The Night That Started It All

by Anna Cleary

  ‘See, Shari? Here’s Luc and Manon. This was the day we visited Tante Laraine’s farm. Do you remember, Neil? How happy we all were?’ Her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Oh, Em.’ Shari put her arms around her and stroked Em’s hair. Naturally, anyone in tears always brought hers on as well.

  When they’d all mopped up, Shari glanced again at the picture, once or twice. Manon was beautiful, no doubt about it. Some would say she and Luc looked good together. Right together, both being so tall and good-looking. Though Shari was not one of those people. How people looked was hardly the point.

  She tried to persuade herself Luc didn’t appear all that happy in the picture. He wasn’t exactly grinning like the others, just smiling a little at Manon in that amused sort of way that made his eyes warm.

  It scraped her heart. She turned away from it. Family photos had never interested her, anyway.

  As it happened, she knew enough about Manon, since naturally, after the Luc debacle, she’d come across a few things on the Internet about Manon and her sensational affair with Jackson Kerr. Not that she was all that interested in Kerr and Manon at Cannes, or Kerr and Manon in LA. There’d been a million articles about Kerr’s discarded actress wife, with the usual wild gossip over the trashing of the marriage.

  The tabloids had been pumped with it all when the affair was fresh, though now after all this time it had gone off the boil.

  Luc hardly came in for a mention, except she saw his name mentioned in a couple of French newspaper articles about business. Who cared, anyway?

  She buried herself in work. Anything to blot out reality.

  She was involved in mapping out paintings one morning for her owl story when a magnificent bouquet of flowers was delivered to her door. Wow. It must have been ruinously expensive. Carrying the fragrant mass in to join her accumulating hothouse, she opened the card.

  And felt a rapid pounding in her temples.

  To Shari. Sincere condolences for your tragic loss from my heart. Luc Valentin.

  She sat at her kitchen table, staring at the card, smarting. What did he mean by it? He knew enough about Rémy. He’d seen her bruise. Was he using this occasion to needle her?

  Meantime, Neil continued to pour information into her unwilling ears. While Rémy had recently made his home in Australia, he’d still kept his French citizenship. His true heart had always been in Paris, according to the family. He must be transported there and buried in the family tomb.

  ‘Emilie’s devastated that she can’t go, Shari,’ Neil’s voice issued down the phone. ‘Not with the twins so close.’

  ‘Oh, of course. I know. It’s such a shame.’ Shari felt so sad for poor Emilie, and helpless. ‘Poor Em. It’s a horrible tragedy. But what can she do?’

  ‘She thinks someone must go in her place.’ Neil’s voice faltered a little. ‘We er … we know you’ll want to be there, Shari. So we’re—counting on you.’

  Shari blenched to the soles of her feet. ‘What?’

  The image of Luc Valentin, backed by a phalanx of hostile aunts, turned her hoarse. ‘Neil, no. Rémy and I didn’t even part as friends. Far from it. He wouldn’t— They wouldn’t want me there. I don’t even know Paris. I—I—I … Neil. You know I can’t afford it.’

  ‘Don’t worry, lovie,’ Neil said with surprising gentleness for a brother who was usually fairly brisk. ‘We’ll buy your ticket. We insist. It’s the least we can do for you.’

  ‘But … Please, Neil, tell Em I’d love to represent her, but I can’t. You of all people know I’m no good with funerals. And I’m too … Lately I’ve just been so tired. And I haven’t a thing to wear. Anyway, I hardly know a word of French. Neil, Neil—I couldn’t bear that long flight.’

  There was a long silence. Then Neil’s voice came through again. Serious this time. Kindly. ‘Sis … Listen to yourself. You need to do this. Em and I have seen how down you’ve been these past weeks. You’re not yourself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Though she knew as soon as she said it she’d probably been tetchy and miserable. How could she have been anything else? Rémy had died, for goodness’ sake. She’d never been able to handle death.

  As well, she’d been shamed by a man she’d offered herself to, she was struggling to create a book, and if all that weren’t bad enough her PMT crisis had gone on for so long her boobs were exploding out of her bras.

  ‘Emilie and I have talked it over. You’re in denial, we think.’

  ‘Neil.’ She laughed hollowly. ‘Don’t be silly.’

  Typical of her brother to come up with some pop psychology. If only it were possible to explain to a man without him immediately leaping onto the bandwagon of sexist propaganda about hormones affecting women’s intelligence.

  The truth was, stress had always given her menstrual problems, right back to her high-school days. Crushes, exams, falling in passionate love with her English teacher … The pangs of adolescence had thrown her querulous body clock out of whack every time.

  She knew from experience that once her period started, she’d feel better in every way and be able to cope properly and be a decent, loving support to her sister-in-law.

  ‘Come on, Shar. The truth is you’ve been grieving over Rémy and the engagement a long, long time. We think you need to make this pilgrimage to properly close this episode in your life.’

  Oh, right. Where did they get their psychiatric expertise from? Doctor Phil?

  A few retorts jostled on her tongue, but most of them would only add fuel to Neil’s assertion that she wasn’t being herself. Her mousy, frumpy, slutty, hormonal self.

  ‘We absolutely insist on sending you first class,’ Neil persisted, enthusiastic since it didn’t have to be him. ‘See? You can sleep all the way. It’ll be a rest. And don’t worry about Paris. The family will look after you. Look how well you got on with Luc.’

  Visions of the boathouse, their hot, panting urgency, Luc’s hard length filling her up, making her cry out, making her wild, making her yearn every night since, sent Shari’s knees weak. ‘No,’ she said faintly. ‘You’re wrong about that. We detested each other.’

  ‘Are you sure? It hardly seems like a week since you were here fluttering your lashes at him.’

  Shari wanted to shout Stop. If only he knew what he was saying. Every word was a spike in her heart. Considering that Luc Valentin was the only person now living who knew the shame of her battered woman status …

  Considering she’d actually had sex with him …

  Considering he thought her the lowest, most pathetic creature he’d ever laid his aristocratic eyes on …

  And how recently she’d snarled at him on the phone like a wild animal.

  She shuddered to the core. She could never face him again.

  ‘Come on, Shar. Please. If not for yourself, do it for Emilie. Em wants to ask you herself, but she’s afraid you’ll think she’s imposing on your generous nature.’

  Right. Fine. The Big One. The Emilie card.

  Emilie was fragile, Neil reminded her. The twins could be distressed. Any further disturbance could bring on a premature birth situation. They could lose the twins. They could lose Emilie.

  Shari’s conscience twinged. She loved Em as much as she loved Neil. With sinking resignation it dawned on her she didn’t have a chance of wriggling out of it unless she wanted to feel shame and self-reproach for all time.

  Succumbing to the intense and excruciating pressure by painful degrees over days, she accepted that this was what family members did for each other. For once in her life she must put aside her personal fears and phobias and do something for someone else. Regardless of what Luc Valentin thought, she did have courage and self-respect, and she could behave honourably, and like an adult.

  She could go there and meet him on his home turf with cool composure.

  Though she did lay down some stipulations. She would only go briefly. And she would arrange it all herself. She wanted no interference.

  There would be n
o advance warnings given. She made Neil solemnly promise on his honour as a brother and a stockbroker. No jolly welcoming committee at the airport. No feather bed tucked under the charming rafters of Tante Laraine’s rustic roof.

  Emilie was shocked and wounded at this—Tante Laraine was her mother’s beloved cousin, and the mother of Luc—but Shari insisted. She would rather stay in a hotel.

  She would rather stay in a drain.

  All right, she could admit to herself she was scared. Call her a coward, but everyone knew the French loathed strangers. Especially if they couldn’t speak the language creditably. Rémy had always found her attempts to use her high school French hilarious.

  Naturally, the last thing she wanted was to stay in a household where her name was a byword. One of her deepest fears was that Luc would have informed his entire family about the whore of Babylon Rémy had engaged himself to. It wasn’t as if she’d be able to defend herself there by telling them the truth about their golden boy.

  Boys.

  And as if everything else weren’t enough, the truth was, as Neil very well knew, she’d been severely traumatised by funerals ever since her mother’s. If Neil hadn’t been there to put his arms around her quivering ten-year-old self in the bad days and nights that had followed she’d probably have had to be sectioned.

  Dragging herself to the task, she booked a room in a hotel near the Louvre. At least it didn’t sound too bad. There was something solid about an Hôtel du Louvre. If her nerve failed her when it came time to attend the ceremony, she could always sneak to the museum and hide among the Egyptian antiquities.

  The flight she booked was transferable, just in case anything came up where she was required to stay longer. If Luc Valentin got over his disgust at the way she’d spoken to him on the phone, he might feel forced to take her to dinner, or something. She should probably accept, for the family’s sake, although she’d be reserved, even rather chilling.

  She took steps to ensure she had something decent to wear to the ceremony. Luc might have a low opinion of her morals and her self-regard, but she would give him no opportunity to sneer at her clothes. Rémy had often declared that a Frenchmen could only ever feel distaste for the woman who was careless of projecting her beauty.

  It had never been any use explaining to him how easy it was for an author/artist to forget to change out of her pyjamas for twenty-four hours when in the grip of her muse. Even Emilie had wrinkled her nose when she found out her guilty secret. Shari doubted Luc would be any different.

  Just as well she wouldn’t be there long enough to get found out. She would establish a lasting impression of herself there as a woman of faultless grace and dignity.

  Taking Emilie’s advice, Shari stuffed the corners of her suitcase with scarves. A woman could get away with much in Paris, Em promised, so long as she wore a scarf. Along with the scarves Shari included a massive pack of tampons. When her period finally, blessedly, did eventuate, it was bound to be Niagara Falls.

  The moment arrived when, braced for every kind of horror, she boarded the flight.

  By the time she disembarked at Charles de Gaulle mid-evening twenty-five hours later, among other things she was feeling rather wan. An hour before landing, a minor bout of turbulence had made her lose her dinner. Fear, no doubt, combined with motion sickness.

  She cleaned herself up as best she could, scrubbed her teeth and sponged her neck, but her hair was lank, her clothes wrinkled and her breasts felt tender and vulnerable.

  At least no unwelcome man loomed up in Arrivals to witness her failure to project her beauty at the airport. One thing she never wanted to give Luc Valentin the chance to see was Shari Lacey in transit. He’d seen more than enough.

  Soon she was in a taxi being whisked incognito through the streets of the City of Light.

  Though it was officially spring, Luc’s home turf must have been suffering a cold snap. A drizzly rain obscured its fabled beauty and chilled Shari to her soul. When she alighted from the cab, her teeth chattered.

  She glanced around her, pursing her lips. So this was Paris.

  Drawing her thin trench coat around her, she regarded the hotel with grim misgiving. Its façade was imposing, in keeping with the surrounding palaces on the grand boulevards.

  But a smiling porter strolled out to take her bag and usher her through the revolving doors, and inside, thank the Lord, the lobby was warm, the people surprisingly welcoming.

  Feeling empty after her mishap during the flight, Shari planned to order a snack from the restaurant. But once settled in her airy room with its long, graceful drapes at the windows, all she had energy for was the hot shower she’d craved the last five thousand miles. Then, clean, warm and comforted, she slipped between the sheets.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SHARI woke to the pale grey light of a Paris dawn. Straight away the horrors of the day ahead sprang into her mind and her stomach swam in total rejection.

  Naturally. There wasn’t a lot to look forward to.

  Rémy, in his c—situation. Luc Valentin on his home turf. Remembering his last view of her. Judging her. Looking the way he looked in her dreams. So damned sexy.

  She dressed with gentle movements so as not to antagonise her insides. It struck her that every garment she donned was doubly appropriate. Funereal, for mourning, and sinful, sultry and black for her wicked, whorish nature.

  Emilie had lent her a beautiful, elegant silk suit from her pre-pregnant days. Shari had to suck in her breath to close the skirt zip, but at least the cinched-in waist flattered her curves, especially her breasts in the new lacy C-cup she’d bought to accommodate the recent rise in volume.

  With sheer black stockings and high heels, she judged the overall effect satisfactorily black, and possibly more elegant than she’d ever achieved to date. Now for the hat.

  She’d managed to prevail on Em for a loan of her wide black organza Melbourne Cup number with the luxuriant velvet rose adorning its brim. Shari loved the gorgeous thing. All it lacked was a veil.

  Positioning it carefully over the simple chignon she’d managed to achieve, she had the wistful sense it still made something of a disguise. None of her friends would have recognised her. Perhaps Luc wouldn’t.

  Though she’d smoothed on some make-up, her strain shone through. Staring at herself in the mirror, she understood breakfast wasn’t even a remote possibility. Lucky for her the bar-fridge offered a convenient bottle of the blessed black fizz, among other things. She crammed it into her shoulder bag for later. Just in case.

  All too soon the dreaded moment came. With a dry mouth, Shari took the lift down and asked the concierge to find her a taxi. The guy obliged by strolling out to the kerb and summoning one with a piercing whistle. Normally that would have delighted an Aussie girl from Paddo. Not today.

  Shivering, she climbed into the taxi like a serving wench into a tumbril. Neil and Emilie had provided her with all the details she needed. Rémy, her former lover, fiancé and abuser, was to be buried at Père Lachaise.

  With her feet pressing an imaginary brake through the floor, Shari was carried inexorably through the cemetery gates. The car followed a winding street through a city of stone. At the very end loomed a domed chapel.

  Her heart lurched. Gathered in front was a small congregation of mourners, all garbed in black. But superimposed on her vision of all of them was Luc. He was standing a little apart from the others looking grim and inaccessible. Her stomach clenched itself nastily.

  It was the crunch of her tyres on gravel that dragged Luc from his reverie.

  He turned and narrowed his gaze against the grey glare, attempting to make out the taxi’s occupant. The graceful curve of cheek and neck he glimpsed beneath the hat brim looked youthful and extremely feminine. Surely …

  No, it couldn’t be Manon. She wouldn’t have the gall to come here, flaunting her condition.

  Shari got out, not sure she could trust her legs to support her. As the taxi drove away she stood on the stone apro
n before the chapel, an alien in a foreign land. All eyes turned to stare at her.

  Shari felt the instant Luc recognised her. A tremor jolted through his tall frame that communicated itself to her at a deeply visceral level. For whole seconds he stared at her, the curious intensity blazing in his dark eyes paralysing her where she stood.

  He started towards her.

  Shari’s heart accelerated, far too fast. It was the first time she’d seen him in daylight. How could she have forgotten how—how he was? He looked powerful and autocratic, the expression of his strong, lean face grave and intent. As he neared she tried not to focus on the stirring lines of his mouth. Oh, Lord. This was hardly the time to be reminded of how it felt to be kissed by that mouth, but as he approached her insides roared into a mad, uncontrollable rush.

  ‘Shari.’ He searched her face, then bent formally to kiss each of her cheeks.

  She’d mentally prepared herself for this. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t allow him to touch her, kiss her, even brush her cheek with his roughened jaw, let alone touch her with his gorgeous lips. But when it came to the crunch …

  ‘Bonjour,’ she breathed, barely able to stand on her marsh-mallow knees. She felt the backs of her eyes prick and was possessed by a despicable longing to cling to his lapels.

  Though gentle, his dark velvet voice seared her nerves like a bow drawn across the strings of a cello. ‘I am sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, yes. Thanks. I know. It’s dreadful, isn’t it? Same—same to you, of course.’

  Amber glowed in the depths of his dark eyes as they searched hers. With chagrin she supposed he was looking for traces of the bruise.

  ‘You must be desolated,’ he said.

  Was he serious? Was this more mockery?

  He continued. ‘I did not expect … When did you arrive? Why did you not say? Who are you with? Where are you sleeping?’

  Beneath her silken finery her breasts all at once felt indescribably tender. Some of the insulting assumptions he’d made during their previous encounter flooded back with raw immediacy, and she found herself breathing rather fast.