“Ari likes anything with calories,” Sebastian replies with a roll of his eyes.
“This is good cheese though. Artisan cheese. Expensive cheese.”
Sebastian seems to consider Luis’s words. “Like that cheese we bought in France. You remember, on our first trip together, where you got steamingly pissed on Bergerac red wine.”
Luis instantly bristles. “I wasn’t drunk. I was pleasantly tipsy.”
“You fell into the Dordogne.”
“An evening swim. What of it?”
“Your arms were still full of the cheese we’d bought.”
Luis crosses his arms over his chest. “You told me that the water gave the cheese a salty expression.”
“I was being nice. I was trying to woo you, after all,” Sebastian replies with a shrug. “I wanted you, even after you ruined three hundred euros worth of Rocamadour.”
“Oh, you’re never going to let me live down that Rocamadour, are you?” Luis explodes. “We can always buy more cheese, Sebastian! Ari’s moving to Greenwich. We can get cheese every damn time we visit her by calling at the market!”
“Will you both please stop talking about cheese,” Ari seethes, gesturing to Reine, who startled awake at the rise in Luis’s voice.
Luis glances down, smiling at Reine warmly and brushing her hair away from her face. He plants a kiss on the girl’s head, before taking a deep breath. “We’ll all make this work,” he says, more forcefully now. “This move. We’ll make it work for Reine.”
* * *
They had made it work, Ari reflected. She’d bought the little house and filled it with things and found Reine a place at a good state school. And for all Luis and Sebastian’s initial complaints, she was certain they were happier with the new arrangement. They had busy lives of their own outside of work and her and Reine, and they were more attentive for the distance. She couldn’t stop them from making Reine a little bedroom of her own in their flat, however.
* * *
“It’s just common sense,” Luis says, as he hangs pink cotton bunting above a little white bed. “You work so much, Ari. She’ll need to stay here with me while you and Sebastian are off at weddings.”
Ari frowns, even though she hears the sense in his words. Her workload is always a cause of concern for her, and she frets about the hours it sucks away from her time with Reine. But what else can she do? She’s a single mother who has a mortgage and bills to pay and a child to raise. Her hands are tied. She has to work, to give Reine the childhood she deserves.
A childhood so different from her own.
* * *
Taking a deep breath, Ari stood, keeping her hand on her stomach to steady herself. She had to think of Reine. She had to cast aside the broken heart Tom had inflicted upon her, just as she had to cast aside the hurt from Sasha’s careless words. She had to be a grown-up, and put her child and career above the considerations of her heart.
Tom was just a man,she told herself, standing taller. There would be other men. There would be other relationships. It was time to admit defeat and move on. Ari took another deep breath, biting hard on her lip. She’d been on occasional dates in the past few years but hadn’t allowed anyone to get too close to her fractured heart. She’d always thought staying single was best for Reine, and she’d been so busy with her work. But now it was time to stop making excuses. The truth — the stark, unwavering truth — was that she’d stayed single out of loyalty and love for Tom. Tom, who’d proven himself undesiring of her affection and fidelity. Tom Miller, who was really Tom Somerset, who was about to marry Sasha.
She had to let go of him, and the memory of him. She’d been wrong, earlier, when she’d thought their relationship had been for nothing. It hadn’t been.
She had Reine.
With another deep breath, Ari moved quietly into her room, cutting through into the room where Reine slept. She’d left thewindow open to air out the smell of fresh paint, and the curtains ruffled in the breeze. Quietly, Ari tiptoed towards the bed, seeing the mound of blankets, thinking Reine must have moved in her sleep.
She stared at the empty bed, suddenly filled with horror.
Her heart hammered hard, and she inhaled sharply, flicking all the lights on and searching frantically around the room.
“Reine!” she called out. “Reine, where are you?”
But Reine was nowhere to be seen, and Ari, frightened beyond belief, tore out of the room and fled back down the stairs.
At the dining room table, Luis, Sebastian, Marnie and Sasha were still drinking wine. They looked up when Ari stumbled into the room, tears trickling down her cheeks.
“Reine,” she said frantically, “she’s gone. She’s gone.”
