up?’ Haydon said. ‘Does that sound OK?’
‘One hour and we will return,’ Nanette replied. ‘How wonderful,’ Haydon heard her add as they skirted the pool on their way to the gates. ‘You will have a charming new friend.’
Bloody hell, what had he got himself into now?
Chapter 9
With some unexpected last minute faffing and the walk down to the beach, it was more like two hours later when they all arrived. The party had grown and included two other older relatives of Nanette’s – a cousin and a second cousin, as far as Haydon could make out – who were all keen to make the most of the sun and sea. He learned that one of them – Blanche – was from Lille, up in the north as Nanette herself was, and the other was named Jacques and lived in Paris like Bastien.
During the walk he’d got to know them all a little better and they were all open and affable. Molly and Bastien seemed friendly enough. In fact, though Haydon had a natural dread of the teenage species – perhaps driven in part by his need to teach many of the less engaged ones how to play a musical instrument most of them had no interest in learning – he found them really quite likeable. Especially Molly. She seemed mature and thoughtful, and he quickly learned that she played violin; that point alone was enough to win him over.
Ella was sold too, despite Molly being two years her senior, or perhaps because of it. Younger teenagers were often beguiled by the glamour of an older one and Ella was no exception, keen to fit in and impress. Molly was sweet with her too, tolerant of Ella’s excitable chatter, taking her under her wing like an older sister, and the fact that they shared a love of classical music certainly helped them find common ground.
‘So your aunt is a hundred?’ Haydon said as he helped lay a blanket out on the sand, slightly annoyed at himself that he hadn’t thought to bring a blanket to sit on too. Now he and Ella would have to cram onto Nanette’s. ‘That’s pretty amazing.’
‘In our family it is not so amazing,’ Blanche said.
‘Many of our relatives have lived long lives,’ Nanette agreed. ‘We are blessed with years, it seems.’
‘You must be,’ Haydon said. ‘I don’t know anyone who’s made it that far.’
Nanette smiled. But then her gaze went across the beach and she began to wave at two figures walking across the sand.
‘Friends of yours?’ Haydon asked.
‘They are coming to join us, I think,’ she replied. ‘My brother Maurice and his stepdaughter. This morning they were too busy, but perhaps they changed their mind.’
Great, Haydon thought. Although a small part of him was now beginning to enjoy the company of his new friends, socialising wasn’t really his natural territory and adding more people into the mix wasn’t going to make him feel any more relaxed. At least the teens were faring better – Molly and Ella had already sprinted after Bastien as he beckoned them from the shoreline, and they were now leaping over the waves like kids half their ages. Haydon went back to searching for the sun cream he’d hastily stuffed into a bag.
He vaguely listened as he heard Nanette’s greeting and his name men
tioned and he looked up to offer a brief friendly smile. And then the world around him stopped, along with his heart, as he stared at the woman who’d come to join them.
It couldn’t be. And yet some unnameable instinct told him that he’d already known she was here – the woman from the market he’d convinced himself was simply a trick of his memory was no trick after all. She was real, and she stood before him now. The name stuck in his throat and came out more like the squeak of a tuning bagpipe than a word.
‘Ashley?’
She frowned. And then, it seemed, realisation for her too – the same disbelief and shock. But as he stepped forward with a million questions suddenly zipping around his head she turned ashen – and stumbled. His step turned into a lunge as he watched her sway, then wobble, and then crumple, and he raced to catch her. But Nanette’s brother beat him to it and caught her nimbly in capable arms.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘Sit here on the sand. You are too tired…’
‘I’m fine,’ she replied faintly, trying, but failing, to wave away his ministrations.
‘I will phone Sue,’ the man said.
‘No.’ Ashley shook her head, glancing across at Haydon again as if she was scared of him. ‘Don’t bother Mum. I’ll be fine in just a minute… I moved too quickly, that’s all – got a bit light-headed, but it will pass.’
She didn’t look much as if it would pass, whatever it was. Was it shock at seeing him? The same shock he felt at seeing her after all these years, and here, of all places? He almost felt like fainting himself, but there would be nobody to catch him if he did, he was quite sure of that.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, the question, even as it came out, sounding ridiculous. Why shouldn’t she be here? She had to be somewhere. But here?
‘I could ask you the same thing,’ she replied.
Haydon forced a smile, but it felt stiff and wrong.
‘You know each other?’ the man asked.
Ashley glanced uneasily at Haydon and then back at Nanette’s brother again. ‘Sort of. We met many years ago. But we haven’t seen each other in…’
At this, the memory of their drunken encounter made Haydon’s cheeks burn. He wasn’t proud of the way he’d come on to Ashley that night, and he wasn’t sure he wanted these nice, respectable people to judge him by the actions of one crazy evening. Not to mention that Ella was with him, and God only knew what she might make of it all. He’d really liked Ashley, and she’d promised to keep in touch, but she’d disappeared from his life the minute he’d left her apartment to catch his flight home. The rejection had stung, and had continued to do so sporadically until he met Janine a year later. It was beginning to look as if he had quite a talent for getting it wrong if his now-failed marriage was anything to go by. No wonder Ashley had chosen to steer clear in the end.
Nanette, seemingly oblivious to the tension suddenly choking the air between Ashley and Haydon, smiled brightly.
‘You know each other – this is wonderful! So, Haydon, this is also my brother Maurice.’
Haydon forced his gaze away from Ashley, who still looked as bewildered and shell-shocked as he did, and gave Maurice a stiff nod of acknowledgement.
‘Good to meet you. So you’re Ashley’s father?’
‘Stepfather,’ Maurice replied. Though the charged moment seemed to have escaped Nanette, Maurice was watching with a shrewd expression. Did he know who Haydon was? About their past? About what Haydon and Ashley had done that night? Had Ashley told him?
Haydon shook himself. Surely not. Surely it wasn’t the sort of thing a girl shared with her parents – step or otherwise. Perhaps he was paying more attention because he recognised a weird reaction when he saw one, and Haydon had to admit that his reaction was probably about as weird as it got. He was only glad that Ella was somewhere down the beach and out of the way so she hadn’t seen it, because it would doubtless have led to awkward questions later. He desperately needed to pull himself together. If Ashley was half as freaked out by events as he was then she was already a great steaming pile of freaked out, and she probably didn’t need him adding to it.
‘So, it’s great to see you again,’ he said to Ashley weakly. Even as he did he was struck by what a ridiculously inadequate sentiment it was. Great to see you? Like they’d once grabbed a coffee and promised to catch up next time he was in town? Like they’d once been at the same business meeting or been thrown together on an office team-building exercise?
‘Yeah,’ Ashley replied, staring at him as if he might disappear if she closed her eyes for a second. Which was also how he felt, though he tried hard not to let it show. What was going through her head as she looked at him? Loathing? Annoyance? Resentment? Or were there some stirrings of long-forgotten attraction now threading through the shock, as he felt now? She wasn’t eighteen any more, but she was still gorgeous. The same soft grey eyes and that same golden hair that had rested on tanned shoulders that night. Even now, even at this most awkward and inappropriate moment, his gut groaned with desire, stronger with every new memory that assailed him.
His gaze went to the sand so he wouldn’t have to look at her, so nobody might guess at the tumult of emotions beneath the surface that might give him away.
‘Molly is Ashley’s daughter,’ Nanette said into the brief gap.
Haydon’s head snapped up again. ‘Molly’s yours…?’
So she was with someone now? He should have realised that a woman like Ashley would be. She probably got attention wherever she went. How stupid of him to entertain for a single second the notion that they might somehow pick up where they’d left off, that she’d be remotely interested in him. After all, she hadn’t wanted to see him again after Ibiza so why would now be any different?
‘She seems a great girl,’ he said stiffly. ‘She and Ella have really hit it off.’
‘Ella?’
‘Ella’s my daughter,’ Haydon said. ‘They’re in the sea now with Bastien.’
His gaze turned to the shore, and when he turned back he could see Ashley watching them carefully as they splashed about.
‘So…’ Nanette clapped her hands together. ‘We have food. Would you care to eat with us, Haydon?’
Haydon gave a vague nod. The last thing he needed was food, but what else was he going to say? What he really needed was a darkened room. Or perhaps a cold shower.
Nanette bade him take a seat on the blanket and Ashley did the same, sitting next to Maurice, who seemed to be glancing between them every so often as if to work them out. Haydon couldn’t blame him because whatever history they had must have been written on his face at least. As for Ashley, he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. The only thing he recognised was that same numb shock, disbelief that this could be happening. Of all the places she had to be right now, why did it have to be here?
Chapter 10
Maybe she’d had weirder days, but she couldn’t recall one. Ashley sat on the swing seat on the veranda of Villa Marguerite, lost in thought. The tabby who so often lay across the cushions when nobody was using it was now curled on her lap. Somehow, quietly and without ceremony, they’d become friends. One minute it was eyeing Ashley with the greatest suspicion, the next leaping onto her knee as she settled. It didn’t have a name because Violette hadn’t expected it to stick around when it had wandered into her garden and started to pilfer scraps of food. And if it did she hadn’t expected to survive long enough to find out. That was ten years ago, but Violette had got so used to calling it Le Chat that it had become its official title. This was one amongst many stories Ashley had heard since her arrival – one of many lovely stories. If only the one she had to tell right now was quite as lovely.
After all these years, he wandered back into her life with a great to see you? Like nothing ever happened? They’d shared the most incredible night and, even though it was foolish and naïve, she’d thought he might have even cared for her. But he’d left her with broken promises, a dodgy phone number and a swelling belly, and today h
e showed up in her life with another kid? A bloody kid! It hadn’t taken him long to move on and start getting other women knocked up. But she supposed she had to hand it to him that at least he’d stuck by this one, so lucky Ella. Or maybe it was lucky Molly, she told herself, because at least Molly knew where she stood and didn’t have a letch and a liar for a dad. How many other kids bore his features? How many other women had he loved and left? He’d seemed so sweet and genuine all those years ago and even again today. If she hadn’t known better, she’d almost fancy that those old feelings for him had rushed back to taunt her. He was a bloody good actor, she told herself. Nothing more than a conman. So you can forget any sort of reconciliation because he will only break your heart again.
Sue’s voice came from the doorway. ‘Mind if I join you?’
Ashley nodded and moved her feet to make room, dislodging Le Chat, who stalked off with a reproachful mew.
‘So it sounds like Molly and Bastien had a good time at the beach with the girl from across the way. Molly says she wants to call for her again tomorrow. And Maurice tells me you bumped into an old friend…’
‘Someone I knew a bit. A long time ago.’
‘Maurice said he thought you both looked a bit shocked. That you both seemed embarrassed to see each other.’
‘Did he now? And how would he come to that conclusion?’
‘He has eyes, you know. He may be a man, but he’s not completely ignorant of the little signs and signals of human emotion.’
‘We were just shocked to see each other in such a random place, that’s all. You know, the coincidence of the kids making friends first and then them being our kids all along.’
‘Right. So how do you know him?’
Ashley hesitated. Her mum was on to her – at least she thought she was on to something. It would explain all the questions. Right now Ashley was glad she’d never revealed anything about Haydon to her mum. When she’d first got home and found she couldn’t contact him, she’d simply felt foolish that she’d been used for sex by a guy who’d never intended to keep in touch, and so she hadn’t said a word to her mum about the affair. And later, when she’d discovered she was pregnant, she hadn’t wanted the manhunt that her mum, armed with any nugget of information, however small and insignificant, would inevitably begin. He hadn’t wanted Ashley, and she didn’t need the double humiliation of telling him she was pregnant with his child and being rejected again. Sue had asked, of course, and Ashley had pretended she didn’t even know that much about him. It seemed easier. The dust would settle and Sue would get on with the business of supporting Ashley through those difficult first months, and then she would grow to love her granddaughter and it wouldn’t matter where she had come from. Ashley had been proved right; all of that came to pass, and if this stupid coincidence hadn’t cocked everything up today, that’s how things would have stayed.
The Summer Getaway_A feel-good romance novel perfect for holiday reading Page 9
