Her cheeks rather flushed, her aunt got up and began clearing away the supper dishes. ‘I can understand that but I don’t want you to burn your boats here and then find out too late that you’ve made an awful mistake.’
Tabby sat there and thought about all the mistakes she had made. Jake came running in the back door and ran full tilt into her arms. Breathless, laughing and smelling of fresh air and muddy little boy, he scrambled onto her knee and gave her a boisterous hug. ‘I love you, Mum,’ he said chirpily.
Her eyes stung and she held him tight. Most people were too polite or kind to say it, but she knew that they all thought Jake was her biggest mistake so far. Yet when Tabby’s life had fallen apart only the prospect of the baby she’d carried had given her the strength to keep going and trust that the future would be happier. Christien had been like the sun in her world and it literally had felt like eternal darkness and gloom when he had gone from it again.
A frown still pleating her brows, Alison turned from the sink to study the younger woman again. ‘Before you moved in here I worked with a guy called Sean Wendell,’ she confided. ‘He was mad about France and he moved to Brittany and set up an agency managing rental property. I still hear from Sean every Christmas. Why don’t I phone him and ask him to give you some support while you’re over there?’
As Tabby emerged from her preoccupation to give her aunt a look of surprise the brunette grimaced. ‘I know, I know…I shouldn’t be interfering but, for my sake, let Sean help out. If you don’t, I’ll be worrying myself sick about you!’
‘But exactly what am I going to need support with?’ Tabby enquired ruefully.
‘Well, for a start you’ll have to deal with the notaire and there’s sure to be a few legalities to sort out. Your French is fairly basic and might not be up to the challenge.’
Tabby knew that her linguistic skills were rusty but was dismayed by the prospect of being saddled with a stranger. In truth, though, at that moment it was hard for Tabby to focus her mind on what was only a minor annoyance because the past had a far stronger hold on her thoughts. As she helped Jake get ready for bed, memories that were both painful and exhilarating were starting to drag her back almost four years in time to that summer that already seemed a lifetime ago…
For all of her childhood that she could remember, the Burnside family and their three closest friends—the Stevensons, the Rosses and the Tarberts—had gone to the Dordogne for their annual holiday and either rented gîtes very close to each other or found accommodation large enough to share. The Stevensons had had a daughter called Pippa who was the same age as Tabby and her best friend. The Ross family had had two daughters, Hilary, who was six months younger and her kid sister, Emma and the Tarberts had had one daughter, Jen. Way back when Tabby, Pippa, Hilary and Jen had been toddlers, the girls had attended the same church playgroup and their mothers had become friendly. Even though their respective families had eventually moved to other locations and much had changed in all their lives, those friendships had endured and the vacations in France had continued.
But in the autumn of Tabby’s sixteenth year, the contented family life that she had pretty much taken for granted had vanished without any warning whatsoever. Her mother had caught influenza and had died from a complication. Gerry Burnside had been devastated by his wife’s sudden death
but just six short months later, and without discussing his plans with anybody, he had remarried. His second wife, Lisa, had been the twenty-two-year-old blonde receptionist who had worked in his car sales showroom. Tabby had been as shattered by that startling development as everybody else had been.
Almost overnight her father had turned into an unfamiliar stranger, determined to dress like a much younger man and party and behave like one too. He had no longer had time to spare for his daughter, because his bride had not only been jealous of his attention but also prone to throwing screaming tantrums if she hadn’t got it. To please Lisa, he had bought another house and spent a fortune on it. From the start, Lisa had resented Tabby and had made it clear that her stepdaughter had been an unwelcome third wheel.
Lisa had certainly not wanted to go on the traditional French holiday with her husband’s friends that summer, but for once Gerry Burnside had stood his ground. Full of resentment, Lisa had made no attempt to fit in and had gloried in shocking her besotted husband’s friends with her behaviour. A helpless onlooker suffering from all the supersensitivity of a teenager, Tabby had died a thousand deaths of embarrassment and had avoided being in the adults’ company as much as she’d been able.
At the same time, unfortunately, Tabby had also felt like a fish out of water with Pippa, Hilary and Jen. Her friends, with their stable homes and loving parents still safe and intact, had seemed aeons removed from her in their every innocence. In addition she had been too loyal to her father to tell anyone just how dreadfully unhappy and isolated she’d been feeling. And then she had seen Christien and all her own petty anxieties and the rest of the world, and indeed everyone in it, had no longer existed for her.
It had only been the second day of their vacation. Mulling over the humiliation of having been called a ‘nasty little bitch’ and sworn at by Lisa in front of Pippa’s aghast parents at breakfast time, Tabby had been sitting on the wall under the plane trees in the sleepy little village below the farmhouse. A long, low yellow sports car had growled down the hill and round the corner like a snarling beast and had come to a throaty, purring halt a little further down the street.
A very tall, well-built male wearing sunglasses had climbed out and sauntered into the little pavement café. Clad in an off-white shirt with the cuffs carelessly turned back and beige chinos of faultless cut, he had sunk down at a table and tossed a note to the owner’s son, who had run into the shop next door to fetch him a newspaper. He had been so cool she had been welded to his every move.
The bar owner had greeted him with pronounced respect and had polished his already clean table. The coffee and the ubiquitous croissant had been delivered with an understated flourish and a moment later the newspaper. The little scene had been so French she had been fascinated. Then Christien had hooked his sunglasses into the pocket of his shirt. She had found herself staring at that lean bronzed face, the black hair flopping over his brow, the stunning dark-as-midnight eyes that seemed to glint gold in the sunlight, and her heart had hammered so fast it had been quite impossible for her to breathe.
For a heartbeat in time, Christien had looked back at her and she had been mesmerised, entrapped, taken by storm. That one look had been all it had taken. Un coup de foudre, love like lightning striking fast and hard. He had turned his attention to his newspaper. She had feasted her eyes on him, quite content just to stare and admire and marvel at his lithe bronzed perfection. Eventually he had strolled back across the pavement and swung back into his equally beautiful car and driven off again…slowly, certainly slowly enough to get a good look at her from behind his tinted car windows.
‘Who is he?’ she had asked the sullen youth who cleaned the pool at the farmhouse.
He had not recognised her enraptured description of Christien, but he had recognised the car she had described. ‘Christien Laroche…his family have a villa up the hill. He’s richer than a bank.’
‘Is he married?’
‘You must be joking. He has a string of hot slick chicks. Why? Do you fancy your chances? You’d only be a baby to a bigshot businessman like him!’ he had mocked.
On that recollection Tabby forced her thoughts back into the present, but she was annoyed with herself for thinking about Christien. Solange’s legacy had tempted her into looking back to events that had no relevance except insofar as they had taught her a few much-needed lessons. She tucked Christien’s son into bed and smiled down at him with tender appreciation. Whether she liked it or not, even at three years old Jake was his father in miniature, for his looks and height were pure Laroche and he was much too clever for his own good. But, if Tabby had anything to do with it, Jake would never, ever regard women as numbers to be scored off on some sexual hit list.
The following week, Tabby sold the one valuable item that she still possessed: a diamond hair clip that Christien had once given her. It did not hurt to part with it as she had not worn it since the night he’d given it to her and she did not live a life where diamond hair clips were of any use. She was delighted to discover that the clip was worth a great deal more money than she had ever appreciated. Indeed, with careful handling the proceeds of the sale enabled her to buy an old van to use for transport and left her with enough cash to meet the other expenses entailed in moving across the English Channel. Alison had persuaded her to make her first trip to France alone and Tabby planned to leave her son in her aunt’s care over a long weekend. The cottage was certain to need a good clean and clouds of dust would only leave poor Jake coughing and wheezing.
One week before her departure, Tabby had just got back from taking Jake to nursery school and was in the midst of eating her breakfast when the doorbell sounded. A piece of toast in her hand, she went to answer the front door. When she had to tip her head back to get a proper look at the tall dark male in the charcoal-grey business suit poised on the step, her toast fell from her nerveless fingers.
‘I would have phoned to tell you that I intended to call, but your aunt’s number is unlisted,’ Christien murmured, smooth as glass.
The breath feathered in Tabby’s constricted throat. His fabulous accent purred down her spine like the tantalising promise of something dark and forbidden. Her senses snapped onto instant alert and she could not drag her bewildered gaze from his lean, dark, exotic features. Without even knowing she was doing it, she backed away, reacting to a subconscious feeling of being under threat. Exciting threat, though, delicious threat, the kind of threat that appealed to all that was weak and wanton in her nature. But he was even more irresistible than she remembered and, no matter how much she hated herself for it, her heart was already thumping like a road drill inside her.
Yet she could not really believe that Christien Laroche stood in front of her again, that he should be on the brink of entering Alison’s home or that he should even deign to speak to her. How could that feel real?
Tabby trembled, dilated eyes green as emeralds pinned to him. At their last meeting, he had regarded her with a derisive distaste that had pierced her like a knife, and there might as well have been poison on that blade for the pain had not ended there. She had hated herself for loving him, loathed herself for the craving she could not suppress and despised her sorry self for striving to trace Christien’s features in her son’s innocent baby face.
‘What are you doing here?’ Tabby breathed shakily.