The True Love Travels Series Box Set

by Poppy Pennington-Smith

  “Sixteen,” added Sebastian. “Annie was last here when she was sixteen.”

  Annie flinched and looked sideways at him, trying to detect a note of anger or resentment in his voice. But he was still smiling.

  “Well, it is wonderful to have you back. And thank goodness you were here for Madame Broudier. What a terrible business. Tell me, how is she?”

  As Annie filled the mayor in with details of GiGi’s stay in hospital, they slowly walked through the sunroom and out onto the terrace. Now that the sun had almost disappeared, it was cooler. Still humid, but cooler.

  “Please,” Annie said, gesturing to a chair. “Sit down.”

  “Oh, thank you.” The mayor sighed and flopped down, reaching instantly for a glass of iced tea. “It has been a long day. But, now... we must talk about the festival.”

  “Yes—” Annie was about to launch into an explanation of why she really felt it was best that they delayed it until GiGi was home from the hospital, because Annie didn’t speak French and had absolutely no experience organising events. But she didn’t get the chance.

  “Your grandmother tells me that you are a very impressive young lady. You own a business, you work with celebrity clients. You are used to making things happen as we say.”

  Annie hesitated. “Yes, that’s true, but—”

  The mayor clapped her hands. “Then this is fate! It is fate that you are here to help in our hour of need.”

  Annie glanced at Sebastian, who was clearly trying to hide a snigger behind his glass of iced tea.

  “You will do it, Annie, won’t you?”

  “Do... what?” Annie’s eyes widened as the mayor looked at her expectantly.

  “Organise the festival for us? I simply don’t have time, although of course I will help as much as I can. Your grandmother already has lists of potential vendors who want to bring their food and wine and music. So, it’s just a case of contacting them all, organising the decorations and the timings, getting the word out...”

  “That sounds like a lot, Mayor Debois and – the thing is – I don’t really speak very good French, so I’m not sure—”

  “Oh, that’s not a problem,” Sebastian interrupted. “I can help.”

  “You can?” Annie’s eyebrows tweaked upwards in surprise. “Sebastian you have a busy job, how can you?”

  “We’ll manage it.”

  “Really? You will?” The mayor was beaming from ear to ear. “Oh, this is such splendid news. It really is. Saint-Sabran will be so very proud to finally have a festival of our own. We have been talking about it for months, spreading the news amongst the other villages. It would have been such a shame to cancel.”

  “Of course,” Annie said. “Cancelling would be terrible. But... could you not postpone it a few weeks?”

  The mayor glanced at Sebastian and then laughed. “Oh, but of course we can’t. Almost every village in Provence has its own festival over the summer and we chose this time because it does not clash with any of the bigger ones.”

  “I see.” Annie couldn’t think of anything that she could say to wriggle her way out of the situation. “And when is the date that you chose?”

  “Oh, you have lots of time. The festival is going to take place four weeks from today.”

  Four weeks? To organise a festival that would outshine all other festivals in the area?

  Annie swallowed hard. Usually, she approached new and challenging situations with energy and enthusiasm, confident that she could overcome them. But this was different. This was something she was totally uncertain of.

  She glanced at Sebastian. Working on the festival together would mean being in close proximity with him for four whole weeks. And, once again, she couldn’t make herself say ‘no’. So, Annie smiled, clinked glasses with the mayor and told her she’d be happy to help.

  10

  Sebastian

  They arrived in the small beachside town of Port-le-Rouet just after nine a.m.

  Sebastian had set his alarm for six, taken his scooter into the village and collected croissants for breakfast, then returned to the chateau to fill a flask of coffee.

  Annie had greeted him by the old water fountain just after seven thirty, and they had set off straight away for the beach.

  Leaving early meant they would beat the bank holiday traffic and have enough time to visit Angelique at the hospital on their way back after lunch. But Sebastian also hoped it meant that Port-le-Rouet would be quiet.

  On the opposite side of town from the promenade and the restaurants, Sebastian pulled up beside a sloping, rocky bank that led down to the beach and tried to fight the overwhelming realisation that right now – in this moment – teenage-Sebastian’s dreams were coming true.

  For so many summers, he and Annie had talked about what they would do when Sebastian finally saved enough money to buy a scooter. They had talked about the places they would visit and the places they wouldn’t. They had talked about simply driving, for hours, with the wind in their hair.

  He had promised her picnics, and music, and paddles in the sea. And she had promised not to schedule every single trip that they took and to enjoy being spontaneous.

  Today, fifteen years later, Annie was keeping that promise. She hadn’t once asked him where they were going, what time they would get there, how long they’d stay for, or whether he’d thought about where they would eat for lunch.

  She had just sauntered down the steps at the front of the chateau, in white cut-offs and a navy-striped blouse, climbed onto the back of the scooter and allowed him to drive away.

  Disembarking, Annie slid her sunglasses onto the top of her head and looked up at the sky.

  “Not a cloud in sight,” she sighed wistfully. Then she turned and smiled at him. “You know, I bet in London it’s chucking it down right now.”

  Sebastian frowned, the usually smooth English-to-French mechanism in his brain faltering. “Chucking it down?”

  Annie giggled and flicked her ponytail as she tilted her head at him. “Raining really hard.”

  Sebastian laughed back. “Ah, well. It is England. Of course, it is raining.”

  Down below them, the sand was white and untouched – washed smooth overnight and not yet covered in footprints from visitors.

  Small white waves were licking at the shore and, beyond it, the ocean stretched as far as the eye could see – calm, hypnotic, and dazzlingly blue.

  “Wow.” Annie breathed out a long, wistful sigh and bobbed up and down on the soles of her feet.

  “Excited to feel the sand between your toes?”

  Annie looked down and laughed. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Take off your shoes, the path is sandy.” Sebastian bent down and slipped off his espadrilles, shoving them into his back pocket and starting to jog. “Last one to the water is a great big loser!”

  For a moment, he didn’t think she was going to follow him. She just stood there with her hands on her hips, frowning. But then, all of a sudden, she took off. She pushed past him, whooped loudly, and ran full-pelt towards the beach.

  Sebastian, of course, had no intention of letting her win. But he did let her get all the way to the water’s edge before swinging his arms around her waist and pulling her backwards.

  “Sebastian!” Annie shouted. “I won! Come on, I won! You can’t–”

  But then, somehow, their feet became tangled. Sebastian wobbled and tried to let go of her. Except now she was laughing and fighting him off and their arms were tangled too. And then both of them, together, ended up in a heap, sitting in the foaming waves, soaked to their underwear.

  Gallantly, Sebastian stood up and helped Annie to her feet.

  Looking down at her almost-see-through trousers, she laughed. “Good job I brought a swimsuit with me, huh?”

  Sebastian shook his head and looked back at where they’d ditched their bags before charging into the water. “I brought towels too.”

  “And food?” Annie asked, expectantly.

  �
��Ah, of course. Food and excellent French coffee.”

  “Can’t think of anything better,” Annie said, beaming at him.

  “Me neither,” Sebastian replied. “Me neither.”

  11

  Annie

  After visiting GiGi at the hospital on the way back from Port-le-Rouet, Annie sat down and dangled her feet into the non-existent swimming pool.

  She felt sun-weary and dazed from their morning at the beach. She didn’t remember the last time she had laughed so hard, or spent time simply being rather than doing.

  Sebastian had been exactly the way he had always been when they were teenagers – bright and relaxed and confident. And Annie had allowed herself to enjoy every second of it.

  But the trip to the hospital had sobered her up. GiGi had been chatty and animated, but she had looked tired and the doctors still hadn’t given a clear indication of when she’d be allowed to come home.

  GiGi had also been extremely concerned about the festival, and insisted that Annie begin organising things immediately.

  She had reeled off a list of things that Annie would need to do, told her where to find all of her existing notes and correspondence, and asked both of them to please keep her up to date with the developments because she was already bored-silly.

  Back at the chateau, Sebastian had gone to finish some work in the old stable and Annie had gathered herself out by the pool – resigned to the fact that she had promised to help and now had to deliver.

  In her hands, she held her grandmothers’s notebook. GiGi had made extensive notes about everything she’d planned so far for the festival, and Annie was now working her way through them – trying to figure out what she and Sebastian would need to do next.

  GiGi had got as far as contacting potential vendors, but it seemed she hadn’t firmed anything up with them. Several were marked as ‘To Visit’, but there were no corresponding appointments sketched into the accompanying calendar, which implied she was yet to arrange a meeting with them.

  GiGi didn’t do email. Annie found a note which indicated that she’d made contact with a local print centre about making posters, but she couldn’t see anything relating to music or potential singers and bands who might like to perform. Annie felt like this was likely to be the biggest challenge; the mayor wanted the festival to take place every night for an entire week, and they would probably need at least two performers per night, which meant fourteen musicians would be needed.

  The thought gave Annie a lump in her throat and she swallowed it down, tapping her pen on the notebook.

  Taking a deep breath and doing what she always did when she was struggling to think straight, she started to make a list of her own. At the very top of the list, she wrote:

  Visit a nearby festival.

  Despite spending most of her summers in Provence when she was younger, she was certain that the kind of events she’d attended then had grown and changed over the years and, now, she had no idea what to expect from one. Without knowing what she was aiming for, putting together something that would blow the other villages out of the water was going to be extremely difficult.

  So, swiping open her phone, she navigated to Google-France and tried to find out when the next local festival would take place. After half an hour of increasingly frustrating searches, she came up blank. Scratching her pen a little too hard on the notebook’s surface, next to her first point on the list, she wrote:

  Get Sebastian’s help!

  He had said that he would. But Annie still hadn’t really figured out how he was going to manage it when he was working full time. When she’d asked him, he’d merely shrugged it off and laughed – as if it was a joke. As if, of course he’d have time to help her. But Annie knew how important it was – in the early days of setting up a business – to maintain your reputation. If Sebastian started putting people off, cancelling jobs, or shifting them so that he could spend time helping her with her list, it wouldn't do him any favours.

  Annie wanted to ask him about it. She wanted to press him for details, but this instinct was something that she’d brought with her from London – the instinct to push and to narrow down details. To find out timings and know exactly when and how things were going to happen. In truth, she had always been that way. And Sebastian never had.

  When they were younger, Annie would ask him at the beginning of every day, “What are we doing today Sebastian?” and he would shrug his shoulders and make his little, “Ah...” sound and say, “Whatever we feel like doing.” To start with, his attitude had made her feel uneasy. Leaving things to chance didn’t come naturally to her, even at ten years old. But every day, and every summer, they had found something fun and unexpected and wonderful to do.

  Annie wished that she could still allow herself to be that way, but over the years she’d forgotten the way Sebastian taught her to let go, and she didn't really remember the last time she’d done anything that wasn’t planned, or scheduled, or carefully thought out.

  Even when she’d made the decision to sub-let her apartment and abscond to Provence for the summer, she had weighed and measured the pros and cons before setting the wheels in motion.

  She was adding items to her list when Sebastian appeared behind her.

  She knew it was him from his shadow. The way it fell over her and shielded her pasty-white legs from the sun.

  “I hope you’re wearing sun-screen,” he said smoothly, sitting down beside her.

  “Of course,” she smiled, although she probably should have re-applied it an hour ago.

  “Are you making progress?” He glanced at her list and narrowed his eyes at her scrawling handwriting.

  “Not really...” Annie frowned and tapped her pen on her temple. “Sebastian, when’s the next nearby festival happening? I think I need to visit one because—” She was consulting her list, chewing her lip nervously and tucking her hair behind her ear. But she stopped because Sebastian was laughing at her.

  “Of course you do. You need to thoroughly assess the situation and make a plan... am I right?”

  Annie tried to look indignantly at him, but softened and rolled her eyes at herself. “Yes. You’re right. So—”

  “Actually...” Sebastian’s eyes lit up. “I believe there is one tonight...”

  As sunset approached, Annie stood in the old bridal suite upstairs trying to decide what to wear. Sebastian, of course, would be in his traditional white t-shirt and knee-length denim shorts. But she was finding the decision almost impossible. Everything she’d brought with her felt completely inappropriate – either too flouncy or too ‘London’. And the heat was making things even more difficult. The humidity in the area seemed to be rising every day, so anything with sleeves or legs just felt far too claustrophobic.

  In the end, she settled on a light blue sun dress and deftly braided her hair so that it was away from her face, scooping it up and pinning it so that wisps fell down in a purposefully messy bun.

  In the full heat of the Provence summer, even makeup felt like a layer too much. But the sun and fresh air already seemed to be doing her some good and she was surprised to see that – without the constant grime of the London tube system to contend with – her skin looked healthier than it had in a long time.

  Downstairs, Sebastian was waiting for her out front beside his scooter.

  As Annie saw him, from the top of the front steps, her heart skipped a beat.

  When she went back to England after their last summer together, she had spent almost all of the following year hoping that Sebastian would turn up out of the blue, declare his undying love for her, and sweep her away from her horrid boarding school and lonely life.

  Most of the time, this dream had coincided with picturing her school prom. The thought of emerging from her room in a ball gown and seeing Sebastian waiting at the bottom of the stairs had plagued her dreams for months. Probably because of all the fairy tales she’d read growing up, and all the cheesy movies she’d watched.

  Of course, Sebas
tian had never come. Annie had stopped writing to him and ghosted him out of her life, so why in the world would he travel to England to win her back? And, besides, he was barely seventeen at the time and Annie doubted that he’d had enough money for a bus ticket let alone a plane journey.

  Nevertheless, she had dreamed and dreamed of him coming to find her and whisk her away.

  And now, here he was. All grown up and standing at the foot of the chateau with his wavy hair blowing ever-so-slightly in the breeze. Grinning up at her. Reaching out to take her hand.

  As his fingers wrapped around hers, Annie’s stomach began to somersault.

  “You look lovely,” Sebastian said with a smile.

  Annie blushed and shook her head a little, batting away the compliment. “I look hot.”

  Sebastian frowned.

  Annie tutted at herself, blushing furiously. “I mean – temperature hot. Not...”

  Sebastian stopped frowning and started to laugh. “I know what you meant, I was just teasing.”

  “Of course you were.”

  Sebastian gestured to the scooter. “Your chariot awaits, dear lady.”

  The small town of Mimette was about a twenty-minute journey away from Saint-Sabran and Sebastian purposefully drove them through tiny side streets rather than on the motorway to get there.

  Clinging on to his firm, steady waist, Annie tried to absorb her surroundings. She had been so familiar with them once, and seeing them again now was a strange combination of déjà vu and wonder.

  Mimette was a very old town, and one of Annie’s favourites because it was enclosed on all four sides by walls and turrets that made it look like an enormous castle.

  When they arrived, there were cars and scooters and people everywhere. Sebastian parked at the side of the road about half a mile from the town gates. A steady stream of people were walking from their cars to the archways of the town and Sebastian smiled as he saw them. “Wow. It’s busy this year,” he said. The way he said ‘wow’, with a funny, rounded emphasis on the ‘w’ sound, made Annie smile.