He let out a short breath. ‘I can’t help thinking she’s too young to be left over here with a boy who could dump her at any moment.’
Clem realised with a painful little jab all she had missed out on as a girl growing up. She hadn’t had someone like Alistair watching out for her, being concerned for her welfare. He would make a wonderful father, a strong and reliable parent who would always make sure his children were well provided for. ‘You really care about her, don’t you?’
He shrugged off her comment and reached for his sunglasses on the coffee table. ‘I have to pick up my car. The hire-car people will collect the hire car from here. Do you want to come with me or stay here?’
Clem tried to read his expression to see if he wanted her with him or not but his brooding frown wasn’t encouraging. ‘What would you prefer?’
His features relaxed and he gave her cheek a gentle brush with his bent knuckles. ‘I thought you wanted to check out those curio shops?’
She smiled at him. ‘You wouldn’t mind?’
‘Not at all.’
* * *
An hour or so later, Alistair watched Clem move about an antiques shop in the centre of Nice like a child let loose in a sweet shop with carte blanche. Her face was in raptures, her cheeks glowing as she picked up book after book off the shelves of old bookcases, handling each one with reverence and care. The shop had many lovely treasures: jewellery, china, porcelain, glassware, bronze figures, furniture and clocks, but it was the books that drew her interest. Books with tattered covers and broken spines. Old books that smelt of dust and neglect, yet in Clem’s hands were treated as if they were priceless.
She looked up at him from her crowded corner in the back of the shop, her expression apologetic. ‘I’m sorry I’m taking so long. You must be bored out of your brain but this place is amazing. I’ve found three first editions and an extremely rare copy of Tennyson’s poetry.’ She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I don’t think the owner has any idea of how valuable any of these are, because some of the editions are English, not French.’
Alistair picked up one of the books she had put to one side in a stack. The price pencilled in on the frontispiece was still considerable even if Clem didn’t think the shop owner had a clue about the book’s true value. Funny how the women he dated went gaga over jewellery and fashion while Clem drooled over old books most people would have thrown out without a second thought. ‘I’ll have them packed and shipped home for you. There’s no room in your luggage.’
She gnawed at her bottom lip. ‘I can’t afford all of them... I’ll just take a couple.’
Alistair took out his wallet. ‘I’ll get them. No, I insist. I was the one who dragged you on this wild-goose chase. It’s the least I can do.’
Her cheeks were a rosy pink but he couldn’t decide if it was because of embarrassment or gratitude. Maybe it was both. ‘Thank you.’
* * *
After they left the antiques shop, Alistair suggested a drive to Cannes for lunch. He took Clem to a restaurant not far from the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès where the Cannes Film Festival was held every year in May. Clem had thought Monte Carlo was Beautiful People Central but this was even worse. Alistair had been so kind in the antiques shop, buying the books for her and making sure they were professionally packed and shipped back home. But walking into a room full of designer-clad women with their equally smartly dressed partners made her feel as if he was reminding her of every single one of her inadequacies. Had he done it deliberately—taken her to one of the smartest restaurants to drive home how inadequate she was?
It was like returning to that horrible party all over again. Seeing all the mean girls whispering and snickering behind their hands and pointing when she’d come back from her encounter with the boy who had humiliated her. Then, as the torturous night had dragged on, hearing him talk about her to his mates—the laughing comments about her rolls of fat, her un-groomed body, her unattractiveness. Every time Clem walked into a room full of beautiful people she time-travelled back to that excruciating moment when what little confidence she’d had had been destroyed.
‘What will you have to drink?’ Alistair asked once they were seated with menus in front of them.
‘Water.’
He looked up from his menu with a frown. ‘Is something wrong?’
Clem sent him a glare. ‘What could possibly be wrong?’
He put the menu back on the table, his gaze trained on hers. ‘You tell me.’
She pressed her lips together and looked back at the menu. ‘I bet those women over there are wondering what on earth you see in me.’
‘Clem—’
‘Not that you see anything in me other than a convenient—’
‘Stop it,’ he said. ‘Stop it right now.’
Clem looked at his stern expression: the tight lips, the hard eyes, the fixed jaw. ‘I don’t belong here. You know I don’t.’
His expression softened and he reached for her hand, holding it in the warm cage of his. ‘You have no right to feel out of place. You’re far more beautiful than you give yourself credit for. Fine clothes are not everything, ma petite. They don’t define you as a person. Your behaviour and values do that.’
Clem looked at their joined hands. ‘After that party...the one I told you about...? I got laughed at, not just the boy and his cronies, but the girls too. They made snide comments about my clothes, my figure, my hair, my skin. Everything, really.’
Alistair squeezed her hand as if he were reaching back in time to her teenage self to comfort her, to reassure her she was beautiful in his eyes. ‘If only they could see you now. I bet you top all of them in looks and personality.’
Clem lifted her gaze to his. ‘My mother spent all her money—the money she should have been spending on her kids—on clothes. Clothes she would wear once or twice and then discard. I refused to wear them, as they were too tarty. I never wanted to be compared to her so I didn’t even enter the contest.’
His fingers stroked the middle of her palm. ‘Personally, I prefer you out of clothes, but if you want a hand getting some things together there are great shops here. My treat.’
Clem wanted to argue on principle but the thought of spending the rest of the week here in the height of summer in black and grey clothing was too awful to contemplate. ‘I’ll pay you back if you’ll give me a couple of months.’
‘Forget about it,’ Alistair said. ‘I owe you, big time. I wouldn’t have been able to handle Harriet without you here. You were wonderful with her.’
Clem brushed his comment off with a self-conscious smile. ‘Yeah, well, what you’re doing for her is pretty amazing.’
‘I’m only following through on my moral duty,’ he said. ‘I will probably never have anything to do with her again once she graduates from school.’
‘I don’t believe that for a second,’ Clem said. ‘You’ll always be there for her one way or the other because that’s the sort of person you are. You’re a good person, Alistair. Someone I hope my brother learns to emulate.’
His mouth twisted in a rueful smile. ‘Careful, ma petite, or I might think you’re falling in love with me. Remember the rules?’
How could I forget? Clem rolled her eyes and reached for her water glass. ‘You’d have to buy me much more than a new wardrobe to get me to fall for you. Not that I don’t like you, or anything, but love is something else again. I’m not like my mother, falling in and out of love on a whim.’
‘Where is your mother just now?’
Clem lifted a shoulder. ‘Who knows? Probably spending my money on herself or some man she fancies herself madly in love with.’
His brows came together. ‘Your money?’
Clem gave him a ‘welcome to my world’ look. ‘I know. I know. But she can be so hard to say no to. I can’t help feeling she might do something...desperate if I don’t help her out.’
His frown deepened. ‘Desperate in what way?’
Clem lo
wered her gaze to the snowy-white tablecloth. ‘Having a trailer-trash mum is one thing, but no girl wants a mother who turns tricks to survive.’
Alistair’s hand reached for hers again. ‘Is that how she blackmails you? Threatening she might sell her body if you don’t help her out?’
‘Blackmail is a strong word...’
‘How long’s this been going on?’
Clem tried to pull her hand away but he wouldn’t release it. ‘I’d really rather not talk about it.’
‘Clem.’ His tone was firm. I’m-going-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-this firm. ‘How long has she been taking money off you?’
When Clem looked into his concerned grey-blue gaze the armour around her heart took a lethal blow. Bam. How could she keep her feelings out of this? How could she have thought she could sleep with him and not fall a teensy little bit in love with him? Who had ever been concerned about her? Who had ever given a thought to what it was like for her with a mother she couldn’t handle without feeling torn up with guilt?
‘Since I got my first part-time job as a teenager,’ she said. ‘She’s not good with money. Never has been. She’s too impulsive. There were times when we wouldn’t have had food on the table if I hadn’t put it there. I know I should say no to her now, I know it intellectually, but there’s a part of me that’s still a little girl looking to be loved by her mother.’
‘You need to say no to her, Clem. Otherwise this will go on for years.’
‘I know but—’
‘She’s using you. If she truly loved you, she’d put her interests second to yours. But she’s never done that, has she? You’ve been the adult in your family since you were a kid. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. It’s way too much responsibility for a child. If she contacts you again, then hand the phone to me.’
Clem wouldn’t be doing that in a hurry no matter how wonderful it would be to be relieved of the responsibility of taking care of her mother’s finances, or lack thereof. She could just imagine what her mother would say if she had Alistair on the end of the line—something grossly inappropriate and cringe-worthy.
After lunch was over, Alistair organised a quick shop in the boutiques in Cannes. Clem was ushered into the changing room and attended to a by an assistant who kept bringing in armfuls of gorgeous clothes, casual separates, evening and cocktail wear and lingerie and swimwear. It was like being a princess and for once Clem pushed her conscience aside and enjoyed the chance to be spoilt in a way she had never dreamed would be possible. Every time she looked in the mirror with a different outfit on she felt like a different person—a sophisticated, glamorous person who could hold her own in any society. Even the bathing suit—a bikini and a maillot—turned her into a fashion model, highlighting her curves and accentuating her waist.
She stroked a hand down the plane of her belly, wondering how long it would be before Alistair made love to her again. She had seen him looking at her mouth all through lunch. Every time she took a sip of her drink his gaze would hone in on the movement of her lips. His gaze had also drifted to the swell of her breasts, as if he was remembering how they felt in his hands, under the stroke of his mouth and tongue. It had been all she could do to sit still in her chair as her body trembled with the desire his looks had evoked.
Once the shopping was completed and the parcels placed in the boot of his car, Alistair asked her if there was anything else she would like to see before they headed back to the hotel. As much as Clem wanted to go back to the hotel and fall into his arms, she had a burning desire to see the house in the hills she had gone to when she was a child. She wasn’t exactly sure of its whereabouts but she remembered it was in St Paul de Vence, which she saw from a sign was only half an hour’s drive from Cannes.
‘You came here as a child?’ Alistair asked when she explained her wish.
‘Yes,’ Clem said. ‘It was the best holiday we ever had—the only holiday, really. My mother’s boyfriend was really nice. I wish she hadn’t dumped him for someone else because he treated Jamie and me like real people instead of annoying little kids, like everyone else did. His parents owned a villa in the hills and he took Mum and us there for a week. It was the most amazing place... Well, it was to us, at least. I might be remembering it as something it wasn’t but I’d still like to see if it’s still there.’
Alistair opened the passenger door for her. ‘Then let’s see if we can find it. St Paul de Vence is worth a visit in any case. It’s the art centre of the Côte d’Azur.’
On the drive up to the village he gave her a brief run-down on the history of the fortified border town, where the ramparts had been built in the sixteenth century by François the First to withstand artillery attacks. Listening to the deep timbre of Alistair’s voice as they wove their way through the wooded hills made Clem feel as if she could do with some of those ramparts around her heart.
The village when they came to it was exactly as Clem remembered it. Set high above the surrounding woods, it contained numerous cobbled alleys where wonderful shops and cafés and art studios abounded. He took her hand and walked her through the village, pointing out various landmarks and taking photos of her with her phone.
‘Would you like us to take one of the both of you?’ a passing tourist in her sixties asked.
Clem was about to say no when Alistair handed the woman the phone. ‘That would be great. Thanks.’
His arm gathered Clem close and the tourist took the shot and handed back the phone with a beaming smile. ‘One to show the grandkids one day, huh?’
Clem gave the woman a smile that made her face and her heart ache. ‘Yes.’
Alistair looped her arm through his once the older woman had moved on with her party. ‘Did you know the petanque, or boules pitch, here is the most famous one in France?’
Clem was relieved to be back to the history lesson. Thinking about the future—the future she was never going to have with Alistair—was too painful. They continued their walk around the village, stopping at a café for a cold drink. It was while Clem was sitting there waiting for Alistair to finish dealing with a call that she saw the villa she had visited as a child. It was just outside the village set on the hillside, surrounded by overgrown vines and looking a little the worse for wear than she’d remembered.
‘I found it!’ She swung around to look at Alistair. ‘I’m sure it’s the same place. It’s not as well kept as it used to be but it looks exactly the same in every other way.’
He lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the haze of hot summer sunshine. ‘It’s got a For Sale sign on it. See?’
Clem could only see the villa and the overgrown garden. Reading a sign from this distance was asking a little too much of her eyesight. ‘Is it? I wonder how much it’s worth.’
He took her hand and left some money on the table for their drinks. ‘Let’s find out.’
* * *
Alistair called the real-estate agent and organised a tour of the villa in fifteen minutes. He was fascinated by the layout of the villa. It was an architect’s dream to work with something so neglected and bring it back to its glory with a touch of modernity thrown in. Set on a lush hillside with woods on two sides and a vineyard and olive grove on the other, it would make a wonderful private getaway or even a boutique hotel.
He could feel Clem’s excitement when the agent showed them around the villa. Her hand kept gripping his, her gaze wide as she took in the empty rooms with their high ceilings. Her love of old things was evident on her face; the glow of her cheeks, the brightness shining in her eyes, spoke of a young woman in her element.
‘It’s beautiful...’ Her voice came out as an awed whisper that echoed in the cavernous rooms.
Alistair could imagine her as a young girl looking exactly the same as she did now, her face full of wonder. Overawed by the history and beauty of the place, knowing she could never hope to live in something as gorgeous as this because of the circumstances of her birth and background.
‘The owner inherited fr
om his parents but he lives in America now with his wife and family and wants to sell,’ the agent said in heavily accented English. ‘It’s been on the market awhile. It needs a lot of work but it’s a rare find. Properties like this don’t come on the market all that often.’
Alistair took a brochure from the agent. ‘We’ll have a think about it. Thanks for showing us around.’
The agent smiled. ‘It would make a great home for a family, non? A place built for children, oui?’
Clem’s cheeks were as pink as they had been back in the village when the tourist had taken their photo.
Alistair couldn’t help picturing her as a mother, her belly ripe with some other man’s baby, her skin and hair glowing with good health. He wondered how he would feel hearing about it some time in the future—seeing her with some other man, happily tied to him and surrounded by a brood of kids she would love the way she hadn’t been loved. The way she loved her brother, doing all she could to make sure he was kept out of harm’s way. She had been doing it all her life, taking responsibility for those she loved, even when, in the case of her mother, the love wasn’t up to the mark.
What if she didn’t meet the right sort of guy? What if all those years of conditioning by her mother had made Clem vulnerable, prone to making similar bad choices? Men who would exploit her? Mistreat her? Tell her lies or make promises they had no intention of keeping?
In some ways Clem reminded Alistair of his mother. Her quiet beauty, her strong values, her giving nature that saw her put others’ needs before her own. Her sentimentality. She might fall in love and be happy for years, like his mother had fooled herself into being for all that time, trying to make a marriage work that was never going to work, not while Alistair’s father had refused to grow up. His father was going to end up an old man with nothing but wealth and emotional wreckage to show for his life. What measure of a man was that? None that Alistair had any intention of emulating. He wanted to leave a legacy of hard work that people admired years into the future. His designs were his babies, the offspring of his creativity and intellect. A building like this was crying out for attention. It would be a challenge to blend the old with the new—the past and the future.
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