The Frenchman's Love-Child

CHAPTER FIVE

‘LET me understand this…’ Nine hours later, Veronique Giraud studied Christien across the depth of her opulent riverside apartment in Paris. ‘You want to break off our engagement for unspecified reasons?’

‘Not unspecified. I’ve come to recognise that I’m not yet ready to commit to a marriage.’ Christien’s level dark gaze was filled with sincere regret as he surveyed his fiancée in her tailored business suit. ‘I only wish that for your sake I had seen that reality sooner.’

‘We haven’t set a wedding date and I wasn’t expecting to set one in the near future,’ Veronique pointed out with admirable calm. ‘You can take all the time you require to think this decision over.’

Relieved by her unemotional response, Christien expelled his breath. ‘I appreciate that but I’ve had all the time I need to consider this and I must still ask you to release me from our engagement. I’m sorry that it has to be like this.’

After a moment of thought, Veronique gave a gracious nod of acceptance. ‘There’s no need for you to apologise. I wouldn’t want to hold you to our agreement against your will.’

A warm smile of appreciation lightened Christien’s grave aspect. ‘I know you would never do that. We might have become engaged on a business and social basis but we have a strong friendship as well. I would hate to lose a friendship which I have always valued. But I will understand if you prefer to let that connection wane now.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of behaving that way. I won’t pretend that I agree with the decision that you’ve reached, but neither will I make a fuss about it,’ the self-contained brunette said briskly. ‘However, I hope you won’t be annoyed by my frank speech when I say that you will soon discover once again that that little madam is much more trouble than she is worth!’

Almost imperceptibly, Christien tensed. ‘You can always be frank with me.’

‘Even though I am saying things you cannot possibly want to hear?’ Veronique’s pale blue eyes had a hard sparkle new to his experience and his keen gaze narrowed.

‘Even then.’

‘Of course, I know it’s the English girl again and I don’t want to be crude, but why can’t you just scratch the sexual itch and leave it at that level?’ Veronique demanded in cold exasperation. ‘I assure you that I require no confessions.’

Christien had to make an effort to conceal his distaste. ‘Nothing is that simple.’

‘But it is. It is you who are making it complex by being too conventional and expecting too much of yourself. What has come over you?’ the brunette prompted with an air of concerned incomprehension. ‘You yourself believe that your parents’ relationship was unhealthily obsessive and your mother is still unable to function without your father. I understood that you wanted to guard against the risk of making such a destructive marriage-’

‘I am not thinking of marriage,’ Christien interposed in flat denial.

Veronique looked mollified by that assurance. ‘Then why end our engagement over something as trivial as an affair? Fidelity means nothing to me. I don’t mind if you keep the Burnside woman as a mistress, for there are far more important matters in life!’ she proclaimed with unhidden impatience. ‘This situation is exactly why I offered to deal with that calculating little creature on your behalf.’

‘Forgive me, but I will not discuss Tabby with you, nor listen to abuse of her.’ His brooding dark eyes were veiled, his well-modulated speaking tone discouraging.

Veronique removed the huge solitaire on her engagement finger and set it down on the table with just the suspicion of a snap.

‘It is yours…it was a gift,’ Christien asserted. ‘If you no longer want it, give it to charity.’

Veronique’s thin lips stretched into an unexpectedly warm and reassuring smile. Rising, she tucked a slender hand into his elbow. ‘At least I can now talk to you as a friend and perhaps you will listen with more patience. I do hope that we’re still going out to meet our friends for lunch…’

‘So,’ Pippa Stevenson recapped, rolling her very blue eyes, ‘although we’ve moved on nearly four years in our lives you’re still happily falling for the Christien Laroche solid gold seduction routine.’

Tabby winced. ‘It wasn’t like that, Pip-’

‘Lean, mean and magnificent, the guy most likely to succeed in business, in bed and every other place because conscience will never keep him awake,’ her friend quipped with a cynically curled lip. ‘You moving into Christien’s neighbourhood is like a goldfish opting to go swimming with sharks!’

Tabby stiffened for, having let herself down very badly, as she felt, with Christien, she was less laid-back about the prospect of taking up permanent residence in the same locality. It was ironic that their renewed intimacy was likely to bring about the sale that he had wanted from the outset, she reflected unhappily. ‘I may have to reconsider where Jake and I should live-’

‘Considering your non-existent ability to resist Christien, I think that has to be the best news I’ve heard in a long time!’ As Tabby flinched the redhead groaned in guilty embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry…I am truly sorry. Believe it or not, I didn’t invite you and Jake to stay here on your last night in England just so that I could make snide comments.’

‘For goodness’ sake, I know you didn’t…’ But as usual, Tabby recognised, her closest friend, who was burdened by a demanding job and the care of a disabled parent, was stressed out and exhausted.

‘Whatever happens, I still feel that you ought to tell Christien that he has a son,’ Pippa admitted in some discomfiture.

‘I agree.’ Tabby no longer required prompting on that score. Having reached that same conclusion, she almost smiled at her companion’s surprise over her change of heart. ‘When I decided to move to Brittany, I honestly did believe that I wouldn’t see Christien again. I didn’t think things through, which was foolish and short-sighted-’

‘Easy enough to do in the circumstances.’ Pippa gave her a look of understanding.

‘But I do think it would be unfair to put Christien in an awkward position with his family…or perhaps a girlfriend over Jake while we’re living so close,’ Tabby revealed uneasily. ‘I still have to work out how best to handle that.’

‘It’s Christien’s own fault that he’s likely to be the last to know about Jake. Naturally you were intimidated by the animosity that you met with when you attended the inquest into the crash.’ Pippa frowned. ‘That was so cruel-’

‘But the way some people couldn’t help feeling and probably will still feel about me,’ Tabby emphasised with a grimace. Pippa dropped her gaze and neither woman chose to mention the reality that, since that accident, Tabby had also lost touch with their other friends, Hilary and Jen.

‘They needed a focus for their bitterness and grief and Dad was dead, so I made the next best target,’ Tabby continued. ‘It’s just I couldn’t bear Christien or anybody else in his family to look at Jake in that same tainted light…as though he was something to be ashamed of, apologised for and concealed-’

‘Why should he be? Your son is the mirror image of his very handsome papa. And Christien Laroche is not the male I took him for if he does not relish the sight of himself reprised in miniature,’ Pippa opined drily. ‘Furthermore, when Jake reveals his meteoric IQ and his deeply boring current obsession with fast cars Christien will experience such a shocking sense of soul-deep recognition that he will be flattered to death.’

Tabby cherished much less ambitious notions. She only hoped that once Christien got over the shock, he would be interested in getting to know his son. An hour later, sighing at the sound of her much-put-upon friend trekking downstairs again to fulfil yet another late-night demand from her domineering parent, Tabby climbed into the spare-room bed where Jake already lay fast asleep.

Eight days had passed since she had left France. Christien had tucked her into bed that last night and left her alone. Although that was what she had wanted, she had felt ridiculously abandoned the next morning and very sad driving away in the van. Indeed it had been a week during which Tabby had become increasingly angry with herself for her repeated failure to push Christien out of her mind, not to mention her reluctance to tell Christien that he was the father of her child. That smacked of a cowardice that Tabby was determined to confront within herself.

As Tabby drove off the ferry into France the following day she was keen to draw Jake’s attention to the more unusual cars on the road to keep him occupied during the lengthy drive ahead. ‘There’s a Rolls Royce…’ she told her son helpfully.

The little boy shifted excitedly in his seat.

‘Are you excited about the new house?’ Tabby asked.

‘Can I jump on my new bed?’

‘Forget it!’ Tabby said with a grin.

The minute Tabby parked in the driveway at the cottage, Jake headed straight for the back garden with his football, eager to stretch his legs after being cooped up for so long. Tabby decided to let him burn off some energy before she took him indoors. In truth, she was afraid of seeing disappointment on his earnest little face. He was only three years old and it took adult imagination to see that the drab cottage had promise.

‘Stay in the garden and don’t go near the road!’ she called in his wake, knowing her first priority would have to be the installation of a gate across the driveway.

Jake stopped and uttered a world-weary sigh that would have done justice to a little old man. ‘I know…I’m not a baby now,’ he muttered in reproach.

Entering the cottage while she thought about how shockingly fast Jake seemed to be growing up, Tabby came to an abrupt halt and stared with bewildered eyes at her unfamiliar surroundings. In panic she started backing outside again, believing that she had somehow contrived to gain entry to someone else’s home. Only when she saw the gorgeous artistic arrangement of flowers beside the fireplace and the large envelope that bore her name in Christien’s writing did she halt her retreat. In a daze, Tabby crept back inside again and snatched up the envelope to extract the card within.

‘I respect your right to live where you choose…call me, Christien.’

A phone sat beside the floral offering. He had even had a phone line connected. The windows had been replaced and the walls had been painted in fresh colours. In a daze she looked around the room, which now was furnished with twin sofas and a handsome armoire. Dumbstruck, she peered into the kitchen and saw superb new freestanding units complete with discreet appliances and a beautiful dining set. A clock ticked on the mantel. The wine rack was packed with bottles. She looked into a fridge bursting with fresh produce and let the door fall shut again. Her son waved at her from the garden and she lifted a nerveless hand in response.

All of a tremble, she snatched up the phone and stabbed out the number that Christien had put on the card. As she waited for the call to connect she glanced into the little washroom and stopped dead. Because the ‘little’ washroom now appeared to encompass the enclosed porch beyond it as well and had a shower, marble tiles and a Jacuzzi that was state-of-the-art. A walk-in airing cupboard was packed with an array of fleecy towels and what looked very much like entire rows of crisp bed linen.

‘Tabby…what do you think?’ Christien purred as she hurried up the stairs with the receiver of the cordless phone clutched in her perspiring hand.

‘I think…I think I’m hallucinating,’ she mumbled, gaping at the rich wool carpet on the stairs.

‘Bien…I thought I was having a nightmare when I first saw inside the cottage as it was,’ Christien confided teasingly. ‘A home fit only for a cave dweller-’

‘Christien…there is just no way that I can accept any of this,’ Tabby asserted in a wobbly voice. ‘Have you gone out of your mind? This whole place has been torn apart and remodelled into far more than it was ever meant to be. It’s so seriously trendy it must have cost a fortune!’

‘It’s my way of saying sorry for being pushy and welcoming you back to your new home, ma belle,’ Christien murmured smoothly.

‘How on earth did you even get into this place?’ Tabby queried. ‘Did you break in?’

Her bedroom had been embellished with a bed in which a princess would have felt at home and dressed with snazzy silk curtains and an over abundance of crisp white lace-edged pillows and sheets. The colour scheme was in her favourite shades of pale turquoise and lemon and she wondered dizzily if he had remembered that.

‘Solange kept a spare key hidden in the trunk of the old tree in the front garden. I’ve removed it,’ he confessed.

‘Thanks for warning me!’ Tabby sniped, but the reproof lacked bite because her voice was weak. ‘I just can’t believe you’ve done all this…and in such an incredibly short space of time.’ She glanced into Jake’s room, which, having already been furnished, had benefited a little less noticeably from fresh paint and polished floorboards. ‘What are you expecting in return? Me in a gift box?’

His husky, sexy laugh vibrated down her spinal cord like a caress.

‘How am I supposed to hand back new windows when you haven’t left me the old ones?’ Tabby demanded, looking out the bedroom window to note that a big glossy car had stopped out on the quiet road.

‘When I want you to climb into a gift box for me, you can be sure I’ll cut off all avenues of retreat-’

‘But I can’t accept a generosity that I can’t match-’

‘Are you discriminating against me because I’m rich?’ Christien countered with mockery.

Tabby walked downstairs again. ‘If I accepted all this stuff…well, it would make me feel like I’m in your power-’

‘That works fine for me,’ Christien slotted in without shame.

‘Or like I owed you big time-’

‘I can’t say that that idea turns me off either. I know it’s not politically correct but, if your conscience is heavy, I could give you a suggestion or two on how best to lighten-’

‘Shut up!’ But Tabby was laughing until she went over to the kitchen window to check on Jake, only to discover he was nowhere within view. ‘Hold on a minute,’ she urged Christien then. ‘Look, I’ll call you back!’

After distractedly pressing the ‘hold’ button, then discarding the phone, Tabby headed into the front garden. Relieved that Jake had not strayed round there as she had feared, she took the time to study the car still sitting parked because she couldn’t help wondering what it was doing there. It was a Mercedes and a very expensive-looking model. She was heading for the side of the cottage where she assumed her son was playing when she saw Jake running out from behind the van. He was chasing his ball, which was bouncing down the sloping driveway towards the road.

‘No, Jake…stop!’ Tabby screamed at the top of her voice.

But her shout was drowned out as the engine of the Mercedes suddenly ignited and the vehicle moved off. Even knowing that she was too far away, Tabby made a frantic attempt to reach her son and prevent him from running out into the road in front of the car. But she was too late. With a protesting screech of tyres, the driver braked hard and swerved to avoid Jake and the Mercedes mounted the verge with a crashing jolt before coming to a juddering halt.

For a split second deafening silence held and then Jake broke it with a frightened howl. Tabby grabbed him up, sat him down on the driveway and told him firmly to stay there while she raced across the road to check on the driver. The car door fell open and a slender, middle-aged blonde lurched out, her white face a mask of shock.

‘Are you hurt?’ Tabby gasped and then, fumbling for the French words, used them as well.

The woman hovered at the side of the road and stared fixedly at Jake. Then she began to sob noisily. Curving a supportive arm round her and feeling quite sick herself at what had so nearly transpired, Tabby urged the woman indoors. She offered to call a doctor and when that suggestion was met with a dismayed frown asked if the lady would like to call anyone. That too was met with a silent negative and she was careful to apologise for having left Jake alone in the garden.

‘It was not your fault. Children will be children,’ the woman finally responded in English while she continued to study Jake as if not yet fully convinced that he was wholly unharmed. ‘We must thank le bon Dieu that he is safe. He is…your son? May I ask what he is called?’

‘I’m Jake. Jake…Christien…Burnside,’ Jake recited with care.

The lady was trembling. She twisted her head away and fumbled for another tissue from the box that Tabby had set beside her, her thin hands shredding at it as she choked back another sob.

‘You’re in shock and I’m not surprised after the fright my son must have given you,’ Tabby said worriedly. ‘Are you sure I can’t phone the doctor for you, madame?’

‘Perhaps…if I could have a glass of water?’ The woman snatched in a deep breath in a clear effort to calm herself.

‘Of course.’ Tabby returned with the glass and found Jake chattering about cars and holding the woman’s beringed hand. Tabby introduced herself.

A strange little silence fell

‘Ma-Manette,’ the older woman finally stammered, suddenly awkward again, her reddened eyes lowering. ‘Manette…eh, Bonnard. Your son is so sweet. He kissed me because he saw that I was sad.’

Tabby took the opportunity to explain to Jake why Madame Bonnard had been sad and why he must never, ever again run out into a road.

‘Please don’t scold Jake…I am sure he will be more careful in the future.’ Although Manette Bonnard was smiling and it seemed a very genuine smile, her eyes still glistened with unshed tears.

‘Do you have a little boy like me?’ Jake asked.

‘A big boy,’ their visitor answered.

‘Does he like cars?’

‘Very much.’

‘Is he taller than me?’ Perceptibly, Jake was stretching himself up, his innate competitive streak in the ascendant, dark brown eyes sparkling.

‘Yes. He is all grown up,’ Manette Bonnard said apologetically.

‘Is he a good boy?’

‘Not all the time.’

‘I’ll be very tall and very good when I get grown up,’ Jake informed her confidently.

Keen to see the older woman fully recovered before she got back into her car, Tabby offered her coffee. A rather dazed look etched in her fine dark eyes, their visitor nodded polite acceptance while trying to answer Jake’s questions. Jake had no inhibitions about being nosy and, by dint of simply listening to the older woman’s initially hesitant replies, Tabby learned that their guest lived in Paris in an apartment that had twelve bedrooms and also had a summer home in the area.

‘Mummy…can I show Madam Bonnard one of your pictures?’ Jake pleaded.

‘If it would not be too much of an intrusion, mademoiselle,’ Manette Bonnard interposed. ‘I collect miniatures.’

Tabby got her first glimpse of the sun lounge since her return and discovered that in Christien’s makeover even her studio had gained sleek storage units and a wonderful mosaic tiled floor. The older woman enthused at length over the two tiny canvases she was shown and was disappointed to learn that both were earmarked for a client.

‘I must not take up any more of your time, mademoiselle,’ their visitor finally sighed with regret.

‘I like you,’ Jake told Madame Bonnard.

Tabby was unsurprised that Jake was so taken with the older woman for Manette Bonnard had demonstrated flattering enthusiasm for her son’s company and had made no attempt to hide her appreciation from him. But she was dismayed when their very emotional visitor looked as though she was about to go off into floods of tears again.

‘Are you sure that you feel well enough to drive?’ Tabby prompted with concern.

The older woman kept her head down and patted Tabby’s hand in an uncertain but apologetic gesture. ‘Please don’t worry…you don’t understand…I am sorry,’ she muttered in confusion before she broke away to hurry across the road and take refuge in her car.

Tabby was relieved to see that the Mercedes drove off at a slow speed.

She darted back indoors intending to ring Christien back and then she fell still, the excitement in her discomfited eyes dwindling. Why did Christien always do what she least expected? She had been angry and hurt when she’d last seen him and she had believed that she could forget their night of passion and write it off as the result of her own foolishness. His arrogant assumption that he could make her do what she did not want to do had offended and mortified her and persuaded her that it was not possible for her to try to rewrite the past with Christien. But in the space of a week, Christien had turned all her expectations upside down.

He had gone to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate that he had accepted her right to live in Solange Laroche’s cottage. He had transformed the humble little dwelling into a sophisticated and trendy property bristling with luxury extras. Of course, he had had no right to do that, but it scarcely mattered now, did it? After all, if she was planning to seek a permanent home elsewhere, she would be selling the cottage back to Christien and it would have to be at a price that did not take account of the improvements that he had made at his own expense.

In retrospect her own weakness with Christien seemed unforgivable and inexcusable. She had not told him about Jake. She had let her heart and her hormones carry her away and she had slept with him again. The Jacuzzi big enough for two suggested that Christien was very keen to repeat that experience. Only Christien had no idea at all that she was the mother of a three-year-old, who had already contrived to leave a muddy footprint on one of the slinky cream sofas. And she was not just any single parent either, she was the mother of his child. How was she to break that news to him? Especially with Jake under the same roof? She gathered Jake into a hug and rested her chin down into his dark silky curls. Her eyes were stinging.

‘Our clothes are in the van,’ her son reminded her. ‘We’ll go out and get our cases.’

Having fetched their luggage in, Tabby called Christien back.

‘Why did you leave me on hold?’ he demanded.

‘I didn’t…I must have pushed the button wrong,’ she answered, her voice a little thick.

‘I was worried that some disaster had occurred…What are we doing tonight?’

He was the only guy she had ever met whose voice could make her melt like ice on a griddle. ‘Would you come here? About eight?’

‘Do I have to wait three hours?’ he groaned.

‘Yeah…sorry.’ She wanted Jake in bed and safely asleep before Christien arrived.

‘We’ll dine out-’

‘Eat before you get here,’ Tabby advised tensely.

‘Eat? Before eight in the evening?’ Christien demanded in disbelief.

‘Stop being so French. I…I’ve got something serious I need to discuss with you.’

There was a short, intense silence.

‘So have I…the outrageous concept of dining before eight and being told to feed myself when I’ve offered to feed you,’ Christien quipped.

‘I’ll see you then…’ Tabby drew in a slow, deep, steady breath and finished the call.

She unpacked one suitcase, two boxes of Jake’s toys, bathed her son in the Jacuzzi and watched him fall asleep over the simple supper that she made. She carried him up to bed and tucked him in before taking a quick shower. Then she trawled through two more suitcases before she found the casual khaki skirt and white camisole top she wanted to wear. She put on make-up, which she usually didn’t bother with. She wondered why she was bothering when the very last thing Christien was likely to be doing after she broke the news about Jake was notice her appearance.

A bag of nerves at the prospect of the confrontation that lay ahead, Tabby paced the floor. She froze when she heard his powerful sports car pulling up outside. Way beyond any concept of playing it cool, she opened the door and watched him stride towards her: a breathtakingly good-looking guy in a lightweight pearl-grey designer suit.

Christien sent her a slashing smile that had a devastating effect on her defences. ‘I’m not stupid, ma belle. I’ve worked it out. You think you’re pregnant!’