The Unexpected Consequences of Love

by Jill Mansell

  ***

  It was five o’clock in the morning and Lawrence had had a terrible night’s sleep. This was his punishment for buying a beef bourguignonne prepackaged meal for two and eating the whole lot himself. Indigestion had plagued him all evening and now he was awake again, unable to get comfortable in bed and haunted by thoughts of Dot in Paris, being treated like a princess by that smug French bastard Antoine Beauvais.

  Lawrence exhaled and flexed his aching shoulders; all the tension in his muscles was making him bad-tempered. Because Antoine wasn’t a bastard, not really. He just wished the man hadn’t reappeared after all these years, turning up in St. Carys like some knight in shining armor and effectively sweeping Dot off her feet.

  Oh God, how had his life come to this? He’d done a bad thing and suffered a thousand times over ever since. And now, to put the tin lid on it, he was lying here all alone, battling with the worst case of indigestion known to man. The ache was worsening now, pulling at his chest, making it harder to breathe…

  Lawrence stifled a groan of annoyance. Dear God, what was going on? What was happening to him? At this rate he was never going to get to sleep. If Dot were nearby, he might have been tempted to give her a call…except she wasn’t, was she? She was in Paris. And who else could he wake up at this time of night? Talk about making yourself unpopular.

  Okay, never mind, mustn’t be a nuisance. Grit your teeth and get through it. If it was no better in a couple hours, maybe he’d think about contacting Josh, asking him if he thought a visit to his physician might be in order.

  Bloody hell, though, he’d never known indigestion like this before; it was like having cramps in your ribs…

  Chapter 46

  “Well? What do you think?” Antoine asked the question with justifiable pride.

  The taxi had brought them up the steep, twisting road and dropped them off just below the Sacré Coeur at the best possible viewpoint. The sky was a cloudless cerulean blue, the sun blazed down, and what looked like the whole of Paris was laid out before them.

  Dot’s eyes prickled with emotion at the sheer beauty of the sight. This surely had to be one of the most stunning views on earth. Antoine tilted his head so he could glimpse beneath the broad brim of her straw hat, then smiled at the expression on her face.

  “It’s just…perfect.” Dot shook her head. “I don’t know what else to say.”

  Antoine gave her hand a squeeze. “And you are perfect too.”

  Which could have sounded nauseating, but somehow, when it was spoken in a French accent, managed not to.

  “Thank you.” She returned the squeeze; he had taken so much trouble. Every detail of their trip had been planned to the nth degree. The hotel was wonderful, unbelievably French and luxurious. Last night Antoine had taken her on a boat trip down the Seine, followed by dinner at a jewel of a restaurant tucked away in the back streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. This morning they had strolled through the Luxembourg Gardens, and now he’d brought her here to Montmartre. Antoine was an excellent guide, full of information, determined she should enjoy every moment.

  “I can’t believe you’ve never visited Paris before.” He was shaking his head.

  “I know. It’s crazy.” Dot was still gazing at the view. It wasn’t as if she and Lawrence hadn’t taken plenty of vacations, just that somehow they’d always ended up going…well, somewhere else.

  “And you see the Tour Eiffel?” Of all the landmarks, it was the one that had first caught her eye, but Dot nodded and obediently followed the line of his pointing finger. “We’ll be there this evening.”

  “Really?” Dot wondered how well her feet would hold out. “I’ve heard the lines for the lifts can be quite long.”

  “Oh, Dot, do you think I’d do that to you?” Antoine’s eyes twinkled as he shook his head. “We won’t be queuing, ma chérie. There’s a private lift that takes people up to the Jules Verne restaurant on the second level. It’s the most magical place to eat—Michelin starred, quite superb.”

  “Oh my goodness, I’ve heard of it! One of our customers told me about the Jules Verne last year. But he said it’s always booked up months ahead.”

  “This is true, but sometimes it is possible to pull strings. For very special occasions and very special people.” His voice caressing her like silk, Antoine murmured, “And some people are worth pulling strings for. I promise you, mon ange, this will be an evening you’ll never forget.”

  “How lovely. We’ll have to take photos to show everyone! Ooh, and I can’t wait to be in it when all the lights go into overdrive and the whole thing lights up like a giant sparkler!” As Dot mimicked the sparkling with dancing fingers, she heard her phone begin to ring inside her handbag. “Sorry, better just see who that is… Oh, it’s Josh. I hope everything’s okay with the hotel…”

  One moment she was answering the call, her gaze fixed on the higgledy-piggledy rooftops of heat-hazed Montmartre, the next moment she was listening to Josh’s words and the ground was falling away beneath her feet. All around her, tourists joyfully exclaimed at the view, chattering away in a multitude of different languages as they held up their cameras and jostled for the best shots.

  “What is it?” Antoine asked when she’d said, “I’ll call you back,” and hung up.

  “Lawrence. He’s in the hospital. Heart attack.”

  “Oh, that is a shame. Well, never mind. I’m sure he’ll be fine.” He rested his hand in the small of her back. “Wait until you see the inside of the Sacré Coeur.”

  Dot turned to stare at him. “What?”

  “Its beauty is astonishing, truly beyond compare. Come, you will love it. The architectural style is Romanesque-Byzantine and the great bell, the Savoyarde, is one of the heaviest in the world at nineteen tons—”

  “Antoine, did you hear what I said?”

  He was looking at her, baffled. “Of course I did. But it isn’t going to affect our trip, surely. We’ll be back in St. Carys on Sunday night. That’s—”

  “I can’t stay here,” Dot interrupted, her heart thudding. “I have to go.”

  “But you can’t. Are you serious? Ma chérie, this is crazy. He’s your ex-husband. You divorced him.”

  “He’s ill. He could die…” She could hear her voice wavering. No. Stay calm. Be strong.

  “If he’s going to die, it’ll happen regardless, whether you’re there or not. This is our weekend. Your weekend,” Antoine amended. “Everything I’ve arranged is for you.”

  A taxi twenty yards away was disgorging a gaggle of excitable Japanese occupants. Dot hailed it and hurried over. Antoine jumped in after her.

  “Please don’t go.” He clutched her arm. “Okay, we’ll fly back tomorrow. How about that? But we have to stay here tonight. Truly, the Jules Verne… It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Chérie, you can’t miss it.”

  Dot looked at him and knew at once what was going on. Antoine might be a gourmand, but even he couldn’t be that desperate to eat a nice bit of food. He’d arranged practically every minute of this trip with characteristically immaculate attention to detail. There had also been a declaration of love last week during which he’d hinted that although they’d only known each other a few weeks, when you met someone and knew they were The One, what would be the point in hanging around? Just because a romance was whirlwind didn’t mean it wasn’t real and couldn’t last.

  Antoine had evidently had Very Big Plans for this evening’s trip to the Eiffel Tower. No wonder he was looking put out.

  He tried again: “Please.”

  Dot shook her head slightly. “I’m going home.”

  ***

  They arrived back at their hotel in the Latin Quarter and she began throwing everything into her case.

  “He could be better by the time you get back.” Antoine was pacing the room like a supercilious panther.

  “I hope he
is.” As if her mind wasn’t bursting with fear and anxiety and mental pictures of Lawrence being taken ill, wondering if he was about to die, being rushed into the hospital then lying in bed facing his worst fears.

  It was, of course, her own worst fear too. Lawrence could die.

  “He doesn’t deserve this.” Antoine indicated the open suitcase with irritation. “Not after what he did to you.”

  “Antoine, if you were going to ask me to marry you tonight…” Dot paused with a dove-gray silk dress in her hands. “Look, I’m sorry, but I would have said no.”

  He reacted as if she’d slapped him hard across the cheek. “You would?”

  “Yes.” She dropped the dress—ironically, the one she would have worn tonight—into her case.

  “Why?”

  Why? What could she tell him? That he was too perfect? Like a cut-out-and-keep version of the ideal partner?

  “It’s no good; I can’t go into all this now.” Blindly, Dot shook her head. “I just have to get to the airport. What’s the number for the safe, please? I need my passport.”

  Antoine had been the one to set the code. He crossed the room, pressed the buttons on the safe’s digital display, and opened it. From the other side of the bed, Dot glimpsed a small package wrapped in a distinctive—and instantly recognizable—shade of duck-egg blue. It was at the back, behind the other items. Then he closed the safe once more and held out her passport.

  So he’d already selected her engagement ring from Tiffany & Co. Of course he would have gone to Tiffany’s; where else?

  The rest of the packing was finished in a matter of minutes and in a silence that wasn’t exactly comfortable. Flipping the case onto its wheels, Dot said again, “I really am sorry.”

  “You haven’t even booked a flight.” Antoine’s shoulders were stiff, his jaw taut.

  “I know. I’m just going to catch the first one I can.” She’d kept the taxi waiting while she packed; it was time to head off to Charles de Gaulle airport. Waiting there would be less unbearable than this. “Thanks for…everything.” Dot hesitated; a kiss on the cheek probably wasn’t appropriate under the circumstances. “And I’ll pay my half of all this, I promise.”

  “I still can’t believe you’re going. I would have given you everything you’d ever wanted.” Antoine’s voice registered frostiness tinged with regret.

  It was no use; her brain was filling up again with images of Lawrence and what he was going through. Tightly clutching her phone, Dot prayed he was still alive. As soon as she was safely in the taxi, she would call Josh back.

  Aloud she said, “I know you would.”

  Chapter 47

  Tubes.

  Tubes everywhere, so many of them, coming out of Lawrence’s mouth, disappearing into his veins, delivering oxygen and liquids and medication and monitoring his vital signs.

  Dot’s legs began to tremble again at the sight of him. Josh dragged a chair up behind her and she collapsed onto it, her heart hammering with terror at the sight of so much technology.

  But Lawrence was still breathing, still alive. He’d been rushed here this morning, to the Terence Lewis Building at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth. It was the cardiothoracic center of excellence for the southwest, and if anyone could get him through this, it was the staff here.

  “You okay?” Josh murmured, keeping his arm around her.

  Dot nodded, her mouth dry. At midday she’d been standing on the steps of the Sacré Coeur, gazing out over the city and thinking how happy she was with Antoine. Since then, she’d flown from Paris into Heathrow and traveled by train down to the south coast of Cornwall, to be met at the station by Josh. It had felt like the longest journey of her life, from sunny Montmartre to the cardiac surgery intensive care unit in gray, rain-soaked Plymouth.

  “He’s very poorly,” the doctor told them, “but we’re doing everything we can. And he’s through the surgery, which is good.”

  It was good. It was also a pretty idiotic thing to say. The doctor looked too young to be allowed anywhere near a patient on his own; he hardly looked old enough to ride a moped.

  Oh well, hopefully he knew what he was doing, had a few qualifications under his belt.

  “A quadruple bypass,” said Dot. “It just sounds so terrifying, so…major.”

  “At least he got to us in time.” The doctor—a surgeon, presumably—nodded at Josh. “Thanks to this one here.”

  Dot nodded helplessly. Josh had already told her about Lawrence’s call this morning, asking him to phone the doctor when he had a moment and see if he could be seen at some stage today. The moment Josh had heard the words chest pain, he’d hung up, called for an ambulance, jumped into his car, and raced over to Lawrence’s flat. With Lawrence unable to get out of bed, Josh had kicked down the door just in time to let the paramedics pile in.

  Another couple minutes, apparently, and Lawrence would have been dead.

  Dot closed her eyes. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  Then again, the other thing that didn’t bear thinking about was the fact that it could still happen.

  He wasn’t out of the woods yet.

  ***

  It had been eight days since Lawrence’s heart attack and subsequent surgery, but it was Marguerite’s first visit. She paused at the entrance to the open-plan, state-of-the-art ward. This was exactly the kind of scene that could have featured in one of her books.

  The once-philandering husband lying in his hospital bed.

  The once-abandoned ex-wife sitting beside him, leaning forward and touching his arm. After more than ten years apart, they looked like a couple again.

  And now: enter the new woman in this man’s life, tall and striking, madly in love with him, and furiously jealous of the ex-wife now threatening to steal back his affections.

  You could turn it into one of those Fatal Attraction scenarios: threatened and spurned, the new woman in his life walks the length of the ward, managing a tight, polite smile for the benefit of the nursing staff as she passes them…then suddenly produces a kitchen knife from the depths of her Mulberry handbag…

  Oh well, you got the idea. Something like that.

  Anyway, best get this over with. Bracing herself, Marguerite moved away from the door and headed over to join them. God, how she hated hospitals: that nasty disinfectant smell, the unattractive decor, all the ill people needing constant looking after. So alien and uncomfortable and reminiscent of death.

  The moment they spotted her, Dot guiltily slid her hand away from Lawrence’s forearm and sat back in her chair. Lawrence nodded with a wary expression on his face and said, “Hello!”

  “Well, look at you!” Marguerite cheerily dropped her Mulberry bag onto the other chair and maneuvered her way past an IV. She greeted him with a kiss on each cheek, holding her breath to avoid the hospitaliness of his skin. “I hear you’re on the mend, which is excellent. Now, I did buy you flowers but apparently they aren’t allowed on the ward so I’ve had to leave them in the car. I’ll take them back home with me. But just so you know, the thought was there.”

  “Thank you,” said Lawrence. “I’m sure they’re lovely.”

  “Well, they weren’t cheap!” Oh dear, Riley was always telling her off for saying things like that, but she really couldn’t help herself; sometimes these things just popped out. “And I’ve brought you one of my books, seeing as you’ve never read any of them.” She took a hefty hardback out of the bag and placed it on the Formica cabinet alongside his bed. “You really should give one a go.”

  “Great.” He said it like a teenager being presented with a hand-knitted bobble hat by his gran. Honestly, some men.

  “Sorry I haven’t been able to get here before now, but I’ve been away on a book tour of South Africa.”

  Lawrence nodded. “Yes, I remember. You told me you were going.”

  “It went very
well.” Marguerite realized she was talking about herself rather than asking him how he was, partly out of guilt, because she’d actually arrived back from Cape Town three days ago. “So anyway, how are you feeling?”

  Lawrence shifted against the propped-up pillows. “Well, not wonderful. But I guess things could be a lot worse.” He glanced over at Dot, who was apparently engrossed in reading the get-well-soon cards on the wall behind his bed.

  “Must have given you a scare when it happened,” said Marguerite.

  “It did. I thought I was a goner.” He shrugged and briefly touched his chest, bruised and scarred but healing after the surgery. “Lucky to be here, I know that.”

  Over a week had passed since it had happened. From her discussions with a doctor friend, Marguerite had learned that the danger period was now over; barring setbacks due to infection or clots, the prognosis should be good.

  She looked at Lawrence. “Actually, would you mind if we left you for a few minutes? I’d really like a word with Dot, if that’s okay. In private.”

  Together they took the lift down to the ground floor and sat on a bench outside in the courtyard garden. Dot looked like a captured spy preparing to be interrogated and possibly shot.

  “Have you been coming here every day?” Marguerite opened the proceedings.

  “Yes.”

  “Traveling down or staying here in Plymouth?” She already knew the answer to this one.

  Dot’s spine was as straight as a debutante’s, her hands clasped together in her lap. “Staying. In a small B and B not far from here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t bear not to be near him. Marguerite, I’m sorry if you’re furious with me. I know you two were seeing each other and you probably think I have a damn nerve being here like this…but I can’t help it.” Dot shook her head. “I just can’t.”

  After a pause, Marguerite said, “I hear you cut short your Paris trip.”

  “I had to.”

  “And how did the glamorous Antoine feel about that?”