‘Tom wants to meet you.’
‘Tom?’ Sophie was lying on the floor in front of the gas fire, propped up on her elbows. She looked up from the book she was reading. ‘Tom who?’
‘Tom Baxter. Mybrother.’
‘Ah… the invisible brother. The one who’s been floating around Europe forever.’
‘Well… it doesfeellike forever.’ Hannah flopped on to the sofa. ‘Anyway, he’s back home now. After a year of working in a restaurant in Paris washing dishes and working his way up to peeling potatoes, he’s decided he wants to become a chef. He’s come back to go to cooking school in London for a year or two – the same college that Jamie Oliver went to, apparently.’
‘I thought he was into fast cars.’
‘He’s been playing with cars since he was a baby,’ Hannah agreed. ‘The faster the better. I think Daddy’s still hoping he’ll end up taking over the family business, except he’d probably end up changing its name to “Car Doors”, which was what he called it when he was about four and it became the family joke.’
‘Cute. Did he think your dad sold only car doors?’
‘No. But the business is called Auto d’Or, which means “Golden Car” in French. Daddy wanted something that sounded European and posh so people would know where to go for their Bugattis and Lamborghinis. Tom knew he sold cars so he put it together and made it “Car Doors” and that might have been the first time he made people laugh. And that became his mission in life. He loves making people laugh because that means they’re as happy as he always seems to be.’
‘And that’s why he likes cooking, too? To make people happy?’
Hannah laughed. ‘He couldn’t even boil an egg when he left home. He did a degree in media and communication because he had a burning ambition to be a commentator for Formula One car races.’ She was still smiling. ‘No wonder Daddy’s grumbling about trust fund money going up in smoke but he’ll be there to support him. He’ll probably help set up his first restaurant. Anything to make Tom, the golden child, even happier. My big brother might flit from one passion to another but at least he’s got them. Look at me… doing a degree in liberal arts. It’s the degree you do when you just think it would be fun to go to uni for a few years. I have no idea what I want to do.’
The note of frustration in her best friend’s voice was enough to prompt Sophie to close the cover on the book about Stonehenge she’d been absorbed in, doing research for an upcoming essay for her history major. She pushed herself upright into sitting cross-legged.
‘You’re only twenty-two – there’s plenty of time to decide what you want to do, and a liberal arts degree will give you all sorts of directions you can go in. If all else fails, you can end up being a teacher, like me. How good is it that you included education studies? We might never have met, otherwise.’
The young women shared a fond glance. They’d sat beside each other in that very first lecture and by the end of the two hours they’d both known they were going to be good friends. Now, about to start their final year, they had moved out of the halls of residence and were sharing a tiny flat.
Adulting, they called it. Serious stuff when you had to do all your own cooking and cleaning and pay the gas bill. Less serious were the activities that Hannah dragged Sophie along to, like salsa classes and yoga and rollerblading in the park. She made life fun and Sophie loved her for it. She was the one who remembered when the gas bill was due and wrote the deadlines for Hannah’s assignments on the wall calendar in their kitchen. They were complete opposites, really, but they fitted together like two sides of the same coin and, by now, they knew they would be friends for life.
‘So…’ There was a note of determination in Hannah’s voice. ‘Back to what we wereactuallytalking about, Tom wants to meet you. He said he’s heard so much about you for the last couple of years that he feels like he knows you already. I said I’d bring you to the party tomorrow night.’
‘What party?’
‘It’s just family and a few friends. A welcome home party. For Tom. And Luc, of course.’
‘Who’s Luc?’
‘Tom’s bestie. They’ve been joined at the hip since they were about fifteen. He’s like a member of the family, really. I’ve always called him my “other brother” and my parents love him like another son. Dad says it was only because of Luc that Tom didn’t go completely off the rails.’ Her face sobered. ‘He had a rough patch that’s been kind of buried by my family. They like to pretend it never happened but it did. He got bullied at school and then in with the wrong crowd and started using some gateway drugs that were heading towards being pretty heavy. I think it might have been worse than I ever got told but I was scared to ask.’
Sophie’s eyes widened. ‘But he’s okay now?’
‘Oh, yeah… I’m quite sure he hasn’t touched any hard stuff for years now. Probably thanks to Luc watching out for him. I was only about ten or eleven but something happened and I think Luc got Tom out of really serious trouble. My parents changed his school when they found out what was going on and he ended up going to the same school as Luc and the rest, as they say, is history. They’ve been besties ever since.’
‘Did Luc go to uni with Tom?’
‘No. I don’t think he could afford to. He was brought up by a single mum who apparently had big problems with both alcohol and drugs, on one of the worst housing estates in Camberwell. He got a job as a motorbike courier. They flatted together, though, and when Tom decided he wanted a gap year after he graduated, he talked Luc into backpacking around Europe with him for a while. Luc’s half French, so I think he was quite keen to go. Tom says he was speaking French like a native by the time they’d been in Paris for a few months. He was only five when he came to theUKbut it was all there, tucked away in his brain. How good would it be, to be bilingual?’
‘Can Tom speak French now too?’
Hannah laughed. ‘I doubt it but it probably didn’t matter. He can get away with anything with that smile. Everybody loves Tom.’
* * *
Sophie could see why, when she met him the following evening at the Baxter’s gorgeous house in Dulwich, one of London’s more prestigious suburbs. He could have been a twin, not just her best friend’s brother, with the same wavy brown hair, aristocratic nose and a smile that was uncannily like Hannah’s. So was his laugh and thejoie de vivrethat gleamed in his hazel eyes. She felt as if she’d known him for years already and maybe that was why she wasn’t afflicted with her usual level of shyness.
It was certainly still there when it came to interacting with Luc Moreau, though. He was tall and dark and had an intense gaze that Sophie found more than a little unsettling. That black hair, those almost black eyes. She’d known about men like him since she’d been a child. Her mother had taught her well and she knew how dangerous they could be.
Perhaps it was the blatant admiration in Tom’s eyes that was making such a difference. Or that hewasthe golden child with the dark shadow that Luc made beside him. Whatever it was, Sophie found herself laughing more than usual. Drinking more champagne than was wise. Talking about her passion for history in general and for Stonehenge in particular right now.
