She risked a glance at him.
He waslookingat her again. This time, she managed to control her reaction. She didn’t even stop stirring her coffee. There was no reason to let a client intimidate her. She was safely in a public place and she could simply walk away if necessary.
‘I’ve never been to the South of France,’ Angus said, breaking the silence a beat before it became too awkward. ‘And, with the amount of time and money already invested in planning the perfect holiday to see the best that Provence has to offer, I decided not to waste it.’
‘D’accord,’ Tilly murmured. ‘Okay,’ she added. English, she reminded herself. She didn’t want to make this situation any more awkward by creating a language barrier.
Angus was lifting his glass again but paused before taking a sip. ‘I’m Scottish,’ he said. ‘It’s in our DNA not to throw money away.’
Tilly dropped her gaze as she finally stopped stirring her coffee. Moving deliberately as she tried to buy enough time to understand what was going on here, she laid the small spoon down on the saucer without making a sound. Then she looked at him over the rim of her cup as she picked it up to take a sip.
‘So you wish to go on your holiday? Alone?’
‘Not exactly.’ It looked as if Angus was drawing in a deep breath, through his nose. ‘I want you to come with me.’
* * *
He could see the shock hit her by the way the coffee sloshed in her cup before she hastily put it down. And the way her eyes had widened so dramatically.
Big, brown eyes like melted chocolate. They reminded Angus of an adored dog he had grown up with – a flat-coated retriever called Robbie, who’d been like a sibling for a lonely, motherless child.
Och, aye… Mathilde Pascoe was disconcertingly attractive. He’d seen a photograph of her on her website but that had been only two-dimensional. In real life, with the skirt of that pretty pale blue dress that swirled around her legs when she was walking, she reminded Angus of a ballerina. Tall and lithe, with pale skin and almost elfin features and that long silky braid of hair, even darker than her eyes, that fell over one shoulder. There was something about her manner, as well, that he hadn’t picked up on in their correspondence. An air of wariness, perhaps? Vulnerability, even? Or was that impression only there because of his unexpected – and quite possibly unwelcome – invitation?
He wasn’t going to try and analyse what was going on in this woman’s head. Or get derailed by feeling sorry for her.Hewas the one who needed sympathy, but he wasn’t about to admit how hard it had been to walk off that plane and face this holiday in order to exorcise a ghost or two. It might end up being a total disaster if he couldn’t, at least, modify its purpose to be unrecognisable.
‘You have arranged a lot of optional extras on this trip in order to make it as romantic as possible,’ he said. ‘I want you to remove them. Every single example and/or performance of the kind of romantic nonsense you specialise in smothering everything with, like some kind of saccharine-laced icing. I don’t want to see any rose petals or candles or heart-shaped chocolates or fairy lights. Or a table for two and a bottle of champagne.’ Now that he’d started, the words were tumbling out. ‘I do not want to be served a single dessert with two spoons or hear someone playing anything like “Fly Me to the Moon” on a saxophone. I don’t want to see silhouettes of lovers sitting watching spectacular sunsets or dancing with each other as if they’ve been stuck together with superglue or even walking hand in hand on a beach. I?—’
Angus caught his breath. How could there be so much icing on that cake?Somany things that were synonymous with romance? Where on earth was all thiscomingfrom?
‘Do you understand, Mademoiselle Pascoe?’
‘Tilly,’ she said faintly. ‘Please, call me Tilly. And yes… I understand.’
She didn’t look as if she understood. She looked… as if he’d taken a knife and stabbed her in the heart. And no wonder… her business was romance, after all. She lived and breathed every ingredient in the icing on that damned love cake.
And… it was unchivalrous of him to be taking out his personal dissatisfaction with one aspect of his life on her. He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
‘Or, you could just provide me with a complete refund and I’ll make my own arrangements for my week’s holiday in Provence. I can probably avoid everything I don’t want to experience simply by choosing to go in a different direction than the itinerary you have selected for me.’
How was it that her eyes were capable of getting any bigger? Or for her skin to become so pale it was almost translucent? Mathilde – no,Tilly– actually looked frightened now and Angus suddenly felt like a bit of a shit.
‘That’s not possible,’ Tilly whispered. ‘A lot of bills have already been paid in advance and it’s far too short notice to cancel and ask for refunds. I… I…’
She didn’t know what to do, did she?
Angus drained the last of his drink, hearing an echo of his own voice as he did so.
‘I want you to come with me.’
It was true. Hedidwant her to come with him. But not just to get rid of all the romantic rubbish that had been arranged. In this day and age, that didn’t need to be done by personal contact. She could do it from her office, in the same way she had set it all up in the first place.
He had been fully on board with doing this visit to France alone when he’d left Scotland, but it was dawning on him that being in a foreign country, listening to a language he only had distant memories of trying to learn at school, and with nothing but pretty scenery to distract him from what seemed like the mess he’d made of sorting his personal life and future… well… it might actually be rather a lonely experience.
Company might be… preferable.
And, for some unfathomable reason, he knew that even if it wasn’t for the fact that she was the only person he had available, he wanted Tilly to provide that company.
He put his glass down. His fingers were cold as he lifted them to rub his chin in an action that he knew was a form of self-soothing when he was disconcerted. He didn’t need to have scared her into doing what he wanted by threatening to demand a full refund. That had been unnecessarily heavy-handed. He could easily afford to change his plans. He could afford to pay whatever it took to erase any unsettling factors. To spend more, in fact, to make sure that the word ‘boring’ could never be associated with this holiday and, by default, with himself.
