by Liz Fielding
‘Hugo?’
‘He’d said he had no problems with me setting up in a rival hotel, but she thought he was backing off to keep me happy. I wanted her to run it for me, Sally.’
‘How did she feel about that?’
He thought about it. ‘As I said, she was full of ideas,’ he said. ‘I thought she was eager to be part of it.’
‘You thought?’
‘Assumed,’ he admitted.
‘But you didn’t ask her?’
‘I didn’t think I had to. I’d found her. We were going to get married. I even bought a big old mirror she liked.’ His sister raised an eyebrow. ‘She said that if she’d had a mantelpiece, she would have bought it.’
‘And you were going to buy a house and give her the mantelpiece.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
She rubbed a hand against his sleeve. ‘You were full of plans for the future and you told her what her part was going to be in them.’
‘I love her, Sally. I wanted her to see herself as part of my life. To be involved.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘It was getting late. She was hungry...’ He shrugged. ‘She said that talking about business gave her indigestion.’
She sighed. ‘It must be a man thing.’
‘What?’
‘Not listening.’
‘She fudged, Sally. She didn’t say no. Not until she accused me of being like her father.’
‘You did rather jump in with both feet. You knew exactly what you wanted, James. She needed you to ask what she wanted and when you didn’t, I imagine she felt cornered. The difference is that this time she was strong enough to stand and fight.’
‘Fight? I’m not her enemy.’
‘No. Just carried away by a rush of excitement, energy, joy.’
She poured water onto the teabag, dunked it for a moment, then handed him the mug.
‘I hate camomile tea, Sally.’
‘I know, but it will help you sleep and when you’ve slept, you will go back to France, find Chloe and, on your knees, ask her what she wants. And listen to her.’
‘She might not want to see me. Not after what she said.’
‘You have to show her that you heard her. That you’re listening.’
‘After what I said.’
‘I didn’t say it would be easy. One final warning. Before you go you need to ask yourself one question.’
He took a sip of the tea, pulled a face. ‘Go on.’
‘What will you do if her plans, her dreams, are different from yours?’
* * *
‘He’s here, Chloe. Are you ready?’
Maître Bernier, the lawyer son of Marie, looked anxious. A second lawyer, who had travelled to this meeting from London, said nothing.
‘Yes,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘I’m ready.’
He nodded to his secretary, who returned a few moments later. ‘Monsieur Thomas Forbes Scott,’ she announced.
Chloe dug newly gelled nails into her palms, breathing carefully, forcing herself to remain calm as her father walked into the room. Not to betray by so much as a blink the slightest emotion. Deeply grateful for the boardroom table that stood between them so that he shouldn’t see her knees knocking.
For a long moment he said nothing, just looked at her, absorbing every detail of her appearance.
He still had the arrogant command that had inspired both awe and a desperate need to please him when she was a child. As a girl. And later, fear.
His hair was streaked with silver these days, but his eyes were as dark and compelling as ever.
She remained statue-still under his scrutiny. Her hair had been cut and was hanging in a smooth bob over the classic camel blazer, silk shirt, casual trousers—a mix of charity and high-street bargains put together with French chic with the help of Marie’s daughter-in-law, who had advised that nothing should look new.
The shoes had been an extravagance; her father would not be fooled by cheap shoes, but they had been very gently distressed, as if they were old and treasured friends.
The precious amber beads that had once belonged to her beloved maternal great-grandmother were the finishing touch. A message.
‘Chloe,’ he said, finally acknowledging her.
‘Papa.’
‘You asked for this meeting,’ he said. ‘Have you something to say to me?’
She had been thinking about what she’d say from the moment she’d asked for this meeting. There had been a hundred things. An entire essay of accusations to fling at him.
She wanted to look him in the face, challenge him to acknowledge the pain he had caused, but her father had studied law. A challenge invited a rebuttal and she would be forced to listen to him justifying every action with icy detachment.
They both knew what he’d done and if he had felt one jot of remorse, he would have sought her out long ago to beg her forgiveness.
She took a breath and, praying that her voice would not shake, she said, ‘Maître Bernier, who is acting on my behalf, has obtained a copy of the will of Lady Alicia Gordon, my maternal great-grandmother. It appears that I inherited the bulk of her estate while a minor and which, as her executor, you have administered on my behalf.’
She managed to keep her voice even, level, despite the tremor beneath her ribcage. She was his daughter and she would show him how she had learned...
‘Mr Peter Ward, who is a representative of Lady Alicia’s solicitors, has come from London with documents for you to sign in order to release the estate to me.’
She indicated the documents lying on the table in front of him.
He didn’t betray what he was thinking by so much as a flicker of an eyelash. No hint of regret that this meeting was not to be her surrender. Nor did he look at the papers.
‘It was a very small estate but a great deal of money to be given to an unstable young woman. What do you intend to do with it?’ he demanded.
‘Play the tables at Monte Carlo?’ she suggested. ‘Or I might give it to a donkey sanctuary. Great-Grandma was very fond of donkeys.’
There was the slightest tightening of the muscles around her father’s mouth as she baited him for lying to the lawyers about her mental health. It was only through Maître Bernier’s careful diligence that she had discovered her inheritance. Her great-grandmother’s solicitors had been astonished to learn that she had been living and working in Paris for years rather than confined to a clinic.
‘Alternatively,’ she said, ‘I could hire a detective to discover the whereabouts of the baby you took from me in what Maître Bernier informs me was an illegal adoption.’
‘You will never find her.’
The distinguished London solicitor, a man who had struggled to contain a smile at the mention of the donkey sanctuary, let slip a shocked breath.
‘Are you sure, Papa? I have this photograph of her as a baby,’ she said, sliding an enlarged picture of her holding the newborn Eloise from beneath the pile of documents. ‘The hunt for the stolen Forbes Scott baby would be a sensation on social media and if I put it beside a photograph of me at the age she is now it’s quite possible that someone will recognise her.’
‘You would not do that.’
There wasn’t a hint of uncertainty in that declaration; it was like fencing with a brick wall. But while it was true that she would never expose her daughter to the inevitable Internet frenzy, she had to protect her friends, Georges Bernier, herself, from any chance of retaliation for this day’s work.
‘I would,’ she said, with equal conviction, ‘should circumstances force me to it.’
She laid out the stark warning, holding those dark eyes for a long moment. His reputation, his status, his name, were everything to him and he had to believe the threat was real.
She’d thought it wou
ld be hard, but there was nothing left that he could do to hurt her. He finally recognised that too and when he looked away, she said, ‘I think we’re done here, Maître Bernier. Do you have a pen?’
Her father glared at him and then, as the Maître’s secretary was hurriedly summoned to witness his signature, he produced the fountain pen he always carried with him from his inside jacket pocket.
He signed, the secretary signed and, when it was done, her father replaced the cap on his pen, returned it to his pocket and walked out of the office without a word to any of them.
There was a moment of awkward silence, then Mr Ward gathered up the papers, assuring her that the transfer of funds would be made within days.
‘If you need any further assistance in anything that has arisen today, Miss Forbes Scott, we will be happy to assist.’ Then, having shaken their hands, he left to catch his train back to London.
‘You were magnificent, Chloe,’ Georges Bernier said.
‘I thought I would be terrified, but he was smaller than I remembered.’
‘It is often the way with ogres. We build them up in our mind but, when we confront them, they are like the wizard in that old American movie.’
‘Oz,’ she said.
‘Pardon?’
‘The Wizard of Oz was all smoke and mirrors, Georges. My father is a lot more dangerous than that.’
‘That is why you threatened to destroy his reputation?’
‘He has intimidated people I love in the past and I wanted them, and you, to be safe.’ Her one regret was that James had not been there to see him vanquished. To see her being strong... ‘His name is the one thing he values.’
‘Do you ever see your mother?’ he asked as he saw her to the door.
‘No.’ She sagged a little. ‘I hoped she might have come with him today. Seen me face him.’
‘It’s almost impossible for women to break free of controlling men, Chloe.’
‘It happened to the mother of a friend of mine,’ she said, thinking of James. ‘The father of my baby.’
They had only been together for just under a week, but his absence was like the ache of a missing limb.
‘Maybe, when your child is older,’ he said, opening the door for her, ‘she will search for you. And maybe, one day, your mother will find her own courage. It has to come from within.’
‘But you need someone at your back.’ Someone like James. ‘Someone to show you the way.’
Georges took her red coat from the stand, held it for her.
‘I’ll be in touch when everything has been settled.’ He gave her a long look as she dealt with the buttons. ‘You were joking about Monte Carlo?’
‘Yes, Georges. I was joking.’ Then she grinned. ‘But I quite like the idea of a donkey. Do you think Marie would mind?’
‘A donkey would help keep the grass down in the paddock, but it will need a friend. Donkeys get lonely.’
‘Do they?’
Why did she question that? Everyone got lonely...
‘Two donkeys, then. And on the way home I am going to stop at Pierre Hermé and treat myself to raspberry and cream macarons to have with my coffee.’
Half an hour later she was climbing the stairs to her grotty little apartment when, as she neared the top, she found herself confronted by a pair of feet, crossed at the ankles and encased in a pair of familiar shoes.
‘James...’ He was sitting on the top step, blocking the way to her door. ‘How was the awards evening?’ she asked, since he appeared to have lost the ability to speak.
‘Not great,’ he admitted. ‘My body was there. My heart was here. It made breathing tricky. If it hadn’t been for Hugo, I’m not sure I’d have got through it.’ He sighed. ‘Sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t be pathetic.’
He got to his feet, moved to one side while she unlocked the door but waited for an invitation before he stepped inside.
‘Don’t stand in the doorway letting in the cold,’ she said, aware how this had gone last time. How easily it could go the same way again, because she had been thinking about him as she’d bought the macarons. As she’d travelled back across Paris. Thinking about calling him, to tell him that he had been right. That because of him she had faced her demon and she was free.
But she had compared him to that demon, to the man he’d called a monster, and, like the words he’d used to hurt her, it contained a grain of truth.
‘And I’ll forgive the pathetic if you put on the kettle,’ she said as she took off her coat. Keeping it snippy so that even if she was tempted to fling her arms around him, he would get the Back off message. ‘Make a cup of tea and I’ll share my macarons.’
‘Pierre Hermé,’ he said as she put the little carrier on the table and went to hang up her coat.
‘A little treat,’ she said. ‘I was thinking of you earlier and how you used to sneak out of school and go to Covent Garden to buy them for me.’
‘A visit to their café in the rue Bonaparte was on my list of things to do.’
‘I’d have liked that,’ she said. ‘But we did a lot.’
‘Yes...’ He frowned. ‘Have you got a new job?’
‘I haven’t got any kind of job at the moment,’ she said. ‘Thanks to you I am between jobs. Temporarily unemployed—’
‘I’m sure your agency would find you something,’ he said, a definite edge to his voice.
‘The pathetic act didn’t last very long.’
He shrugged. ‘I have many faults, Chloe, but I keep my promises. Even the ridiculous ones I make to myself.’
‘Yes, James.’ She was forced to swallow down the lump in her throat. ‘You always did. But you’re right. I have no regrets about working in housekeeping but it’s time to move on.’
‘If you’ve been for an interview, I guarantee you’ve smashed it. You look amazing. As if you could take on the world.’
‘Not an interview. And the look I was aiming for was chic Parisienne heiress with nothing to do but have lunch with her friends. But I’ll take amazing.’
‘Can I ask why?’
‘Why are you here, James?’
He held up his hand. ‘Sorry. You’re right. It’s none of my business what you do,’ he said. ‘I won’t take a minute of your time. I just came to give you something.’
The vase he’d bought her, and which had still been in his car, along with their other purchases at the brocante when he’d left? Or the flamingo? Surely he wouldn’t have returned to Paris to bring her a Christmas tree ornament?
‘A courier would have been a lot cheaper than a ticket on the Eurostar.’
‘The cost was not an issue. I came to give it to you in person so that I could apologise for being so dense. For not listening. For making you feel so bad that you compared me to your father.’ He lifted his shoulders in an oddly awkward shrug. ‘And I wasn’t sure if you would still be here.’ He looked around at the boxes, packed and waiting to be moved. ‘It looks as if I’m only just in time.’
‘I’m not running away, James. Not hiding. Not from you. Not from anyone. I was going to let you know where I’ll be. And also, to apologise. What I said to you was unforgivable.’
She wanted to go to him, put her arms around him, lay her head against his shoulder and beg him to forgive her, but he was holding himself at a distance. No doubt protecting himself from being hurt for a third time.
There was also the risk that, having once put her arms around him, she would not let go. And she had plans of her own.
‘I won’t deny that it was like a knife to the gut,’ he said, ‘but I understand why you said it. Finding you was like having the lights switched back on but even while you were in my arms you were somehow out of reach. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t listen to you,’ he said. ‘It was that I didn’t want to hear what you were saying.’
‘In you
r arms was the one place I was totally with you, James. There was nothing held back. Nothing that wasn’t true.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
THERE WAS A moment when she thought he might have taken a step towards her, but instead he unzipped his backpack, took out a velvet-covered box and put it on the table beside her.
Definitely not the vase and far too fancy for a Christmas tree ornament.
She picked it up, ran her fingers over the silky surface, looked up at him, frowned. ‘What is this?’
‘A memento of a simpler time.’
‘My hairpin...’ she said as she opened the box to reveal the silver pin lying in a satin nest.
It had been restored, not just the damage where he’d crushed it with his foot, but all the little dinks and knocks of the years she’d worn it had been smoothed out and polished so that it looked like new.
‘Thank you, James. This was, is, very precious to me,’ she said, running a fingertip along the curves, around the heart at its centre, just as she had when she’d first seen it all those years ago. ‘I will take more care of it in future.’
‘No...’
She looked up.
‘Don’t put it away in its box, Chloe. You might lose it again, or damage it, but it’s like life. Not to be kept for best, but to be worn every day.’ He picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. ‘That’s it. What I came for. I’ll leave you to enjoy whatever life that outfit is taking you to.’
‘Wait...!’ He was half turned from her so that she only had his profile. ‘You came from London just to give me this?’
‘It’s just a couple of hours on the train and I didn’t want our relationship to end on harsh words.’
‘It will never end, James. We have a daughter. We might never find her, never be there for the great moments in her life, but because of her we are joined for ever.’
She saw him swallow, momentarily unable to speak, and she took a step towards him.
‘It’s her birthday at the end of January. Maybe I could come over to London and we could have lunch together? Raise a glass in celebration of her life.’