As if he was loving her company.
Lovingher, even?
He took a sip of his coffee then, his gaze drifting from her to the sea and then towards Castle Hill, which overlooked Nice Old Town.
‘That’s where I thought you might like to go next,’ Tilly told him. ‘To walk up the hill for the gorgeous views. Either that or we could go to MAMAC – the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. We don’t really have time to do both if we’re going to drive up into the mountains this afternoon.’
‘A museum?’ Angus licked crumbs from his lips and then grinned at her and Tilly melted a little inside. ‘That’s different.’
‘A bit of culture,’ she said. ‘We don’t have to, but you did employ me as a tour guide, after all.’
It was meant to be a light-hearted comment but, as soon as the words left her mouth, Tilly wished she hadn’t uttered them. She didn’t want to dim what felt more and more like a genuine connection with the reminder of how this had started.
And she didn’t want to think about it finishing.
‘We can walk through the old town after that,’ she added. ‘And find some lunch along the way. It’ll be time to check into the hotel by then.’
‘Ah… the Hotel Negresco.’ His glance at Tilly was almost startled. ‘Do you know, I’d almost forgotten that you’d made a booking for me at the most famous landmark of the French Riviera?’
‘You’re going to love it,’ Tilly said.
‘We’regoing to love it,’ Angus corrected.
‘I was lucky enough to get a table at their restaurant across the road, as well. The one in the corner with the best sea view for the sunset.’
The romance of the new dinner reservation – part of the frantic rearrangements Tilly had made the day Angus had arrived – didn’t seem to be a problem so perhaps any tension from that ticking clock in the background could also be ignored. Maybe she could even hope that Angus might have almost forgotten the reason he’d been coming to the South of France in the first place. Tilly was finding it intruding on her thoughts more than she was comfortable with. This last day of the trip had, after all, been all about the shopping and spa and the sunset at the top of Èze for the finishing touches of the proposal that was never going to happen.
‘There it is.’ A few minutes after they’d started walking again, Tilly could point out the impressive shape of the huge Hotel Negresco, with its distinctive pink dome. ‘It’s like a symbol for what Nice used to be all about – the luxury winter holidays for the rich and famous.’
‘Did I read that the Beatles stayed here once?’
‘Yes. They were here in the sixties to film one of their movies. Queen Elizabeth has stayed here, too. And Picasso.’ Tilly pointed in the direction they’d come from. ‘And back that way, a bit further than where we parked the car, there’s a children’s hospital right by the beach. That’s where Angelina Jolie had her twins. I remember it because I used to come into Nice on the bus after school once a week for my piano lesson and I couldn’t get there one day – there was a traffic jam on the promenade caused by all the paparazzi.’
Angus managed to look impressed at Tilly’s close brush with fame, which made her laugh. This time it was Tilly who caught his hand as they walked on and, to her delight, he gave her fingers a squeeze that suggested he was happy she had.
He was less happy with the suggestion that she took his photo in front of the red, white and blue #ILoveNICE sign, so she moved swiftly on to the end of the promenade and around the corner to the stone staircase that was the most direct route up to the summit of Castle Hill. It was cooler in the shade of the trees but the heat of the day was increasing, which made pausing beside the waterfall a welcome break. The view at the top, with the entire curve of the Baie des Anges below them and the extraordinary blue of a seemingly endless Mediterranean, was also a place to pause and this time it seemed that Angus did want a photo taken.
Byhim. Of Tilly, perched on a low stone wall where she was enjoying the view and the sea breeze on her face. It made her smile. Not because she was having a photo taken but because it suggested he wanted to remember her in years to come, when she was no longer to be seen in real life. She had a feeling that her smile would be more than a little poignant.
They went down a more gentle path that led into the old town. Church bells told her that it was getting closeto lunchtime, and Tilly took them through the Cours Saleya markets with the noise and bustle that was a sharp contrast to the peace and quiet of the Colline du Château. It was an overload to the senses walking in a crowd of people between the stalls under their striped umbrellas. There were different languages to be heard all around them, and the shouts of the vendors, a rainbow of colours on the flower stalls, vast arrays of vegetables on sale and punnets of summer fruit and even brighter berries, and the smells – so many lavender products and then olives in bowls of oil, salamis and nougat and so many buckets of fragrant flowers. Finally, they got to where the street food stalls and caravans could offer the lunch they were looking for.
‘There’s lots to choose from,’ Tilly said. ‘What do you feel like? Pizza, socca, pissaladière?’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a savoury tart with onions and black olives and anchovies.’
‘Anchovies?’
Tilly bit her lip to stop herself smiling. She loved that they had short cuts to things that only they would understand. ‘D’accord– no fish. I’m guessing no stuffed vegetables, either?’
‘What’s the most traditional lunch someone from Nice might have?’
‘That’s easy,’ Tilly said. ‘Pan bagnat.’
‘Which is?’
‘Basically, a sandwich that was created for the working people like fishermen and builders who needed something easy to carry but substantial. It’s very traditional.’
