Late afternoon and Rosie was playing with Lucky on the café terrace before going home when she saw Seb and Isabella coming towards her. Damn. She’d been avoiding Seb since Fête de la Musique night, despite knowing she’d been in the wrong, stalking off like she had.
Since then she’d done a lot of thinking about both Seb and Terry. And while she was still not ready to do the grown-up thing and meet up with Terry, she’d acknowledged to herself that everything Seb had said was right. And that she owed him an apology.
‘Hi, Isabella,’ Rosie said, bending down to receive the little girl’s hello kiss on the cheek. ‘It’s nice to see you again.’
‘Can I throw the ball for your dog?’
‘Sure – Lucky-dog would like that.’
As Isabella started to throw the ball for Lucky, Rosie looked at Seb.
‘Once again I owe you an apology,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m sorry – for telling you to butt out and also for storming off. Forgive me?’
Seb shrugged. ‘You were upset – and I’d probably react in the same way if you started telling me how to deal with Zoe.’
Rosie smiled. ‘I wouldn’t dare!’
‘I’m taking Isabella back to Monaco later. D’you fancy coming with us? There’s a new bistro on the beach in Juan-les-Pins – we could have supper there on the way back?’ Seb looked at her hopefully.
‘For me to check out the competition?’ Rosie teased. ‘Sounds good – but I’d rather not meet up with Zoe at the apartment.’
Seb shrugged. ‘No problem. I’ll drop you off by the Café de Paris and you can have a coffee while I take Isabella home.’
‘OK. What time?’
‘Sevenish?’ His mobile bleeped with an incoming text message. ‘Excuse me.’
Rosie watched Isabella playing down by the water with an excited Lucky while Seb scrolled through to the message.
‘Merde! Bloody woman!’
‘It has to be a message from Zoe?’ Rosie said, turning to look at him.
Seb sighed. ‘The woman’s a bloody nightmare. Rosie…’ He paused. ‘Change of plan. Is it possible you can do me a huge favour and look after Isabella for me for a couple of hours? I have to go and talk to Zoe – and I’d rather Isabella wasn’t in the next room because I think I might just kill her mother.’
‘Sure, you can drop both of us on the quay at Monaco and we’ll have a wander around until it’s safe for you to take her home. No?’ she said, as Seb shook his head at her.
‘No. I’ve been told to keep Isabella here with me because Zoe has decided to take off for six months!’
‘What! When?’
‘Leaving tomorrow!’
‘Does Isabella know?’
‘That’s another thing – I have to tell her that her mother has run out on her. Thank God the summer school vacance is coming up – getting her to school in Monaco every morning would have been a nightmare.’
He looked across to Isabella who was now sitting on the beach, her feet in the water and her arm around Lucky-dog, watching the waves. ‘I’ve got a hotel to run – how the hell is looking after a six-year-old going to fit in with that?’
‘You’ll sort something out,’ Rosie said. ‘And I’ll help. Starting now. Come on, let’s go talk to Isabella and then you can get off to Monaco.’
She whistled for Lucky and both Isabella and the dog ran up the beach towards them.
‘Isabella, darling, I have to go and talk to Mummy. You stay with Rosie until I return, OK?’
‘Does that mean I’m not going home tonight?’
‘You’re staying with me for a couple of weeks,’ Seb said. ‘We’ll talk about it when I get back.’
‘OK. Can I have a swing before you go?’
‘Sure.’ And Seb picked her up and swung her round and round before hugging her tightly and gently setting her back down and dropping a kiss on her head.
‘I’ll see you both in a bit. Thanks, Rosie.’ Before she realised his intention he’d kissed her, too. Not on the head. On the lips. Briefly but still on the lips. What the hell did he mean by that?
With Lucky-dog to play with, Isabella was happy on the beach for a while when Seb left, before running up to Rosie.
‘I think Lucky-dog is hungry.’
Rosie glanced at her watch. ‘Well, it is time for her meal.’
‘Can I feed her?’
‘Of course. Let’s go up to the restaurant and find her some food. How about you? Are you hungry, too?’
Isabella nodded.
Back in the café Isabella happily filled Lucky-dog’s bowl with meat and biscuits while Rosie rifled through the fridge in search of something quick a six-year-old girl might eat.
‘You like pancakes?’
‘I can eat lots and lots of pancakes,’ Isabella assured her. ‘At least five – ‘specially if they’ve got maple syrup on them,’ she added, looking at Rosie hopefully. ‘Daddy makes good pancakes – Mummy doesn’t, though.’
‘Pancakes it is then,’ Rosie said, taking eggs and milk out of the fridge. ‘Are you going to help me toss them?’
Isabella giggled. ‘I’m not very good at catching them when they come down. And once, once, I tossed one right onto the light!’
‘We’ll have to be extra careful today then – no way can I reach the light in here,’ Rosie said, looking up at the kitchen ceiling.
An hour later, when she and Isabella had lost count of the number of pancakes they’d both tossed and eaten and the maple syrup bottle was disturbingly empty, Rosie said, ‘Right. I think it’s time you showed me your room in Daddy’s apartment and we got you into bed.’
Isabella insisted on holding Lucky’s lead in one hand and Rosie’s hand in the other as they walked the short distance from the café to the hotel’s kitchen entrance. Rosie, having vetoed using the main entrance for fear of bumping into Terry, just hoped no one would see them taking the short-cut through the kitchen with the dog.
‘Quickly,’ she said. ‘Into the lift before anybody sees Lucky.’
Once upstairs in Seb’s apartment, Isabella ran into her room while Rosie opened the French doors and let Lucky out onto the terrace.
Isabella reappeared in her nightdress clutching a book. ‘Daddy always reads me a story,’ she said. ‘Sometimes two.’
‘We’ll start with one,’ Rosie said, taking the book. ‘Cleaned your teeth? Hop into bed then.’
Settling down on the edge of the bed, Rosie opened the book, but before she could begin to read Isabella said quietly, ‘Mummy’s going away, isn’t she? That’s why Daddy’s gone to see her now. To say goodbye. Will she be coming back?’
Rosie shrugged helplessly. ‘Oh, Isabella, I’m sure she’ll be back – that is, if she really is going away.’
‘I know she’s going away,’ Isabella said
‘Did she tell you that?’
Isabella shook her head. ‘No. But I heard her talking on the phone. And yesterday she kissed me goodbye when Daddy picked me up – she never does that.’ Isabella’s tear-filled blue eyes stared at Rosie, begging for reassurance.
‘Oh, Isabella, darling,’ Rosie said, giving the little girl a hug. ‘Daddy will be back soon. Perhaps he’ll be able to tell you more. I know one thing for sure – actually I know two things. One – he’s not going anywhere and will always be here for you, and two – he’ll be so pleased to have you stay with him. He loves you to bits.’
‘But won’t I get in the way? Mummy is always saying Daddy’s too busy with the hotel to bother with me more than twice a month.’
Rosie took a deep breath. Honestly, what was Zoe thinking telling lies like that to Isabella? ‘No, you definitely won’t be in the way. Now, which story would you like?’
‘The first one, please,’ and Isabella snuggled down under the sheets as Rosie began to read. It wasn’t long before her eyelids were closing and she was asleep. Carefully Rosie stood up and tucked her in before gently placing a kiss on her forehead.
It was nearly eleven o’clock before Seb returned to find Rosie asleep on one of the loungers on the terrace, Lucky curled at her feet.
‘Hey, I’m so sorry,’ he said, sitting on an adjacent lounger and handing her a glass of rosé as she sat up.
‘How’d it go?’ Rosie asked sleepily. ‘Did you kill her and toss the body into the harbour?’
‘It was touch and go but no, Zoe is still alive and off to Indonesia in the morning for six months. To find herself, would you believe?’
‘Isabella knows she’s going away,’ Rosie said quietly. ‘She also thinks you find her a nuisance and that’s why she only sees you twice a month.’
‘Zoe told her that?’
Rosie nodded.
‘Merde. She’s a lying bitch.’
Rosie sipped her drink. ‘So Isabella lives with you for the next six months and then Zoe reappears and whisks her back to Monaco?’
‘No,’ Seb said, throwing some of his wine down his throat. ‘I told Zoe she’ll have a fight on her hands when she comes back. I’m not going to just hand Isabella back. As far as I’m concerned my daughter stays with me from now on.’