Chapter 8
Controversary over his art was nothing new for Luc.
He embraced it. It told him that people were looking.
Talking. Thinking about things they might not have otherwise considered.
A bride with her gown on fire, for example.
Had she made a huge mistake and was stepping into hell?
Would it make someone think a little more carefully about taking the monumental step of making a promise to love someone for the rest of their lives?
How could they possibly know, for certain, that they would be able to keep that promise?
They couldn’t, of course. That much was obvious by the statistics of broken marriages and splintered lives.
The plane Luc was on was banking, making its final approach to Nice airport. It was only a day since he’d taken that phone call from Sophie but he was on his way back to France.
He hadn’t had a choice, had he?
He had to put things right.
Who knew that embracing the shock of putting a bride and groom into a pile of trash could have the ripple effect of potentially destroying a destination wedding business?
He’d walked away from that particular destination wedding with the comfort of believing that Sophie Spencer no longer hated him with such a passion. How had he not seen that he might have given her a whole new reason to despise him?
Yet she had reached out, not in anger but to ask for his help. And, dammit, he couldn’t have lived with himself if he’d refused.
He was sitting on the left side of the plane, as he always chose to do, if possible, when coming into this airport.
He loved the feeling it gave him, every time, to catch that first glimpse of the distinctive rock formations of the baous – the mountains that towered over a chain of medieval villages including the most famous, St Paul de Vence.
Like so many people born and raised in the South of France, even though it had only been his first five years, the outline of these flat peaks was a silhouette of home.
There were four of them – the baous des Blanc, des Noirs, de Saint Jeannet and de la Gaude.
The tallest, and most distinctive was that of Saint Jeannet and, only yesterday, Luc had learned that this was where Sophie had made her home and that gave the mountain a whole new significance.
Not that they were meeting in the village of Saint Jeannet. The neutral ground of Nice was far more appropriate because this was business. Or, hopefully, the potential salvage of a business.
The bump of wheels hitting the tarmac jolted Luc back to his contemplation of controversary. The trouble he had caused. Weddings in general and what the odds might be for the union between Zara and Joe to survive.
Luc was quite sure it was a matter of balance.
Love was far too small a word to cover countless definitions but just the right size to represent mere dots on a spectrum from total obsession to no more than a form of approval.
When French people plucked petals from a daisy, the accompanying chant was not merely about whether someone else loved you, or loved you not. In true French style, it was far more poetic and nuanced.
Il m’aime un peu,
Il m’aime beaucoup,
Il m’aime passionnément
Il m’aime à la folie
Il m’aime pas du tout.
And, if a union was to be successful, it had to be balanced, that was the secret. You couldn’t have one partner who only loved a little and the other experiencing à la folie – a madness so powerful it seeped into every cell of their body and became part of the mists of their soul.
Luc’s breath left his lungs in a self-deprecating huff. As if he knew anything about it. He’d only achieved the splintered life. He’d never considered marriage.
Okay… that wasn’t quite true. He just hadn’t come up with the idea first. Or re-considered it since.
Tom’s sister, Hannah, had proposed to him at Tom and Sophie’s engagement party.
He’d said yes, although they’d kept that secret for quite some time – not only because Hannah didn’t want to be seen to be copying her brother’s enthusiasm for the next life milestone but because it wasn’t something that needed to be shouted from the rooftops.
It just made sense. They were good friends.
Almost as close as brother and sister. And it would keep the ‘Fab Four’ intact, wouldn’t it?
They hadn’t wanted a flashy engagement party.
They chose to go camping with their best friends to celebrate – months later, which gave them all a respite from the increasing whirlwind of Tom and Sophie’s wedding preparations.
It had been just the four of them in the peaceful surroundings of the New Forest area.
How happy had they all been? Packing Luc’s van with a small tent, sleeping bags and air mattresses, a barbecue, plenty of food and a whole crate of the best champagne Hannah had found in her father’s wine cellar.
Neither Luc nor Hannah was madly, or even passionately, in love.
They weren’t actually in love at all but they did genuinely care about each other and, because they both felt the same way, the balance was there.
Who knew? Maybe they would have lasted the distance.
Had children who would have been cousins to the babies that Tom and Sophie would have had. One big happy family?
Yeah… right…
Luc swallowed the sharp bitterness he could actually taste for a heartbeat.
The ping of the safety belt light going off was a relief.
He could move and that was always the best way to dismiss unwanted thoughts.
Standing up to take his precious camera bag from the overhead locker felt like he was moving forward again.
He could get on with the process of getting through the airport and heading into Nice.
Or the outskirts of it, at least. They had agreed to meet at one of the iconic restaurants, on the Promenade des Anglaise, a stone’s throw from the old town.
He walked past tourists taking their selfies in front of the #ILoveNICE sign and turned on to the staircase that interrupted the sea wall.
He had deliberately arrived first so he could choose which seat to take at the table he knew he’d been given and he sat facing the interior of the restaurant, partly so that he could see when Sophie arrived but more, he wanted her to sit with her back to the view of other diners and the parasols and sunbeds of the beach.
She would see only the rich blue of the sea and the craggy rocks at this end of the lower terrace, perhaps a yacht floating past and… himself.
Ouais… she would be looking at him with virtually no distractions and he would know whether he’d been right to fear that frisson of hope he’d taken away with him when he’d left France having made the choice to see her again.
* * *
He was waiting for her.
Sophie could feel his gaze on her the moment she walked through the doors of the restaurant and she spotted him at the table in the far corner at almost the same moment.
She brushed off the ma?tre d’s offer to escort her through the crowded tables, telling him she could see the person who was expecting her. She took off her sunhat but kept her sunglasses on, because it felt like protection from that watchful gaze.
Luc was also wearing sunglasses but he wasn’t wearing his black hat today and his shaggy dark hair was combed into a tidy knot at the back of his head. A man bun?
Really?
Ironically, Sophie had gone the other way today, giving her blonde curls free rein to tickle her shoulders, despite the heat, instead of trying to tame them into her signature messy bun.
As even more of a contrast, she was wearing a cobalt blue maxi sundress with thin straps and a tiered skirt, and Luc was, quite possibly, wearing the same close-fitting black tee shirt he’d had on under his leather jacket when he’d arrived at Zara’s wedding.
He stood up as Sophie reached the table, taking off his sunglasses to make brief, polite eye contact as he greeted her.
‘Bonjour, Sophie.’
‘Bonjour,’ she responded. Nerves kicked in at the sound of his voice.
Not because it still had that uncanny ability to find a way past her ears to reach so many other parts of her body.
She was nervous because too much was riding on this meeting.
This was either a beginning or an end. She tried, and failed, to find a smile. ‘?a va?’
‘?a va très bien, merci.’
Sophie could hear a note in his voice she’d never heard before. Or perhaps she could feel it in the air between them. Was it because they were alone together, for the first time in more than ten years?
Or was it because they were alone together and speaking French – the universally accepted language of love? Unbidden, she could remember Hannah pressing a hand to her heart in an exaggerated appreciation of Luc speaking French.
She switched to English. ‘Thanks for meeting me… Phoenix.’ Her hesitation was as minimal as the way Luc’s body stilled, as if he had a decision to make.
‘Luc’s fine,’ he said quietly, a beat later. ‘That’s how they know me here.’ One shoulder lifted in a small shrug in response to Sophie’s raised eyebrows. ‘I did the photography for their new menu and an advertising gig recently.’
‘Ah… so that’s why you scored the best table in the restaurant at such short notice?’
The ma?tre d’ arrived to unfurl a crisp white napkin with a flourish that ended with it covering Sophie’s skirt. A waiter was behind him, with two flutes of champagne on a silver tray.
‘With our compliments, Monsieur Moreau,’ the ma?tre d’ said. He filled their water glasses, placed menus in front of them and was gone.
The moment felt slightly awkward. Sophie grabbed at something to say to fill it.
‘So you still do food photography then?’
‘It’s my core business. Moreish Photography. London based but I have an office in France as well, now.’
‘Great name.’
Luc shrugged again. ‘It’s almost mine, anyway.’
‘True.’
Sophie took a sip of her champagne. Luc picked up his glass of water.