Heaven Scent

by Sasha Wagstaff

  ‘Long time no see,’ he said in a cheerful voice, leaning in for a kiss. Somehow, Leoni moved her head slightly and he got a mouthful of hair.

  ‘Er, come in,’ Leoni said, standing aside.

  ‘Thanks.’ Jerard placed his parcels on a nearby table. ‘Just a few things from Japan,’ he explained. ‘To make up for not being here for so long.’ He glanced at her wrist. ‘I see you’re wearing your bracelet. I picked that out especially.’

  Leoni gave him a brief smile. She had no doubt the gifts he’d bought her would be extravagant as well as thoughtful but she had no desire to tear the paper off and investigate. ‘I’d rather we just spent some time together,’ she said, feeling foolish for sounding so needy.

  ‘Oh, me too,’ Jerard said, gathering her up into his arms. ‘I’ve missed you, more than you can imagine. Mmmm, you smell so good.’

  Leoni lifted her face to his. He had a knack of saying all the right things, but she felt unmoved. ‘My home fragrance pitch went really well,’ she said, feeling the need to keep the conversation business-focused now that her slightly emotional comment had slipped out.

  Jerard smiled down at her. ‘You said in your text. I’m so happy for you, you must be elated.’

  ‘I am … I was.’ She felt his hands moving up and down her back and wondered why the gesture was leaving her cold. ‘I just … it would have been nice to celebrate it together at the time.’

  ‘I know. But we can still do that,’ Jerard said, flipping open his new iPhone. ‘Let me check my diary.’

  Leoni sighed and extricted herself from his grasp.

  ‘Something wrong?’ he asked, noting her pained expression.

  She nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. I think I owe you an apology.’

  ‘An apology? Why?’

  ‘Because I think I’ve given you the wrong impression,’ Leoni confessed honestly. She gestured to the sofa and sat down, waiting until Jerard took a seat next to her. ‘When we first met, I was totally focused on business and so were you. I think that was why we were attracted to one another.’

  Jerard’s brow knitted together. ‘Well, it was one of the reasons,’ he commented jokily.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Leoni felt uncomfortable. ‘But I’ve realised as the weeks have passed that other things are important to me too – relationships, romance.’ She felt herself blushing. She wasn’t used to talking about such things.

  Jerard nodded, seemingly unperturbed.

  Leoni pushed ahead. ‘It’s just that . . . I love your business ethic, Jerard, don’t get me wrong. But I need some of your time, too.’

  ‘Quite right. And in three weeks’ time, my diary is looking free, so we can arrange something for then.’ He gave her a bright smile.

  Three weeks’ time? Was he serious? ‘What about the launch of the new store in Paris?’ she asked in confusion. ‘I invited you . . . you said you were coming.’

  Jerard looked awkward. ‘Ah, yes, Paris. Look, Leoni, I’m really sorry but an opportunity has come up in the States and I really can’t turn my back on it. I need to leave tonight, unfortunately, but we’ll meet up as soon as I’m back. Or you can join me?’ he suggested suddenly. ‘I’ll be in meetings most of the time but I might have the odd evening off.’

  Leoni stood up sadly. ‘Jerard, that’s not good enough. I want more …’

  He gave her a genial smile. ‘Of course you do. And you’ll get it, I promise. It’s just that this deal is so important . . .’

  ‘They’re all important!’ Leoni interrupted. ‘Rightly so; it’s your company.’ She slid the diamond bracelet off and placed it gently in Jerard’s hands. ‘But I can’t do this any more. I need a one-woman man who worships the ground I walk on . . . or at least puts me first.’ She realised with a start that she was echoing Xavier’s recent words, which reminded her of something else he’d said, the comment about Ashton being in love with someone for ages. Leoni brought her mind back to Jerard. ‘I’m so sorry. I was having doubts before, but now . . .’ She shook her head. ‘It’s made it easier for me to do this, that’s all.’

  ‘Why is Paris such a big deal?’ Jerard asked, getting to his feet and pacing the room. ‘I know I said I’d come but things come up where business is involved; you know that as well as I do.’

  She nodded sadly. ‘That’s true. But sometimes, sacrifices have to be made.’ An ugly image of Ashton and Marianne flashed into her head and Leoni pushed it away. ‘This launch in Paris is really important to me, to my family. I really wanted you to be there and you know that.’ She reached up and kissed his cheek.

  Jerard let out a sigh. ‘What a shame,’ he said heavily. ‘I really thought we had something special.’

  ‘Me too.’ Leoni bowed her head. ‘And you’re lovely, you really are. You’re just . . . not for me.’

  ‘Is there someone else?’ he asked roughly. ‘I hate to ask but you seem so detached.’

  Leoni’s mouth twitched at the irony of it all. ‘No. You were the only person I ever made time for.’ She hadn’t even given Ashton as much courtesy and he was her best friend. Was, being the operative word, Leoni told herself sadly.

  Jerard looked disbelieving. ‘I think you’re fooling yourself,’ he told her not unkindly. Seeing her eyes widen, he smiled. ‘You don’t even realise it yourself but think about it. There’s someone you talk about constantly, whether it’s to say you spent time with him or to say you miss him.’ Jerard pressed the diamond bracelet into her hands. ‘Keep it, please. I bought it for you and I want you to have it. But if you really want to sort out your personal life, you need to face up to what you’ve been avoiding. I’m so sorry it didn’t work out between us.’ With that, Jerard gave her one last kiss and left.

  Leoni stared after him. What on earth was he on about? Who did she talk about constantly? Ashton, at one time, maybe, but that was to be expected, they had been close friends. Jerard had it all wrong if he thought her feelings for him ran deeper than that, Leoni thought.

  Grabbing her phone, she remembered that she had a million and one things to do before she left for Paris. She’d think about Jerard’s bizarre ramblings when she got there.

  Sitting in his hotel room in Paris with a photocopy in his hand, Xavier was trembling with anger. Even though he had feared he knew the truth, it was totally different when he had the actual facts in his hands. Tracking down the information he had been after had been a thankless task and had involved sifting through endless paperwork with no idea of specific timescales. But he had got there in the end. Every fibre of his being had been hoping Matthieu and Rene, the Moroccan hotel owner, had been mistaken. But here it was, in stark black and white. The evidence was in front of him and it was truly sickening. With a heavy heart, Xavier realised how wrong he’d been about certain people. Not only was the evidence he held in his hand damning on a personal level, it was going to impact on the family greatly. Just as they all thought their problems concerning inheritance and claims to the family perfume business were over, it was about to start all over again. And Xavier had a feeling that this time around, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as easy to resolve.

  Xavier walked and smoked, needing to clear his head. He had decided to stay at the Four Season’s George V Hotel rather than imposing on Ashton. He was heading for Ashton’s apartment on the off chance he might be there but decided to go straight to the store instead. When he arrived, he found sheets hanging over the front, keeping it hidden from nosy onlookers. Inside, builders were shouting at each other as they banged and crashed loudly. Ashton was outside on the phone, speaking in painfully slow French. He was bright red in the face and about to blow a gasket.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Xavier asked, shaking his hand quickly. Ashton didn’t look his usual happy self. His cornflower-blue eyes were dull and listless and his hair was all over the place. He was wearing a grubby polo shirt that had seen better days and judging by the paint spatters all over his jeans, he had been helping out with the painting in the store, as well as everythin
g else. Xavier was fairly certain architects didn’t usually do such things but he guessed Ashton had become more personally involved in developing the Ducasse perfume store than he would in other projects.

  ‘Thank God,’ Ashton cried in relief as soon as he saw Xavier. He knew he was being dramatic but he couldn’t help it. ‘What are you doing here so early? Fuck, I don’t care. Can you help me? Please?’

  He’d been trying to speak to the caterers about the launch party for the past thirty minutes and the joker on the phone seemed to think it was highly amusing to misunderstand everything he said in his atrocious French. Ashton didn’t have time to deal with caterers; if the builders didn’t get a move on, the launch wasn’t even going to happen. Having worked his nuts off on this building, he was buggered if he was going to let a cocky catering assistant mess him around. Explaining the issue to Xavier briefly, Ashton handed his phone over and clutched his hair in genuine frustration.

  ‘This is Xavier Ducasse,’ Xavier said smoothly, his eyes meeting Ashton’s in amusement as the idiot on the other end of the phone quaked in his boots. He sorted out all the catering woes in a few minutes and handed Ashton’s phone back. ‘The power of the Ducasse name,’ he said wryly.

  ‘Some people are so xenophobic.’ Ashton grinned in relief.

  ‘Some people need to learn to speak French properly,’ Xavier retorted with an equally wide grin. How Ashton could survive in Paris with his excruciatingly slow French was beyond him. For a moment he had forgotten what he’d just discovered but as it all came flooding back, Xavier also remembered what Leoni had said to him before he had left for Paris.

  ‘Hey, I have a message from Leoni for you.’

  ‘You do?’ Ashton looked both fearful and full of hope at the same time.

  ‘She asked me to ask you how you acquired the building,’ Xavier said. He held his hands up. ‘I haven’t a clue what she was getting at.’

  Ashton groaned. ‘Xavier, you have no idea what’s been going on.’ Quickly he outlined what had happened since he’d last seen him.

  Xavier whistled. ‘You did that . . . you did all that, for Leoni? That’s serious, Ash.’

  Ashton nodded, miserably picking at the paint splodges on his jeans. ‘You don’t have to tell me, I know I’m a mug. An idiot,’ he added, seeing Xavier’s frown of confusion. ‘A plonker, a moron . . . un cretin fini, as you would say.’

  ‘Don’t be daft; that’s not what I meant at all. I mean, have you told her you did that for her?’

  Ashton shook his head. ‘I didn’t get a chance to. She came here to see me apparently, but she spoke to Marianne and that was it; she was off.’ He scowled. ‘I don’t know if Marianne said something awful because she’s been avoiding my calls but, whatever, Leoni doesn’t want to speak to me. And what does it matter, Xav? She doesn’t care about me.’

  Xavier felt sorry for him. He knew exactly how Ashton felt – the feeling of happiness, both present and future, being crushed underfoot was pretty demoralising.

  ‘What you’ve done is the most romantic thing in the world,’ he told Ashton honestly. ‘No woman could resist it, not even Leoni. Be honest with her, Ash. Go after the woman you love. If you feel that strongly about her, what have you got to lose? Are you really sure she doesn’t want to speak to you?’

  Ashton rubbed his hands across his eyes. ‘It hurts like hell but what can I do? I haven’t a hope with her – Olivier told me that much.’

  Xavier took his cigarettes out again. ‘Are you sure Olivier was telling the truth when he put you off Leoni all those years ago?’

  Ashton stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just that Olivier could be an absolute shit when he thought he might not be the most important person in the world to the people he was close to.’ Xavier shrugged. ‘I’ve often wondered if he kept both of you apart all those years ago. A word in your ear, a word in Leoni’s – that’s all it would have taken.’

  Ashton turned white. ‘Don’t even . . . Are you saying Leoni had feelings for me back then?’

  Xavier lit a cigarette. Was he meddling? Or was he simply undoing a great wrong that Olivier had committed? ‘Leoni was head over heels for you at one time,’ he admitted. ‘She was so in love with you, she barely knew what to do with herself and Olivier told her you wouldn’t fancy her in a million years. He said . . . oh, I can barely remember now . . . that you preferred leggy redheads or something.’

  ‘He . . . he did what?’ Ashton was horrified. ‘But he . . . he told me Leoni wouldn’t fancy me in a million years. He said I wasn’t her type because she only dated rich Frenchmen.’

  Xavier shook his head. ‘That’s rubbish, Ash. See, I was right. Olivier was just jealous that the two of you might end up together. He was worried he wouldn’t be number one to either of you any more.’

  Ashton put his hand over his mouth. He felt sick, physically sick. ‘I can’t believe it. He was my best friend! How could he do that to me? To Leoni?’ He raked his hand through his dusty hair. ‘It’s too late now, though. It’s all gone tits up. It’s all gone wrong.’

  Xavier frowned. ‘Listen, you’re not the only one in a mess,’ he said, to make Ashton feel better. ‘Olivier was a bastard keeping you and Leoni apart, I grant you, but wait until you hear this.’ Baldly stating the facts to save time, he outlined what he was doing in Paris and what he’d discovered.

  Ashton looked flabbergasted. He rubbed his stubbly chin. ‘Fucking hell, Xav. That’s going to . . .’

  ‘Cause a whole set of new problems?’ Xavier sucked on his cigarette. ‘Tell me about it.’ His expression was dour. ‘And I still haven’t spoken to Cat yet. Or Angelique.’

  ‘Everything will be all right, won’t it?’ Ashton asked worriedly. His own situation was dire enough; he hated the thought of Xavier ending up a miserable, whinging git as well. If Olivier was here right now, Ashton knew he’d punch him square in the face but as he was never going to have that satisfaction, he’d just have to figure out if he could salvage anything.

  Xavier blew smoke into the air anxiously, his head in just as much of a spin as Ashton’s. Quite honestly, he had no idea how any of it was going to pan out. Right now, he was pissing in the wind and he knew it.

  Feeling thoroughly uncomfortable, Guy knocked on the door of the house. He was certain he’d got the wrong address; he’d been expecting a grief counselling centre, not a pretty little cottage on the outskirts of Mougins.

  The door opened and a grey-haired lady with a motherly smile greeted him. ‘I’m Elena. Do come in.’

  ‘I’m Guy Du—’

  ‘No surnames needed,’ she interrupted him with twinkling eyes. If she recognised him, she wasn’t letting on. ‘Just Guy is fine.’ She led him through to a sun-drenched salon, which was set up as a sitting room, with chairs and tables and refreshments on a simple, bare-wood dresser. A glass conservatory was attached to the side of the room.

  Guy watched Elena as she bustled through the room, nodding at couples chatting and saying the odd word. Wearing a long green sundress with bejewelled flip-flops, Elena looked to be around fifty. It was only her grey hair that gave away that she might be older but she clearly wasn’t bothered about such things as hair dye. She was attractive but not self-consciously so and she looked more like a teacher than a grief counsellor.

  Not that he had met many of those, Guy acknowledged to himself. Nervously, he ran a hand through his silver hair, not sure if he might look as though he had tried too hard with his appearance.

  ‘Coffee?’ Elena offered, holding a pot up.

  Guy nodded and looked round the room. To his surprise, it wasn’t full of sad bastards crying into their cups, nor was anyone expected to stand up and talk about themselves, by the looks of things. That wasn’t to say there was a party atmosphere; some serious conversations were taking place and there were a few scrunched-up, soggy tissues in evidence. But the overwhelming sense Guy had was one of calm. The room, the garden it overlooked, Elena herself, everythi
ng was warm and comforting. He was relieved to find that he wasn’t remotely attracted to Elena; he didn’t want to get emotionally attached to her, he just wanted her help.

  ‘Not what were you expecting?’ Elena asked astutely, handing him a cup of coffee and gesturing to the milk and sugar. ‘Some sort of Alcoholics Anonymous set-up, where we all make you stand in the middle of the room and say “I’m Guy and I’m upset because so-and-so died”?’

  Taken aback, Guy raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, yes.’ He met Elena’s eyes, seeing wisdom in them – that and a whole lot of living.

  ‘Ah, well, hopefully you’ll see that making people perform isn’t what counselling is all about.’ Helping herself to a coffee before leading him to a sunny corner and curling up on a chair, Elena fixed her eyes on him. ‘So, who did you lose? Your wife?’

  Smiling at her directness, Guy gave her a brief outline. Maybe it was because he had made peace with himself about coming here or perhaps it was because he had almost lost Max, but talking about Elizabeth suddenly didn’t seem so painful. He spent the next thirty minutes talking about her, without even noticing how much time had slid past. Reaching the part where he was about to talk about letting his children down and realising he had been totally dominating the conversation, Guy came to an abrupt halt.

  ‘Sorry, I can’t believe I’ve been talking for so long!’ He felt faintly embarrassed, even though he had enjoyed reminiscing. He only usually waxed lyrical about business; discussing Elizabeth and his relationship was something he had avoided since her death.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ Elena urged him gently. ‘You were saying about your children . . .’

  Guy hesitated. How could he own up to his appalling behaviour? What would Elena think of him if he told her what he’d put his children through over the past few years? About to tell Elena coming here had been a big mistake, he felt her hand gently patting his arm.

  ‘No judgements here,’ she assured him. Her expression became sombre. ‘When my beloved husband died ten years ago, I had a nervous breakdown and walked out on my job and my children while I went on a grief-stricken, self-destructive ride to hell. It’s not something I’m proud of but it’s something I’m now able to use to help others because I know how it feels to be swimming around in anguish, utterly unable to do anything but get through a day until blessed sleep comes around again.’ She eyed Guy with understanding. ‘I loved him so much, you see. So, so much.’