Lycos got to his feet. Arielle was heading towards him. He felt something catch within him, across the hollow that was permanently there. Just to see her again. His gaze clung to her as she approached. But he would not let it show in his eyes.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, as she reached him. He kept his voice carefully neutral.
She gave only a slight nod, sitting down in the tub chair opposite his. The light level in the cocktail bar was subdued, but he could see she looked pale. The honeyed skin tone he was familiar with had faded, it seemed, out of the Provençal sun. Her hair was drawn back into a pleat and was glistening with faint raindrops. She slipped the buttons of her jacket undone, but did not remove it. Yet even looking as workaday as she was, he still felt his breath catch at seeing her again. Seeing her beauty…
But he must not show his reaction to her. That was not why he had asked her to meet him. A waiter glided up, asking what she would like to drink. She asked for coffee then looked across the low table. Straight at him.
‘Why did you do it, Lycos? This time?’
The question was direct. So was his answer.
‘Because it was the right thing to do. Because it was owed to you.’
She gave a shake of her head. ‘Not by you. You owe me nothing, Lycos.’ She took a heavy, scything breath before continuing, ‘Least of allMas Delfine.’
Arielle did not let her eyes drop. Would not. She had been here before with this conversation. And, although the reason for it had been completely different, her answer was the same.
‘You know that I can’t accept it, Lycos,’ she said, her voice low. ‘Any more than the last time you offered it to me.’
‘Now is completely different! You must see that!’ he cut across her. His voice was vehement and his eyes flared with anger.
‘Your motive is different, yes, but it’s still one I can’t accept.’
She held his gaze. It was hard to do so. Hard to sit here, so close to him, seeing him again, suppressing all that she felt about him. Those feelings had flared again the moment she’d seen him as she’d walked into the cocktail lounge. Flared as powerfully as they ever had. As they always would—
Because they will. I know that now. It doesn’t matter that I ended it before he was ready to end it. It doesn’t matter that I have not seen him for weeks and weeks. That I am making myself make a new life here in England—the one I have to make. That the memory of our time together will haunt me all my days and my longing for him will haunt me all my nights.
Just seeing him again, here and now, was hammering home that truth. Just as her heart was hammering in her chest.
Just to see him. Just to be here with him.
Emotion crushed her heart, fight it though she must. She had come here because he had asked her to and to refuse would have been ungracious.
Cowardly. Thinking more of her own feelings, than on the gesture he had just made to her. She ploughed on, saying what she knew had to be said. What she knew she had to make clear to him. She kept her voice as calm as she could.
‘Lycos, I can only repeat what you yourself said to me. That itis not your fault that you own themas.My mother sold it to my father, he left it to Naomi, she gave it to Gerald. You won it off him because he was an arrogant fool to play you. So, he deserved to lose.’
Lycos was looking at her. ‘That’s not how you felt about that boy in Paris.’
She frowned. Why had he said that now?
‘Well, he was a fool, too, but a terrified one. He was desperate.’
‘And now I know why.’
Arielle stared. ‘What do you mean?’
Lycos leant forward, picked up his martini glass, took a mouthful. Then replaced it. He seemed hesitant to speak at first but then he did.
‘After you’d gone, I went to see him,’ he said.
Her eyes widened. ‘You did what?’
‘I went to see him. I got the hotel concierge to find me his Paris address, a very upmarket apartment in the 7tharrondissement,and I called on him.’ He paused again, then continued. ‘When he opened the door to me, he went white at the gills. But he invited me in, took control of himself, went and got a chequebook from a desk and told me he would write me a cheque for the sum of the IOU. He assumed that’s why I’d turned up.’
‘Had you?’
‘No. I took his IOU out of my jacket pocket and tore it up. Then I handed him a banker’s draft for the value of the chips he’d lost to me and told him that if he was smart, he’d lay off gambling, or he’d be an even bigger fool than he’d been that night.’
