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‘Is that something you want to do?’ he asked, his voice level and compassionate even as everything in him trembled and shook.
Annabelle frowned. ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘But then Célia could come back.’
‘Why would you want that?’
‘Because you are sad without her. And I don’t want you to be sad.’
‘But wouldn’t you be sad, living with Meredith?’
She shrugged. ‘I’d be okay.’
Loukis cursed silently. How could a ten-year-old contain such stoicism? More than he ever had even five years older when Meredith had walked out on him and his father. And that thought brought a startling revelation. He was teaching his little sister, at ten years old, exactly the same lesson that their mother had taught him.
That love had a price. Annabelle was making her own bargain with him. His happiness for hers. And that devastated him. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t allow this cycle to continue. No matter the cost to himself. But in order to break that cycle, he would have to risk everything.
He opened his arms to her and Annabelle threw herself into his embrace.
* * *
‘So, how was it?’ Ella’s voice fed into her ear from where the phone was cradled between her shoulder and head as Célia pushed the plunger down on the cafetière.
She had rejected a video call, knowing that her friend would be horrified at the way Célia looked in that moment. She sighed.
‘Weird, awkward, painful, but kind of okay.’
‘Well, the kind of okay bit is good?’ she asked, rather than stated, probing for more than Célia was capable of providing.
Célia had just got back from lunch with her parents. Both of them. Her father had aged so much in the last five years, she had been shocked. Shocked that the salt and pepper hair had transformed to a pure brilliant white. Shocked at how the lines on his face had increased in the time she had missed. Shocked that he had been so contrite, when—at the time—he had resolutely ignored any and all attempts to discuss the repurposing of her designs.
From words she’d been forced to read between, she realised that in his own way he had been hiding from the effects of his actions. A man wholeheartedly used to making quick, determined decisions about his company, he’d not quite been ready to interrogate the motives behind them.
It still hurt. That her father couldn’t admit that he’d been wrong. Still awkward and distant in his feelings, he couldn’t offer her the words of love and reassurance that she so desperately needed to hear. But if she wanted to be loved for who she was, she could hardly demand perfection from him. She too had to find love in imperfection, whether with her father, or herself. And that realisation had been the first step. In confronting the past she was so ashamed of. And in that bittersweet painful moment, she realised that she could no longer be bound by it. That she needed to live her life and stop hiding—as she had once accused Loukis of doing.
She poured the coffee into a mug and crossed the room of her Parisian apartment and curled up on her sofa, the phone still cradled between her shoulder and ear the way her hands now cradled the steaming cup of goodness.
‘It is,’ she said, finally answering Ella’s half-question.
‘Have you heard from him?’
Célia didn’t have the energy to muster ignorance as to whom Ella was referring. ‘No. But I didn’t expect to,’ she replied around the lump in her throat. ‘Anyway, tell me about your gorgeous little one. How is Tatiana?’
‘Teething.’
Célia groaned in sympathy. ‘And Roman?’
‘Loving everything about parenting. I’m lucky if I can get a look-in.’
‘I’m sure he’s just making up for the time he’s away with work.’
‘It’s him I can’t get a look-in with,’ Ella replied quickly with a beautiful laugh. ‘Tatiana only has eyes for him. For me, she has dirty nappies!’
Célia smiled, even as her heart broke. She’d have been lying to herself if she denied that she had hoped that perhaps her future could follow a similar path to her best friend’s and to one day find that same happiness with Loukis.
‘Are you sure you won’t come down to Puycalvel? Roman would send the jet in a heartbeat.’
‘That’s okay. Honestly. Yalena has returned the signed contracts and there is plenty of work to do now. It’s certainly enough to keep me busy.’
‘Life doesn’t have to be all work, you know,’ Ella chided, unconsciously cutting at Célia’s heart. Because work was all she felt she had left now.
