He had come here for one purpose only. To put the place behind him. To put it on the market as he had always said he would do.
To get rid of it.
It was the logical thing to do. It always had been. He hadn’t asked for this place, hadn’t sought it out, hadn’t chosen it. It had just happened to him. Owning it as he did.
So, getting rid of it, taking the money, was the obvious thing to do.
So why haven’t I?
The logic, now, was even more compelling, ineluctable, necessary. After all, his conscience was clear. Completely clear.
I offered it to her and she turned it down.
Turned down not just themas, but turned me down with it.
He felt the hollow gape wider yet, but something was filling it now. Something worse than the hollow. The hollow was an absence, but this… This was a presence. An unbearable one. An agonising one.
And suddenly, with a clenching of his fists buried in the pockets of his jacket that was keeping at bay the chill of the mistral, he knew what he would do. Must do.
After all, had he not already done elsewhere what he must do? This would complete it.
For one lone, last moment he let his gaze rest on the garden in front of him before looking around and across the frontage of themas.Then, with rapid and resolute footsteps, he headed back to his car and drove away.
He was done with themas.
For themaswas done with him. Just like Arielle was.
Arielle opened her voicemail. The call had come in while she’d been expounding French irregular verbs to the adult education class she taught, which, together with the modest income from her father that had funded her at themas, was funding her there in England. It was strange to be back in the university town where she’d studied music, but it was the only place in England that she was familiar with. Other than London, where her father had lived and worked, and London was way out of her price range. Here she could afford to rent a small flat and pay for the use of a nearby church hall, which came with a piano, so she could give piano lessons. She had also applied to start training to be a teacher so she’d be able to teach French and music at the local school.
It was not the life she’d wanted, but she knew she had to make it work. Perhaps, one day, she’d be inspired to do something more. But in that moment, she was still too raw. Far, far too raw.
Raw with loss. A loss that the passing weeks had shown her was far, far worse than she had once thought it would be.
Because what I had, is gone and will never, can never, return. And what I had was far, far more than I realised I had.
She felt her heart clench, pain filling it. With a heavy sigh she held the phone to her ear. She frowned. The voicemail was from her lawyer, the one she’d spent money she could not afford on when she’d contested her father’s will. What could the matter be now? Surely Naomi wasn’t trying, again, to get hold of the money her husband had dared to bestow on his daughter, not herself?
But the message was quite different. And when she heard it Arielle could only stare, blankly and disbelievingly. But with something flaring inside her that had not been there before.
Lycos sat in the cocktail lounge of the hotel on Park Lane. It was where he usually stayed when he was in London, for it boasted a casino on the top floor. This time he hadn’t been near it. It held no attraction for him. His mind was focussed on one thing only.
Would she come?
Tension wracked him. It reminded him of his early days, setting out to make his way in the world with his card skills before he had learnt to step aside from all emotion. Before he’d learnt how to move into the mental state that detached him from the world and generated the intense focus of concentration necessary to his purpose.
But detachment, now, was impossible. Too much was at stake. More than he had ever thought would be or could be. Because that was what this was, he knew, with a scything inbreath. A stake higher than he had ever made in all his life. Memories bit in him, like the bite of a wolf. Back in Paris, all those weeks ago, he’d made a stake he’d thought must surely be irresistible.
But it lost me what I most wanted.
What he had most wanted then.
But now?
His thoughts cut out. His gaze fixed on the entrance to the cocktail lounge.
Arielle got off the bus. Autumnal chill hit her at once, raw and unpleasant. A world away from the summer’s heat of Provence. She could feel emotion churn inside her as she walked into thehotel. A sudden, vivid memory of the Viscari Paris assailed her—the evening she and Lycos had dined with the Derenzes.
She looked around the lobby, wondering where the cocktail bar was. Then she saw it and made her way to it. She stepped inside, aware that her heart was thudding like hammers in her chest.
