The Reunion of a Lifetime

by Fiona Lowe

  But surely it was a false hope to think she could turn to Louis? Just because she’d recently seen just how deeply he cared for his patients didn’t mean he would care about Rainbow House. Or that he would care about anything the Delaroche Foundation did. At the end of the day, he was still a playboy.

  Work hard, play harder, that was Louis’s motto. His were never mere parties but Saturnalias; he never merely drank, he caroused.

  Why, face to face with him now, did it seem so difficult to remember that side of his character?

  Even now, as she tilted her head to take him in, his famously solid figure now framed by the light spilling onto the balcony from the French doors behind him, she wasn’t sure what to make of him.

  Louis was the man who the media simply revelled in loathing. Not least because his weekly exploits—both sexual and otherwise—sold copies by their millions the world over. Since his mid-teens, Louis had been building a reputation for being larger than life with a penchant for the kind of wild parties the average person couldn’t even imagine. The scandalous occasion he and his rich friends had stolen one of their parents’ super-yachts for a raucous party, only to subsequently sink it, was probably one of the tamer of Louis’s outings.

  And he got away with it all because he was one of the most gifted young surgeons of his generation. Women wanted him and men wanted to be him. Was it any wonder his ego was as gargantuan as the rather crudely reputed size of a rather specific part of his anatomy?

  Well, she wasn’t going to be yet another addition to the lusting harem that had trailed around after him all evening. Neither did she have the energy for an unwanted fight with another Delaroche male this evening.

  Shock still resonated through her, but something else followed it. Something stronger. An inner core strength that had got her through losing her mother and her brother. Had got her through a lifetime of disappointing her father since birth. Got her to med school, to pass top of her year, and to the placements she’d wanted most.

  She would not cry in front of Louis. She’d already been the object of one unwarranted Delaroche temper this evening, and she’d be damned if she’d let another Delaroche take his pound of flesh, too. Steeling herself, she raised her chin to look up into the dark shadow of a face she didn’t need to see to have imprinted in her mind.

  ‘Thank you for rescuing me from the humiliation of being thrown out in front of the press waiting outside, but you have...people to get back to. And if you don’t mind, I’ll find a back way out of here and get safely home before your father realises I didn’t get made an example of.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ His voice was lethally quiet. ‘You still haven’t told me why you were discussing Rainbow House.’

  Frustration lent her courage and she let out a humourless laugh.

  ‘The fact that you don’t even know says it all.’

  He took a sudden step towards her and made a sound somewhere between a growl and...something, his lips curving upwards into a shape so razor sharp it could hardly be called a smile.

  Awareness shot through her, her heart thundering almost painfully in her chest. Her senses all immediately went on high alert, the stunning crispness of the cool night fading into nothing compared to the man in front of her. A reminder of why Louis was one of the world’s most powerful eligible bachelors.

  She gripped the rough stone surface of the ornate balcony tighter and it was all she could do not to back away further. To hold her ground rather than tumble over the edge. He was too distracting. A six-foot-three package of corded muscles, so lean and powerful and strong, its beauty was almost too much. No amount of scandalous headlines or scurrilous articles could have prepared her for the effect of being this close to Louis in person. And alone with him.

  Not even the proximity the previous week when her mentor had granted her coveted entry into one of Louis’s surgeries.

  The moment when she’d seen Louis’s incredible surgical skill for herself. The moment she’d seen a different side to the heinous media image when he’d shown such care and kindness to his patient and their family. And evidently the moment she’d begun to lose her grip on reality, for pity’s sake.

  Some small sense of self-preservation pounded inside her and she let out a disdainful, if somewhat nervous huff.

  ‘Remind me, what is the collective noun for a group of immaculately coiffured, designer-ballgown-dressed, primly preening women who spend all evening zealously clamouring around a less-than-selfless playboy?’

  ‘I believe they’re called high-society contacts.’ He flashed a wolfish smile that was more bared teeth and another shard of awareness sliced straight through her. Mercifully, Louis appeared oblivious. ‘This is a charity ball, after all. I’m sure even you must understand that the aim is to raise as much money as possible.’

  ‘I hardly think it’s the charities they’re here for,’ Alex scoffed, recalling the covetous expressions on a sea of female faces when Louis had abandoned them in the ballroom in favour of her.

  Only he could have made several hundred women look on with more envy than interest as he’d snatched her from his father’s security detail, only to frogmarch her away, back through the vast estate house and finally here outside in the relative privacy of one of the many ornate stone balconies.

  No doubt he thought she should be grateful to him for that much, Alex grumbled to herself as she rubbed her elbow and told herself that it was only tingly from the pain of Louis’s grip. Certainly not the thrill of his touch.

  That would be lunacy.

  ‘I don’t care who or what brought them here.’ Louis shrugged. ‘As long as they support the Delaroche Foundation. The sooner they part with their surplus money, the sooner I can say I’ve done my filial duty and get out of here. Which brings me right back to why you were discussing Rainbow House with my father.’

  He advanced on her again, her feeling of suffocation nothing to do with the lacy choker at her throat. Because even without the name or the heritage there would never have been any denying Louis Delaroche. He carried himself in the kind of autocratic and exacting way that many men tried to emulate but few could ever master. For Louis, it seemed effortless, an intrinsic part of who he was. He only had to murmur ‘Jump’ and those around him would frantically turn themselves inside out to become metaphorical pole-vaulters.

  Alex sniffed indelicately. Well, his ubiquitous charm wasn’t going to work on her. She was determined about that. How ironic it would be if, after a life of trying to do the right thing, striving to be somebody worthy of living in this world, someone who could maybe one day make a difference, she should be toppled by something as prosaic as falling for the proverbial bad boy.

  Even now Alex could imagine the sadness on her father’s face. The knowledge that he’d been right about her all along. That she was worthless. That it was laughable she should have gone into medicine, a profession in which she was supposed to save lives when she only ever destroyed lives. Their lives. Her mother’s and her brother’s.

  Mum and Jack. Or them, as she’d come to think of them. Grief slid over her, as a familiar as a set of scrubs yet in many ways equally as impersonal.

  Not that her father ever blamed her aloud. Never made such an accusation. Never once even breathed it. Rather, it was the fact that he’d always been careful never, ever to mention it—never, ever mention them—that screamed louder than anything he could have said.

  He was always so careful, her father, to keep subject matter defined. Work was fine, personal life was a no-go. Rainbow House was the only thing the two of them shared that had any connection to Mum and Jack at all.

  And so her father must feel it, deep down. That kernel of loathing that she felt for herself. Rainbow House was the one good thing they shared. She had to save it. Whatever the cost.

  That last thought helped her to steel her spine again. Lifting her head, she met Louis’s sta
re head on, refusing to be distracted, however tempting the packaging had turned out to be.

  ‘Rainbow House is a place for children with life-changing illnesses and their parents,’ she informed him. ‘A place that helps as many children as possible to find a cure, and offers respite for those who can’t get the solution they need, whether it’s a transplant or an operation. It sends families on that one precious memory-making holiday together, and helps fulfil as many bucket-list wishes as possible. Just the kind of place the Delaroche Foundation is famous for supporting.’

  ‘I know what it is,’ Louis remarked wryly, but the edge to his voice cautioned her.

  Was she missing something? What?

  ‘I asked why you were discussing it with Jean...my father,’ he interrupted her musing, his voice sharp.

  ‘I’d have thought you should be one of the first people to know what was going on at Rainbow House,’ she snapped. ‘But since you don’t, here it is. Your precious Delaroche Foundation is trying to shut it down.’

  ‘It is not my precious foundation. And even if it was, Rainbow House is part of the Lefebvre Group.’

  ‘Which was bequeathed to you,’ she announced triumphantly, ignoring the part where he’d known about the group. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. Louis was hardly renowned for being interested in anything other than surgeries and sex. Although, for all his vices, he kept his great obsessions clear and distinct from one another.

  She had to give him that much.

  ‘It was bequeathed to me as a kid. But the group has been doing a fine job of governing itself without me stepping in and wasting my time. I operate, or I party. I don’t have time for charity as well.’

  She couldn’t fathom the expression that pulled tight across his face. As though his words didn’t match his feelings on the matter. All of a sudden she remembered the Louis she’d seen in the operating room barely a month earlier.

  She’d heard the stories about Louis’s skill as a surgeon ever since she’d been a medical student. Only a couple of years older than her, he was already years ahead of his peers, apparently having observed his father’s surgeries ever since he’d been old enough to stand on a box long enough in the OR. It was said that schoolboy Louis had been able to answer questions even second-year house officers had struggled with.

  But last week had been the first—the only—time she had actually witnessed Louis in action for herself. It had been an incredible experience.

  Louis didn’t simply measure up to the stories, he surpassed them. A surgeon of such skill and focus that he eclipsed any other surgeon she’d seen. And when she’d mentioned it to her mentor—the anaesthetist who must have promised Louis the earth in order to get him to allow her in to observe in one of Louis’s infamously closed-door surgeries—Gordon had merely rewarded her with one of his conspicuously rare smiles.

  She’d finally seen what Gordon had known for years, that Louis was a pretty unique surgeon. The more she’d run back over the surgery all week, the more she’d realised that it hadn’t been luck that the entire procedure had gone so smoothly, so without complication. Louis had made so many tiny, almost imperceptible adjustments so instinctively throughout the operation that he’d headed off any little bumps before they’d even had a chance to develop.

  Some surgeons reacted well to incidents in the OR, others were a couple of moves ahead. Louis, though she hadn’t realised it immediately, was akin to a chess grandmaster who could foresee multiple patterns ahead and then made the best single move, even if it wasn’t the most obvious one.

  She might even go so far as to say Louis was gifted. And after years of feeling proud—perhaps maybe even a little superior—that she was immune to some of the best-looking but arrogant doctors she’d worked with throughout her career, it was galling to realise that, of all people, playboy Louis Delaroche should be the man to breach her defences.

  Not that she was about to let him know it. She rolled her eyes at him and pressed on.

  ‘You’re wrong. The board isn’t doing a fine job at all. As I understand it, the Lefebvre Group is now almost wholly comprised of the Delaroche Foundation, ever since the death of the old chairman a few months ago. Your father’s foundation has been voting to transfer various assets from the Lefebvre Group to the Delaroche Foundation, at very advantageous prices.’

  ‘They can’t do that.’

  ‘Tell that to the board,’ she spat back. ‘Some of these assets they intend to keep and some they want to shut down or sell off. Rainbow House is located in the centre of town, it’s prime real estate. Shut it down and any developer would pay millions for the site.’

  ‘No.’ Louis folded his arms over his body, the move only highlighting the powerful muscles there. ‘That won’t be why he wants to shut Rainbow House down.’

  ‘You’re telling me he has no choice?’ She dragged her gaze back to his shadowed face. ‘Because I can’t believe that.’

  ‘I didn’t say that he didn’t have a choice. I said he isn’t driven by the money.’

  Disappointment bubbled up inside her. She couldn’t explain why she’d imagined she’d sensed a possible ally in Louis, but watching it slip from her grasp was almost like watching her own father slip away from her. They amounted to the same thing.

  ‘Seriously? You, of all people, are now claiming he’s philanthropic after all?’

  ‘I’m not claiming anything. I’m simply telling you that selling the site for millions won’t be the reason he’s closing it down.’

  ‘It’s a much-needed centre. It benefits hundreds and hundreds of children and their families. We work hard to raise our own funds and we don’t ask much more of the Delaroche Foundation than lending their name to it.’

  In that instant it was as though everything around them had frozen, leaving only the two of them locked together in some kind of void.

  ‘You work there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’ The question came out of nowhere. Not a challenge but a soft demand. Unexpectedly astute. Unavoidable. As though he knew she had to have a personal connection.

  She couldn’t explain it, she only knew—somehow—that it wouldn’t pay to lie to him.

  ‘I volunteer there,’ Alex began hesitantly. ‘With my father. My brother was... Years ago...we used Rainbow House.’

  ‘Your brother?’ Louis demanded sharply.

  She flicked out a tongue over her lips, managing a stiff nod of confirmation.

  ‘Yes. Jack.’

  ‘And now?’ His voice softened a fraction, he sounded almost empathetic. A flashback to the Louis who only usually emerged for his patients.

  If anything, that just made it harder for her to keep her emotions in check. Alex fought to keep her voice even, the air winding its way around her.

  ‘He died. Twenty-one years ago. He was eleven. I was eight.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Simple. Sincere. And all the more touching for it.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Instantly the air finished winding its way around her and instead began slowly constricting her. Like a python immobilising its prey. And she felt she was sinking into the depths of those rich-coloured eyes.

  She fought to control her heart as it hammered so loudly within her ribcage that he must surely be able to hear it. And then abruptly, rather than suffocating her, the silence seemed to cloak them, drawing them a little closer together and almost suggesting an intimacy that hadn’t been there before. She realised she was holding her breath, not wanting to break the spell.

  Funny, because she was usually so quick to move conversations on from talking about her brother.

  ‘So that’s why Rainbow House means so much to you.’

  ‘Right,’ she agreed, shutting off the little voice that urged her to tell him about her father.

  Where did that come from? That was no one el
se’s business but her and her father’s. Certainly not Louis’s. She lifted her head, determined to throw it back onto him.

  ‘I suppose that’s why I don’t understand why Rainbow House doesn’t mean as much to you. Given what it meant to your mother.’

  The icy change was instantaneous. She might as well have struck him physically. He reacted as though she had. Reeling backwards before he could stop himself, even as he recovered his composure.

  ‘I don’t know what that means. So when is this closure supposed to be taking place?’

  It all happened so fast that anyone else might have missed it. They probably would have. But she wasn’t anyone. It was her skill for observing the little things, picking up on the faintest of shifts, whether in patient symptoms, monitor readings or merely attitude, which made her particularly good at her job. A skill in which she had always taken such pride.

  Right now, it was an unexpected glimpse of the less-than-perfect image of Louis that he carefully hid from eager media eyes. She couldn’t help pressing him.

  ‘It means I know your mother was Celine Lefebvre, and I know it was your maternal family who founded Rainbow House over fifty years ago when your aunt, your mother’s younger sister, was diagnosed with childhood leukaemia.’

  ‘How quaint that you know a little of my family history.’

  His voice was as fascinating yet deadly as the ninja stars that her brother had always dreamed of one day being able to master. A dangerous cocktail of sadness, frustration and desperate hope flooded through her.

  ‘I also know that your mother fought hard to keep Rainbow House open over twenty-five years ago when original Lefebvre Group members who had been appointed were running it into the ground. That was around the time she convinced your father to set up the Delaroche Foundation and oversee the group until you were of an age to take control. I’m guessing that she expected to train you to run it but...she never got the opportunity.’

  ‘Which means it’s nothing to do with me now.’

  She wished more than anything she could decipher that expression behind his concrete-coloured eyes. But the longer she stared into them, the more unreachable he seemed to be. Her voice rose in desperation.