Nanette smiled at him as he picked up her hand and squeezed it.
‘Have you thought about what you are going to do with your legacy yet?’
‘I’ve done nothing but think about it,’ Nanette answered. ‘There is one idea floating around in my brain I want to talk to you about.’
‘Do you still want to give it all away?’
Nanette shook her head. ‘No, that was a silly idea. I’ll keep it, but I do want to do something useful with it if I can.’ She poured herself a glass of water from the carafe the waiter had placed on the table before continuing. ‘I was wondering about Pole Position. We could have some fun with her, or I could sell her and maybe invest the money. What do you think? Are you a keen sailor? Have to admit I’m veering towards selling her.’
Jean-Claude smiled. ‘I have to confess, I’m not a lover of yachts. I have only to step on board one to have an attack of mal de mer. But any ideas what you’d do with the money? She’s worth at least two million dollars,’ Jean-Claude said.
‘I hadn’t realised she was worth that much, but that would be fantastic.’ Nanette smiled at him hesitantly, trying to gauge his reaction to her next words. ‘I was thinking of using it to sponsor Fruits of the Forest, for the first year at least, in Zac’s name. Even if it’s registered as a charity, it’s going to need a large injection of cash to get it off the ground.’
‘Not your conventional investment then?’ Jean-Claude said, smiling. ‘Well, it won’t make you a fortune, but it would make a difference to many people’s lives in the rainforest.’
‘From what Monsieur Mille tells me, Zac’s left me quite a large fortune – I don’t need to make another one,’ Nanette said quietly. ‘Right, that’s decision number one: next week, I’ll find a broker and put Pole Position up for sale.’
Nanette stopped talking to watch a woman pushing a buggy with a sleeping baby and holding a little boy by the hand pass their table. Patsy’s words about Jean-Claude not wanting a new family came into her mind.
‘Decision number two?’ Jean-Claude probed.
‘If I’m staying in Monaco, I need to find somewhere to live. I don’t want to live in Zac’s apartment in Fontvieille; besides, I’ve already offered it to Vanessa and Ralph in the short term.’
‘What is wrong with living at the villa with me?’ Jean-Claude demanded. ‘The guest room has never had a more welcome occupant.’
‘I don’t want to get in the way,’ Nanette said. ‘I was only supposed to be here for a holiday.’
‘Ma chérie, you know how I feel about you. You will never be in my way. Maybe you move out of the guest suite, but you stay at the villa. That’s decision number two dealt with.’ Heedless of the other diners, Jean-Claude leant forward and gently kissed her. Nanette felt a glow of happiness spread through her body at his words and she responded to his kiss.
Later, as they were making their way back to the car, they passed the mother and her two children playing in the park alongside the church. The small boy miskicked his ball, which landed at Jean-Claude’s feet.
Jean-Claude promptly kicked it back and for several moments he and the small boy had an animated kick around while Nanette talked to the mother.
‘That took me back,’ Jean-Claude said, when they eventually waved goodbye to the toddler. ‘I used to play football with Mathieu years ago.’
‘You obviously like children,’ Nanette said.
‘Before things went wrong with Amelia, I’d always hoped Mathieu would have a sibling.’ Jean-Claude shrugged. ‘I’ve always regretted that.’
‘Well, it’s not too late, is it?’ Nanette said. ‘I’m sure Mathieu would still adore having a half-brother or sister,’ she teased, smiling at him.
A look of incredulous wonder crossed Jean-Claude’s face as Nanette leaned forward and kissed him.
Nanette sighed happily; he’d given her the answer she wanted. Now she knew where her destiny was.
On the night of the Monte Carlo Gala for the Global Ocean, Nanette carefully slipped the wisp of pale-lemon chiffon that was her evening dress over her head. Hard to believe that she was still in Monte Carlo and actually going to the Gala that Jean-Claude had bought tickets for all those weeks ago. So much had happened in that time. Not least that she’d moved into the villa and was living with Jean-Claude and had never been happier.
The Gala came at the end of a few very busy weeks: overseeing the sorting out of Zac’s affairs; selling Pole Position; helping Vanessa and Ralph move into the Fontvieille apartment and persuading Vanessa to let her use the proceeds from the sale of Pole Position to sponsor Fruits of the Forest for a year.
‘Are you sure? It’s an awful lot of money to be virtually giving away.’
‘Absolutely positive. Zac bought Pole Position about eight years ago and I’m fairly certain it was with his winnings and sponsorship deals from that time, but who knows?’ She’d shrugged her shoulders. ‘If, and we don’t know for certain how long Zac was involved with Boris, any of this money I have now inherited came from smuggling Brazilian diamonds or money laundering, then this is a way of giving it back legally.’
Nanette slipped her feet into her high-heeled gold sandals and did them up. Her Rolex yellow gold watch Jean-Claude had given her for her birthday was always on her wrist these days and she picked up her beaded evening clutch bag.
Jean-Claude was waiting for her in the sitting room. ‘You look beautiful,’ he said, taking her in his arms. ‘The belle of the ball. Come on, the others are waiting. Let’s party.’
Jean-Claude had invited Vanessa and Ralph to join them for the evening, and also Mathieu and Evie. Since Evie had started working for Fruits of the Forest, she and Mathieu had become friends and, to Nanette’s secret delight, the two were rapidly becoming an item around the town.
The whole of Monte Carlo seemed to be in a festive mood that evening. Champagne flowed, people wined and dined and everyone was on their feet dancing for hours.
Towards midnight, she and Jean-Claude mingled with the other partygoers standing on the terrace of the casino in a brief pause in the festivities before the fireworks began. Vanessa and Ralph had managed to save them a good viewing position and Mathieu and Evie soon joined them.
Nanette, standing there with her friends and Jean-Claude’s arm around her shoulders, looked around contentedly. Tomorrow she and Jean-Claude would be flying to a very different world when they left to visit the UK for Dylan’s christening. Jean-Claude had been delighted when Patsy had phoned and asked him to be a godparent with Nanette and had been planning all sorts of surprises for the unsuspecting Dylan and his parents. Two contrasting worlds, but both now very much a part of her life again. One summer in Monte Carlo had proved life-changing in ways she could never have anticipated.
The whoosh of the first warning rocket and everyone looked skywards, except Jean-Claude, who gently drew Nanette towards him.
Surprised, she looked at him as he took both her hands in his. ‘Ma chérie, je t’aime. Will you please marry me?’
The sky exploded with thousands of silver stars in time with her heart as Nanette whispered a tremulous, ‘Yes, please.’
Jean-Claude slipped a ring on her finger while more fiery flashes of gold, silver, red and blue filled the sky over Monte Carlo before showering down into the Mediterranean.
Surrendering herself to Jean-Claude’s arms, Nanette knew beyond all doubt that his love was her second, and true, legacy from Monaco.
Epilogue
It is the second week in December and Monte Carlo is counting down the days to Christmas. Christmas lights are strung across streets and around windows, and decorated fir trees are everywhere. There are even rogue Father Christmases hanging from the windows and balconies of some apartment blocks. Casino Square is a mass of sparkling twinkling lights. The Christmas market chalets set up on the quay are busy every day and locals as well as visitors are enjoying the festive atmosphere while the sun shines in the pale blue winter sky and the sound of Christmas c
arols fills the air.
Nanette is in the bedroom she shares with Jean-Claude in the villa getting ready for Zac’s memorial service in the Sainte-Dévote Chapel and thinking not only about the last few months but also about the past.
It is three years since she’s been in the Principality at this time of year. When she was Zac’s PA, the three weeks before Christmas had always been the highlight of her year. The F1 season had finished for three months, allowing the drivers time to relax and recuperate with friends and family before it all started up again in the New Year. She’d enjoyed spending so much uninterrupted time here in Monaco with Zac in those December weeks. They had been good times, with no indication they would ever end. But end they had, leaving her with such bittersweet memories. Today’s memorial service would be her final memory of Zac Ewart and the way he had affected her life.
Organising today’s event, to which everybody who was anybody in the F1 world was coming to pay their respects to a driver who would be forever remembered as one of the best drivers who sadly never won the championship but who had died a hero, had been harder than she’d anticipated.
Nanette sighs. She still has guilty feelings over her inheritance from Zac. She’s done her best though, putting the money from the sale of Pole Position to good use in creating the Zac Ewart Trust fund which will benefit the new charity, Fruits of the Forest, that Vanessa has been busy getting set up. And like everyone, Nanette is pleased that Boris Takyanov has received a lengthy jail sentence and is safely behind bars.
A quiet knock on the door and Jean-Claude enters. ‘The taxi is here, ma cherie. You are ready?’
‘Yes, I’m ready,’ she answers quietly. She has found the last few months difficult, even with the love and help of Jean-Claude, but she is definitely ready to face the world and remember Zac Ewart as the heroic man he turned out to be in the end.
She is also ready for her new life with Jean-Claude. Next week, they go to join Patsy and Bryan for baby Dylan’s first family Christmas. Afterwards, in the New Year, she has a wedding to organise. Jean-Claude wants them to get married in the spring, something she is happy to agree to. It will have to be an early spring wedding, though, because she has a new secret she plans to tell him once the memorial service is over. A secret she is more than happy to share and one that she knows will be received with delight.
Acknowledgments
One Summer in Monte Carlo was originally published under the title Follow Your Star and I’ve enjoyed revisiting the story, tweaking and lengthening with extra scenes and chapters.
Thanks to ‘Team Boldwood’ particularly to my editor Caroline Ridding with her indispensable advice and input, and to copy editor Jade, and Rose the eagle-eyed proof reader, for their invaluable input to making the story the best it could be.
Editing this book in the lockdown of 2020 meant that life was strangely empty of social contact for months so huge thanks must go to my online friends – both the virtual and the Real Life ones – for the chats, the spirit raising memes and for just being ‘there’ on my computer whenever I needed a boost.
Heartfelt thanks too, go to my readers who enable me to carry on doing a job I love. Receiving e-mails from readers saying how much they’ve enjoyed a book I’ve written is truly wonderful.
Love,
Jennie
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Chapter 1
Carla was not surprised when Tante Josette didn’t come to the funeral. A nondescript wreath arrived – its white flowers already wilting. The words ‘RIP Amelia. Your loving sister, Josette’ scrawled on a black-edged sympathy card by some unknown hand at the florists.
A congregation of fewer than ten had gathered for the service. Carla knew her mother, Amelia, always a difficult person to get along with, would have been surprised at even that number. The owners of the care home, duty-bound to be there, two neighbours from Amelia’s street, Carla, David and Maddy representing the family. Edward had left the week before for South Africa, impossible for him to return so soon. The wreath he sent his grandmother though, was lovely.
Standing in the crematorium watching her mother’s coffin disappear behind the curtains, Carla felt the first stirrings of sadness, and anger. Sadness for a mother for whom she’d never felt good enough and anger for the fact that Amelia and Tante Josette had been estranged for over forty years. She’d written to Josette when Amelia had gone into the home, mainly to let her know about her twin sister, but a little bit of Carla had hoped Josette would visit and the two sisters would heal their decades’ old rift. It wasn’t to be.
Josette had written back saying she was sorry to hear of Amelia’s decline but she wouldn’t be coming to England to see her for one last time: It seems a pointless exercise, as you say, Amelia’s mind has switched off so she won’t know me. It would be equally pointless if she were still compos mentis because then she wouldn’t want to see me.
An angry Carla had longed to reply, Come for my sake so I can believe that the two of you once cared about each other. That somewhere in the dim and distant past there was a loving, supportive family in the days before we became the prototype model for a modern dysfunctional one. But she’d recognised the truth behind Josette’s words and had sighed before throwing the letter away.
*
Josette sat in the sunshine at her favourite pavement cafe on the quay in Monaco, the coffee on the table in front of her growing cold, her thoughts lost in the past. She and Amelia had often caught the train from Antibes and spent the day wandering around the principality hoping to see some famous people. Today, though, the memory of a long-ago visit that was to change everything in their lives was on her mind. Today, for the first time in years, she’d caught the train to Monaco to say a final goodbye to her sister in the principality where decades ago she’d been given the news that would start a chain of events that would ultimately change the course of her own life.
It had been Cannes Film Festival time and Amelia and Josette had sat at another pavement cafe, the Cafe de Paris, hoping to spot some celebrities leaving the Hotel de Paris opposite. Or even sauntering up the steps into the casino for a game of roulette.
Josette had just exclaimed, ‘Quick – look over there. I’m sure that’s Sacha Distel,’ and turned towards Amelia to make sure she was looking in the right direction when, to her dismay, she saw Amelia was sitting there with tears running down her cheeks. ‘Que se passe-t-il?’
‘I’m pregnant.’
Shocked, Josette stared at her twin. ‘Is it Robert the sailor?’ she had finally asked. Amelia had told her about meeting a crew member from one of the expensive yachts a few weeks ago. Twenty-three years old, he was spending the summer after his finals working on one of the prestigious boats before returning home and starting his banking career.
Amelia had nodded.
‘Papa will kill you both,’ Josette had said. She was silent for a moment. ‘What does Robert say about it?’
‘Je ne lui ai pas encore dit. You’re the first to know,’ Amelia whispered. ‘I was hoping you’d help me decide what to do.’
‘When d’you expect to see Robert next?’
‘The yacht is due back in port tomorrow afternoon, so probably our usual place in the evening.’
‘You have to tell him. Once you’ve done that and we know his reaction, we can decide what you do.’ Josette had glanced at her sister. ‘Do you love him? Do you want to keep the bab
y? Do you want him to marry you?’
‘Yes. No. Yes. I don’t know what I want other than I don’t want to be pregnant.’
‘But you are,’ Josette had said, as a sudden thought struck her. ‘You didn’t go to Doctor Lefebvre, did you?’ The old family doctor would have gone straight to their father, she was certain.
Amelia shook her head. ‘Je ne suis pas si bȇte. I went to one in Cannes.’
Josette had caught hold of her sister’s hand. ‘If Robert is the kind of man I think he is, he’ll marry you.’
‘But his life will be in England. I don’t want to leave here and live over there. I won’t know anyone and his family will probably hate me and—’
‘Stop it. Nobody could possibly hate you. And after you’ve married Robert and moved over there, I shall be a regular visitor. Tante Josette. Imagine!’ Josette had looked at her sister and squeezed her hand. ‘Try not to worry. Whatever happens, I’m on your side.’
The next evening, a shocked Robert had immediately said they’d marry when Amelia had told him she was pregnant. Had even braved the wrath of her father, holding her hand tightly, as they broke the news together.
Now, years later, Josette acknowledged Amelia’s news that day had laid the foundation for the fracture that would tear their family apart in less than five years. If Amelia had never met Robert, so many lives would have been lived differently – she, Josette, wouldn’t have been estranged from all the people she loved the most, would have had a stable life instead of always being on the move from one place to another, she’d have married and had a family with…
‘Another coffee, madam?’
Josette dragged her thoughts back to the present. She shook her head. ‘Non, Merci.’ She paid for the undrunk cold coffee before standing up and beginning to make her way up to the old town and the cathedral.
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