Guy gnawed his bottom lip. ‘Not sure I’m quite ready for anything up front and personal, if I’m honest. I’ll stay in the background, if it’s all the same to you, thanks.’
‘Okay,’ Sandy nodded her agreement whilst mentally promising herself that she would be trying damned hard to convince him otherwise. Guy’s charisma was legendary and she wanted her writers to meet this beta male in the flesh; she just knew he would inspire a lot of future heroes in the writers attending the retreat.
Before Guy left that evening, Sandy gave him one of the brochures Romain had designed and she used to advertise the retreats. ‘Bedtime reading,’ she said, laughing. ‘You’ll get a sense of what people expect from a retreat.’
* * *
The next morning, Sandy walked down through Antibes, along the bord de mer towards Villa Celestia, situated across the road from Plage de la Salis, up a small private drive. The relief Sandy had felt flooding her body last evening when Guy had agreed to help was still carrying her along on a bubble of happy exhilaration. It was going to be all right. After he’d left, she and Romain had had a serious discussion about buying their own place. Romain had agreed to start looking around at what was available, both property wise and the amount of mortgage they would likely be offered.
The sun was shining, the sea was blue, locals and holidaymakers were already on the sandy beach settling in for the day. It was a perfect Côte d’Azur scene. But then one of her late grandmother’s favourite Robert Browning quotes, ‘God’s in his heaven/ All’s right with the world’, drifted into her mind, immediately making her feel guilty. So easy to think the rest of the world was as peaceful as it was here, when the daily news told a different story. And poor Guy, his world wasn’t right, but she was determined to help him realise that he still had a life to live after Jacqueline.
The door of the villa was open and Sandy called out as she walked in. ‘Hi, Guy.’
‘In the kitchen, come on through.’
Walking through the hallway, she passed the polished table with its colourful art deco table lamp, a small brass counter bell and the visitors book placed in the centre under the array of framed signed photographs of celebrities who had eaten in the restaurant and stayed in one of Villa Celestia’s rooms that had been hung on the wall. Sandy paused in front of the bookshelves on the wall to the right of the table. Guy and Jacqueline had always emphasised that the villa was a private home, wanting people to feel that they were dining with friends, staying as a personal favour in their home, consequently just two of the bookshelves contained books, the others held personal photographs and memories. There were photographs of the renovations to the villa twenty years ago, photos of birthday parties in the garden, a picture postcard of Antibes back in the eighties, an old black-and-white snapshot of Guy and his brother Jake taken on some Mediterranean beach years ago and a picture of Jacqueline cuddling Gus, a much-loved and missed Siamese cat she’d rescued when the renovations were being done. And on the top shelf were Guy’s three Michelin Star Awards.
The kitchen, Sandy was relieved to see when she walked in, had been tidied since her visit forty-eight hours ago and Guy himself was looking brighter.
‘Coffee?’ he asked. ‘No Twiggy?’
‘Yes to coffee, please. Romain has Twiggy this morning.’
‘Go on out to the yard, I’ll bring the coffees.’
After placing her laptop on the wrought-iron table and sitting down, Sandy looked around whist she waited for Guy. The private yard, accessible only from the kitchen, had been cunningly created at the side of the villa, with high walls, leaving the deep original garden terrace that ran the width of the villa at the back to be turned into an oasis of plants. Down the years, that garden had matured from the original plan. The small tinkling fountain was still at its centre, table and chairs had been placed strategically giving seclusion and overhead a rampant jasmine covered the pergola that now covered the terrace and gave sweet-smelling shade in summer. Impossible to see the terrace from the yard, fleetingly Sandy wondered if Guy had kept the gardener on or whether it was now a veritable jungle of weeds. She’d lost count of the number of times the four of them had sat under the pergola on the garden terrace sipping champagne. The last time had been the evening they’d celebrated his third Michelin star. Such a fun evening. But within months Jacqueline was dead and Guy’s happy life had been shattered.
Sandy pushed the memory of the evening away as Guy appeared and placed coffees and a plate of biscuits on the table and sank down onto a chair. Nothing was going to bring Jacqueline back, but Guy needed to regain his equilibrium and begin to enjoy life again.
‘Guy, I can’t thank you enough for the use of the villa. I will, of course, give you the amount I would have had to pay the other villa owners.’
‘Thank you,’ Guy said. He pushed a coffee across to her. ‘Bedtime reading was interesting last night. I’m still happy to help you, but I need to be upfront about something.’
‘Go on,’ Sandy said, sipping her coffee and waiting.
‘You know how Jacqueline was our main “front of house”, meeting and greeting, making people feel welcome. I was in her shadow in that way and…’ he paused. ‘I’m not ready to play the genial host at the moment.’
‘I’m not asking you to,’ Sandy said breezily, not wanting to give him an excuse to change his mind about lending her the villa. ‘The retreat is very informal, so I’ll be here to do all things necessary to make sure people are happy. I plan on staying in your “emergency” box spare room if that’s okay with you?’
‘It’s a bit cramped, no air conditioning in there either, but that shouldn’t be a problem in May. Are you sure you want to stay here for the fortnight?’
‘It’ll be fine. Might go home for a couple of nights, just to reassure Romain and Twiggy I’m still alive.’
Guy gave a relieved nod at her words.
‘We need to talk about food, menus and snacks,’ Sandy said, opening her laptop. ‘Continental breakfasts are fine – croissants and pain au chocolat and lots of coffee, tea and hot chocolate on hand. Lunches – charcuterie, cheese, baguettes, some green salad, maybe pasta or pizza one day or focaccia, you know the sort of things, water and wine and maybe a plate of cake for dessert?’
‘What sort of menu do you usually offer for dinner?’ Guy asked.
‘It’s normally quite simple,’ Sandy said. ‘Starters, main course, one dessert and possibly a cheese board.’
‘No choices? That makes my life a whole lot easier,’ Guy said. ‘I’ll need minimal help in the kitchen.’
‘I was hoping you’d make one of your signature dishes on a couple of the nights?’
Guy shook his head. ‘I’d rather not. Totally out of practice. Plain and simple will be better.’
‘Dinner on the last night is always a bit special,’ Sandy said, looking at him. ‘Maybe you could do that evening…’ her voice trailed away at the look on Guy’s face. ‘We’ll talk about it later. I can always book a table somewhere. Now, we also need on-tap coffee and snacks available somewhere in the villa, as well as tea and coffee-making facilities in the bedrooms.’
