The Brooding Frenchman s Proposal

by Rebecca Winters

  Since Guy had come home, she told him she would ask Pierre to drive her into Nice to pick up some of Chantelle’s favorite chocolate truffles. His wife loved one in the afternoon with a cup of coffee.

  Guy told her to take as long as she wanted. He wasn’t going anywhere. Raoul had returned from Switzerland and would be handling everything at the office until further notice.

  Her pulse raced just hearing that unexpected news. Without wasting any time, she left the villa. Pierre knew exactly where to go in Nice. Within a half hour she’d made her purchase, but when he asked her if she was ready to return to the villa, she said no. In the next breath she told him to drive her to Laroche headquarters and asked if he would wait for her.

  After Pierre pulled up in front, she climbed out and rushed inside the luxurious office building located outside the old part of the city. The security guard near the elevators told her she wouldn’t be able to see Monsieur Laroche without an appointment.

  “Please ring and tell him it’s Mrs. Aldridge on an urgent matter.”

  He did her bidding, then told her to wait. After he’d made the call, his attitude changed. Suddenly he apologized all over the place, offering her his seat and a drink if she’d like one. She shook her head.

  Whatever Raoul had said had lit a fire under him. It had the effect of a soothing balm because she hadn’t known what kind of reception she would get. Raoul ran hot and cold depending on his mood and the situation at the moment. Evidently, he didn’t want her going up to his office suite, so she had no choice but to wait.

  “Laura?” sounded that deep husky voice she’d missed so horribly. She whirled around to discover Raoul striding up to her dressed in a midnight-blue suit and dazzling white shirt with a monogrammed tie. He was too attractive. She could hardly breathe.

  He’d come down a private elevator further along the hall. She could tell because there weren’t any buttons. You had to use a specially coded card key made for a select few.

  His eyes played everywhere, setting her on fire. She could hear it crackling, could feel the tremendous rise in temperature heating her body.

  “I…I hope you don’t mind me bothering you here at work, especially when Guy said you just flew in, but this is vital.”

  Something in her demeanor must have told him she wasn’t kidding because his expression grew solemn. “How did you get here?”

  “With Pierre. He’s out in front.”

  She heard his sharp intake of breath. “Let’s go.”

  He didn’t touch her, but she sensed he wanted to. Whatever black mood he’d been in a week ago seemed to have dissipated. With the sparks they were setting off right now, the slightest provocation made them combustible.

  She noticed he sat opposite her once they were enclosed inside the limo, as if he didn’t trust himself to be next to her. It was just as well since she didn’t trust herself. He signaled to Pierre to take them home, but she shook her head.

  “I have to talk to you first. Ask him to wait.”

  “What’s this all about? I thought you made a commitment to Chantelle to stay.”

  Where had that come from? A fierce look had taken hold of his features. Could she hope that she’d grown on him enough that he couldn’t tolerate the idea of her leaving?

  She wasn’t talking about their physical chemistry, which was so powerful she quaked with yearning if she allowed herself to remember that night at his villa. She was thinking of emotions that drove two people together and kept them that way for a lifetime because they didn’t need anyone else to complete them.

  Guy and Chantelle were the perfect example of what she was talking about. On a moment’s notice he’d left work to be at her side, even if she pretended she didn’t want him there, because he loved her. It was because of that love Laura couldn’t live with her secret any longer.

  She’d promised Chantelle she wouldn’t tell anyone, but she had wrestled with her conscience long enough and had to break her silence, for everyone’s sake.

  “This isn’t about me. Chantelle’s home with a migraine.”

  A bleakness entered his eyes. “I know. Guy said he was going home to be there for her. She gets them on occasion.”

  Laura had never prayed harder in her life that she was doing the right thing. “I know why she gets them, Raoul. I know everything.”

  A stillness invaded the car’s interior. A grim expression crossed over his striking features. “You know the reason for her behavior since the accident?” he whispered in shock.

  Laura nodded. “Last week I found her sobbing. She lay across her bed like a forlorn little doll, white as her sheets. She told me to leave, but I insisted on staying until she admitted what was going on. That’s when it all came out.

  “After she was taken to the hospital following her car accident, she found out she had an inoperable brain tumor and was given less than a year to live.”

  “What?” Raoul looked as if he’d just heard that life as they knew it was about to be obliterated.

  She swallowed hard. “It’s taken me time to comprehend what she told me, so I can only imagine what you’re feeling right now. It isn’t fair what’s happened to her, but then life really isn’t fair.” Her voice shook.

  “Start from the beginning,” he demanded through lips that looked as chiseled as the rest of his features.

  “Though she didn’t tell me, she must have sworn the doctors to secrecy. After being utterly devastated by the news, she came up with the idea to push Guy—all of you—away, in order to prepare you for her death.

  “Her migraines are purely stress related because of the secret she’s been holding back.” For the next few minutes Laura told him everything she knew and remembered of their conversation.

  When she’d finished, Raoul’s mouth had gone white around the edges. His black eyes impaled her. “It’s been a whole week. You should have come to me the moment you knew.”

  “She swore me to secrecy, Raoul, and she trusts me. If you only knew how I’ve been struggling ever since. You know how deeply I care for her. I couldn’t stand it if I lost the trust she has in me. But in the end I couldn’t keep it in. That’s why I finally came to you.”

  “To lie to this degree…” He bit out and shook his dark head. “Chantelle couldn’t possibly love Guy the way I thought she did—the way he thought she did.

  “For over three months she’s caused excruciating pain to her own husband, to her son. To me,” he said scathingly. “This news will destroy my brother. What kind of woman does that to a man?”

  “Don’t,” Laura begged him. “You couldn’t begin to know what frame of mind she was in after the accident. She was still in shock when they told her.” Laura leaned across to put a hand on his forearm It was hard as steel. There was no give, even with her entreating him.

  “Raoul,” she said softly. Seeing him in so much pain was devastating.

  He ignored her entreaty and pulled out his phone. After he told the driver to take them home, he lay back against the seat with his eyes closed, his pallor unmistakable. They didn’t talk the rest of the way.

  The minute Pierre stopped the limo, Raoul hurried inside the villa with her. Laura didn’t know how he was going to broach the subject to his brother, but she was terrified.

  Her heart sank when one of the maids saw them in the foyer and came over to Raoul. She explained that Guy had taken Madame to the hospital because the pain had gotten worse. Paul was at Giles’s house.

  “You go,” Laura cried as he turned to her. “She needs her family.” What if the end was coming sooner than the doctor thought? “If Paul should phone, I’ll tell him.”

  He nodded grim-faced and rushed out of the villa.

  “Guy?” Raoul whispered. “While Chantelle’s still asleep, we need to talk. Come out in the hall with me.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to leave her.”

  Since the conversation in the limo with Laura, Raoul was alive with grief and rage. The morphine cocktail drip h
elping Chantelle to recover from this latest migraine brought home the reality of her true condition. Seeing her stretched out on the examining table, helpless, was killing him.

  In the two hours he’d been at the hospital with his brother, the color had returned to her cheeks. Both he and Guy breathed easier because of it, but Raoul didn’t want to wait any longer to tell him the brutal truth.

  With reluctance Guy got up from the chair and followed Raoul to the reception area outside the E.R. where half a dozen people were sitting around waiting. Raoul purposely walked him down a corridor. When he found an empty examining room, he pulled him inside and shut the door.

  “Sit down, Guy. I have something to tell you.”

  “I can’t sit.”

  He eyed his brother soulfully. “You’re going to need to.”

  Guy’s face went ashen before he did Raoul’s bidding.

  “I know the reason for the drastic change in Chantelle.”

  His eyes widened. “She told Laura?” Lines of exhaustion from worry made him seem older.

  This was the hardest thing Raoul had ever had to do in his life. “Yes. I just came from talking to her. There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to go ahead. Chantelle is dying of an inoperable brain tumor.”

  By now Raoul would have told Guy the heartbreaking news. Since Laura couldn’t do anything for anyone, she decided to fly to Marseille and take a tourist boat out from the port to the Château d’If a mile away. This was one time when she needed to get away from the villa. Guy had told Laura to use the helicopter anytime she wanted. It was at her disposal.

  Armed with a couple of new sketchpads and pencils, she embarked on her journey. She needed to immerse herself in work for a few hours to deal with the pain.

  Dumas had made the fortress famous in his novel of The Count of Monte Cristo, which Laura had read years earlier. According to Chantelle, it was a square, three-story castle built by François I in the early 1500s. The perfect kind of setting for a videogame.

  Her drawing ended up taking the whole afternoon. There was one more level of the castle to go before she went back to the mainland.

  Despite the tourists milling around, Laura had managed to fill a sketchpad already. The guide at the château had explained that the former prisoners were treated differently depending on their wealth and social class. Edmond Dantes, the prisoner in Dumas’s novel, had been incarcerated at the bottom of the dungeon below the waterline. No windows, no amenities.

  Wealthier inmates, on the second level, had their own private cells. Each level was different enough to make up a unique game. The top of the castle had been built for prisoners who had outside help to pay for the privilege. There were windows, a fireplace and a garderobe. The whole château was a natural. Once a player mastered the dungeon level, he could move on up to the second level and then the third.

  Deep in concentration on the last page of her drawings, she was scarcely aware of the activity going on around her. “Didn’t you hear the guide?” a man said near her ear. “They’re closing for the day.”

  The sound of his voice was so familiar to her, it caused her to drop her sketchpad. Raoul picked it up before she could and looked through it. “The same quality, the same verve,” he muttered.

  “Thank you.” The words came out close to a whisper because she was so amazed to see him here. He’d been on her mind continually. If he’d already told Guy, she couldn’t tell. In the dim light his eyes had never looked so jet-black.

  “The pilot’s waiting to fly us back. Let’s go.”

  She put her sketchpad in her tote bag and followed him down the ancient stone stairs to the entrance. They took the tender back to the mainland. Within a half hour they’d landed on the estate, where the limo was waiting. Raoul told the driver to drop them off at his villa.

  All the while she’d had to contain her misery while she waited to hear the worst. When he ushered her inside his living room, she couldn’t stand it any longer and wheeled around. “If you don’t tell me what’s happened, I don’t think I can stand it.”

  He removed his suit jacket and tie before standing in front of her. “As we speak, Guy, Chantelle and Paul are at the hospital in a private room while she’s still recovering from her migraine.”

  The tears she’d been fighting gushed down her cheeks. “It must be so awful, I can’t bear it.”

  “You could say Guy came close to losing it when he demanded to meet with all her doctors. Then a strange thing happened.” He cocked his head. “They all denied she had a brain tumor. To prove it, they did another MRI on her. It only took ten minutes. They found nothing on her brain of any kind.”

  “What did you say?” Laura cried.

  “When Chantelle awakened from the medication, they asked where she had got the idea she was dying. She told them exactly what she told you. So they called in the attending E.R. physician who was on call the day of her accident. It appears that while she was lying there, she overheard him talking to another doctor about another patient who’d been brought in.”

  “You mean Chantelle’s not dying?” Her voice sound more like a shriek.

  He shook his head. “She’s in perfect health.”

  “Oh, Raoul, thank God!” She flew toward him and threw her arms around him, sobbing. She must have hugged him for ten minutes.

  “Thank God,” he eventually said in a gravelly voice, but something was missing. Where was his joy? She didn’t understand and eased out of his arms to look at him.

  What she saw in his expression alarmed her. She knew he was exhausted from his business trip. Coupled with his agony over Chantelle, he looked dissipated, though she knew he wasn’t. Even in this state he was devastatingly attractive, but he was definitely behaving strangely.

  Her anxiety was at a pitch. She searched for a reason. “Can’t Guy forgive her?” she cried.

  Raoul stood planted there as still as a piece of driftwood left high and dry on a lonely beach.

  “I have absolutely no idea, but I do know this. If Chantelle were my wife, I couldn’t forgive her.” Suddenly his eyes pierced hers like lasers. “I’m convinced there’s no such thing as an honest woman.”

  His words sounded the death knell to their tender relationship.

  Raoul couldn’t forgive Laura for keeping Chantelle’s secret from everyone for a whole week. He might as well have said, “Get out of my sight and never come back.”

  Her body shrank from the knowledge. She turned away from him and ran out of the villa. As soon as she could pack her things, Raoul would get his wish.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE judge adjusted his bifocals. This was it. Laura held her breath while her attorney squeezed her arm to give her courage. He read:

  “In the matter of Stillman v. Stillman, the case brought before the Court of Santa Barbara in the County of Santa Barbara, California, the Court has read the petition for divorce on the grounds of incompatibility and finds all documentation in order. Therefore a decree of divorce between Laurel Aldridge and Theodore Stillman has been granted on this fifteenth day of August.

  “Counselors will get together on your own time to agree on disbursement of monies and property.” He pounded his gavel. “Court adjourned.” The judge stood up and left the room.

  Laura swung around and hugged her attorney. “Thank you. You’ll never know how I’ve longed for this day.”

  He smiled. “By keeping a low profile all these months, there was nothing your ex could find on you to try and prolong your case. Without children involved, I was able to get the earliest court date for you.”

  “I’m aware of all you’ve done for me and can never thank you enough.”

  “Do you know what I admire about you most, Laura? Besides refusing all money or property, you refused to charge him with adultery. One day when he’s a congressman, he’ll thank you for not dragging his name through the mud. His public record will remain clean. The man’s luckier than he knows.”

  “He doesn’t belie
ve that, but whatever he thinks, it doesn’t matter. It’s over. Thank you again for helping me believe this day was going to come.”

  “It’s been my pleasure. Come on. I’ll walk you out.”

  She held on to his arm, leaving Ted and his brothers glaring at her from the other side of the aisle. She couldn’t figure out why. He was free to find a new trophy wife. One who wanted it all, too.

  Cindy stood waiting outside the doors of the courtroom. The minute Laura saw her she hugged her for a long time. “I’m finally free.” The tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Where do you want to celebrate before I have to get back to work? Name it. It’s my treat today.”

  Laura eased away from her and wiped her eyes. “Thanks, Cindy. How about we meet for a hamburger at the Z-Top.”

  “You’re on, let’s go.”

  It didn’t take long to reach their rendezvous point. Once they were served, Cindy smiled at her. “Are you officially Ms. Aldridge again?”

  Laura nodded. “That was part of what was included in the decree. My whole life’s going to change, not having to answer to Mrs. Stillman anymore.”

  “Today you’re no longer a celebrity.”

  “Nope. Just me, thank heaven. For the last year I’ve envied you being free. Now I don’t have to look over my shoulder every minute. I can’t believe that when I go home, I don’t have to worry about Ted barging in on me or phoning me at odd hours. I’m my own person, just like I used to be.”

  “Not quite your own person,” Cindy said cryptically.

  She stopped munching. “What do you mean?”

  Cindy gave her that knowing look. “Raoul, of course. Ever since you flew home from Cap Ferrat you haven’t been yourself. Knowing you as I do, I’d say you’re emotionally drained. You’ve lost weight you know.”

  “After living at Guy’s house with that cook of theirs, I needed to shed five pounds.”