VALENTINE KEEPS HIS WORD. He hands over to Alan and I don’t see him again. It’s been two weeks and not a word.
Not that I expected one. Not after all I said.
But, Christ, I miss him.
I can’t focus. I can’t find joy in anything. I’ve given up my hunt for a new car as speaking to Harry only reminds me of Valentine and our track day. The swing from fun, high-octane fun, to...to this. Emptiness. I feel as though there’s a gaping hole inside that nothing can fill.
And as I stand before my sister’s front door, a bottle of red in hand, and hear the chatter on the other side, the shouts from the children, even more shouts from Fee as she calls after them, a bittersweet smile lifts my lips. At least I’m not eating alone this afternoon, in my empty house that feels far too big and far too hollow with just me in it now.
The door swings open. ‘What the hell are you doing just standing there, Liv? Get in here and help me organise this rabble before I end up cremating the roast.’
My sister is already striding down the corridor back into the kitchen and I close the front door.
‘Hey, Liv.’ Pete, her husband, walks up to me and I hand him the bottle, kiss his cheek.
‘Hi, Aunty Liv!’ Billy, my four-year-old nephew, bounds up to me and grabs my leg for a hug before frowning up at his father. ‘Daddy! Lucy keeps telling me to shut up.’
‘Lucy, stop telling your brother to shut up!’ he calls out towards the living room. ‘And will you all come and say hi to your aunt Liv.’
‘Hi, Aunt Liv!’ comes the chorused reply, minus the bodies.
Pete gives me an apologetic grimace. ‘You sure you want to eat in this mad house.’
I laugh as Billy races off again, his short blonde curls bobbing. ‘Positive.’
‘Can’t say I’m not glad to see you. Fee’s going out of her mind for some adult company. Apparently, I’m just not good enough.’
‘You’re plenty good enough, hubby darling,’ comes her singsong retort from the kitchen. ‘But I need words with my sly big sis.’
I frown at Pete and he simply shrugs. ‘Damned if I know, but I’ll sort you both drinks and get the kids setting the table. That ought to take her stressometer down a notch or two.’
‘I heard that,’ Fee calls over her shoulder as we enter the kitchen. Steam fills the air as several pans bubble on the stove, and the smell is divine.
‘You were meant to, my love.’ Pete walks up to her, grips her by the hips and plants a kiss on her cheek. The gesture is so small but so sweet, and the pang in my chest returns. The same sensation I’ve had over and over these past two weeks, every time I see a couple holding hands, talking intimately over a dinner table, taking a walk...
‘Gin and tonic, ladies?’
‘Please,’ we say in unison and he disappears into the dining room where the antique drinks cabinet from our old family home lives.
‘Shall I open a window?’ I say.
‘That would be great, thanks.’ I squeeze past Fee in the galley kitchen and reach over the counter to the latch on the window at the end.
‘So, when were you going to tell me about Valentine Boretti?’
I almost slide down the window and faceplant on the countertop.
‘What? How? What?’ I turn to face her, my brows knitted together, and I know there’s no colour left in my face. It’s all sunk to the pit of my stomach, which is now twisted up into a tight ball.
‘Gossip Central had a lovely little shot of you leaving a football match together a few weeks ago. I would have grilled you sooner, but you’ve been impossible to get hold of.’ She’s navigating the pots and pans but her focus is entirely on me and I’m struck still, my body awash with the pain of it, of what I’ve done and what a mistake I’ve made.
She turns away from the cooking, her eyes narrowing on me. ‘Jesus, what’s wrong, Liv? You look about to...’
Too late. The tears I’ve been fighting fall freely down my face and she’s across the room in seconds, her arms around me.
‘Here we go, ladies, two—what? What happened?’
Fee turns to Pete, my head tucked into her bosom. ‘Shoo, no, leave those, then shoo.’
I hear the glasses hit the surface and the soft click of the door closing. I rise my head on a sob-cum-snort and she pulls me back into her chest.
‘It’s all right, honey. Whatever it is, just tell me.’
I shake my head, hiccupping as I struggle to speak, to control my voice long enough to get anything out.
‘Bugger.’ She quickly releases me. ‘One second.’
She rushes around the kitchen, turning off the heat, pulling things out of the oven, a quick swoosh and then she’s back and I’m wiping my face on my sleeve, trying to dry it even as the tears keep falling.
‘I messed up, Fee.’ I suck in a shaky breath. ‘He told me he loved me and I... I basically told him he was ridiculous, that the idea of an us was ridiculous.’
‘Wait. You need to back up a bit. Start from the top. Who is he to you?’
I tell her everything—how we met, minus the club detail, the boardroom visit, the fantastic strides we’ve made with the charity thanks to him, the people he introduced me to, the football, the week that followed and...the track day...the argument.
‘So, let me get this straight...’ she squints at me ‘...you told him that he shouldn’t live his life constrained by what happened to his wife, and by what-ifs over the future, but you did the exact same thing to him.’
‘I didn’t.’ I shake my head at her and she walks away to take up the drinks that Pete left.
‘I didn’t.’ I repeat into her silence, only it’s much weaker.
She comes back to me and passes me my drink, takes a sip of her own as she eyes me with compassion and a look that says, You bloody did, you bloody idiot.
‘Don’t look at me like that.’
‘Like what?’ she says over the rim of her glass.
‘Like I’m an idiot.’
‘You have to admit, you are a bit of an idiot. Don’t you think it makes you a hypocrite?’
‘A what?’
‘You pushed him away because of your past, because of what you went through. You’re letting your past dictate your future. Just as you accused him of doing.’
My gin catches in my throat. ‘I—No...’
‘Yes! And he told you he loves you, just the way you are. Actually loves you.’ Her brows lift to the ceiling as she throws back a gulp of gin, swallows it audibly. ‘And my God, sis, is he hot.’
‘He’s also twenty years younger than me.’
She frowns. ‘I’m sure he’s not.’
‘Okay, sixteen, but it’s just as bad.’
‘It’s less than the gap between you and Nathan.’
‘I’ve done that argument to death already with myself, with him. I don’t need to go over it again.’
She studies me quietly for several moments and then she places her glass down on the side, takes my hand.
‘Look, Liv, I love you and heaven knows you’ve worried me silly this past year, but part of you had a point.’
‘Part of me? How generous of you.’
She ignores my gibe as she squeezes my hand. ‘Look, I know you and Nathan loved each other, but surely you must see how he changed you, how you changed yourself being with him. It wasn’t healthy. You spent years trying to get Dad’s approval, another two decades hanging off Nathan’s. And now you have a guy telling you he loves you just the way you are...’
‘And? What does that have to do with me having a point?’
‘Correction. Had a point. Because it seems to me you’ve lost your way again. You were all about living each day to the full after Nathan passed, living for the now and making the most of the time you have.’
‘And that’s what I’m doing...or at least trying to.’
‘No, you’re not. Right now, you’re cutting your nose off to spite your face, because you think some time in the future he’s going to regret this, that he’ll commit to you and twenty years down the line wish he’d run a mile.’
‘Christ, I’ll be sixty-five and he’ll be forty-nine.’
‘And? Is that really so shocking? Have you forgotten that there’s fourteen years between Pete and me?’
Her words dance over my heart, a lightness lifting inside.
‘Don’t you think he has a right to decide on what future he wants for himself and if he wants you in it?’ She cups my cheek, her eyes searching mine. ‘Don’t you owe it to him—Christ, don’t you owe it to yourself to give this relationship a shot and let the future land how it may?’
‘God, Fee, when did you get to be so wise?’
‘Hey, I’ve popped out four kids, and I think they take a few brain cells with them each and every time.’
I place my glass on the side next to hers and pull her to me, squeeze her tight. ‘Thank you, sis, thank you.’
‘Does this mean you’re actually going to listen to me for a change?’
‘Yes! Yes, I am.’
‘Bloody hell, look at that!’
She yanks me away from her and points to the sky through the window.
‘What?’
‘You missed it! There was a giant pink pig flying through the air.’
‘Shut up, Fee!’ But I laugh, hard, delirious almost, and it’s overtaken by a child’s gasp.
Billy’s head is poking through a fresh gap in the doorway, his mouth agape, his blue eyes dancing.
‘Daddy, Daddy...’ he’s already racing off ‘... Aunty Liv told Mum to shut up!’
Fee throws her hands in the air. ‘God, what I’d give for some privacy in this house!’
‘You love it really,’ I say.
She looks at me, her cheeks flushed pink, her eyes bright. ‘Wouldn’t change it for the world, sis. Now, you need to go and get your man.’
‘It’s waited two weeks; it can wait a night at least.’
‘You sure about that?’
‘No. Not really.’
‘Go. There’ll be more Sunday dinners, but something tells me there’s only one Valentine Boretti.’
My smile trembles on my lips as my eyes well up again. ‘Thank you, sis.’
‘Any time.’
I hug her again, then head for the door. ‘Sorry, Pete, kids, Aunty Liv is on a mission, but I’ll see you again very soon.’
And I’m out through the door, racing to my car and to his place at a speed he would approve of, even if every second feels like an eternity. I’m desperate, so very desperate to tell him how I feel. To tell him how sorry I am that I lied. To tell him everything.
So desperate that it takes me several attempts to get my words out straight when I arrive at his apartment building and need to ask the security guard for access to the underground car park. The very same security guard that likely witnessed our extracurricular activity the other night—oh, God, that really doesn’t help.
‘I’m sorry, say that again. Who are you here to see?’
Okay, so if he did witness it, he isn’t making any show of it.
I take a calming breath. ‘Valentine Boretti.’
He nods. ‘I think Mr Boretti is away at the moment. Let me just check for you.’
My fingers dance over the steering wheel, my entire body doing a crazy little jig in the driver’s seat.
Please be home, please be home, please—
‘I’m afraid there’s no answer. I think he’s been away a few days now.’
‘Dammit!’ I slap the steering wheel, startling the guard, and quickly throw him an apologetic smile. ‘Any idea where he might be?’
He shakes his head, his smile sympathetic. ‘I’m afraid we’re not privy to that information. You could try calling him?’
‘Yes, of course.’
I hardly want this conversation over the phone though and after how I treated him...there’s no guarantee he’ll even answer. No. I have to see him. Face to face.
I reverse back out of the entrance and think. There must be some way of finding out where he is...
Someone who will know...or at least be able to find out...
When I decided to come to Paris and deal with Autumn Beckham directly rather than having one of my employees do it, I foolishly used it as a reason to escape London and the tempting proximity of Olivia.
It was pretty clear after Alan received my report that Olivia wasn’t about to chase me down and tell me she was wrong, and I’ve had to accept it.
Only I haven’t.
When I received a call from her office just yesterday, I had the foolish thought it would be her. The common sense telling me that she would use her mobile to call non-existent.
And I can’t stop thinking about her. It’s like having a fire lit inside and not being able to snuff it out, but without its instigator it continues to flare, unabating, and hell, I’m confused. Not just confused. I feel like a part of me is missing.
It’s similar to losing Layla, only then I was so tormented by guilt, grief; you name it I felt it. But with Olivia... I don’t know. How is it possible to feel so much for someone and have them deny it? Have them feel the opposite almost?
Damned if I know, but I was wrong, and I do have to accept it because I can’t function like this. Going through life on autopilot when she’s shown me what it feels like to truly live again. To actually love again.
‘Thanks so much for joining me today, Valentine.’
I turn away from Autumn’s balcony and the sun going down on the Eiffel Tower, the warming hues of the picture-perfect sunset doing nothing for me.
‘You’re welcome.’ I smile to mask my thoughts and she returns it, combing her hands through her smooth black hair, shaking it out.
‘I know I’m not the easiest to deal with at times—no, you can say it, it’s fine.’
I merely nod.
‘But having you with me, protecting my back so to speak, I appreciate it.’
‘All part of the service.’
‘I guess, but how about I take you to dinner, an extra thank you? I’m ravenous and you must be after that poor excuse for a lunch. I swear they think if they put out too much of a feast, us supermodels will get fat just from looking.’
I chuckle. ‘It’s fine, honestly.’
She pouts at me, and I recognise the little glint in her eye that’s offering more than dinner. And as much as she appeals—she’s funny, interesting, nowhere near the celebrity bitch the media currently have her pegged as—I can’t do it.
Not when I know my mind will be elsewhere, on someone else.
‘You sure I can’t tempt you?’ She toys with the neckline of her sheer white blouse and I shake my head.
‘I’m going to call it a night. I have a few things to deal with.’
I don’t, but she doesn’t need to know the truth.
‘Fair enough.’
She leads me to the door. ‘If you change your mind, you know where I am.’
She reaches out for my arm, leans in to give me a brief peck on the cheek, her eyes searching mine for the come-on that’s not there.
‘Have a good night, Autumn.’
‘You too, Valentine.’
I sense her eyes on me as I walk to the lift, call it and step inside. When I turn, her door is closing and I breathe a sigh of relief. To be alone. Free to be as miserable as I feel.
Though as the doors open on my floor, I contemplate turning back and going for a walk—the idea of being in my empty suite appeals even less than dinner with Autumn—but I can hear the phone ringing from inside. Strange. It’s late.
Would Autumn really be so desperate to do dinner that she’d call me and ask again? Unlikely.
I let myself in just as it cuts off and I accept that they’ll call back if it’s important. I go to the minibar and pour a whisky just as it starts to ring again. I reach out for the receiver, raise it to my ear.
‘Bonsoir?’
‘Bonsoir, Monsieur Boretti, it is Victor from Reception. There is a lady here to see you.’
‘A lady?’
‘Oui, monsieur. Madame Olivia Carmel.’
I turn back towards my door as though I can see through it, all the way down the grand staircase to the even grander reception desk. He cannot be serious.
‘Monsieur? Are you there?’
‘I’m here.’ I swallow. I can’t believe it. I don’t want to. To believe it would let in hope.
‘Shall I send her up?’
‘Oui...merci.’
‘Very well, monsieur.’
The phone cuts off and I stand there, the receiver in one hand, whisky in the other, stunned still. There’s only one reason she would be here...one reason alone.
But after a fortnight of nothing, would she really fly to Paris to see me? Or is it more that she’s in town on business, found out I was here too, and is bored?
I stride for the door, open it and wait.
Finally, the lift doors open and there she is, breathtakingly beautiful in a pale pink sweater, jeans and trainers. No coat. She looks like she’s run all the way here. Her hair has come loose from its ponytail, clinging to her flushed cheeks, her eyes over-bright and glistening in the lights from the lift. But she doesn’t move, doesn’t react.
The lift doors start to close and she leaps forward to stop them, the sudden animation waking me up.
‘What do you want, Olivia?’
It’s all I can say. I don’t want to let hope in, not again...
She walks towards me, her eyes wary, her hands wringing in front of her. She has no bag, nothing to suggest she’s travelled here from another hotel. She wets her lips, her nervous aura not unlike that very first night I saw her in the club. And how things have changed since then...
‘Can I come in, please?’ She pauses before me, so close I can smell her familiar perfume and it clutches around my heart, wounds as much as warms.
Silently, I step aside.
She walks around me, her eyes lost in the view beyond the glass. ‘Wow, you must have the best room in the hotel. Mine’s pretty nice, but this view...’
She gestures to my private garden terrace and the Eiffel Tower beyond, all lit up in gold. But it doesn’t matter how spectacular the landmark is, she’s the one I’m wrapped up in, starved of her for a fortnight. I’m hungrily taking in every detail even when I shouldn’t.
‘Can I get you a drink?’
I raise my whisky and she eyes it with a frown.
‘You drink now?’
My lips twitch at the corners as I take a swig. ‘Don’t worry; it’s not all down to you. Though you did teach me not to be ruled by my fears any more, so maybe it is.’
Her eyes stay fixed on the drink and I see her throat move as she swallows. ‘I’m good, thank you.’
‘Suit yourself.’
I walk to the balcony doors, slide them open and step out, a sudden need for air that isn’t tainted with her scent driving me there.
‘Valentine?’
I don’t turn. I can’t. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You came all the way to Paris to tell me you’re sorry?’ I lift the glass to my lips, take a small sip this time as I watch the tower twinkle in the distance, the traffic below, the people. Anything but her.
‘Not just that.’
I hear her trainer-clad feet against the hard floor contending with the bustle of the Parisian streets below. ‘You’re here on business too, how coincidental.’
‘No. I’m not here on business. I came for you.’
My pulse skips a beat, my fingers clenching around the glass as hope flutters to life inside. It doesn’t mean she loves you though. A trip to Paris is a drop in the ocean for someone as wealthy as her, money she’d willingly spend to enjoy the kind of sex we once did.
I shake my head. Still don’t turn. ‘I’m sure there are many men out there willing to treat you how you so desire in the bedroom, Olivia. You don’t need me for that.’
‘Do you really think that’s why I’m here, Valentine? For sex?’
I turn away from the view to face her, my eyes clashing with hers. ‘Why else would you be here? You made it quite clear you don’t love me, so tell me, Olivia, what else could you possibly want?’
Her eyes and lips tremble as she holds my gaze. ‘I want to tell you face to face that I was wrong, that I lied to you...’
She walks towards me and I step back. I can’t bear her being any closer without crumbling and I see the hurt that flares in her eyes at the move, feel the sight of it crushing my resolve.
‘Valentine, I’m here to tell you that I love you. I loved you when I told you I didn’t. I love you more than I’ve ever known it possible to love someone.’
The words echo through my skull, beat at my heart. Insistent. Incessant.
‘Please, please tell me you can forgive me.’ Her voice is soft with her plea, strong with her desperation. ‘Tell me that you’ll give me another chance, give us another chance.’
‘How do I know you won’t wake up tomorrow and change your mind?’
‘Tomorrow I want to wake up in your bed, in your arms, and the next and the next, for as long as you’ll have me. I pushed you away because I was scared. I was the one stuck in the past, fearing the what-ifs, of regrets that you may have down the line. I was being a hypocrite.’
I shake my head, the lightness spreading inside. ‘Olivia Carmel, are you telling me you were wrong?’
Her lips quirk into the first hint of a smile. ‘Don’t let it go to your head.’
My eyes narrow. I take in all that’s vibrant about her and see the love that shines so clearly in her face and I know she means it. Every word. ‘What changed your mind?’
‘I did. With a little help from my sister, Fee, and a dollop of encouragement from Alan. He was the one who found out where you were and reported back to me.’
‘The lying devil; that was why he called. It had nothing to do with missing contact information for Louis and Adele.’
She gives me a sheepish smile.
‘Olivia?’
‘Yes?’
‘Tell me again.’
Her smile grows, her eyes sparkle. ‘I love you.’
‘Again.’
She steps towards me, takes the whisky from my hand and places it on a side table. ‘I love you.’
‘Once more for good measure.’
Her chest brushes up against me. ‘I...’ she rests her palms on my shoulders ‘...love...’ she brushes her lips against mine, her lashes fluttering closed ‘...you.’
Her eyes flick open. ‘Sir.’
My chest expands with so much love, so much warmth, and I clutch her to me, swing her in the air. ‘I should punish you for taking so long to realise it, Kitten.’
‘Punish me all you like, because it won’t change a thing. I am one hundred per cent besotted, head over heels in love with you, Boretti, and if you don’t take me to bed right now and make good on that promise, it’ll be you taking a spanking.’
My laugh fills the space, hers too. ‘You’re on.’