Chapter Ten
Nicole
Nicole stood at the front door she’d not knocked on in over three years. In fact, she hadn’t knocked on it much before that, either; she’d had a key for the back entrance leading from the patio into the kitchen.
When the door opened, she came face-to-face with a woman, a housekeeper given the white apron and the air of efficiency about her.
‘I’m here to see Kent.’ Nicole’s voice shook as she got the words out. No matter what her feelings were back then, she could do this.
‘Certainly,’ said the housekeeper. But before she could do anything else, such as ask for a name or invite her into the hallway, a familiar face appeared behind her.
‘It’s fine, Maggie.’ Kent didn’t break the stare between himself and Nicole. ‘Please, come in.’
When Maggie had disappeared once more to the rear of the house, Kent stood back and held out a hand, gesturing Nicole to come in to the hallway.
When she stepped inside, it felt as though she’d been here only yesterday. The same mahogany side table was positioned on the left, just far enough from the front door to enable visitors to enter with ease. The same ornate coat stand stood beside the antique gilded mirror fixed to the wall. There weren’t any photographs here, only a couple of expensive pieces of artwork Nicole had never much cared for and that didn’t express the personalities of anyone in the household. The only difference in this house between then and now appeared to be the time and space that had sat between Kent and Nicole for three years. The house even smelled the same. Home-cooked meals, a hint of cologne Kent had worn then and still did now, the smell of clean surfaces, sandalwood polish and vacuumed carpets, the floral aroma she associated with the Churchill residence.
When she’d first started working for Kent Churchill, Nicole had soon realised that aside from not having many personal items lying around, everything was pristine and very much in its place, even with a teenager in the house. One day she’d been out walking and passed by a flower seller, and hadn’t been able to resist buying a small bunch of traditional white daisies and another of deep fuchsia spray roses. She’d intended to put them in water for the rest of the day and take them home to her apartment, but when she’d let herself into the kitchen Kent had complimented her and said it was nice to have flowers in the house again. She’d assumed he meant since his wife had passed away and she hadn’t had the heart to tell him they weren’t for him. Nicole had found a vase in the very top cupboard above the cooker and arranged the flowers and found a place for them on the table in the hallway. She’d even seen Kent pause to feel the silkiness of their leaves, lean in to smell them, lost in his own thoughts as though another living thing in his home was taking some getting used to. And from that day on she’d bought flowers for the house every four to five days.
Nicole looked down the hallway and saw that even now, three years since she’d left, the tradition she’d begun more than a decade ago was still holding strong. A clear vase hugged an arrangement of white gladiolus with deep green foliage beneath, lighter green stems standing tall and proud.
Kent stood in front of her. ‘Can I take your coat?’ Nicole shrugged it off, careful to ease it over the cast on her wrist. ‘You must be freezing, go through to the living room and I’ll have Maggie bring us some tea.’
It was strange, even now, to hear of somebody else making the tea and no doubt taking out a plate to fill it with a morning snack of some description. It’d been her job once upon a time and for so many years.
When Nicole went through to the living room, it too was exactly as she’d remembered it, apart from the new rug in front of the hearth and two ornate silver candlesticks sitting on the mantelpiece. Kent had always had expensive taste and kept his townhouse impeccably furnished. Everything from the ebony wood flooring and Italian crystal lamps in here, to the French silver-leaf spare bed she’d slept in one night when they’d been snowed in, to the top-of-the-range cookware in the kitchen, spoke of wealth, of extravagance, of a man who needed those things because he lacked something else, something Nicole had never managed to work out in her time with him and his son.
Sometimes Nicole had felt sorry for Jack, the teenager unable to hang loose anywhere in this house. But Jack had taken it all in his stride. It was the way Kent was and had been, she assumed, for a very long time. Jack had always sat properly on the furniture, been polite to any guests who appeared, even worn all the designer outfits Kent bought him when casual, inexpensive clothes would’ve been far better. Nicole sometimes wondered how quickly after his wife’s death Kent had fallen headlong into the business, how soon he’d begun to drift away from his own son, like two pieces of a shipwreck ending up with miles and miles of ocean separating them.
‘Please, sit.’ Kent came back into the room and left the door ajar, presumably for Maggie.
Nicole sat on the edge of the couch nearest the fire, sinking into the leather that had softened over the years.
‘It’s good to see you.’ Kent sat the opposite end of the couch. To someone who didn’t know him, or to a business colleague, he looked relaxed. But Nicole could sense his edge of nervousness, ever so slight but there nonetheless.
‘It’s good to see you too.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I bumped into Jackson and his young lady at Macy’s.’ She began the small talk, hoping to disperse the tension. The closeness they’d once shared had been extinguished, but it still felt good to see him again.
Kent smiled. ‘I’d forgotten how you always called him Jackson.’ He looked at her for a moment, his expression unreadable, before he went on as though the spell between them had been broken. ‘Jack said you’d seen him at the hospital, too. How’s the wrist?’
She patted the cast with her opposite hand. ‘It doesn’t hurt anymore. There’s the occasional itch, but nothing more sinister. I’ll be in the cast for another few weeks and then it’ll take some time to get my strength back. I’m not as young as I once was.’
‘None of us are.’ His blue eyes flickered back at her and for a moment she was back where she’d once been, three years ago, laughing and smiling together, and it made her sad. ‘And you’ve managed okay, since … you know …’
‘I’ve been fine since I left here, yes.’ She appreciated his concern and wondered how much he’d thought about her over the years, whether he’d replayed what had happened over and over in his mind like she had. ‘And how are you? Your hospital stay sounded a little more serious than this.’ She lifted her wrist.
As Kent told her about the minor heart attack, the list of dos and don’ts from the hospital, Nicole wondered whether Jack had mentioned what happened at the hospital with his colleague, with Evie, but she doubted it or Kent would’ve mentioned it already. He was a strong man, never one to hold back on letting his feelings known. She knew that much from experience.
‘I can imagine Cameron fussing around you.’ Nicole smiled after he told her all about his daughter’s flying visit from Toronto. Cameron had been away at college when Nicole started working for the Churchills but they’d met a few times and Kent’s daughter was as headstrong as her father.
‘She didn’t bring the kids in case it was too much.’
‘Maybe she had a point,’ Nicole agreed.
He dismissed it with a flick of his hand. ‘Nonsense, there’s life in me yet.’
After a moment’s pause she said, ‘Jackson looked really well. He’s always looked so handsome and together in a suit.’
‘He most certainly does.’
