Chapter 6
TWELVE YEARS AGO
Everything began that night.
At the party to welcome Tom home to London.
And Luc, of course, because he and Tom had been pretty much inseparable since the day they’d met in the most unlikely of places – in the tunnel under a rail bridge that was only ever used for things you didn’t want to be witnessed.
A place where the litter amongst the nettles was a serious health hazard and water dripped from soot-blackened stones onto spray-painted gang insignia.
People had died under that bridge, any sound they made drowned out by the trains thundering overhead.
No place for a boy from the quiet prestige of Dulwich that’s for sure. A kid his own age who probably had no idea of how big a mistake he was making buying drugs from a member of that particular gang.
Luc had felt just as much out of his comfort zone when he’d stepped into this Georgian mansion that was Tom’s family home, mind you, but that was more than a decade ago.
He might have been intimidated, that first time, by the vast space of rooms that could have swallowed the whole council flat he’d grown up in, but they were filled with the warmth of this family.
A real family. A mother and father who loved each other.
A kid sister who was annoying but cute. They acted as though the extraordinary height of their ornate plaster ceilings and the exquisite chandeliers that hung from them were nothing out of the ordinary.
That the people in the room were what mattered.
That Luc mattered, simply because he was Tom’s friend. Perhaps they’d sensed, from that first day, that Luc might be the only person Tom would listen to. The one that could be allowed to help him navigate what had become some turbulent teenage years.
Backpacking around Europe together, travelling cheaply and sleeping in more than a few dodgy hostels had cemented a friendship that had grown over the years into an unbreakable bond, but it was during their time in Paris that the future really began to come into focus.
Tom fell in love with food.
And Luc discovered his hobby of photography was, in fact, going to be a lifelong passion – he just needed to find a way to make a living out of it.
So, here they were, at a party to celebrate the fact that they’d come home and were ready to take the first steps into a future that seemed brighter than anything Luc had ever imagined for himself.
‘We’re going to be a team,’ Tom was telling everyone. ‘I’m going to be a celebrity chef, own Michelin-starred restaurants and write the most amazing recipe books ever and Luc’s going to take pretty pictures of all my food and we’ll both make our fortunes.’
Tom’s sister, Hannah, was hearing the same spiel as she threw herself into her brother’s arms.
‘Don’t ever do that to me again,’ she told him.
‘Do what?’
‘Disappear. For years…’
‘I did invite you to come and visit. You missed a great weekend doing a balloon ride in Cappadocia.’
‘There was baggage handlers’ strike going on at Heathrow. My flight got cancelled.’
‘What about Paris? You could have come on the train anytime.’
‘I was having too much fun here,’ Hannah said. ‘You could have come back on the train anytime, too.’
‘Maybe Luc and I were having too much fun.’ Tom was grinning, as happy as Hannah was to be reunited.
‘I’ll bet…’ Hannah stood on tiptoes to give Luc a tight hug. ‘I hope you managed to keep him out of trouble.’
He hugged her back. The bond they had in both loving Tom was as solid as any relationship could be. They were family.
‘Did my best but you know what he’s like.’
They shared a smile. That bond extended to doing whatever was needed to keep Tom Baxter safe and happy. To keep the sun shining in their worlds.
‘Oh…’ Hannah’s turn was like a choreographed dance move. ‘Tom – this is Sophie Spencer. My flatmate that I’ve told you all about? My best friend?’
‘So it is…’ Tom’s smile started slow but kept growing. ‘I’ve seen your photo. Enchanté, Sophie Spencer.’
Luc had to stifle a groan as he watched Tom lift Sophie’s hand and press a kiss to the back of her fingers. He made it even worse by winking at her.
‘I’ve been living in Paris for too long,’ he excused himself. ‘But I am very pleased to meet you, Sophie. You’re the guardian angel that’s been keeping my little sister out of trouble, which was always my job.’
‘Ha,’ Hannah scoffed. ‘As if. Luc’s the only guardian angel that’s needed around here. Sophie, meet Luc – my other brother.’
A pair of astonishingly blue eyes met his for no more than a heartbeat but it was long enough to put together the impression of… what was it? Luc couldn’t put a name to it but he knew it was something a lot deeper than simply being a gorgeous-looking, blue-eyed blonde.
She was looking at Tom again now.
And he was looking back at her. Their eye contact held just long enough for Luc to know that something was happening. Something… different. Something unlike any of the adventures they’d had with casual hookups or girlfriends over the years.
A feeling of discomfort grew that evening and coalesced into something undeniably disturbing when Luc realised he was watching his best friend fall head over heels in love.
Or maybe he felt it happening rather than seeing it – almost as if it was happening to him as well.
It was disturbing because he knew that something huge was about to change.
He could already feel the whole foundation of his world shifting beneath his feet.
When the party was over, he found Tom staring at the door that Hannah and Sophie had just gone through.
‘I told her I was going to marry her,’ Tom said.
Yeah… the ground was shifting. He could almost feel a barrier forming between them. The solid shape of an extraordinarily attractive young woman. His words came out in a low growl.
‘What did she say?’
‘She laughed. She thought I was joking.’ Tom’s eyes were sparkling. ‘But I wasn’t. You just wait and see.’
* * *
It was the most natural thing in the world for both Sophie and Luc to be included on the occasions that Tom and Hannah had a sibling catch-up.
The wariness that Sophie felt around Luc – the feeling that he was the odd one out and didn’t quite fit – became easier to mute.
She really liked Tom Baxter and if he liked Luc Moreau that much, she needed to get over whatever it was about him that she found a little disturbing.
Maybe she was being a snob and letting the fact that he’d grown up on a council estate influence her.
Or maybe it was that edge of something European in his looks, which was a bias she should have grown out of by now.
He wasn’t dangerous when she had the buffer of both Hannah and Tom to protect her.
She just needed to make sure she kept her distance and Luc was making that easy.
He was perfectly friendly but Sophie was quite sure he didn’t really like her at all.
That he couldn’t understand why his best friend was so keen on her. The distance between them was solid.
Tom settled into his course to achieve a diploma in professional cookery and Luc did a course at the London Institute of Photography and went back to working as a motorbike courier in any free time he had.
They found an apartment in the heart of London to share and quickly found a favourite traditional English pub that was about halfway between their place and where Sophie and Hannah lived.
Meeting for a bottle of wine and some pub grub, like bangers and mash or fish and chips, became a highlight of their weekly routines.
If Tom had been even remotely serious about his intention to marry Sophie, he was taking it slowly and that was fine by her.
This was all about building a genuine friendship between all four of them, and the discussions, with the flicker of flames from the open fire catching on the gilded mirrors advertising classic ales, numerous copper pots and the lovingly polished antique horse brasses, could become lively.
Heated, even, but tempered with enough laughter to allow a bond to form around them all like a solid circle.
And, okay… there were the odd awkward moments when a silence fell and the wariness between Sophie and Luc was obvious but they found a way to hide that. To make a game of it, even.
It became a competition to see who could break a silence like that with the signal of a verbal bell, followed by the most controversial statement they could think of. A playful, no-holds-barred debate that became something special because it belonged to just the four of them.
Luc’s tongue-in-cheek declaration that pineapple could elevate pizza to gourmet status made for a memorably amusing evening as it degenerated into inventing the most disgusting pizza topping combinations they could imagine.
Sophie’s choice of the superiority of cats over dogs didn’t really get off the ground, which was a little embarrassing. She resolved to think up a more intellectual statement for a future occasion.
Tom’s assertion that socks with sandals was a fashion statement and not a crime also didn’t provide a topic worthy of deep thought but he didn’t seem at all embarrassed by the derisive hoots from his sister and best friend.
He just winked at Sophie and she knew he was trying to make her feel better about her juvenile ‘cats and dogs’ offering.
‘Ding ding…’ It was Hannah who broke the silence that evening. ‘Money is the root of all evil.’
Luc gave an incredulous huff of sound, his glass pausing mid-air. ‘And who made that handbag of yours? Louis Vuitton or Gucci?’
‘Hermès,’ Hannah admitted. ‘But it came from a vintage shop.’
‘Could be considered recycling,’ Sophie added, earning a wink from Tom.
‘Money can’t be evil,’ he offered. ‘It’s neither good nor bad. It depends on how it’s used. Money is only a tool.’