Vicki's Work of Heart (29 page)

Lucky me – I was seated between Christophe and Louise, with François and Marie opposite. There were two narrow tables running the length of the dining room, with the bride and groom seated at the centre of theirs. And, for once, there was no Jeanne.

The food was presented in spectacular fashion, and I had been specially catered for with a seafood risotto.

François was, of course, most interested to hear how my painting was progressing, raving generously about the ones he’d seen. ‘And what are you working on at the moment,’ he asked.

‘Well,’ I began, instantly aware of Christophe turning towards me to hear what I had to say. ‘It’s in your field of work, François – a horse and rider.’

François let out an overloud ‘Aha!’ followed by. ‘I definitely want to see that. I might have some competition, eh?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I smiled, conscious that Christophe was poised to ask a question. I lifted my glass. ‘Could you pour me a little more wine please, François?’

‘So, where did you find your inspiration for the horse and rider?’ Christophe asked.

‘When I went out for a drive, one day.’

‘Really? Where did you find them?’

‘Oh, I can’t remember exactly. You know how terrible my sense of direction is.’

‘Perhaps it was Henri Maigny – was he fat?’

I shook my head.

‘Then I think you must have had a long drive. Maybe you went to St Léonard, huh?’

I stopped rolling the hem of my napkin and gritted my teeth. Sooner or later, he would see it. I took a deep breath and turned part-way towards him. ‘Actually, it was…’ I couldn’t bring myself to say the word, so pointed my finger at his chest instead.

He turned and smiled in what I took to be a rather self-satisfied way, damn him. ‘You painted a picture of me?’

‘Yes.’

He leaned over and his breath brushed my cheek, as he whispered, ‘I know.’

I nearly cricked my neck as my head spun towards him. He was close, very close, his gaze moving from my eyes, to my mouth and back again. Damn him, he was still flirting with me. I frowned. ‘What do you mean, you know?’

‘I came over yesterday to collect my dinner jacket. I was hoping to see you, instead I saw your work.’

My mouth had popped open, so I snapped it shut. ‘That’s despicable,’ I hissed back.

‘What is?’

‘You sneaking around, looking at my work, without telling me.’

‘I’m telling you now.’

I could feel the heat of his leg, and his hand was only a hair’s breadth from mine. ‘Yes but…’

He cut in. ‘You can’t accuse me of sneaking around my own house. If you’d been there, I would still have come to your studio.’

I knew he was right but it didn’t stop me from feeling exposed. ‘You could have said something earlier instead of pretending you didn’t know anything about it. Still, I suppose you’ve become quite accomplished at keeping things quiet.’

Further along the table, Alain stood up and began tapping his glass with a spoon. There was a rumble around the room as everyone turned and settled themselves into position for the speeches. I took the opportunity to move away from Christophe and adjust my chair. He too changed position, turning his chair so he was behind me but practically leaning over my shoulder to see the speakers.

Much of what was said went straight over my head. You could blame my dodgy grasp of the language but more likely, it was the way my skin tingled with the nearness of Christophe. I wanted to move further away, but Louise’s chair was blocking me.

I picked up snippets in the speech about the couple’s deep love for one another and even the announcement of a child to be born in the spring. Wow! They’d moved fast. Of course, one assumed it was Gérard’s baby. A shudder ran through me. I really didn’t need that kind of complication in my life.

As soon as the speeches were over, and it was polite to do so, I stood up to leave the table. Christophe caught my hand and rose to meet me. He was still smiling, God rot him! I looked down at our hands and briefly at him. I was not smiling. ‘
If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go to the Ladies.’

He let go of my hand and I escaped to one of the bathrooms. By the time I emerged, the band was playing again. As I expected, The Happy Couple were swaying in the middle of the floor and gradually others joined them. I sidled over to Marie and surreptitiously scanned the room for Christophe, but he was nowhere to be seen. As the music changed to something more lively, I said, ‘Come on, Marie. Shall we dance?’

She laughed. ‘Not me. I don’t dance.’

‘No?’ I hated to be at a party and not dancing, so I ventured out on my own, joining Colette, who was as lithe as a serpent on Speed.

Two songs later, I caught sight of Christophe, leaning against the wall watching me. I had no idea how long he’d been there. The next time I looked, Louise was leading him into the throng. I began dancing in retreat, but Louise was determined to join us. Okay, it was a big room, I didn’t have to dance with him or even look at him. All the same, my skin was prickling from his presence and the expert way he was manoeuvring Louise to the music. Colette, beside me, was vamping it up like Tina Turner, and flashing bedroom eyes at a tall, goat of a man, who was wearing a bright green bow-tie, and looked easily two decades younger.

When the number ended, I shot off to the bar for a reviving vodka-tonic. As I raised the glass to my lips, I watched as Christophe walked into the room and headed straight for me. Just what I didn’t need. I took a gulp and placed the glass back down on the bar, but kept hold of it for support. He put a hand on my arm and leaned towards me. ‘Vicki, what I’m going to say now, may not change the way you feel about me but I still have to tell you.’

I raised my eyebrows in an if-you-must kind of way.

He went on, ‘I know you saw me with Sylvie because I’ve seen the photographs. And I know how it might have appeared.’

I concentrated on my glass, rather than him.

‘My uncle is a very honourable man. He believed Sylvie had wronged me and had no right to marry his son. He totally misread her motives and has been threatening to disinherit Gerard. But he was wrong. Sylvie is absolutely the right person for Gerard. I knew that, months ago.’

I swallowed.

He continued. ‘I’ve been acting as go-between for them all. On Sunday, I finally made a breakthrough with Alain. When you saw me with Sylvie, she was giving me the good news.’ He loosened his hand on my arm as he said, ‘You accused me of snooping round my own house. How do you think I felt about you spying on me?’ Then he walked away, leaving me shuffling from one foot to the other.

I took my drink and slumped into the nearest chair, my eyes darting from side to side as I chewed over this latest news. Did he really think I’d been spying on him? I wasn’t sure which was worse – his arrogance or how my actions reflected on me. Replaying his words in my mind I let out a little groan. He had been doing the decent thing – thoughtful as ever – and I’d seen the absolute worst in him. I’d very nearly accused him of it to his face, too. I leaned forward and held my head in my hands. It was a natural mistake to make, wasn’t it? I nearly imploded with shame as I imagined how he’d have taken my suggestion the baby might be his.

Sometimes in life you just have to
suck up the shame and admit to being wrong.

I may not have been deliberately spying on him but I’d definitely drawn the wrong conclusion.

Yes. The wrong conclusion. A glimmer of light filtered through the gloom of my mortification. What had he said? What I’m going to say now, may not change the way you feel about me. How did I feel about him?

A kaleidoscope of images flashed across my mind and my heart pitter-pattered in my chest.

Well, I knew the answer to that. The question was, did I have the stomach for the large slice of humble pie I was about to eat?

François strode up to the bar and ordered a bottle of red wine, before spotting me. ‘Aha! my beautiful young friend. What are you doing sitting here, drinking on your own?’

I smiled up at him. ‘Just having a moment of reflection.’

‘You should be dancing.’

I stood up. ‘You know François, you’re absolutely right. And that’s exactly where I’m going.’ I took a deep breath followed by a bracing gulp of V&T and walked as calmly as I could back to the ballroom. I tucked myself against a marble pillar and scanned the room for Christophe, finally spotting him dancing with his aunt, amongst the rest of his family.

I watched him, just like he’d watched me. After a moment he looked up and held my gaze briefly. The tune must have been the longest on record but throughout it, I’m pretty sure my intentions were telegraphed across the room to him. Even though his dance movements compelled him to turn away from me, he looked back every time he had the opportunity. Each time, I was still watching him.

The moment the music ended, he kissed his aunt’s hand and turned to face me. He stood and waited, his head tilted in expectation. It was my big moment. I set off, knees wobbling with each step…each step nearer to those heavenly molten chocolate eyes and a man who’d turned my world topsy turvy – but in a good way. As I reached him, he scanned my face, picking up my apologetic smile, which may also have been a little starry-eyed. It was a good job he caught hold of me, or my legs might have given out. As he pulled me close, and the band started another foot-tapping number, he pressed his mouth close to my ear and said, ‘You wanted to dance jive, huh?’ I leaned into him and he dropped a hot kiss against my temple. In the next moment, he had caught hold of my hand and was moving me round to the music, launching me away from him and drawing me back in. I couldn’t stop giggling, it was the best kind of dancing and he was superb at it, guiding me like a pro. Round we went, close and then apart. I didn’t want to stop.

When eventually we did, Christophe threw me back over his arm, like he was Patrick Swayze and I was Jennifer Grey. Swear to God, I might have died happy in that moment. Then he pulled me back up against his chest and looked down into my eyes. ‘Did you like that?’ he asked.

‘I loved it!’ I shrieked, slipping my arms around his neck and feeling hot, hot heat radiating between us.

‘Come on, I want to take you somewhere quiet.’ He said, looking meaningfully down at my mouth, before steering me away from the dance floor.

Every organ, every vein, every fibre in my body was supercharged. Okay, so the exertion of the dance was partly responsible but the promise of being alone with Christophe had me at fever pitch.

He guided me through the milling party guests to his apartment. He struggled to unlock the door with one hand, because I was selfishly clutching and kissing the fingers of his other hand. Finally, the key turned in the lock and he drew me inside and pushed the door closed. The only light came from a small lamp in the corner of the room. Running his free hand down my arm he caught my other hand and looked down into my face. Very quietly, he said, ‘You told me you were not ready, if that’s still the case…’

Was I ready? Hugh Jackman and Rafa Nadal in a hot tub couldn’t have dragged me away. What’s more, I knew right then, that ambition or no ambition, I wanted Christophe – for keeps. He was a good man.

I leaned up towards him and felt the catch of his breath, before I pressed my lips against his.

I’d never felt more ready in my life.

Also by Rosie Dean

Does your life lack fun and love? Does work consume your time? Does your mother try to fix you up with her priest's middle-aged nephew?
Millie's does – so she takes a grip on her own future and draws up a plan to find Mr Right.

When the first guy who floats her boat, Josh Warwick, doesn't meet the criteria on her wish-list she moves on to wine merchant, Lex Marshall, who ticks all the boxes. Sexy, rich and unable to keep his hands off her, he seems like the man of her dreams. But when Millie faces danger and betrayal, she wonders if her dream man might not be Mr Right after all.
So, who will be...?

Read the opening chapters, now…

Millie’s Game Plan

Chapter 1

‘Life doesn’t always turn out the way you plan,’ as Sandra Bullock said in my all-time favourite romantic comedy. After watching the movie (on average) four times a year for the last decade, you’d think the message might have filtered through. I still had a lot to learn.

You could say it all started on the last Thursday in May, when I belted into Spume Seafood’s reception with a dozen giant, helium-filled, purple pilchards floating in my wake. I was there to deliver F.A.B. Marketing’s design proposal. Never known to be outdone in the dog-and-pony-show of agency pitches, Graham – my boss – had decided my arrival with a shoal of flying fish would make all the difference. We would stand out from the competition. I suppose I should be grateful he hadn’t got me togged up in waders and fishing hat or – God forbid – a halibut suit.

I beamed at the receptionist to deflect her incredulity. ‘I’m here to see…’

‘Mervyn Jarvis,’ she sighed. ‘F.A.B Marketing?’

‘Yes.’ She pulled a lips only smile. ‘Here’s your pass. Could you sign the book, please?’

I placed my laptop bag on the floor, switched the pilchard ribbons to my left hand and signed. When I looked up, I caught her eyeing the pilchards. ‘Amazing what you can get these days, isn’t it?’ I said, just as the lift doors opened, revealing two men from the competition; one looking smart in a Paul Smith suit but wearing a bright yellow sou’wester with matching gold tie, the other, head-to-toe in pirate gear. Johnny Depp would turn in his Winnebago.

I glanced back at the receptionist who stared impassively back at me. ‘I’ll let Mervyn know you’re here,’ she said.

At the sight of me, The Suit puffed out his chest, whipped off his hat and strutted up to the reception desk. ‘Thanks, Julie,’ he said, handing in his pass. ‘See you again,
soon
,’ he added for my benefit. Then, without another glance in my direction, strode out of the building with his arms held parallel to his body, like he had a coat-hanger stuck in his jacket. Jack Sparrow-legs dropped his pass on the counter and loped out behind him.

It may have been my imagination but I’d swear Julie muttered ‘tosser’ under her breath.

I perched on the fat, padded arm of a reception chair; experience had taught me not to attempt lowering myself onto the actual seat in a pencil skirt. I thought about my pitch. The Spume Seafood brand was up for a revamp. I practised the presentation in my head. ‘We believe the clean, simple structure of this logo speaks of the superior quality of your product.’ That was one of Graham’s favourite lines. We used it all the time. ‘F.A.B. Marketing will get alongside Spume Seafood, take your vision and make it even brighter.’ I’d trotted that one out a few times, too.

Ten minutes later, Mervyn Jarvis emerged from the lift. His eyes brightened when he saw the pilchards; were they daft and were we verging on sycophancy? Yes – but every client wants to believe their project is worth the effort. ‘Millie, nice to see you again,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Love the fish.’

‘They’re all yours,’ I said, about to hand them over then thinking better of it. If he got stuck in the lift doors with those things I could lose the pitch before even launching PowerPoint.

He took me to the boardroom, its walls adorned with framed prints of former campaigns. A couple were F.A.B.’s works of genius, which bolstered me since I intended referring to them in my presentation.

Three of his colleagues sat at the table. I beamed at them until I felt my cheeks freeze when I spotted a familiar face – Rick Williams – late marketing manager of Dream Gelato; a luxury ice-cream manufacturer, former client and, in this case, dating disaster. We’d had an ill-fated coupling at the Good Food Show. I’d persuaded my boss I needed to visit the exhibition to support our new client, Dream Gelato, for whom we’d designed the exhibition stand. My professional relationship with dishy Rick had been developing very nicely, thank you, with the promise of things to come. So I’d taken my primordial desire for him and, with true theatrical talent, turned it into convincing professional zeal. And it had paid off – in so far as Rick and I had shared one too many Manhattan Ice Cream Floats and some pretty fruity moments of intimacy. Believe me, there’s not much room in the back office of an exhibition stand to get jiggy but we’d given it our best shot. It was only when I spilt the dregs of Rum Baba Gelato down Rick’s pristine exhibition suit that it all came to a sticky end. I swear he was channelling Monica from Friends as he yelled, ‘Oh my God! Clean it up. Now!’ It still rang in my memory.

He raised one eyebrow as we shook hands. ‘How are you, Millie?’ Unlike me, he’d been prepared for this reunion.

‘Nice to see you again,’ I said, over the ice-cream medley churning in my brain, before swiftly moving on to his colleagues.

Eager to get started, I strapped my pilchards to the back of a chair, connected the laptop to the projector and hit the ON button. Ten anxious seconds later, up popped the F.A.B. logo on their whiteboard and I was off. And I was good. Audiences didn’t faze me. I’d spent most of my formative years in amateur dramatics and I’d delivered dozens of presentations in my professional life. I like playing to an audience, I know my stuff and I’m good with words. Nine pages in, as I strode up to the screen and gestured confidently at the first batch of figures, there was a sudden and unsettling change in the room. We had us a power-cut. The only glow came from my laptop screen – and possibly my chemically whitened teeth.

‘The generator should cut in, soon,’ Mervyn reassured me.

We waited.

Rick raised the blinds.

We waited some more and Mervyn picked up the phone. ‘Ah, no power, no phone,’ he said.

‘It’s okay, I’ve put copies of our presentation in the proposals,’ I said, lifting the documents I’d been wire-binding at two o’clock that morning. ‘If you’d like to sit over by the windows…?’

After a few murmurs, they moved and I handed out the documents.

‘You’ll find the figures on page twelve,’ I said, my palms starting to sweat. I may be very good with words but unfortunately, I am also dyscalculic. It’s like dyslexia with numbers. To me, every calculation is a riddle. I can only memorise a phone number if I set it to music, but ask me to dial it and I might make several attempts whilst running up the phone bill. That’s why my PowerPoint presentation is connected to a spreadsheet; a very clever, interactive spreadsheet that my lovely friend, Eve in Accounts, has constructed. I can dip into the spreadsheet, follow handy prompts and talk convincingly about how the budget is put together. What’s more, I can impress with neat projections of potential improvements in sales figures over the coming quarters.

Unfortunately, all these smart calculations were only summarised in the proposal; summarised in words and numbers the average corporate bod could understand. I, on the other hand, couldn’t.

My throat began to dry out and my back prickle. A fog was filtering into my brain. I walked smartly over to my laptop and pulled it towards me. The calculations were on screen. I could do this. I would follow the notes in the proposal and fill in with detail from my spreadsheet. Two screens in, and a little orange light began blinking on my laptop. My heart-rate peaked. Hal, at work, had warned me I needed a new battery. I’d just been too busy to fill out the requisition form. Any second now, it would die and I’d be condemned to mathematical dementia. I would be like Levi Roots in the Dragon’s Den, trotting out preposterously inaccurate projections. If only I’d brought my guitar, I could have won them over with Spume Reggae.

I romped through the calculations; terror focussing my mind and my tongue on the detail, before – zwipp! Off went my laptop.

I swallowed.

There was nothing else for it.

I sprang from my seat, clicked my fingers to a catchy rhythm and sang,

‘Spume Seafoods, they do it right,

Spume Seafoods for you every night,

Give yourself a treat, your family too,

Taste and goodness on a plate for you. Alright!’

I struck a pose and held it, waiting for applause. I beamed my smile around the room.

After the eternity of two seconds, Mervyn clapped. He did. He clapped, he smiled and he triggered a ripple of applause from his fish-flogging compatriots.

‘I like that,’ he said. ‘A new, modern edge to our campaign. Let’s make putting fish on the menu – cool. I love it.’

‘Great!’ I said, wondering what on earth Graham and the team would think when I told them their creative direction had gone truly off course. Who cared? Melvyn liked it. Melvyn
loved
it. If my mother had been with me, she’d be giving thanks to Peter, Patron Saint of Fishermen. But since there wasn’t a national Take Your Mother to Work Day, I was off the hook – no pun intended.

Even dishy Rick was smiling, although he may have been re-playing a memory of me licking Cherry Brandy Sorbet from his fingers.

I left on a high, after handing out a pilchard to each of them. Even Julie got one. I insisted. I pressed it upon her enthusiastically. ‘Have a lovely evening,’ I said and meant it. After all, I was pretty damned sure the Spume Seafood gig was mine.

I put my laptop in the car boot, which was already full with the theatrical costumes I’d picked up at eight o’clock that morning. In my spare time I run Hamlets, a youth drama group established fifteen years ago by my late father. We were staging
Grease
in a few weeks, so I had twenty-five circular skirts of varying sizes for the girls to try on at tonight’s rehearsal.

The Sat-Nav estimated my time of arrival as ten minutes past rehearsal time, so I fired up the car and hit the road for
Basingstoke – seventy miles away. It was rush hour. Not a hope. I rang Bob, Dad’s old friend and my co-director. He could start the rehearsal without me.

The radio was honouring National Wedding Week with a selection of romantic tunes prefaced with love stories from the listeners. How sweet. And how lucky to actually locate the love of your life. At twenty-nine, I was still looking.

I arrived half an hour late, just as the company was delivering a flabby rendition of
Summer Nights
. Bob, as musical director, was really only comfortable with the songs – he left the stage direction and choreography to me. I could see, from the chaos on stage, how little they’d remembered of the moves. So it was jacket off, trainers on and straight into action.

It’s odd. We’re led to believe how loose youngsters are with their morals; how quick to leap into each others’ pants and how worldly. Yet try and get one of them to express love on stage and he squirms like a maggot on Spume Seafoods’ fishing hook. Daley Wheeldon, my Danny, contorted away from me as I tried to draw him closer to his
Sandy. ‘Come on, Daley, she won’t bite.’

‘Yes she does,’ his mate Ben grunted. ‘Keep your cock in your pants, Daley.’

Sniggers all round.

‘Please,’ I whined, ‘this is a performance. You have to put on a show. It’s called acting. Pretending. Sandy is the most beautiful girl you’ve ever met, she’s completely turned your world upside down, sent your heart racing, given you goose bumps and you’re remembering all the lovely things you did together over the summer.’

More sniggers and a vulgar gesture from Ben.

I held Daley’s arm and looked up at him. ‘I honestly believe, somewhere under that sweatshirt of yours, is a heart. All I’m asking is that you tap into it, for once. Think of your favourite actress or maybe your soppy old spaniel…’

‘That’s well dodgy.’

‘Shut up, Ben!’ I squeezed Daley’s arm. ‘Dig deep and convince the audience those memories really mean something to you.’

Daley’s shoulders moved in different directions. ‘So long as I don’t have to do that stupid, girly, John Travolta high note.’

‘I’ve already told you, you don’t have to.’

‘So how d’ya want me to look, exactly? Like this?’ He pulled the face of a zombie on Prozac. Ben and everyone else cracked up. When he finally regained his composure, he said, ‘Show us, Millie. How d’ya look when you’re in love? You must have done it loads.’ Sniggers at full blast. ‘I mean you must have been in love loads.’

Loads? I’d certainly been in lust a few times and, occasionally, deluded that I was in love and loved in return. Which reminded me of the only boyfriend who’d ever really broken my heart – Jamie Coxon. He was into sailing, windsurfing and hang-gliding; a real outdoorsy, have-a-go type. His energy was so infectious you couldn’t be around him without feeling life was there to be lived. Unfortunately, he wanted to live it without me and relocated to
New Zealand. And since Jamie, no guy had come close to invading my heart. Which made me realise how misguided I’d been, because I’d never known when Jamie was going to turn up or even
if
he’d turn up. But whenever he did, it had been worth waiting for. What a mug.

So, in response to Daley’s challenge, I delved into my imagination. It was one of my strongest assets. I took a couple of deep breaths. I felt my face relax, a smile tweak at my lips and I half-closed my eyes to look up into the middle distance, my smile widening gently. ‘Ah, those summer nights,’ I sighed, and closed my eyes as I felt a prickling in the top of my nose.