Laurent parked the car and got out. Hannah followed him to the front door. He opened it to reveal a stone-flagged sitting room, large white sofas surrounding a heavy teak chest that acted as a coffee table. The walls were painted in a soft white; a large grey painted mirror hung over the open fireplace.
‘Why are we here?’
He frowned at her question as though he’d expected her to already know the answer. And then, stepping into the room, he said, ‘This is my present to François and Lara. A summer home. It’s where François proposed to Lara. I’m hoping it will tempt them to visit more often.’
She followed him into the room, leaving the front door ajar. ‘You miss François?’
He turned at her question. Her heart lodged in her throat as his blue eyes twinkled and his wide generous mouth lifted in a smile. ‘Don’t tell him.’
Before she could stop herself she heard herself say, ‘You could always move back to England to be closer to him.’
She turned away from how his expression fell, winced when he said, ‘My life is here now. I’ll never leave Cognac again.’
Picking up a small bronze figurine of a cat from the side table, she said, ‘That’s quite a turnaround from before.’ She lifted her gaze to study him. ‘You used to say that there was nothing here for you.’
‘Things change.’
‘But not people. They just reveal their true selves to you.’
‘I never—’
Regretting instantly the bitterness of her voice, that she’d revealed her upset with him, Hannah interrupted with a forced laugh, ‘You’re certainly putting my wedding present of a set of organic cotton bath towels into the shade with this villa.’
Laurent shook his head. ‘The infamous wedding list.’ Pausing, he gave a smile. ‘It has caused a lot of amusement amongst my parents’ friends.’
Hannah swallowed a giggle, imagining the other guests’ bewilderment at some of the items Lara and François had listed. ‘I think water filters, recycled furniture and garden equipment for their allotment are very practical gifts to ask for.’
Laurent’s eyebrow lifted. ‘My father had to explain to a friend of his who’s a guest at the wedding what a wormery is. Trust me, it was a very long telephone conversation.’
Hannah smiled, trying so hard to pretend that she was finding all this easy, a bittersweet thickness forming in her throat at how easily they fell back into their shared humour and banter.
Silence fell between them. Laurent’s smile receded. The room closed in around them. She looked away from him. But even then she felt the force of his gaze. Heat grew on her cheeks, a rumble of attraction stirred in her stomach and, when she glanced back at him, it exploded at the rigidity of his expression—his square jawline fixed, his dark thick brows drawn downwards, his mouth stern. She’d at first been drawn to his easy charm but it was this more private, serious-minded side of him—the responsible older brother who was so protective of his only sibling—this self-assured and professionally astute man she’d fallen in love with.
His jaw moved a fraction. The chemistry that had always been so strong, so potent between them was at work again.
She willed herself to walk away, to break the silence, regretting having come here.
His mouth tightened. The knot of fear and anticipation twisted even tighter in her stomach.
‘How have things been for you?’
She jolted in surprise at his question. His voice, as always, like warm honey trickling through her insides. For a moment she was about to answer in a similarly low intimate tone, but caught herself in time and instead, with a flourish of bonhomie that took even her by surprise, she walked away, pretending to inspect the books in the bookcase. ‘Great. I’ve been busy. Emily married late last autumn in Granada in Spain. We had a great week there—it really is a beautiful city and it was so nice for all of my family to have spent the time together.’ Her forced smile was replaced by a genuine one when she added, ‘And Cora had a little girl. She’s called Diana. She’s gorgeous. I’m totally smitten by her.’
Laurent smiled at her description. For the briefest moment, the old ease that had existed between them flared. Hannah was thrown; her smile faded, and disappeared altogether when she thought of her sisters’ happiness. She loved her sisters with all her heart and would never begrudge them anything...but faced with how content they were, how successfully they managed their personal lives, Hannah not only felt lonely but also doubted she would ever manage to achieve a similar happiness.
* * *
Laurent winced as the wistfulness in Hannah’s expression was replaced with an unsettling sadness. She wanted what her sisters had. Marriage, children, a united family. The things he could never give to her.
He gestured for her to follow him into the kitchen, a sudden urge to keep moving, to be distracted by doing things, taking hold. ‘Let me show you around. I had an interior designer manage the renovations and furnish the rooms but I could use your advice as to whether there are additional items Lara would like.’
Hannah walked around the island unit of the hand-painted kitchen, her gaze shifting out onto the garden and the river beyond. ‘Have they seen the villa since you redecorated?’
Earlier, when she’d asked why they were here, for a moment he’d been thrown by the fact that she didn’t know. Somehow it felt as though she should know everything that was happening in his life. ‘Not since their last visit. They had wanted to stay here before the wedding day but I told François that there was a problem with the electricity.’
‘When are you going to tell them?’
‘I’ll give them the key on their wedding day. They can spend their first night here together.’
The weariness in her expression faded and the warmth he’d so adored about her in London appeared. She gestured around her, towards the kitchen and then the garden outside. ‘Lara is going to be so happy. She has always wanted a garden of her own. Right now they only have their allotment and that’s miles away from their apartment.’ In this enthusiasm, her happiness for her friend, he realised how much he’d missed her. He missed this warmth, her laughter, her sheer presence.
Pointing towards a notebook hanging from the kitchen’s noticeboard, he said, ‘Take a look upstairs and note down anything you think I should get the interior designer to add.’ Then, backing towards the garden door that led out onto the newly laid patio, he added, ‘I need to check out some work that was carried out in the garden today.’
Outside, he walked across the stone patio—as he’d guessed, the contractor had done a good job—hating his need to get away from Hannah. From her smile. Hating the reality of what he’d walked away from.
He was standing on the riverside steps when she came out and joined him ten minutes later, handing him a bullet-point list in her neat and precise handwriting. She’d listed bathrobes, champagne, Belgian chocolates, decaffeinated coffee and a double hammock. He lifted an eyebrow at that last item.
Hannah laughed and gestured towards the giant willow. ‘It’d be fun for them if it was hung from the willow across to the boundary trees. I can see them lying there on their wedding night staring up at the stars before going to bed.’ Her voice trailed off and her gaze dropped down to the new wooden rowing boat that he’d asked his interior designer to organise.
Heat radiated from the stone of the river steps. There was a vague creaking noise as the overheated house and earth shifted in expansion. But the heat on Hannah’s cheeks, the heat in his belly, had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with her mention of bed. In London, they would meet after work sometimes in the city, other times he would meet Hannah off her train in Richmond if he’d been travelling that day, with the intention of having a drink or a meal, a visit to the theatre, but more often than not they would head directly home and into bed and only surface hours later to eat before tumbling back into bed until the foll
owing morning.
Hannah had always craved chocolate after they had made love. She had a particular love for dark chocolate straight from the fridge. ‘Do you still have an addiction to chocolate?’
Her head whipped around at his question, a spark of anger in her eyes. ‘I try to stay away from things that aren’t good for me these days.’
He forced himself to smile, knowing he deserved that comment.
She folded her arms, stared across the river towards the bank of poplars growing there. She bit her lip for a moment and paused in deep thought before saying, ‘Now I know what’s missing in the house—I couldn’t put my finger on it for a while—family photographs. You should get some framed and placed around the house to add a personal touch. I can send you some of Lara and her family.’ She paused and considered him. ‘You don’t think it’s a good idea?’
He rubbed the back of his neck and admitted, ‘I can’t remember the last time my family had a photo taken together.’
She grimaced. ‘Not with your dad being ill and everything.’
He didn’t bother to tell her that it was probably close to a decade since they’d had a family photograph taken. In the years after he’d left home, Laurent had rarely returned to Château Bonneval, and when he had his visits had always been brief. Some briefer than others when he would leave almost immediately, completely frustrated when his father would refuse to listen to his advice on saving the business.
He walked down the steps and, pulling the boat towards himself, stepped into its hull and turned to Hannah. ‘Let’s go for dinner. The restaurant is a ten-minute row down the river.’
Hannah stepped back on the grassy verge and considered him. As she tilted her head to the side her ponytail swept against her shoulder, exposing the arched curve of her neck, and a memory of her giggling when he used to press his body to her back, place his lips on the tender skin of her neck, left him momentarily dizzy. The boat rocked beneath him. He jerked, almost losing his balance.
Hannah laughed. He shook his head at her amusement at his predicament and almost lost his balance again.
When she joined him on board she sat down as clumsily as possible, obviously in the hope of tipping him into the river.
* * *
Laurent effortlessly rowed against the light flow of the water and Hannah studied the neighbouring gardens they passed by, seeing in the long and narrow plots the unfurling of family life. A woman on a recliner reading a newspaper while her husband clipped a bay tree. A family of five sitting at the edge of the river eating dinner beneath a huge oak tree and stopping to wave hello as they passed by. Hannah wanted this domesticity but would it ever happen for her?
A surge of anger towards Laurent caught her by surprise. Why had he come into her life? Why, when she’d lowered her defences for the first time ever, thereby allowing herself to fall for a man, had he broken her heart? And as she watched him pull on the oars, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his forearm muscles bunching with each pull, her anger soared even more. She didn’t want to be so aware of him, so giddy around him, so vulnerable, and her resolve that she would never let him get to her again hardened.
She needed to remember his faults. He liked to eat strong-smelling cheeses that had made her gag whenever she’d opened his fridge. He took work even more seriously than she did—how often had he cancelled dates or forgotten about them, to her annoyance? And despite his gregarious personality, in truth he was a closed book. She knew so little about his background, his family. And he had a birthmark on his bottom. Okay, so she’d admit that that was actually cute.
‘You’re starting to scare me.’
She jumped at his voice. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You look like you’re trying to figure out the most effective way of murdering me. In fact, it reminds me of the evening your work colleagues came to a party in my house.’
Their first fight. ‘You were over an hour late for your own party. My colleagues were wondering if you were a figment of my imagination.’
His eyes glinted. ‘Ah, so, despite your denials to the contrary, you had been talking to them about me as I had suspected.’
I couldn’t stop talking about you. I could see my colleagues’ amusement as I recounted things you had said and done, day after day, but I was too giddy with amazement over you to stop. ‘They wanted to see for themselves if your wine collection was as impressive as I said it was.’ She smiled when she admitted, ‘My senior partner especially. He was rather put out when he saw it was a much more extensive collection than his.’
And then she remembered what had happened that night after the others had left, how Laurent had made love to her in the moonlight that had streamed through the window and onto the floor of his bedroom, his eyes ablaze with passion and emotion.
She dropped her head. Inhaled against the disturbing mix of desire and pain that was grabbing her heart.
‘How’s work?’
She looked up at his softly spoken question. Had he guessed she was remembering that night on his bedroom floor? Her anger resurged. ‘I’ve been offered a promotion which would involve a transfer to the Singapore office.’
Up ahead on a bend in the river, below a string of lights threaded through trees, a wooden sign on the riverbank announced that they had arrived at La Belle Epoque.
Laurent guided the boat towards the restaurant’s river steps, nodding approvingly to her news. ‘That’s fantastic. When are you moving?’
He shifted the oars inside the boat, wood upon wood making a solid thump, a sound just like the thud her heart gave to his enthusiastic congratulations.
She gritted her teeth and eyed him, not caring at the hurt heat flaming in her cheeks. Did he not even feel a single pang that she would be moving so far away? How could he not realise how torn she was about leaving her family behind?
The move to Singapore was an incredible opportunity, but in truth, deep down, she was scared of being lonely...forgotten by her family.
‘Are you going to accept?’
She shrugged at his question. ‘Do you think I should?’
He considered her for a moment and then those blue eyes blazed with an ominous energy. ‘Is something or somebody keeping you in London?’
She folded her arms. ‘Perhaps.’
The blaze in his eyes intensified. ‘Are you dating someone?’
She’d been on some dates during the past few months; wasn’t getting back on the figurative horse the best way to get over a fall? By dating other guys she’d hoped that maybe she could rekindle the hope and optimism and openness that had been growing in her before she’d met Laurent, but her dates hadn’t been a success. She’d felt too wary, had struggled to connect with them. Now she clung to the hope that maybe it was just a case that she’d tried dating too quickly and that with time she would be more open to a relationship...but she feared that maybe she would never find it inside herself to trust a man again. ‘How about you? Are you seeing someone?’ she countered.
* * *
Laurent stood and jumped onto the landing steps, jealousy coiling in his stomach. For the past year he’d immersed himself in work, driven by the need to prove himself as a worthy CEO, but now as he turned to find Hannah’s eyes sparking with anger he realised it was also to distract himself from the pain he’d caused her. He held out his hand and Hannah reluctantly took it. When she leaped, her hand tightened for a split second on his but the moment her foot touched the step she snatched it away.
They stood facing each other, the air between them dense with tension.
Hannah’s jawline tightened. ‘So, are you dating someone?’
‘I’m too busy with work.’
‘You worked crazy hours in London—it didn’t stop you dating then.’
‘It’s different now.’
‘In what way?’
She was testing him, pushing him for an answer
and he wasn’t sure what her question really was.
‘Running a family business is complicated.’
Her nose wrinkled at that.
He pulled in a breath and admitted, ‘After what happened between us, I don’t feel like dating.’
‘Yet?’
Would he ever want to date again? Right now, he couldn’t see himself wanting to ask another woman out. But he couldn’t admit that to her so instead he simply shrugged.
She looked at him with a puzzled expression. ‘You’re the one who ended it.’
When he’d ended their relationship, he’d used the excuse of needing to focus on his new life in France. And the fact that they wanted different things in life, namely that he wasn’t interested in marriage. He’d kept from her the actual reasons why he would never marry, how his trust in others had been destroyed as a teenager, because to do so would have meant revealing his true self to her, a self he spent most of the time trying to avoid.
They shifted apart at the sound of footsteps behind them. Gabriel, the owner of La Belle Epoque, greeted them warmly and guided them to an outdoor table with views of a weir and an old mill.
Local teenagers were playing in the river, laughing and calling to one another in the evening sunshine.
After Gabriel had taken their order and poured them a glass of white wine each, Hannah smiled as one of the teenagers swung over the river, whooping loudly before landing with an enormous splash in the water, which earned her applause from her gang. ‘When we were teenagers and the weather was fine, I used to go down to the river that ran through our land with Cora and Emily to swim and hang out. Did you and François do the same?’
Second Chance with the Best Man Page 3