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To Veronica, the secrecy surrounding her liaison with Luc only served to intensify the acute sense of intimacy when they were together. All too aware that her holiday was drawing to a close, she was as eager as Luc to make the most of their time together, to store up the precious memories of passion that might help mitigate the pain of eventual loss. But the present joy was worth the future pain, she told herself as each day she fell a little more in love with him, and each night she gave him another piece of her heart along with the generous gift of her passion.
Yesterday he had coolly offered her a first-class ticket from Paris to Auckland, giving her the option to cancel her train to London and flight from Heathrow without having to worry about the financial penalties, but Veronica still hadn’t been able to bring herself to make the decision to travel with him to Paris; to face the ending of their affair—there, where it all began…
‘Don’t look so desolate, chérie.’ Luc slid his long limbs out of her bed and back into his clothes, raking his blue-black hair from his face. ‘You’re not responsible for my decisions, or the personal risks I choose to take. There are some losses insurance never covers. I make my own choices, and I won’t go bankrupt if the worst happens…’
The worst already had happened—unrequited love was a form of emotional bankruptcy, she thought later as they toasted Zoe’s health after she had opened her huge pile of presents, protesting she couldn’t possibly afford the excess baggage to take everything home. But many of the gifts from local friends were furnishings and housewares for her new St Romain home, and there were tears in her eyes as she handed out the hugs and thanks.
Justin, slightly merry on the amount of wine-tasting he had been doing in the company of a local vintner and his wife, chose an unfortunate lull in the conversation as the cake was being cut to say teasingly to Luc:
‘Don’t we have something else to celebrate, Luc? When are you two lovebirds planning to make your announcement?’
Veronica, standing just behind Luc, blanched as Justin’s words rang out in the silence with the clarity of the village bells.
‘Young idiot,’ growled Luc, steadying his stepbrother’s slightly swaying body with an overly firm hand.
‘What announcement? What’s he talking about?’ Melanie’s blonde head swivelled towards Luc from where she was overseeing the cutting of the cake, a look of dawning dismay in her blue eyes as she saw his annoyance.
‘Oops,’ Justin hiccupped and covered his remorseful mouth with his hand. ‘Didn’t mean to let the cat out of the bag. It’s just that I saw you in the jeweller’s in Avignon when that photographer was going totally ape outside.’ He gave Veronica a woe
begone look over Luc’s shoulder. ‘Sorry, I knew you must have some reason for keeping quiet—thought maybe you didn’t want your engagement to take any of the spotlight off Gran on her big day.’
‘Well, you’ve certainly managed to do that,’ said Luc drily, although Veronica noticed in the midst of her embarrassment that Zoe was the only family member not looking at him in consternation.
‘You never said anything! You could have at least told me,’ Ashley was berating her twin, while Ross smirked at the idea of someone other than himself on the receiving end of her ire.
‘Your engagement! Oh, no, Luc, what’s going on? What have you done?’ Melanie looked almost distraught, thought Veronica uneasily, as Miles placed a protective hand on her uninjured arm.
She stepped forward to explain that it was all a ploy to throw off an ambush by the paparazzi, but was speared by a savagely restraining look from Luc.
‘Really, Mum, it’s not what you think—’ he said, and Melanie gasped and bit her lip, her eyes softening.
‘Luc?’ Suddenly another, soft, cultured voice hesitantly entered the conversation.
Veronica saw a very elegant, beautifully made-up blonde in a casually tied headscarf wobble on high-heeled sandals across the uneven cobblestones on the pathway around the corner of the house, the upper part of her lovely face masked by outsized tortoiseshell sunglasses, her starkly plain black linen shift and oversized Fendi crocodile bag adding to the general air of studied fragility.
‘Luc! Oh, Luc—thank God you’re here!’ She zeroed in on him like a heat-seeking missile, going on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, resting an exquisitely manicured hand on his chest.
‘I’m so sorry if I’m barging in on your party, but I was just freaking out in your flat in London, and then I saw the news about you buying rings and I knew it was a sign I had to come down here and take charge of my life…’ She clutched his arm, a semi-hysterical sob spilling from her ultra-pale pink lips as Luc quickly drew her to one side, to the relative privacy of his family’s ranks.
‘Oh, Luc, I’m such a total mess—but now I’ve done what you said—I’ve finally told Andrew I want a divorce. He tried to insist that we go to a counsellor, but I told him I was pregnant and that the baby most definitely wasn’t his…’
Veronica felt the blood drain from her head and ice sink into the very marrow of her bones as she saw Luc take Elise Malcolm in his arms as she sobbed in earnest.
Not fragile, but desperate, she thought. The woman was on the verge of a total meltdown, and who could blame her?
‘Oh, Luc, I do so want our baby but now I’m scared…what kind of parents will we make? I thought you might come back to Avignon with me and help me work it out…make everything right! I know you said I was on my own, but that was just your anger talking. Please, Luc, please—don’t desert me when I need you the most!’
CHAPTER TEN
‘PACKAGE for you, Veronica!’
Veronica looked up from her computer screen as her assistant called from the outer office.
‘I’m off to my appointment in a few minutes,’ she said, getting up to check her appearance in the mirror on the wall. ‘Just check the invoice off with the order list and put it in with the other stock. I’ll have a look when I get back.’
She was looking too pale, she thought, staring into her own haunted eyes. Even under a smooth coating of cosmetics her freckles looked more prominent on their translucent background and there were faint blue marks under her eyes that no amount of concealer could hide.
In the last two months the faint golden tan she had acquired in France had leached away, and, although they were now well into an Auckland spring, the long hours she had been working since her return meant that her body got little exposure to the sun. She had heard that lack of sunlight contributed to depression—there was even an official phrase for it: seasonal affective disorder—so perhaps that was the reason for the continued lethargy that dragged at her spirits in spite of the fact that her business was doing much better than she had expected. Lack of fresh air and the kind of daily exercise she was used to getting in the country could also explain her inability to sleep soundly and wretched moodiness.
