‘It’s a very welcoming place.’
Celine nodded. ‘Perhaps one day you will understand why we made this place our home.’
‘I think I already do,’ Isla said. ‘But I believe that sometimes home is as much about people as places. I mean if you have the people you love around you then you can make anywhere home. You make them your home.’
‘Just so.’ Natalie nodded eagerly. ‘Who was that man at the church last night?’
‘Sebastian?’ Isla said, a sudden rush of heat at the mention of his name.
‘You have met him here? In St Martin?’
‘Yes.’
‘You seemed good friends.’
‘He’s… well, he’s nice.’
‘Handsome.’
‘I suppose he is. If you like that sort of thing.’
Ian looked from one to the other, trying, and perhaps failing, to keep up with the subtext of the conversation. Benet frowned at his sister but Celine shot her daughter a knowing smile. At least one member of the McCoy family had caught up.
Natalie seemed to know what was in Isla’s heart before Isla did herself. A few seconds’ delay and then the truth of her words hit her too. When had she felt happiest, most content in St Martin? Where did her thoughts keep leading her? Something had felt wrong about today and it wasn’t the awkward family conversation or the change of routine. Something was missing, and it wasn’t her mum, even though she missed her, because her mum would be there when Isla got home – her mum would always be there.
When Sebastian wasn’t there everything felt a little colder, a little greyer. They had nothing in common, no shared background or common interests, and yet she felt they somehow fitted together perfectly. If she didn’t tell him would she wave goodbye the following day never to see him again? He had to feel the same, didn’t he? Surely it had to be worth a shot?
‘He is staying at the Residence Alpenrose?’ Celine asked, interrupting Isla’s feverish thoughts.
‘Yes. He’s there now.’
‘With family? Friends perhaps?’
‘With nobody. Completely alone,’ Isla said slowly.
‘Perhaps you would like to call him? He is welcome to join us,’ Celine replied, looking to Ian for approval, who nodded. Whether he quite knew what he was agreeing to was another matter entirely.
Isla hesitated. She still didn’t know exactly what her feelings meant and if he shared them. Phoning him now to invite him might put pressure on him to attend when he didn’t really want to.
‘I think he may already be eating. At the hotel. I mean, I’m pretty sure Dahlia has it covered. But thank you.’
Celine didn’t push it, but Isla thought she saw a shared, knowing look pass between her and Natalie.
‘This all looks amazing,’ Isla said, turning back to the table in a bid to change the subject. She was fast running out of things to say that didn’t make her think of Seb. All she could think about was that he was sitting in their hotel while she was here and with every second they were apart he seemed to move further out of her reach. But she couldn’t go to him now, because doing that would jeopardise the fragile relationship she was building here. Like it or not, she was going to have to get through this lunch. But then it seemed Lady Luck threw her a favour.
‘Alors!’ Natalie shot upright in her seat, shooting a sudden glance at the kitchen clock. ‘Pierre is waiting!’
‘Pierre?’ Celine raised her eyebrows and Natalie gave a sheepish grin.
‘I promised to meet him.’
‘Today? When we have our visitor?’
‘But I did not know we would have a visitor when I arranged it,’ Natalie replied helplessly. She turned to Ian with a beseeching look. ‘Papa?’
‘I don’t mind,’ Isla cut in. ‘I presume Pierre is someone pretty special?’
‘He is,’ Natalie beamed. ‘Very special.’
‘Then I would be the last person to complain about you going to him.’
‘But—’ Ian began, but Isla shook her head.
‘Honestly, it’s fine.’ She turned to Natalie. ‘It’s been lovely getting to know you and I’ll see you again before I leave, for sure.’
Natalie glanced at her father, who gave a nod of resignation. ‘I suppose if Isla is OK with it then I can’t really complain. Though don’t think I’m happy.’
‘Merci, Papa!’ Natalie flew round the table and kissed Ian and Celine in turn. Then she crossed to Isla and gave her a peck on the cheek too. ‘Until next time, ma soeur.’
‘Sister,’ Ian translated in reply to Isla’s bemused smile. Then he turned an indulgent eye to his younger daughter, dashing from the room. If he was trying to look stern he was fooling no one.
‘May I be excused too?’ Benet asked.
‘No. You may stay at the table.’ Ian’s smile faded. ‘You know my feelings on this—’
‘It’s OK,’ Isla said. ‘To be honest…’
Talk of boyfriends had brought Seb to mind again, and Isla felt that hole at her core, that unfinished business, the opportunity slipping away from her with every second she was away from him. If Natalie had gone to meet Pierre and Benet was itching to disappear too, perhaps this was a good point to wrap things up anyway. Prematurely, maybe, but they’d made enough progress today to allow for it, hadn’t they? To Isla it was worth taking a chance.
‘I realise this is going to sound incredibly rude,’ she said slowly, taking a breath. ‘But I really need to go too.’
Ian’s head flicked up. ‘Have we done something wrong?’
‘God no! Of course not! It’s not you at all, it’s just—’
‘Are you ill? Do you need me to take you back to your hotel? Call a doctor?’
‘Honestly I’m fine. I just need an hour to sort something and I thought perhaps…’
Celine smiled. ‘Natalie has gone to meet Pierre and perhaps there is someone you wish to meet?’
Isla said lamely, ‘Well… there’s something I need to do. I’m sorry I can’t say more than that…’
Ian’s brow creased slightly. Isla supposed it was one thing to tell his son he had to stay put, but perhaps another entirely to do the same to the daughter he was only just getting to know. ‘So important that you have to drop everything and go now?’
‘You’ve got every right to be annoyed at me, but yes.’ If they’d known each other better perhaps Ian would have been angrier. Perhaps if they had known each other better she could have explained it. But she couldn’t, because she barely understood it herself. All she knew was that she needed to find Seb now, while she had the courage to tell him how she felt. Another hour and it may well fail her again.
‘I’m really, really sorry, but please don’t take it personally, it’s just…’
‘Well…’ Ian looked helplessly in turn at the remaining family gathered round the table. ‘I suppose if it means that much to you then you must go.’
Isla gave a tight smile. ‘Thank you. And I am really sorry for all this.’
‘Will you come back?’ Celine asked.
Would she? Isla didn’t know how this was going to play out.
‘Go to see your friend,’ Celine said. ‘Perhaps you would like to bring him with you when you return – he is more than welcome.’
Isla nodded. Letting her napkin fall to the table, she dashed from the room.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Soaking wet, flushed and freezing from her run through the drifts outside, Isla stopped and frowned at the doorway to the dining room of Residence Alpenrose. Dahlia was crossing the floor of the restaurant with a tray of drinks, the low strains of Christmas tunes played in a jazz style being piped in through the sound system, the room festooned with tinsel and streamers and the smell of roasting meat and vegetables on the air. Almost every table was occupied by guests, but there was no sign of Seb. When he’d told her he’d be eating Christmas lunch with Dahlia she’d assumed they’d be sitting down together. Which she felt silly about now because Dahlia was running a hotel,
one which was open all over Christmas; of course she wasn’t going to have time for a cosy candlelit meal with Seb.
Dahlia broke into a broad smile when she saw Isla. Depositing her drink order in front of a waiting family, she made her way over.
‘Everything OK, honey? I thought you were eating with Ian and Celine today? Has something happened?’
‘No, I… I was looking for Seb. I thought he said he was having lunch with you.’
‘I asked him if he was coming down today, and he had too much work to do. I tried to persuade him to take an hour off, but he was insistent.’
‘Oh. So, he’s in his suite?’
‘Yes.’
‘Working? On Christmas Day? He told me he wouldn’t do that.’
‘Afraid so. It’s not right and I said as much.’
‘It isn’t.’ Isla paused. ‘Dahlia, I don’t suppose you can do me a couple of turkey dinners to go?’
Dahlia gave her a knowing smile. ‘Take a seat at the bar, honey. I’ll be right with you.’
With both hands full, Isla had to kick at the door of the suite. She was sweating now in the huge coat that was brilliant for walking in alpine winters, but not so suited to labouring in a heated hotel under a huge tray containing two turkey meals with all the trimmings, a bottle of wine and two glasses. The sweat pouting off her was not very romantic, but she tried not to think about it as she waited for Seb to answer.
‘Who is it?’ he asked, his voice muffled from within the room.
‘Father Christmas!’ Isla shouted.
A few seconds later Seb’s face appeared. ‘Isla! I thought…’
‘I know you did.’ As he rushed to take the tray from her, confusion written over his features, she shrugged her coat off with a sigh of relief.
‘What are you doing here? Did something happen with your dad? Is it all off?’
Isla shook her head. ‘It was all fine. Better than fine – we got on really well.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘I could ask why you told me you’d be eating with Dahlia, and now I find you working – on Christmas Day… Why did you lie to me?’
‘I didn’t lie… OK maybe it was a white one. But you wouldn’t have gone to dinner with your family if I’d told you what I was planning to do and I knew it was important. I didn’t want you burdened with worrying about what I was going to be doing today and miss out on visiting your family.’
He shrugged and turned to the tray of food he’d just placed on a small table.
‘I hope you’re hungry,’ Isla said, fighting a blush.
‘Two plates?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘I thought you’d just eaten.’
‘I did. Sort of. I mean I picked. I can totally eat another dinner. Come on,’ she insisted. ‘Sit down. And merry Christmas!’
‘It looks wonderful. It’s very kind of you.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve charged it to your room…’
He looked up with a small smile. Not his usual goofy grin, but something sad and lost, and Isla was suddenly thrown into unfamiliar territory. She’d come to tell him how she felt about him but she realised that all wasn’t well here. How could she bare her soul when something was so clearly amiss?
‘Seb,’ she said gently. ‘Let’s eat. I’ll tell you my troubles, if you’ll tell me yours.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I disagree.’
He paused and then let out a sigh. ‘You can’t fix mine. Nobody can. There’s no point in worrying about something that can’t be fixed. We can talk about it all you want, but nothing will change.’
‘How do you know if you don’t share?’
‘Trust me, I know.’
‘What if I’d said that to everyone who has helped me deal with the reunion with my dad? What if I’d shut everyone out? You would have insisted I accept the help and you’d have been right. I’m returning the favour now, so please just let me.’
‘That turkey looks good,’ he said, making his way over to the table.
‘Doesn’t it?’ Isla replied, realising that she would need a new tactic if she was going to get him to open up. And it was nice, strangely, being the person to hand out support for once, instead of being supported. She’d spent the last week being supported by just about everyone she came into contact with and she was beginning to feel like a burden on the entire population of St Martin.
‘I wasn’t going to eat, not really that hungry.’
‘Really?’ Isla raised her eyebrows.
‘I was too busy to stop.’
‘Am I interrupting you?’
‘Yes… But I don’t mind. I thought I was going to be spending the day alone so it made sense to use the time for work. But I don’t mind that you’re here.’
Isla poured two glasses of wine and handed him one as they both pulled chairs over to the makeshift dining table. ‘Aren’t you a bit sad you couldn’t get back home for Christmas?’
‘Does that mean you are?’
‘I miss my mum, of course. This is the first Christmas I’ve spent away from her so it’s bound to be weird. But this is turning out OK.’
‘It’s going well with your dad?’
‘It’s going OK.’
‘That’s brilliant.’
‘So what do you normally do on Christmas Day? Your parents don’t mind you being here now, away from them? Did you call them this morning?’
‘They’re…’ With a sigh he placed his cutlery carefully on his plate. ‘Isla… I haven’t been completely honest with you.’
‘Go on…’ she replied, her breath catching in her throat.
‘There’s just me.’
‘I don’t follow.’
He gave a vague shrug. ‘There’s no one to go home for.’
‘You don’t get along with your family?’
‘I don’t have any family.’
Isla’s glass stopped halfway to her mouth. She stared at him. ‘None?’
‘Not a single person.’
‘But I thought…’
‘That I would have a lovely set of middle-class parents who paid for piano tuition and private schools and took me skiing in Verbier in the winter? I suppose that’s the impression most people have when they first meet me, and I don’t deny that it’s been an advantageous one when it comes to landing research jobs. For some reason, academic institutions seem to like that version of my past. They don’t want to give research posts to people who might come with emotional baggage. Nobody thinks anything different about where I came from and so I choose to let the reality be whatever makes them happy.’
‘So where do you come from?’ Isla asked, reeling from his sudden revelation, her own issues melting into the background.
‘I grew up in a children’s home in Croydon.’
‘Where are your parents?’
‘No idea. Drug addicts, apparently. They’re probably dead, and if they’re not they certainly haven’t made any effort to find me so they might as well be.’
Isla clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Oh, God, Seb! I’m so sorry!’
He gave a wan smile. ‘There’s no need for you to be sorry.’
‘But I said all those things – about my family – and you never said a word! I complained and complained and all this time you listened and wondered what it must be like to have family to complain about! You must have thought I was so pathetic!’
‘Of course not. That’s your reality, and this is mine. I completely understand how affected you are by yours. In many ways one could say I’m luckier than you not to have anyone – at least there’s nobody to worry about but myself. And I was happier than I could say to see you make peace with your dad.’
‘Because you wished you could do the same?’
‘Perhaps. I’ve never known anything different, though.’
Isla took a gulp of her wine. This was huge. How did he keep this bottled up all the time? ‘But you must have friends? A foster family? There must be someone in your life – you can’t be completely
alone in the world.’
‘Somehow I never seemed to get settled in a foster home – there was always a reason why it didn’t work out. I wasn’t bitter, I just got used to the idea that I’d have to forge my own path in life and I couldn’t rely on anyone to help me. It made me strong. Then I learned that if I really wanted to pursue my dreams of a career in academia then I’d have to reinvent myself as someone academia could relate to. So when I went to university I didn’t tell anyone about my past. I painted a picture of someone from a perfectly normal, average family. I pretended to go home in the summer. People would offer to come visit me and I’d have to lie to keep them from the truth. I couldn’t bear the looks of pity if my university friends found out. I worked hard on my course, managed to get some lucky breaks and eventually I got this job, which is the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ve been able to travel the world and indulge my passion and not worry about anything else.’
Isla leaned back and studied him. He looked every inch the university professor, the perfect example of the man he’d tried so desperately to become. Suddenly, she understood him in a way she never imagined would be possible, as if he’d shone a torch right through himself. Though why he’d chosen this moment to tell her was a mystery. Perhaps it was the idea that he might never see her again, perhaps he thought he had nothing to lose. Or was it that he trusted her with a secret he’d never trusted anyone with before? She didn’t know whether to be flattered or terrified.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘You don’t have to say anything,’ he replied. ‘But now you know the real me, and I have to say it’s quite a relief to finally share it with someone after all these years.’
‘I would imagine it is. I don’t know why you’d choose me, but thank you.’
It was his turn to study Isla and she felt the heat travel to her face even as he did. ‘Really?’ he asked softly. ‘You really don’t know why I’d choose you to share my secret with?’
‘We’re friends, right?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I hope so.’
‘And we could be…’ Isla faltered. The moment was here but how could she tell him this now, after what he’d just shared? He’d only just begun to open up and surely he needed time to finish the story. And yet, as she felt the moment slipping through her fingers, she knew that if she let it go she might never find another.
A Cosy Candlelit Christmas: A wonderfully festive feel good romance (An Unforgettable Christmas Book 2) Page 24