Alice picked up the image and studied it. They were looking at each other rather than the camera and it was impossible not to catch the impression that they were very much in love. It was a picture of a private moment and it made Alice catch her breath, wishing that the photo of her parents had been this revealing.
It was a double frame that could be closed and in the other side was a photo of a baby with tufts of dark hair. Jacquot. Had it been taken on the day he’d been born? When André had lost the mother of the only child he’d known he had? It didn’t matter. What did matter was that it showed how important his brand-new family had been to André and it was something that Jacquot would treasure when he was old enough to understand. Alice set the frame carefully to one side of the desk.
She would come and get it when she was leaving the house and then somehow, some time she would find a way to give it to her little brother.
She sat there for a long moment and then idly began opening desk drawers. Maybe she was hoping she might find cards that had been kept with messages of love in them but there seemed to be only stationery items like embossed paper and pens. A lower drawer had a business diary and appointment cards. Plane tickets to Geneva had been booked for Christmas Eve and there were passports with the tickets...two of them. One had a shiny, unmarked cover and had been issued only last week—a baby’s first official document.
Alice closed the drawer slowly. Had André been planning a family Christmas to help him get through the grief of this first celebration without his wife? Would Madame Laurent be struggling with her own sadness and that was why she was so eager to collect Jacquot? It could be that she might welcome her as well.
Movement from the screens caught her eye and she watched as the headlights of cars and vans lit up the driveway and went out the gates. The road outside looked empty. Had the media finally given up on getting a story or pictures? It was another clue that normal life would be resumed in the near future but it felt curiously as if something important was slipping through her fingers.
The baby cam monitor showed Jacquot to be sleeping peacefully and maybe it was time for Alice to follow his example. The delicious smell of the Christmas feast that had been prepared in the kitchens should have been just as enticing when Alice reached the foyer but, despite her earlier hunger, her appetite was nothing like it had been when she had come downstairs earlier.
And when she saw who was emerging from the interior kitchen door, it vanished completely.
Julien had shed the striped apron. He’d unbuttoned the white tunic completely so that it hung open and most of his chest was bare. He was wearing faded denim jeans that had been hidden by the apron and maybe he’d kicked his shoes off because his feet were also bare.
And he’d taken the fastening off his ponytail. This was the first time Alice had seen him with his hair loose and she’d been right about how it framed and softened his face and brushed his shoulders in soft waves. It took away that professionally polished look and gave him an almost disreputable edge. A muted but irresistible hint of ‘bad boy’.
And then she noticed how tired he looked.
And how his face changed when he saw her.
Her mouth went very dry. ‘I’m so sorry, Julien,’ she said quietly. ‘I hope I didn’t disrupt the filming too much.’
He flicked his hand. ‘It was of no matter. We redid that part when I could concentrate again. It is finished now and only needs editing.’ He was giving her an intense look that Alice couldn’t interpret.
‘I have never lost my focus like that,’ he said, walking slowly towards her. ‘What is it about you that can do that to me, Alice McMillan?’
‘I... I...’ Have absolutely no idea, she wanted to say. Maybe it’s the same thing that you do to me...
Her words had evaporated and she didn’t need them anyway because Julien hadn’t stopped moving and now he was standing right in front of her. As close as he’d been standing that first night when he’d taken the sample from the inside of her cheek.
Once again, she was aware that she had an impossibly gorgeous man standing close enough to kiss her but this time it wasn’t embarrassing. This time it was the most amazing moment of her life because she knew that that was exactly what was going to happen.
And it wasn’t going to be an afterthought to a friendly kiss on both cheeks. Oh, no... The way Julien’s hand slid behind her neck and cradled the back of her head meant that this was going to be a real kiss...
Except it wasn’t. It was so far away from anything Alice had ever experienced that it was a fairy-tale kiss from a handsome prince. A prince who sensed that her bones were melting and scooped her into his arms and held her against his bare chest as he carried her upstairs and into a room well away from the nursery. It must have been the one he’d chosen on the first night here because it had the black clothes he’d been wearing carelessly thrown over the back of a chair.
The huge four-poster bed fitted right into this fantasy and, if Alice had had any qualms about whether she should let this go any further with a man she’d only met days ago, they vanished the moment Julien laid her on that bed and his lips covered hers again. Had he sensed a heartbeat of indecision? The gentle touch of lips suggested exactly that and the moment Alice knew she was completely lost to this overwhelming desire was the moment that gentleness got edged out by an increasingly fierce passion.
The buttons on her shirt popped open and then his lips were on the swell of her breasts and Julien was telling her how beautiful she was. How irresistible. That he was saying it in French didn’t matter. In fact, there could be no other language that could make words like this so compelling. So believable...
* * *
How on earth had he been able to focus enough to finish filming that show when all he’d wanted to do had been this from the moment he’d seen her standing in the doorway, looking at him the way she had?
And he wasn’t disappointed. Au contraire, he might have had a great deal of experience in lovemaking but it had never been this good. Because he’d never touched or been touched by a Scottish pixie with magic in her eyes. And in her hands. And in the soft sounds she made as she responded to every move he made. The cry she couldn’t stifle when he took them both over the edge and into paradise...
She stayed in his arms as he waited for his heart rate and breathing to get back to within normal parameters, her head snuggled in the dip between his shoulder and his heart as if the space had been created for just that purpose.
The silence could have been awkward—as these moments usually were—but it was far from that. It was good. Too good because he felt like he’d like to stay like this for ever, and that meant the moment had to be broken before he had time to think about it any longer.
‘C’etait bien?’ he asked softly. ‘It was good?’
‘Oh...oui...’ He could feel the curve of her lips against his chest. ‘Je l’aime.’
It felt like the chuckle came from a place he’d forgotten existed. Amusement that was a mix of pride and a deep fondness and possibly a twinge of sadness as well. The only person in his life who had ever made him feel something like that had been Colette—when she’d been young and trying to do something grown up but could only manage cute. Another silence fell, which made him wonder if Alice was trying to think of something else she could say in his language. Instead, the silence was broken by the loud growl of her stomach, which made him smile again.
‘You are hungry, chérie. I happen to know where there is a Christmas dinner that will still be warm. Est-ce que tu voudrais diner avec moi?’
* * *
Some of the food had been left in one of the massive ovens to stay warm.
Apparently more than one version of things had been cooked because the filming had needed different stages of the cooking process within a short time period. Most of it was stored in the cold room now and J
ulien warned Alice that she might be eating Christmas dinner more than once.
Alice sat at the end of the table with a flute of champagne in her hand and watched as Julien placed platter after platter of amazing-looking food in the spaces between the dozens of flickering candles.
A turkey and a jug of aromatic gravy with a curl of steam above it. Wedges of roasted pumpkin and crispy, browned potatoes. Sweet glazed carrots and Brussels sprouts. Bread sauce.
‘Oh...you did pigs in blankets. My absolute favourite.’ Alice picked up one of the tiny sausages wrapped in bacon and baked until crisp. ‘Oh, yum. How do you say “yum” in French?’
Julien had a carving knife in one hand and a sharpening steel in the other. ‘Miam-miam,’ he told her.
He’d just put his faded jeans and his black shirt on before they’d left his bedroom and the shirt was only buttoned halfway up but it didn’t matter that he wasn’t wearing his white tunic or even that he hadn’t tied back his hair again once he began sharpening that knife. He was every inch the professional chef and this had to be the sexiest thing Alice had ever seen a man doing.
Her pig in its blanket remained barely tasted and her champagne was forgotten. The pleasure Alice was getting from simply watching Julien was as much as she could cope with because it took far more than just her eyes. Her whole body was watching and remembering every touch he had given her. Every stroke and every kiss and—if she never experienced it again—she would never forget this blissful afterglow if she lived to be a hundred and two.
With the succulent meat carved and served, Julien piled their plates with a sample of everything else he had cooked for his traditional British Christmas dinner.
Alice wondered what the other chef had done for his French version but she didn’t want the conversation to turn professional. She wanted to bask in this delicious glow for a little longer. To talk about things that mattered only to themselves.
But she didn’t want to say too much either. Whatever was happening here was new and fragile and there was a danger of breaking it with the pressure of words that were too heavy or smothering it with a layer of too much emotion. Maybe talking about food was safer.
‘This is the best Christmas dinner I’ve ever tasted,’ she told him. ‘As much as I adored my mum and my gran, they could never cook like this. The turkey was always dry.’
‘Putting butter under the skin makes a difference. This is how I do it in my restaurant.’
‘Are you open on Christmas Day?’
‘No. But we serve Christmas meals for two or even three weeks of December. By the time Christmas Day comes, the last thing I want to eat is a goose. Or a turkey.’
‘So what do you cook to celebrate Christmas Day?’
Julien shrugged. ‘It’s not something I celebrate. It means nothing to me other than a day to be alone and rest.’
Alice stopped eating. So there was no significant other in his life who he would spend a special day with? It should be a relief to know that but, instead, it was almost frightening. Was Julien a lone wolf? Was he alone by a choice that was unlikely to change? She stared at her half-eaten meal but, however delicious it was, she had no inclination to eat anything more.
‘What about when you were a child?’
Julien followed her example and put down his fork, picking up his glass instead. ‘Celebrations were something to be feared when I was a child.’
There was nothing Alice could find to say in response. She could only look at Julien’s face in the soft light of the candles and hold her breath until the ache in her chest eased a little.
Julien drained his glass of champagne and reached for one of the bottles of wine on the table. The ruby-red liquid filled the crystal glass and he offered it to Alice but she shook her head, remaining silent as he closed his eyes and took a long sip of his wine. And then another. And then he opened his eyes again but kept his gaze on the glass in his hand as he began talking quietly.
‘My father walked out on us when I was five years old. He’d married my mother because she was pregnant but he told us many times that he’d never wanted a child. When it became apparent that another child was on the way, it was too much and he left.’
‘Oh, Julien...’
Alice’s heart ached for that little boy who’d known he hadn’t been wanted. Who had probably believed that it was his fault that his father had abandoned them.
‘My mother couldn’t cope alone so she married again as soon as she could. She chose an angry man who could use words as well as his fists as weapons and the worst times were always when he drank too much. Celebrations like birthdays and especially Christmas were the days he always drank too much.’
As if the reminder disgusted him, Julien put his glass down and pushed it away. ‘It’s too easy to hurt a child,’ he murmured. ‘That’s why I will never have one of my own.’
The ache around Alice’s heart took on a hollow edge as if it was surrounded by a bottomless pit. ‘But you have Jacquot now. You are his guardian...’
‘Which means I have to ensure that he is safe and cared for. I can’t bring up a child. I work long hours in my restaurant. I have to travel a lot for my television work and my recipe books. Other time is taken up with production and editing. It would be impossible to live with a baby.’
‘But he has to be loved,’ Alice whispered. ‘That’s just as important as being safe and cared for. Maybe more important.’ She’d seen how much it had meant to him that Colette’s precious rabbit toy had been bequeathed to her baby. And the way Julien had looked when Jacquot had smiled at them both. ‘You said he looks like Colette and...and I know you loved your sister...’
He must have loved her very much to have dropped out of school to protect her from their stepfather.
‘How old were you when your mother died?’ Alice asked, when Julien said nothing.
‘Fifteen.’
‘And Colette was...?’
‘Ten. A child.’
He hadn’t been much more than a child himself. ‘And you were allowed to be Colette’s guardian when you were so young?’
‘I would have lied about my age if anyone had asked but it turned out there was nobody who cared enough to find out.’
‘That must have been so hard...’
Julien picked up one of the pigs in blankets from his plate with his fingers and bit into it, tilting his head to shrug off her comment.
‘I worked,’ he said a moment later. ‘First one job and then two. Even three at one time. I had found a cheap apartment for us. Colette went to school and she looked after herself after school. She knew it was the only way we could stay together. We were the only family we each had. We had to help one another.’ He looked at the food in his hand and then put it down, as though his appetite had vanished.
‘It only worked because she was old enough to do that,’ he added. ‘I couldn’t have cared for a baby then. I couldn’t now.’
‘You could...’ Alice whispered. ‘If you wanted to.’ If I helped you...
But her offer remained unspoken because Julien had raised his hand as if warning her off.
‘I don’t want to. I’ve been down that path before. Tried to protect someone and keep them safe and...and I did not do it well enough... C’est tout.’
Alice could hear the pain in his words. He had loved his sister so much. She didn’t understand why he was taking so much blame for her death but maybe it was because it was still so recent. Grief was not helpful to rational thinking, was it?
She spoke quietly into the silence.
‘She knew how amazing it was—what you did for her. That’s why she made you the guardian of her child.’
Julien gave that half-shrug. This wasn’t something he really wanted to analyse. ‘So she said. I think I told you that she came to see me just before her baby was due to be
born. She wanted to give me the legal document about the guardianship. It was the first time I’d seen her in more than a year. Since she’d married André. A marriage that I’d tried to stop.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he was far too old for her. And he was well known for his excesses. Fast cars. Beautiful women. Too much alcohol...’
So this was why he blamed himself? Because he hadn’t protected her from a relationship that had led to a baby’s birth that had proved fatal? It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t even acceptable. ‘But they loved each other.’
‘Pfff...’ The sound was as dismissive as when Julien had made it in response to her suggesting that her mother had been in love with André.
Julien had been both a brother and a parent to his sister and he knew about that kind of protective love, but had anyone ever protected him? Did he even realise it could be safe, given that his parents had failed him and even his beloved sister had walked away from his life when he’d thought he was still protecting her? Had he ever allowed himself to be in love? Or felt truly loved by someone?
It would seem not.
What on earth made her think she had any chance of breaking through a barrier like that?
It would need a miracle.
But miracles did happen sometimes, didn’t they? And what better time of year to find one than at Christmas?
There was a clock ticking, though, and it wasn’t just counting down the hours until Christmas Day.
And miracles needed to be planted to have any hope of growing.
Alice took a deep breath.
‘If you’re Jacquot’s guardian, you will get to choose who can raise him, won’t you?’
‘That’s my hope. And if it’s away from the Laurent family I will still be able to visit him. To watch over him as he grows up and help when or if I’m needed.’
The Baby Who Saved Christmas Page 10