Chapter 17 #2
Luc’s dark eyes were scanning her face, the waves of his loose hair framing his face. His brow was furrowed.
‘Who was he? Oh, my God, Sophie… was your mother’s death not an accident?’
‘His name was Diego,’ Sophie said softly.
She had to clear her throat to continue.
‘He was Spanish and he was a dancer… and a yoga teacher. My dad didn’t tell me until I was grown up but she’d desperately wanted a second child and it didn’t happen.
She had a miscarriage when I was ready to start school and it was very hard on her.
He encouraged her to get out of the house and it was Dad who found the flyer about the yoga classes at the local community centre.
Mum started going. About a year later, she said she wanted to go to a yoga retreat for a week.
In Bali. It was expensive but Dad was only too happy to make it happen because… she was happier than she’d ever been.’
Luc was listening quietly. Still watching her. Still holding her close.
‘There was a scooter accident. It was only after we got the terrible news that Mum had been killed that we learned the rest of it. It was a yoga retreat for only two people. We don’t know if she’d been having an affair with him all along or whether the trip to Bali was the start of it but…
’ Sophie had to squeeze her eyes shut for a breath.
‘There was no getting away from the fact that she’d left us to go away with him.
Maybe she wasn’t even planning to come back. ’
Luc’s sound was one of empathy. ‘That must have been so hard.’
‘It broke Dad. I don’t think it even occurred to him that he could have tried to find someone else to share his life with.
Mum was the only person he’d wanted. His only purpose in life after that was to keep me safe.
He tried to hide the truth from me but everybody was talking about it.
I was too young to understand any of it.
I just missed my mum so much and it seemed like Dad had lost what mattered the most to him.
We never seemed to get away from living under the shadow of it. The shame, I guess.’
‘You had nothing to be ashamed of,’ Luc said.
‘We weren’t enough,’ Sophie said. ‘She found something she wanted more. When I was about thirteen, I was looking in a drawer for something and I found the old flyer that was advertising the new yoga classes at the community centre. There was a photo on it and that was the first time I saw what Diego Garcia looked like.’ She swallowed.
‘I knew that he was handsome. He had curly dark hair that almost reached his shoulders and he had a moustache and a little goatee beard. He wore bracelets and necklaces made of wooden beads and he had a smile that made it look like he loved life… and it loved him back. When I was older, I realised that he was the quintessential bad-boy type but, by then, I had him pegged as the devil incarnate. He had stolen my mother and she’d been too weak to resist his charm and that…
heat… that came with that kind of attraction.
I was never, ever going to make that mistake.
I was going to find a man that would keep me safe. Like my dad had.’
Luc was very quiet. Did he know what she was about to tell him?
‘You reminded me of him,’ she whispered. ‘I was afraid of you from the moment I met you because you made me feel things that I knew my mother had probably felt. That heat. I had to stay away from you. And…’
‘And Tom was there.’ Luc’s words were as quiet as her own. ‘And he was like sunshine to my shadow. A safe haven.’
Sophie nodded slowly. ‘I didn’t dare even think about how I felt – except when I was totally alone. In my own bed. When… when I let myself wonder what… it would be like.’
Luc’s voice was raw now. ‘What was it like?’
Sophie could feel a flush in her cheeks and a spiral of renewed desire in her belly. ‘Too good,’ she murmured. ‘But not anything like as good as it really was. That’s why I get it. I understand why my mother couldn’t resist. I… think I can finally forgive her.’
Luc pressed another kiss on to her hair and Sophie tilted her head. She wanted to feel his lips on hers again. And her body was craving his touch just as much.
The kiss was long. Tender. The flickers of a new hunger were cut off when he broke the contact.
‘I had fantasies too,’ he told her. ‘Because it was the only way I was ever going to be able to touch you. I couldn’t come between you and Tom and it wasn’t hard to sacrifice what I wanted. For him.’
‘You loved him,’ Sophie said. She knew it was as simple as that because Luc had a strength that had been honed in a tough upbringing.
‘I loved you, too,’ Luc said slowly. ‘And Hannah. Enough to marry her.’ His breath came out in a sigh. ‘I would have been a good husband.’
Sophie knew that was true. He would have been totally loyal and devoted. Hurting Hannah would have meant hurting Tom as well and he’d probably made the vow not to do that many years earlier, even if he hadn’t realised it.
But he’d had fantasies about her?
The tingle in her belly ignited into something much more intense.
‘Tell me,’ she said, her voice almost inaudible. ‘What did you do to me in those fantasies you had?’
She could feel his lips curving against hers as he kissed her again. ‘Are you going to tell me about the ones you had?’
Sophie could feel herself blushing. ‘No…’
‘Then neither am I.’ Luc lifted his head. His smile had faded and she’d never seen him look quite like this. ‘You might just have to find out for yourself. Bit by bit. It might take a long time,’ he added.
Sophie was the one smiling now. That was fine by her. She didn’t mind how long it took.
That it had begun was more than enough for now.