She grinned. ‘Yvette will be bringing him home later and either playing with Dan or trying to get him to bed, depending on the amount of sugar and artificial colourings he has stuffed himself with. I suspect industrial quantities of ice cream and cake will be involved so he will probably still be bouncing when we get back.’ Then she added,’ I did warn her that it could be a little late.’
‘Wise move.’ Seb nodded. ‘I understand that these musical soirées can sometimes go on after ten in the evening,’ he added in a mock serious tone. ‘How shocking!’
He looked behind him from side to side, then whispered, ‘And there might even be dancing, but please don’t tell anyone I said that.’
‘Of course not.’ Ella frowned. ‘Actually I am not one for dancing. I know it’s weird.’ She shrugged. ‘I adore the music but the feet don’t move where they should do.’
She stuck out her legs and twirled her ankles. ‘I think it comes from being left-handed. I move left and everyone else moves right. Which is the other left, if you know what I mean, which I know you don’t? Then my face goes as red as my partner’s toes.’
She shook her head. ‘I’ll be quite happy just dancing along by myself. Disco style. Much safer for all concerned.’
Seb snorted in disbelief. ‘Disco! You are the most musical person I have ever met, so your pitiful excuses do not work on me.’ And he strolled up to her and extended both hands palm upwards. ‘May I have the honour of this dance, mademoiselle?’
CHAPTER TEN
ELLA bathed in the heat of Seb’s gaze as he smiled down at her, clearly determined to make her dance. He looked sexier and even more handsome and any resolve she might have had to stay on her piano stool seemed to melt like ice.
In seconds they were on the patio under the moon light.
Her senses were so alive when he was close like this. The garden suddenly seemed full of the sound of birdsong and insects. Bees from the honeysuckle, thyme and lavender were the soundtrack to the beat of her heart and the soft music playing in the house. It was magical. Tonight they sang for her. And for Sebastien. And only for them.
She simply could not resist him. And it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he looked every inch the same multimillionaire businessman whose photos she had been polishing for months. No. It was the man under the suit.
Oops. She had a vision of Seb minus his clothes. Big oops.
Ella willed down the intense blush she could feel on her cheeks as she felt Seb clasp hold of her fingers and draw her to him.
‘Thank you, sir. How kind of you to think of us poor wall-flowers. All alone and overlooked.’
‘Um. Right. You have never been a wallflower in your life, Miss Bailey. You look amazing. That dress…’ He exaggerated a shiver then hissed, ‘Amazing,’ making Ella’s blush even hotter. And with one swift tug on her hands she was in his arms. One hand slid strategically onto her waist, the other clasped firmly around her palm. And her body…her body pressed tightly against his chest.
‘Exactly what kind of dance is this?’ she dared to ask, her nose about two inches away from the open neck of Seb’s shirt, so that she could see the dark hairs on his chest below the St Christopher pendant. He smelt of expensive cologne and something musky, spicy and arousing—something that was uniquely Sebastien. A flash of something horribly close to desire ran through her body, startling her with its intensity.
Her back straightened and her head lifted away as she tried to regain her self-control, only to become suddenly aware that the music compilation she had selected for Nicole’s party had changed to a lively upbeat rhythm of a South American tango.
Instantly Seb drew her even closer, so that his hips moved against hers, swaying from side to side. Taking her with him. She had no choice but to follow his actions, his broad chest and strong legs pressed so close to the thin fabric of her silk dress that she felt glued to him along the whole length of his body.
‘Latin, of course,’ he replied, his voice close to her ear and muffled by her hair. Rough, urgent. She was clearly not the only one who was starting to become rather warm. ‘Lots of shuffling and stamping. Leg twisting and dipping comes later…although.’
He stopped talking and Ella took a deep breath and asked ‘Although?’
His hand moved sinuously up her back as the pace increased and his legs started moving faster. ‘Perhaps not in that dress. It is…’ and he sighed, the implications only too obvious as his fingers splayed on the bare skin of her back and his grip tightened ‘…far, far too tempting.’ And without warning he leant forward from the waist, so that she moved backwards chest to chest, both of his hands taking her weight with effortless ease and agility. Except that she had been so captivated by his words that she had not seen the move coming and her arms clenched hard around his neck to stop herself from falling backwards and she cried out in alarm.
With a gentle movement Seb slowly brought her back to a standing position, his hands drawing her closer and holding her against him as she dragged in ragged breaths of air in a feeble attempt to calm her heart rate.
‘Sorry,’ she eventually managed to squeak out, feeling like a complete idiot. She knew that Seb would never let her fall. She had overreacted, her body once more letting her down.
Seb paused and released her long enough so that they could look into each other’s eyes as his fingers spread wide so that they could caress her skin in delicious soft circles.
His forehead pressed against hers so that his voice reverberated through her skull. Hot, concerned, tender and understanding.
‘You have to trust me and let me lead, Ella. Can you try?’
Ella closed her eyes and tried to calm her heartbeat and failed. Her mind was spinning as his words hit home, all the while Seb’s body was pressed close to her, filling her senses with his masculine scent and the sheer physicality of him.
She knew that he was talking about more than placing her faith in a dance partner. And part of her shrank back from the edge.
She had never truly allowed anyone to lead her. Not deep down. In fact the more she thought about it, the more she knew that she had always danced to her own beat.
His breath was hot on her face as he patiently waited for the answer that would decide where they went from here. And not just for the evening. He was asking her to trust him with nothing less than her heart. Was he also asking her to trust him with her future and her dreams?
‘I…don’t know,’ she whispered, her heart thumping so hard that she was sure that he must be able to hear it, but not daring to open her eyes. It would be too much.
‘Then perhaps I can persuade you?’
Gentle pressure lifted her chin and, although her eyes were still clamped tight shut, she felt every tiny movement of his body as his nose pressed against her cheek, his breath hot and fast in time with the heart beating against her dress.
A soft mouth nuzzled against her upper lip and she sighed in pleasure as one of his hands slid back to caress the base of her head, holding her firm against him.
The stubble on his chin and neck rasped against her skin as he pressed gentle kisses down her temple to the hollow below her ear. Each kiss drove her wild with the delicious languorous sensation of skin on skin.
He was totally intoxicating.
The tenderness and exquisite delicacy of each kiss was more than she could have imagined possible from Seb. More caring. More loving… Loving. Yes. They were the kisses of a lover. Her lover. And it felt so very right.
Which was why she did something she had believed until a few short days ago would never happen again. She brought her arms even tighter around Seb’s neck and notched her head up towards him.
And with eyes still closed, Ella kissed him on the mouth.
His hands stilled for a moment and she paused to suck in a terrified breath, trembling that she had made the most almighty mistake. Until now he had kissed her. This would change everything. What if she totally misunderstood what he had told her? And he onl
y wanted to lead? Not share.
She felt him shift beneath her, and, daring to open her eyes, she stared into a smile as wide as it was welcome, but then his mouth pressed hotter and deeper onto hers, blowing away any hint of doubt that he wanted her just as much as she needed him with the depth of his passion and delight.
A shuddering sigh of relief ran through her and she grinned back in return and buried her face deep into the corner of his neck. His hands ran up and down her back, thrilling her with the heat of their touch as his lips kissed her brow and her hair.
Kisses so natural and tender it felt as though she had been waiting for them all of her life.
Every sensation seemed heightened. The warmth of the fading sun on her arms, the touch of his fingertips on her skin, the softness of his shirt under her cheek and the fast beat of his heart below the fine fabric.
It was Seb who broke the silence. ‘Now will you trust me?’ He was trying to keep his voice light and playful but she knew him too well now, and revelled in the fact that she was the source of his hoarse, low whisper, intense with something more fundamental and earthy.
The fingers of one of his hands were playing with her hair, but she could feel his heartbeat slow just a little when she chuckled into his shirt, then turned his face towards the sun.
‘Well, I just might. We are talking about dancing. Aren’t we?’
His warm laughter filled her heart to bursting.
‘Of course. Although I do have one request. I have an appointment with a very special lady who I haven’t visited for eighteen years. And I’d like you to come and meet her. Do you mind if we stop in on the way?’
Sebastien Castellano stood in silence at the foot of the grave in the tiny village cemetery and gently lowered the bouquet of his mother’s favourite white roses from the Mas Tournesol onto the engraved granite monument.
Stepping back, he wrapped one arm around Ella’s waist, then slowly read out the words chiselled into the hard stone surface out loud.
‘Helene Laurence Castellano. Beloved daughter, wife and mother.’
He closed his eyes for a second and thought about the portrait hanging in the living room back at the house that had been their home. And the lovely woman smiling back at him, captured for ever in a moment in time.
Nothing to indicate the devastation her death had brought to all of her family.
His father had suffered six months of agony before packing their bags and putting them as many miles as he could from this peaceful, beautiful Languedoc village where Helene had made her home.
Even if that meant dragging his angry and confused twelve-year-old son with him all the way to Australia. He would probably have chosen a remote island in the Pacific if the international bank he worked for had been able to transfer him there!
‘My father chose the inscription. He said that there were not enough words to describe the wonderful person my mother had been. And he was right. How do you put into a few lines the joy and laughter and energy of such an amazing, smart, pretty, funny and creative woman I was lucky enough to know as my mother? It’s impossible. All you can do is remember her how she was and hold that memory every day of your life.’
‘Oh, Seb. I am so sorry.’
Sebastien sighed as Ella wrapped her arms as far around his waist as she could, and leant her head on his jacket.
‘How did it happen?’ she asked quietly after a long drawn out silence.
‘Brain tumour. I remember coming home from school a few times and she was lying down with a headache. She blamed it on too much sun and rosé wine with lunch.’ Seb lifted his head and swallowed down the lump of pain that had built up. ‘She never complained. Then one Saturday morning my father came in from the garden and found her lying on the kitchen floor having some sort of seizure.’
Seb looked up into the poplar trees. ‘I remember that day so clearly. I was helping out at my grandmother’s and we were all meeting up for lunch. It was a lovely spring day, birds were singing and we had been laughing and messing about. Just having fun. Only when we got to the Mas the ambulance was outside.’
He did not dare look at her. ‘They thought it was a stroke at first. She could still talk and get around and keep up the pretence that everything was okay, but later the seizures got worse. In the end there was nothing the hospital doctors could do to help her. She asked us to take her home so that she could spend her last days in the one place she loved more than anything.’
Ella sucked in a breath. ‘The Mas. Did she…?’
The words were left unsaid but Seb simply nodded. ‘We set up a bedroom in the room next to the kitchen where the living room is now. Eighteen years ago, today, my dad and I sat with her for the last time. She was looking out of the window and smiling at the roses—these white roses—so I ran out and snipped off a blossom to give to her, and when I got back inside…she was gone. Oh, Mum, I am so sorry. So very, very sorry.’
Tears were running down his cheeks now, and Ella turned around and gathered him to her, holding him tight until his head fell onto her shoulder and his body relaxed enough for his arms to embrace her. The taut muscles in his chest quivered with such deep emotion that her own eyes filled with tears.
His mother had passed away in the house where she cleaned and cooked and was bringing up her son. How could he not feel conflicted? And Nicole was his stepmother. Who used the Mas Tournesol as her holiday home. As somewhere she could hold parties in the summer. Ella winced. Oh, no. The realisation hit her so hard that she lifted her arms and reached around Seb’s neck, her fingers caressing his head. Nicole was holding her birthday party only a few days after the anniversary of Seb’s mum’s death.
Oh, Nicole. Do you even know how important this date is to Seb?
She stood on tiptoe to press her lips against his full mouth, and then his cheek, and his arms tightened into a warm hug, as though he needed to wrap himself in her understanding and sympathy.
If only it could be enough!
‘I found out who André Morel is today. It turns out that I was right after all. He did let her down, only not in the way I had imagined.’
‘Oh, Seb,’ she replied, taking his hand in hers.
‘André was nineteen when he asked my mother to marry him. Apparently a few weeks before the wedding he told his parents that he couldn’t go through with it. He wasn’t ready to settle down and be a husband and work in the bank like his own father had done.’
Seb turned slightly and braved a small proud smile. ‘And my mother let him go. She didn’t want him to feel trapped and she loved him enough to let him leave her and set off around the world without her.’
‘She must have been a remarkable woman,’ Ella whispered. ‘And what about Luc Castellano? How did she meet him?’
‘Luc was André’s boss and a good friend to both of them. He was going to be the best man at their wedding. The Morel family suspected that he was in love with her. What they didn’t know was that he loved her enough to offer her marriage when she found out she was pregnant. Do you know the strangest thing? As far as his family are concerned, it was a teenage romance and my mother fell into the arms of her friend Luc Castellano to console herself on the rebound. She never told André about me.’
‘So he never knew he had a son. What are you going to do?’
He stared at her hand, fascinated by the pattern her fingers and his made as they meshed and twisted and turned. ‘I could make the calls. Find an address for André and his new family in Canada. But I won’t. I already have a father. And it turns out that he is a damn good one. One of these days I might even tell him that to his face.’
‘Oh, Seb. He loved you, even though you were someone else’s son. And he still does.’
Her fingers moved below the hair on his neck and closed around the links of a fine chain. Sensing the pressure, Seb released his bear grip and stood back a little to lift one arm and released the St Christopher that was hidden beneath his business shirt.
Ella fingered the small
oval medallion hanging from the chain in silence, waiting for him to speak.
‘The last time I stood in this spot was with my maternal grandmother. She hung it around my neck and told me that it would keep me safe on my travels until I was ready to come home. I’ve worn it every day since. I suppose it is a little old-fashioned but it means a lot.’
Seb looked down at Ella and smiled a crooked, lopsided smile. ‘The women in my life have a very annoying habit of being right. I suppose I had better get used to that.’
Ella’s heart skipped a beat. ‘What are you saying, Seb? Am I part of your life?’
His smile widened and he turned away slightly so that he could grasp hold of her hand. Ella sighed in silent contentment as they stood side by side looking out across the stunningly pretty cemetery, past the poplars and yew trees to the rows of sunflowers and vines that stretched out to the low green hills beyond the village in the fading light.
‘I haven’t been here for eighteen years. And I chose you to share this moment with you. Does that answer your question, Ella?’
Ella smiled and looked down at the roses, their petals fluttering in the warm breeze, and hot tears pricked the corners of her eyes as her throat closed. Seb’s fingers meshed between hers, giving her strength as she fought the intensity of the feelings that bound them together. Her only answer was a sharp nod and a whispered, ‘Yes. Yes, it does.’
He kissed the top of her head and turned back to face her, then lifted her knuckles to his lips. ‘I’ll turn the car around. See you in a minute.’ And with one small kiss on her forehead he released her hand and strolled back down the grass towards the narrow lane leading up to the church, leaving her bereft. ‘Be right there,’ she said under her breath, overcome with a riot of sadness and tenderness and devotion and something she had known only once in her life. Something she imagined that she had lost for ever.
She was falling in love with Sebastien Castellano.
Which was just about the craziest thing she had ever done—crazy even by her definition of normal. In a few days Nicole and her sixtieth birthday party would be a happy memory, Dan would be in Spain with his grandparents and Seb would be thousands of miles away in, well, in whatever country he was working in at that moment. Whether it was Sydney or Seattle one thing was certain. It would not be here, in the village where he grew up.
The Last Summer of Being Single Page 14