Chapter 22
It has everything a story needs, does it not? The kind of tropes that belong in a blockbuster novel, or perhaps a steamy soap opera.
Rags to riches, unrequited love, tragedy to triumph.
Secrets…
There are only two people on earth who know the real truth.
I’m betting that those secrets will stay buried forever but, if you – like me – find it impossible not to use your own imagination, let me know what you think in the comments…
‘Oh, non…’ Tilly was shaking her head as she saw what was on Sophie’s computer screen. ‘Sophie… you’ve got to stop doing this.’
‘I know.’ Sophie got to her feet to greet Tilly with a kiss on each cheek. ‘But it’s the comments now. There’s a whole new avalanche this morning. This is so much worse than last time.’
She watched Tilly put down the satchel she used as a handbag and move towards the desk, reaching for the mouse to scroll the seemingly endless contributions people were adding to the post.
To Sophie, this felt like a circle was closing. The online onslaught after Zara’s wedding had marked the entrance of Luc into her life again and what was happening now seemed to be marking his exit.
How could they possibly be together after this?
What kind of future could they have with this elephant in the room with them?
Their relationship would die a slow death, just like her friendship with Hannah had, because it was just too hard to be with someone who was such a big part of the memories and who could, even inadvertently, stir up the feelings of not being a person anyone would choose to be around.
It could never be dismissed, either. Or forgotten. Like the best lies, there was an element of truth in Raven Vale’s nasty suggestions.
There were only two people who knew the real truth.
Secrets had been kept. The glimpses, through the vitriol being unleashed online, of how it looked to the people on the outside reminded Sophie of every dark thought she’d ever had herself.
Thanks for the warning. That Sophie Spencer is the last person I’d want planning my wedding. Talk about bad juju!!
I adore that cemetery. Where is it? I need to go and lie there under a full moon…
It’s the sister I feel sorry for. She lost the two men she loved that night. Bet she wishes she never met Sophie Spencer.
Can’t believe anyone would marry their dead fiancé’s best friend, let alone the ex-fiancé of your best friend. OMG. It really is a soap opera.
Great work, Raven. You’ve got a beady, birdie eye for the dark, slimy stuff. Keep it up!
Should have been a double wedding – it was all a bit incestuous anyway IMHO.
Double ick, if you ask me. Maybe she was shagging both of them all along. Does she really think it’s going to work out now with that sordid past history?
Why not? Worked out for Charlie and Camilla, didn’t it?
Marry Me in Provence can make your dream wedding come true – unless Sophie Spencer happens to fancy your groom. Or his best man. Haha!
Karma’ll get them. Cheats never prosper.
Nah. Cheats win all the time. They just have to live with the guilt. Good luck with that, Sophie and Luc.
Which comment had Tilly just read to elicit the disgusted huff of sound she made? Not that it mattered. Too many of them had tapped into that well of negative emotions Sophie hadn’t realised was still so accessible.
Tilly was following her as she walked towards the windows. Maybe looking out over the forest would help break the links to what was going on out there. Sophie didn’t want to watch her business being battered to death any longer.
‘I know it’s not true. Any of it.’
Sophie turned to find Tilly looking just as miserable as she was feeling and it was a relief to allow herself to be hugged. She hadn’t been touched by anyone since Luc had left two days ago but it was only now that she could see how utterly alone it had left her.
By tacit consent, both women sank on to the couches. They weren’t ready to start any of the work that was needed to wind up the wedding season or, more likely, to wind up the business.
‘You loved Tom,’ Tilly said. ‘You were going to marry him. I know you would never have cheated on him.’
Sophie nodded. But then she felt her face crumpling. ‘Is it cheating when you’re only thinking about someone else? When nobody knows? When you actually think that that person hates you?’
Tilly pressed a hand to her heart. ‘Tu soupirais après lui…’
Sophie hadn’t heard the expression before but it was perfect, in retrospect. She had been secretly sighing after Luc Moreau, believing it to be completely one-sided. Unexpectedly, Tilly’s choice of making it sound so romantic made her smile.
‘Ouais,’ she whispered. ‘Je soupirais.’ She pulled in a breath.
‘But Tom was the man I wanted to marry. He was beautiful. He was safe. Luc was the wild one. He scared me.’ She paused for a heartbeat.
‘I did love Tom. I knew I would love him forever. I just wasn’t…
in love with him but I thought that was a good thing.
I didn’t want to be in love with anyone. ’
Tilly was nodding slowly. ‘Because being in love meant that you might lose control. That you might give up everything to be with a man you loved like that and you would risk too much if he didn’t feel the same way.’
‘Something like that.’ Sophie didn’t need to tell Tilly about her mother when she already understood enough.
She liked that it had only ever been Luc that she’d told about that part of her life – when she’d cried after they first made love.
She loved that he was the only other person who would ever know that it was the way she felt about him that had allowed her to finally understand, and forgive, her mother.
‘But you were in love with Luc, even if you didn’t want to recognise it.’ Tilly gave one of those contented sighs that meant she approved of the level of romance involved. ‘And then it turns out that he loves you just as much. When did you find that out?’
‘The night of the Villa Céleste wedding.’
‘Really? You had no idea back then?’
‘Maybe. A little.’ Sophie bit her lip. ‘Okay… more than a little but only for a moment – a blink of time that was so short it was easy to pretend that it had never existed. To… protect Tom.’ Sophie shook her head slowly.
‘Luc loved Tom. Tom loved me. Neither of us would have ever done anything to hurt him. He was the kindest, most genuine, happiest man you could ever meet. He was like… human sunshine.’
‘And Luc? He was the rain?’
‘More like a storm,’ Sophie said softly. ‘Terrifying. Electric. With the power to change the world.’
Or destroy it?
‘Have you talked to him today?’
‘No. It’s… a bit awkward, to be honest. He’s very worried about what’s going to happen with the big project he’s working on in London.
I don’t think it’s going well. People who were going to donate a lot of money to the foundation don’t want anything more to do with him.
He’s worried about my business and I haven’t even told him how bad things are here.
We could both lose everything we’ve built.
’ Sophie pushed herself to her feet. ‘We might need to make a decision about whether we even try and keep Marry Me in Provence going. I’m not sure my heart’s in it any longer. ’
Tilly eyes were wide with shock. ‘You’re thinking of giving up?’
‘Or giving it to you.’
Tilly’s jaw dropped. ‘No… I couldn’t do it. Not destination weddings.’
‘Proposals, then. You could easily follow your own dream for a destination proposal business with everything you’ve learned working with me – and with all the contacts it’s given you.’
‘But this was your dream. To give others the wedding you never had.’
Sophie tried to smile. ‘And maybe that’s why it’s time to stop.’ She shook off an echo of Luc’s voice. ‘Maybe I’ve had enough of unfinished business.’
Her own wedding that had never been completed.
But it might be best left like that. She didn’t deserve a wedding.
Tom had deserved someone to love him as much as he had loved her and she could never have been that woman.
She’d wanted to be. She’d even convinced herself that it might happen one day.
She would fall in love with Tom and that pull towards Luc would somehow simply magically evaporate.
‘Maybe…’ Sophie swallowed hard. ‘The only wedding I really want to plan is my own and that’s never going to happen now.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Tilly begged. ‘Please…’
‘It’s true. There’s only one man I’m ever going to want to marry. And even if Luc still wants me in his life, being together would probably ruin his dream and I couldn’t do that to him. I won’t do it to him.’
* * *
With Tilly in the house with her, Sophie resisted any pull to watch the car-crash that was the reputation of her business being ripped apart piece by piece via social media, but there was no avoiding the business emails that included one from Madame Fournier, the head housekeeper at the Chateau d’Orval.
She regretted to inform Sophie that Comte Lucien de Varclaire had been made aware of the new scandal and it was the final straw. The chateau would no longer be available for any weddings being organised by Marry Me in Provence.
Another email was cancelling the first wedding of the next summer season and demanding a full refund of their deposit. Sophie added the information to a growing list of what she needed to discuss with her bank manager in the coming days, knowing that liquidation of her business was looming.
The bad news was snowballing but, in a way, it was making it easier to handle.
Sophie was feeling numb and each new blow was having less impact.
It was almost a relief to think she would have no choice but to walk away from the business because she’d been telling the truth when she’d told Tilly that her heart was no longer in it.
She still had to fight, however, because bankruptcy would affect the people she cared about very much and Mathilde was at the top of that list.
If she had to sell her beloved little house and leave the mountain village that she was so attached to in order to protect Tilly, then that was exactly what she would do.
The thought tore a hole in the cloak of emotional protection Sophie had pulled around herself, however, and she needed to close her eyes and take a deep breath before she spoke.
‘I think we’ve done enough for today,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go home early, Tilly and do something nice for yourself.’
‘Is that what you’re going to do?’
‘It is. I’m going to have a wander through the village and find what I need to cook something delicious for dinner. I’ll get some wine, too. I don’t care if I’m eating alone.’
‘Are you sure that’s what you want? I could stay.’
Sophie shook her head, her smile gentle. ‘I love you dearly, Tilly, but tonight I need some time to myself. I need to find something… that I can hang on to.’
The two women hugged.
‘You’ve got people who love you very much,’ Tilly said softly. ‘Like me. And Luc. You’ve got people that you love. That’s all you need to hang on to en ce moment.’
Luc had said something similar, hadn’t he? When he lost his camera. His touchstone.
‘…it’s still just a thing. It’s people that matter, not things…’
* * *
Sophie left her house a short time later, her basket over her arm to hold her shopping.
The way summer drifted so softly and slowly into autumn was one of the many things she loved about the South of France.
As the afternoon faded, she could still feel the warmth of the sun that had soaked into the tumbled stones of the buildings she passed, as she walked down narrow lanes and stairs, beneath archways and past fountains that were familiar markers on her route to the village shops.
Sophie had no idea what, or even if, she wanted to eat this evening but, as she passed the fromagerie and the smell of cheese tickled her nose, she suddenly craved exactly the kind of comfort food that was hot enough to burn your tongue because it was full of molten cheese.
The wide shelf in the glass-fronted counter had a vast choice of cheeses – the remains of all sizes of wheels, small rounds, bowls of soft cheeses and wrapped wedges, ready to go.
‘Je voudrais de l’Emmental, s’il vous pla?t,’ Sophie said, after the usual polite exchange of greetings.
‘Bien. C’est pour un gratin ou un sandwich?’
‘Un croque-monsieur.’
‘Coupé en tranches?’
Yes, Sophie did want it cut into slices.
When she went to the boulangerie she got the pain de mie bread cut into soft square slices as well.
She had everything else she needed at home apart from wine, so she got a chilled bottle of C?tes de Provence rosé in the wine shop.
Something for dessert didn’t enter her head until she’d filled the rest of the space in her basket with some fresh salad ingredients from the épicerie and walked past her favourite artisan chocolate shop.
What could be more perfect to end a girl’s night in with wine and comfort food than indulging in a square or two of dark chocolate – maybe the one that was infused with local lemons from Menton?
Sophie wandered home, in no hurry to shut herself away from the soft sunshine or the company of hearing snatches of conversation coming from people sitting outside with an aperitif or through open windows and doors of dwellings.
As she approached her blue door, she could see through the archways to the heat haze misting the vista to be seen from the ramparts.
She could also see a solitary figure. A tourist?
But why was she looking in the direction Sophie was coming from and not at the spectacular view?
And why did something about her seem so familiar?
Was it just the dark, wavy hair?
She took another glance as she paused to open her front door and it was then that the woman took off her sunglasses.
Sophie froze. She could feel blood draining from her face, leaving her lips feeling oddly stiff but the word that escaped was barely audible anyway.
‘Hannah…?’
Blood had left her brain, too, because this wasn’t making any sense at all. Why, after all these years, had Hannah tracked her down?
She knew. Of course she knew. It was because of the blog. Because Hannah felt betrayed enough that she wanted to tell her face to face that she hated her as much as she hated Luc because they’d both cheated on her beloved brother?
Was this about to become the absolute rock bottom of Sophie’s life?
She couldn’t move as Hannah walked towards her. She couldn’t smile. She couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t even breathe.
It was Hannah who broke the silence.
‘Oh my God, Sophie,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘I’m so sorry… This is all my fault…’
A couple of tomatoes bounced and then rolled away from Sophie’s basket, as the handle slipped from her grip and it hit the stone step with a thud, but neither of them noticed.
They were already wrapped in each other’s arms.