Chapter Seventeen

 

THE GENTLE CHATTER of birds in the trees filled the barmy air. Le Vent was behaving for the morning as Berne watched her brother Erique pull into the campsite in her truck.

He’d been working overtime to earn his promotion and it felt like months since she’d seen him. He cocked his head as he came to a stop. She knew she must look different to him. She felt different. Terrified but hopeful. After Vivienne had told her she didn’t need her, Berne had not felt the sting she’d expected. She felt free. Last night, this morning, Pippa’s words all made her feel as though there was a true possibility now. Maybe. 

“Ça va?” Erique pulled her into a hug, his strong arms squeezing her with such care. She relished it. “You look happy?”

Berne shrugged but she knew her eyes twinkled. She knew by the suspicion in his that he could tell.

“If I did not know better, I would say—ah.” The answer to his questions wandered out with Babs and Rebecca. “So she returns!”

Berne smiled, following his gaze. Erique had always liked Pippa. It probably helped that she was incredibly attractive but then, who wouldn’t be attracted to her. Pippa’s dark tousled hair flopped into her eyes, her toned legs, and a—

“Cha-cha, who are you drooling at now, hmmm?” Babs said with a scowl.

Berne snapped her gaze up from where it had rested and met Pippa’s eyes. Amusement filled her smile and Berne cleared her throat as she focused on Erique.

Erique grinned down at Babs as she launched herself into his arms. “Always you, you know this.”

Babs kissed him on the cheeks and jumped back down. “Look who sailed down the river. Seems her heart paddled her back home, non?”

Erique flashed his best grin at Pippa. “Oui, oui . . . and she has grown some womanly wiles . . .” He wolf-whistled, earning a laugh from Berne. “Bonjour, Mademoiselle Saunders,” he purred, bowing low.

Pippa giggled and gave a curtsey. “Bonjour, monsieur, you are looking as handsome as always.”

Erique stood up straight and proud, then gripped her into a hug. “You are staying for a while?”

Berne saw a flicker of panic in Pippa’s eyes. “I have to go back and talk to someone . . . but I hope so.”

Erique smiled with true warmth at her. He wouldn’t ask her too many questions. He seemed content that she was here. His gaze moved to Rebecca who loitered at the back. 

“Bonjour,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Hi, I’m Rebecca . . . Pippa’s long-suffering friend.”

She clasped his hand instead of offering a kiss and her French screamed Englishwoman. Erique’s eyes twinkled as he gave her hand a squeeze.

“It is terrible to suffer such beauty,” he said with his best charming grin.

Even Rebecca seemed won over by his words. Her laugh rumbled out of her lips and she kissed him on the cheek. “For that you get one.” She held up a finger. “Only one or Babs will pout.”

Babs nodded. 

Erique shook his head at Babs and turned to Berne. “Maman wants you to help with the table. Most of the decorations are up already.”

“Ah oui,” Berne answered. “We go now?”

Erique motioned to his truck and Babs, Pippa, and Rebecca climbed inside. Berne helped him to stow the boats on the trailer. She knew he was watching her. 

“So she returns?”

Berne smiled but kept silent.

“For you?”

Wasn’t that the answer she would love to be sure of? “That remains to be seen . . . mais . . . she says so.”

Erique cocked his head. “You do not believe her?”

Berne walked around to his side and lowered her voice. “She returned with a fiancé, a man. She tells me that she loves me still but there were many scars when she left.” She sighed. “I have no doubt in her love. It is whether it will overcome her fears.”

“What happened to her?” Erique frowned, his eyes filled with concern. “You were so happy.”

“Her sister.” She could hear the venom in her voice. “She made Pippa believe that a complaint would be made to the police about me. That the contract would be cancelled.”

“They would not have believed it.”

Berne yanked at the strap in her hands, the boat groaned under it. “We know that but a nineteen-year-old girl did not.” Meeting his eyes, she blew out a breath. “And she confirmed that she was there . . . at the roadside.”

“So it was her?” Erique looked up to the truck. His eyes filled with loss, with pain. “It . . . it . . . must have been hard for her to process.”

“I do not think she has.” She held onto his arm and squeezed it. “I think she has mixed it up with leaving me.”

Erique rolled his large shoulders back. His usual way of trying to shake off emotion. “I can get a number, a good one. He helps many of the officers. He helped me.”

Berne smiled at him. “If she stays for long enough, I would be thankful for the help.”

They finished securing the straps and checked the boats over. Berne hesitated as she looked at the passenger side door. Fear rippled through her. 

“Ça va?”

“What if she does not leave this man?” Berne shoved her hands in her shorts’ pockets. “What if she goes back to him when we arrive in Ajoux.”

“He is there?” Erique’s eyebrows shot up.

She felt a swirl of excitement, nerves, worry, fear. “They bought the old cottage.”

Erique slunk to one side, his hand rested on his hip. Normally it would be resting on his gun. Her main vision of him was in uniform. She’d wanted to be just like him. “You and Papa are working on that house?”

“Oui.”

He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Merde. You know how to tangle the webs, non?”

Berne laughed and she hopped into the passenger side as Erique jumped in and started the engine.

“I am not a lunatic like Babs . . . mais . . . I will try not to be too boring for you,” he said over his shoulder to Rebecca.

“I’ll take safe and seat belts,” Rebecca answered with a curt nod. “Safe, slow, with seat belts.”

Babs’s “Non?” made everyone laugh as they made their way through the gorgeous landscape.

Berne watched Erique drink in the scenery. He spent so much time in the city, working long, long hours, that it was a pleasure to see him come home. No matter where he was stationed, the Ardèche was in his heart just as it was hers.

“Oh, wow!”

Rebecca’s awe energised them all as they pulled into the town. It was some event this year. There may have been only a handful of aging residents living in Ajoux but they knew how to put on a show. Every building in the square was decked with lights, flowers, and banners. Paper decorations hung from strings tacked between buildings. Tables were spread out, gazebos over for shade, and a large pile of firewood was stacked in the middle for the evening.

“How is work?” Berne whispered to Erique as they got out of the truck next to the house.

“I got the promotion.” He smiled. “I have not told them yet. Leave it to dinner, oui?”

Berne squeezed him. “You deserve it. I had no doubt.”

She knew that she said such things often to him, but the smile from him told her it never grew old. “Merci, it will be nice to move off the front line now.”

An understatement, but nevertheless.

“Berne,” he said before she went to join Pippa who leaned against the wall watching. “Does she know?”

Berne shook her head. Her hand ran over the small of her back. “I am not sure what to say.”

Erique’s unimpressed look made her flinch. “The truth, Bebe.”

“Not even Babs knows.” She glanced at Babs who gazed up into Rebecca’s eyes as she waved her arms about with enthusiasm. “She thinks I travelled with Vivienne.”

“Well, it is a time for celebration. Let them celebrate your triumph over the odds, non?”

Berne shrugged. He knew her far too well. She had managed to keep it from Pippa last night but should it . . . whatever it was between them . . . continue, the truth would come out. She’d hated the way Vivienne had recoiled from her the first time she saw it. It had reduced her to tears. It had shattered her confidence. She wasn’t foolish. Pippa may have the same reaction. She tensed. She didn’t think she could bear that same look in Pippa’s eyes.

Berne found those bright, twinkling eyes on her. A smile on Pippa’s lips. Pippa wasn’t Vivienne. It would feel good to let it out. She rubbed her back again. At least she hoped. 

 

I WATCHED ERIQUE stare after Berne as she rejoined us and caught a glimmer of sadness in his eyes. Wanting to ask him what had caused such a thought, I went to go to him only for him to shake his head and turn away.

“Is Erique okay?”

Berne must have been daydreaming as she offered a blank look and a smile.

“What is going on in that head?” I asked, brushing her hair away. “Is Erique alright?”

“Hmmm?” Berne focused on me, breaking from her thoughts. “Oui, he is well. He has gotten promoted. He wishes to surprise my parents.”

“But?”

Berne squinted. Where was she off in her thoughts?

“Berne . . . is something wrong?” That familiar spike of fear panged through my stomach. “What’s the matter?”

She led me away from Babs and Rebecca, who had been roped in by an elderly neighbour to hang his lights. She took my hand. “May I tell you something?”

“Of course. You can tell me anything . . . anything at all.” I squeezed her hand, my words whooshing out.

We rounded the back of her house and Berne lifted up her shirt.

“Um . . . are we going for exhibitionism?”

Her chuckle lightened my panic but the solemn look in her eyes brought it straight back. She took my fingers and held them over her spine. I’d felt a ridged smooth section in the night but had been quickly distracted. It was a long ridge.

“At the beginning of the year, I work with my father on an old chateau,” she said. “He was on a scaffold and he had . . . well . . . a moment.”

“Another stroke?”

Berne shook her head. “No, the doctors said it was not so but he stumbled. I pulled him away from the ledge but my foot slipped.” She met my eyes. “I fell. I was in hospital for a while.”

Cold sweat soaked right through my t-shirt. “You fell? How far? How long were you in hospital?” More to the point, why had I been hiding in England and not with her? Why hadn’t I been there?

“Three months.”

Nearly choking on thin air, I fought to swallow. “Three months?” I needed to sit down, my legs were trembling like a violin string.

“I was . . . I was unconscious.”

Now I did sit down, thank goodness for the patio chairs. “Are you alright?” Stupid question because she sat right in front of me and I was pretty sure I’d given her an intense physical examination. “Long term?”

“Oui, the scar was from the glass mais it missed everything . . . and I have had more scans . . . nothing permanent.” She smiled, sitting next to me. “Only, I can’t write or drive anymore.”

“Why those two?”

Berne shrugged. “They think that it will come back in time. For now, I do not feel safe to be in charge of a vehicle.”

I grabbed her and held her to me, wanting to fix it all for her somehow. Why hadn’t she said something? “Is that why you wanted the lights off?”

Berne nodded.

“You think I would find any part of you unattractive?”

She flicked her eyes away.

I scowled. “But someone else said something . . . right?”

Her silence said more than enough.

“She’s wrong. Whatever that poor-excuse-for-an-actress said, she’s wrong.” I felt the stress turn to irritation, more sweat stuck my t-shirt to me. “You’re gorgeous, Berne Chamonix.”

I made her turn around and lifted up her t-shirt. Oh wow, that was one big scar. How had I missed that?

It was still pinky-white like scars often are and stretched most of the way up her back, up her neck and into her hair.

It looked mean.

The thought of her landing on glass, lying there hurt made my heartbeat accelerate.

Flashes of the man on the road took over. His eyes locked on mine. The blood pulsing from his neck. His quiet, calm reaction to the fact he was lying there, dying. It terrified me. I’d kept talking to him. Stupid things in French, I talked about how much I loved the city, how much I loved Berne. Anything not to actually bring attention to the fact that I was pressing my shirt to his neck as he bled to death.

“It is in the past now,” she whispered, bringing me back to her. “I am healthy now.”

I took slow, deep breaths. This was about her hurt, not mine. Pull it together, Saunders. I wanted to ask if she’d hurt her head, if that was why she couldn’t drive. I wanted to know why she was unconscious, how long for, and just what damage had been done. Oh, I felt sick now, sick and clammy and like I’d faint at any moment.

“Does Babs know?”

Berne shook her head.

“She will so kick your ass,” I managed. Well done, Saunders, make her feel guilty about it, why don’t you.

Berne nodded.

“I’ll protect you.” Because I was sooo scary.

She leaned in and kissed me. I slid my arms around her neck and caressed the scar. I wanted her to know I loved her, every inch. She moaned as I did it. Ooh, it was sensitive. I could work with that.

Her mother cleared her throat beside us.

I jumped.

The chair leg dropped off the stone patio. I lurched and ended up in a heap on the lawn.

“Bonjour, Pepe,” Berne’s mother said with a hint of laughter in her voice.

I pulled myself up from the grass and tried to regain some dignity. Why I was bothering, I wasn’t sure. I had all the grace of a peanut.

“Bonjour, Madame Chamonix.”

Her face, lined and ever smiling, was contorted with her attempt not to burst into laughter. The giveaway was her white puff of hair wobbling with the internal giggling. At seventy-five, she still had the spirit of a joyful teenager and was still quite the looker herself. Combined with her bubbly nature, Madame Chamonix was poles apart from my own mother.

“You are ever the suave seducer, Pepe.” Her laugh rumbled through her words. “I can see why she finds it so hard to resist you.”

It didn’t matter how many times I was teased by the woman, the inbuilt need to run and hide from a parental unit who had caught us pulsed through me.

Berne’s mother was as laid-back as you could get with every facet of life. Nothing at all fazed her. She found my discomfort hilarious.

“Yes . . . well . . . it’s all in the jumping technique.”

With Berne sniggering and her mother breaking into laughter, I found myself grinning. How different it was here, with them. How much I loved it.

“I see that you come to experience the celebration.” Berne’s mother clapped her hands. “It will be the first of many, non?”

“Maman—”

Her mother tutted. “I see that she is here in heart. I also see that ring on her finger.” She beamed at me. “I knew you would see sense.”

At least someone had. “Thank you for the faith.”

With a quick nod, she tapped Berne on the arm, ordering her into the kitchen.

Berne shot a nervous smile my way.

“I will be back later. I promise.”

Her eyes lingered on mine for a few seconds and she disappeared into the house.

With grass stains on my knees, I wandered back onto the street. I waved to Rebecca, who dropped what she was doing to come to me. “You going to see him?”

“I am,” I said, attempting to pick blades of green out of my knee cap. How did they get so stuck? “The sooner I leave that behind, the sooner I can start anew.”

Mean, Saunders. That sounded cold, mean, and ungrateful.

“Er . . . It’ll be better for him too.”

“I’m coming with you,” Rebecca said, taking off her rings. “I’ll hang back outside but no way am I letting you do this alone, you got that?”

Apart from removing jewellery as though she were about to duff someone up, I was so relieved that I wanted to sing with it. “Yes, please.”

“Settled.” Rebecca motioned to Babs and gave her a thumbs up.

Babs nodded and yelled, “Bonne chance,” at the top of her lungs.

“Wow, you speak your own language or something?”

Rebecca nudged me as we walked up the huge hill. “Nah, we were just talking about you. Babs is right behind you too.”

Didn’t that bring a lump to my throat? Ah, did I love these ladies. “I’ll keep that in mind when I’m stammering like an idiot.”

The hill was steep and I was unfit. Plus I was oddly tired for some reason. “So things seem to be going well?”

Rebecca bumped my hip as we walked. “This is about you, Pip. I’m really proud of you.” She laughed and I glanced at her. “It’s good to see you so . . . whole.”

It was a good word, whole. Was that just down to Berne? “I get flashbacks sometimes, nightmares.”

“From Catherine?”

“From everything. You know those dreams you get when something chases you?” I swore I was the only person whose issues could be represented in a nightmare by a giant sock. I spent my nights being pursued by knitted footwear. I really did need locking up.

“Yeah?” She didn’t. Rebecca never remembered her dreams. She was one of those annoying people who, once her head hit the pillow, she was snoring for Gloucester.

“Liar.”

She shrugged. “Bet you didn’t get any last night?”

“That’s because I didn’t sleep—” I clamped my hands over my mouth. She chuckled at me, her loud bellow drawing the attention of two elderly men strolling on the other side of the road.

I waved at them, plastering a cheery grin on my face. “Yes, yes,” I muttered at Rebecca, thumping her arm to stop her cackling. “I had sex, why is that so funny?”

“It’s the fact it meant so much that your eyes glazed over when you said it.” Rebecca wagged her finger at me. “You are completely gone on her.” She grinned. “It feels great to see it.”

I took her hand and kissed her on the cheek. “I love that you know me so well.”

“Me too.”

We rounded the corner to the cottage. My stomach seemed like it dropped out and made a sprint for it down the hill.

“Oh shit.”

Rebecca gripped my elbow. “It’s okay, I’m here. I’m not leaving your side.”

I gripped hold of her, bending at the waist. I was winded. How could I be winded just by seeing them. Rebecca held on, grounding me.

“You can do this, Pip. You’re not alone anymore.”

Panic soared through me. My shirt felt like I’d dived into the Ardèche. Nope, I was going to pass out. It was official. I was the biggest wimp on the planet.

Rebecca rubbed my back. “You have to face them. Just think about how you felt this morning, yeah?” She pulled me up to look into her eyes. “Focus on how good you felt being yourself.”

“Myself, right.” I swallowed. My throat decided it had forgotten how to, again. Wonderful. I’d face them all with grass stuck to my knees, soaked through, stinky, and dribbling because I couldn’t swallow. Suave, Saunders, really suave.

Rebecca held me by the shoulders. “You can do this.”

I could. I could do this. It helped me get my feet moving and I stumbled towards the group waiting for me.

Doug, my parents . . . and Catherine.

Oh shit.

“Deep breaths. You’re not alone. You love Berne right?”

I nodded. Why did the ability to swallow seem to be so intermittent these days?

“Do you love her, Pippa?” Rebecca turned me to look at her. “Do you?”

“Yes . . . Yes, I do.”

Catherine was there. She looked mad. She looked livid. Oh boy. I couldn’t face her.

“Tell me what you said this morning,” Rebecca whispered. “Tell me out loud.”

Panic seemed to have taken up residence in my soul, right alongside fear. Why were they all here? What were they doing here? Why were they waiting for me?

Oh shit, shit, shit.

“Pippa, tell me.”

I focused on Rebecca’s eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m gay. I love Berne. I want to be with Berne.”

“Do you?” Now she sounded like she was recruiting me for the army. “Is that what you want?”

There was no doubt whatsoever. “Yes, I want that, I want to be with her.”

Rebecca smiled. “Then, whatever they say, let it go. This is for you, not them, live for you.”

“You’d make a great coach,” I mumbled, in a half-hearted attempt at humour. My brain seemed wired to go on strike at any moment.

“Phillipa, why are you loitering there? Where are your manners?” My mother’s voice ripped through my resolve until my knees wobbled.

Rebecca squeezed my elbow. “I got your six, Saunders. You can do this.”

“Good morning, Mother.” Strained, polite, terrified. What was I doing? I couldn’t face them. I couldn’t tell them.

Rebecca squeezed my shoulder as I dared meet my mother’s eyes.

“Is it?” She tapped her watch. “It’s two pm, young lady. Where have you been?”

Why did young lady make me want to run to the nearest bedroom and barricade myself in. Deep breath, slow breath. Calm. “With Babs, Rebecca and . . .” I rubbed at my throat. Say it. Be a grown-up. “Berne.”

Catherine’s eyes narrowed.

Rebecca gripped my elbow harder.

Doug and my father seemed oblivious to it all. They were too busy chatting to one of the workmen.

“Well, that’s wonderful,” my mother said. “Why haven’t you called? I know that hen weekends are all the rage these days but really, in your condition.”

I felt like I was walking into battle, striding into the hail of verbal bullets being fired off by an overwhelming enemy.

Rebecca held fast, not a word, only her physical presence.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Doug said, walking towards me. “You look like crap.”

Incoming at twelve o’clock. Verbal volley from the fiancé.

“You look fine, Pip,” Rebecca whispered. “Berne loves you just the way you are.”

She did. Berne loved me. She knew how much of a complete coward I was and she still loved me.

“I’m going in,” I whispered back. “Cover me?”

Rebecca mock saluted, which made me giggle. It was a nervous “what am I doing, save me” giggle. Feeling slightly unhinged, I strode out to face foe number one. Doug deserved an explanation, a private one.

He ducked to kiss me. I turned so he found my cheek.

“We need to talk,” I managed.

Ugh, I hated those words, they were never good.

“Alone.”

He nodded, casting a glance at my mother. “Of course.”

I led him towards the house, glancing over my shoulder. Rebecca ignored the glares from mother and Catherine, instead launching into a conversation with my father.

Her voice cocky and confident and every inch pouring love out towards me.

She believed in me.

I could do this.

“Look,” Doug said as we got into the house. “I know what you must think. I wanted to tell you. It was a horrible mistake.”

“It wasn’t your fault. The way I acted, it would make anyone think that way.” I felt for him, he’d obviously realised that I wasn’t pregnant, thank goodness.

“No, I take full responsibility for this,” he said, running a hand over his stubble. “I didn’t realise that she’d contacted you.”

Blinking a few times at him, I tried to figure out what that meant.

Did he mean my mother? “Who?”

Doug took my hand. “I knew something was wrong when you left that day in Paris. Then I got a call from her. I knew then. Pippa, I never meant to hurt you.”

Did I walk through the door into another book or something? I wandered over to it and peeked outside. There was Rebecca, my parents, and Catherine. It all looked the same.

“Pippa?”

I turned back and frowned. “What did you do to hurt me?” Okay, so he’d been a bit of a patronising twit on the phone and there was the whole securing the heir stuff, but he hadn’t been that bad.

Doug sighed and paced around the creaky floor. Why he was in a shirt and trousers in this weather I didn’t know. “Fine, I deserve it. Make me say it.”

Either he was crazy or I was. More likely me but completely confused, I managed a “huh?”

“Brandy,” he said as though that revealed everything.

“It’s a little early to drink, Doug.”

He folded his arms, then dropped his chin to his chest. “Oh, you don’t know, do you?”

Whether it was too early to drink? It was two o’clock in the afternoon.

“Are you telling me you’re an alcoholic?” I’d seen no signs. How much did Doug drink when he was out of sight? Why hadn’t I spotted it? He didn’t seem like he had a problem.

“No,” he grunted. “Brandy. The girl in my office.”

Who called their child Brandy? I guessed someone rather fond of the beverage?

“What’s the matter with her?”

His words, “mistake” and “I wanted to tell you” filtered in. I tried not to smirk. “You slept with a woman called Brandy?”

Doug burst into tears. He clutched me to him and sobbed into my shoulder like a little boy. “It was a mistake but she’s pregnant. I have no choice, Pippa.”

He was breaking up with me. “You’re marrying her?”

Why was that funny? It was no laughing matter. Do not snigger, Saunders.

Doug sobbed harder, soaking my already sticky t-shirt. “I don’t want to. She won’t get rid of it. She’s threatening to tell the papers, think of the scandal.”

My, my, the golden heir of Fletcher enterprises knocking up a girl called Brandy. Golf club dinners would never be the same. Stop it, that’s too funny. Nope, no laughing.

A gross thought chased away the mirth. “How long?”

Doug held on tighter.

“Doug?”

“Just after you resigned. You were crazy. She was there.”

That made me feel better. We hadn’t . . . well . . . since then. If I’d felt sympathy before, I definitely didn’t now. Way to show support, numbskull.

“She the only one?”

He nodded into my shoulder. “Pippa, I adore you. I don’t want to marry her. I promised you, I can’t go back on that.”

There was no way that Doug could survive cut off from his parents and no way that Fletcher enterprises would continue to thrive without him.

“Doug, I love you, even though you are a complete idiot.” I stepped back from him, pulled his ring out of my pocket, and handed it back. “You are released.”

His mouth opened and closed a few times but then he hugged me again. “You are trying to do what’s best for me.” He held onto me, confusing me once more. “You’re such a good person.”

“Er . . . thanks?”

Doug looked me in the eyes. “You can have this place. I know what it means to you . . .” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “I just need you to sign this and I’ll sign the deeds.”

He’d certainly come prepared. The matter of me signing a gagging order and I got a house.

A gagging order?

“Doug, who am I going to tell?”

“You can’t tell anyone,” he said. His eyes wide. “My parents don’t even know. I need . . . I need us to have split up . . . for a reason that . . . um . . .”

“Doesn’t make you look bad?” I said, desperate to hold the grin back. He was so flustered it was cute. How was it that only now I realised he felt more like an annoying brother?

“You understand . . . thank goodness . . . will you?” He held out the gagging order again.

Thankfully, it was in plain English. I wasn’t to go selling my story to the press about him or contacting him ever again. That bit hurt. I loved the daft clot. He’d been a part of my life for eight years.

“Pippa . . . I love you . . . please . . . please know that.”

“Why don’t you tell them I’m gay,” I said, happily signing the form. “You could say that I left you for . . . say . . . Berne?”

Doug shook his head at first but then rubbed his chin in thought. “That could work. I mean, you always dress so shabbily. You hang around with Rebecca . . .”

Nice touch there, Fletcher. Shabbily, wonderful. Thank heavens I wasn’t breeding his rugby team. I waited until he handed me over the signed deeds to the house. He’d had them put into English for clear reading. One thing with him, he was fair in business.

“And, I am leaving you for Berne,” I said, tucking the papers into my back pocket. “Doug, it’ll work because I’m in love with her.”

Now he was staring, then he laughed. “You almost had me convinced there.”

“I should, it’s the truth.”

He scowled. “What?”

Before he could tear the deeds back off me, I held up my hand. “I signed your waiver, which I think you will see at the bottom, only counts if you leave me alone too and I get this place.”

“I don’t give a crap about the wreck. Why would you do that to me?” He put his hands on his hips. It looked more camp than threatening.

“Doug, you knocked up an office girl. Neither of us seems capable of fidelity.”

He sighed and bowed his head. “How did it end up in such a mess?”

I nudged his shoulder. “We had eight years. I love you to pieces but maybe we just need different things now.”

“In your case, a woman,” he muttered.

“In your case, office girls.”

He sighed. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do without you. I hate that we’ve ended up exchanging contracts.” He stared up at the ceiling. “Who will I call when I need to talk?”

Did we talk that much? When had I become a valuable part of his life?

“You got me through fending off that merger, you made me believe in myself.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, which I could see was to hold back more tears. “How will I cope without your voice to make me smile?”

Tears brimmed up in mine at his sweet words. “You don’t have to tear me out of your life. You know where I’ll be. You can always call.” I stroked his arm, feeling strange that I was the one in control for the first time.

“What about the contract?”

I held his shoulders. “I’m about to go out there and tell my parents and Catherine that I’m in love with another woman. You really think I want to confess my life to some tabloid?”

He sucked in his breath.

“My thoughts exactly. You’re a part of me.” I straightened out his shirt and pulled out a hanky from my pocket for him. “I know when you’re married to Brandy,” oh what a name, “then you’ll do your best to be honourable.”

He blew his nose, loudly.

“If you don’t love her, don’t marry her.”

He slumped down onto the stairs. “I have to, my father—”

“Will yell at you and then get over it. It’s not like he hasn’t done the same thing himself, remember?”

Doug scowled and then hung his head again. “I cheated on you and you’re the one consoling me.”

I sat next to him and leaned against his shoulder. “I cheated on you too.”

He glanced at me. “Her?”

I nodded.

He squeezed my knee. “That why you didn’t want to come back to France?”

I nodded again. “The only reason I left her was because Catherine threatened to ruin her life.”

We both stared at the doorway. Eight years and we’d imploded like one of my mother’s soufflés.

“Guess it’s a good thing I’m not pregnant, huh?”

“Right. What kind of parents would we be?” He shook his head. “Can I really still call you?”

“If you understand that I’m with Berne and will always be . . . then yes.”

He smiled and nudged into me. “You said that to me, remember?”

I tapped him on the nose with my finger. “That was before you knocked up Brandy.”

Huffing out his breath, he stared down at the contract. Then proceeded to rip it up. “I don’t want her. I do want to know the child though.”

“You’ll make a great dad.” I got to my feet. “And you may want to leave before I launch my thunderbolt at them.”

Doug didn’t need telling twice, he kissed me on the cheek and fled like a gazelle from a lion.

I half wished I could flee too. The door looked pretty good closed, shutting them out.

I stared down at the deeds. I was a homeowner. Yay me. I tucked them in my back pocket and clung to the thought. With one last glance around the gutted shell, I pulled open the door. Hopefully I wouldn’t resemble it after confronting my personal ogre.

I glanced up at Catherine.

Oh shit.