And then, smiling with genuine delight, Tilly produced a new paper bag and ripped it open to reveal its contents. ‘This is one of my favourite things in the world,’ she told Angus.
He eyed the two triangles on the paper with the slightly burned-looking tops a little dubiously. ‘What is it?’
‘A flan pâtissier.’
‘I don’t really do desserts. They’re too sweet for me.’
‘This isn’t too sweet, I promise. And… it’s a taste of France. A taste of heaven.’
His head tilt was acquiescence. And when he took his first bite of the shortcrust base and the firm, silky custard it contained, she watched him close his eyes and take his time savouring what he was tasting, and it made her smile.
He loved it. He might have gone his entire life without tastingun flanif she hadn’t pushed him just a little. She loved that she had given him another moment he was going to remember.
* * *
Angus ate his whole slice of the custard pie. He wiped his mouth with his fingers, swallowed the last of his sparkling water and then took a deep breath and let it out in a very contented sigh.
‘Thisisliving, isn’t it?’ he said quietly. ‘This is the life. How do you say that in French?C’est la vie?’
Tilly’s smile told him that she liked him trying to use her language but the tilt of her head made it clear he hadn’t done it particularly well.
‘C’est la vieis more “oh, well, such is life.”’ She turned her palms upward in a very French gesture of resignation. ‘If you mean something good, we’d say maybeC’est le bonheurwhich is “this is happiness”.’
Angus nodded slowly.
‘My father had a heart attack when he was too young,’ he found himself saying without thinking. ‘Only in his fifties. I was barely out of my teens. They got him to hospital and did everything they could but it wasn’t enough. He died a few hours later.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Tilly said. ‘That’s awful.’
Angus nodded again. It had been. He didn’t let himself look at Tilly because he didn’t want to see the sympathy in her eyes that had been in her voice. He didn’t want her to feel sorry for him, so he stared out at the lake.
‘You would have liked him,’ he said. ‘He was a huge fan of all things romantic. My mother died when I was born and for a long time he was devastated, as well as being busy raising a child, but as I got older he went hunting for love again and when he fell in love, he slathered romance onto life like it was an over-iced cake. His women got treated to lunch in Paris, dozens upon dozens of red roses. Diamond bracelets occasionally, until the money hadrun out. And then he discovered that the cake wasn’t real and he would be devastated. But then he’d try again. I think he was in love with being in love.’
Tilly shook her head. ‘He was choosing the wrong women.’
‘Of course he was, but how do you tell? They were beautiful and vivacious and fun to be around. And as they say, love is blind. So blind that he gave a woman so much money we ended up losing our house. Because he loved her and because she was in trouble.’
Tilly was biting her lip. ‘He was a generous, loving man,’ she said. ‘It’s horrible that he didn’t find the woman who would have truly loved him back.’
She was the one staring out at the lake now.
‘I like that he spent years looking after you before he even thought of looking for love again.’
‘It was a great childhood,’ Angus agreed. ‘He’d take me and Robbie out hiking and fishing. He’d tell me stories and give me advice about life. By the time he was busy with the great hunt for a happy ever after, I was old enough to be able to go out alone. Just me and Robbie.’
‘You weren’t lonely?’
‘Not that I was aware of. Not then, anyway.’ Angus cleared his throat. There were limits to how honest he was ready to be. And why would Tilly be interested in a yearning for something more than he had, not to mention a new determination to be less boring.
‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘Did you have a childhood full of princess dresses and stories about Prince Charming, to grow up so devoted to everything romantic?’
‘More like the opposite,’ Tilly said quietly. ‘The only romance in our house was what I could see in the movies I got to watch. And yes, I fell in love with Prince Charming and Prince Eric and even the Beast and Shrek. And I knew that there wasnothing romantic about the marriage of my parents. There was no sparkle. No magic. No glue.’
‘Glue?’
‘The magic that makes love become a happy ever after. They got unstuck and just drifted away from each other until there was nothing. My father went away and my mother just got on with her life as if it was justc’est la vie. I’m not sure she was ever truly happy.’ Tilly sighed. ‘I promised myself that I would never choose an unromantic man.’
‘Why didn’t it work for my father?’
