Chapter One
Earlier that day
Arielle stood from where she had been crouched deadheading the vivid, vermillion geraniums. They grew in terracotta pots lining the low wall that separated the wide paved terrace in front of the house from the garden beyond.
The garden itself was rich with Provencal beauty, from the glossy dark leaves of the oleanders and olive trees framing the space, to the citrus, peach and mulberry trees behind.
Arielle’s gaze swept over the vista. A garden bathed in the warm, late afternoon sunshine.
So familiar. So loved. And so soon to be lost.
How will I bear it?
The thought made her heart clench but she crushed it down.
All I can do is make the very most, while I can, of my beloved home.
Before it was sold.
Because sold it would be. Her stepbrother, Gerald, would see to it.
So would his mother—Arielle’s stepmother.
Arielle’s eyes darkened. A woman more different from her own unworldly, gentle mother, her father’s first wife, was impossible to imagine.
Naomi was as hard as nails and avaricious to the core.
Her one soft spot was for her detestable son, Gerald.
She doted on him, indulged him, funded him.
Not with her own money of course, but with her husbands’.
Husbands, plural Arielle thought bitterly.
Naomi’s third husband had been Arielle’s father, Charles Frobisher.
He had made his money in property—making him wealthy enough to tempt Naomi Maitland to get her claws into him when he’d been widowed.
When he’d shockingly succumbed to a heart attack eighteen months previously, Arielle had discovered that in his new will he’d left everything he’d possessed to Naomi. His daughter had inherited nothing.
The clenching of her heart was like a vice now as Arielle’s eyes swept round, up from the garden and over to the house behind it. The beautiful, honey-coloured old stone Provencal farmhouse, with its tiled roof and its wooden-shuttered windows. The house she loved, so, so much. The Mas Delfine.
It had been her mother’s house, inherited down the generations, but had become the property of Arielle’s stepmother. Bestowed upon Naomi by Arielle’s own father.
How could he do it to me? How?
Unlike the close relationship she’d had with her mother, Arielle had never been as close to her father, focussed as he was on amassing the wealth he’d made in property.
But she had been his only child and he’d been casually affectionate towards her.
She’d always understood that the mas she’d loved so much, where she had spent the summer holidays with her mother from boarding school in England, would one day come to her, passing down the female line.
But when her mother had died, so tragically three years ago, she’d discovered that the mas was actually her father’s property.
Even then, she had assumed that her father would leave it to her, his daughter.
But it had gone to Naomi, along with the rest of his estate.
Naomi had then promptly bestowed the house upon the son she doted on.
Whereupon Gerald had spitefully informed Arielle that he would sell it as soon as he could find a buyer who would pay the price he wanted for it and there would be nothing, absolutely nothing, she could do about it.
But until that happened…
Until then I will stay here, with my memories, and make the most of this time. My last summer—
Anguish made her heart clench again.
Lycos Dimistrios strolled out of the casino.
A mix of satisfaction and contempt filled him.
It was a familiar combination. One that had been known to him since he had first embarked upon his ascent from poverty to the world he now lived in—the world of the rich.
He glanced over the scene in front of him.
The seafront promenade here on the French Riviera overlooked a marina that was filled with luxury yachts, all glittering with lights and throbbing with the sounds from the onboard parties still going at this hour, gone midnight.
As Lycos waited for his valet-parked car to arrive he was conscious of the folded piece of paper in the inner pocket of his tuxedo jacket. It might have been an unusual win, but a notary would find it all in order. Lycos had made sure of that.
His opponent had been a fool, but then so were many who chose to play him.
This one had been particularly repellent—boastful, rude to the croupier, rude to the waiters, demanding and entitled.
The kind of person who liked to win simply to beat someone else down.
Especially, this evening. Lycos’s lip curled.
Lycos was known on the casino circuit as ‘The Wolf’. His nickname was a play on his name in Greek and, as his formidable reputation had grown, the name had been deemed appropriate. It was a reputation he had earned.
Those who indulged in gambling did so for a variety of reasons—but Lycos had just one.
To make money. Make it and keep it. Every gambling win he’d ever made had gone, apart from retaining what he would stake in his next play, into solid wealth.
Wealth that had been stored, accumulated and invested.
Taking him far, far away from his lowly origins in the backstreets of Athens.
Now his world was very different. The fabled, glitzy C?te d’Azur or anywhere else that boasted opportunities for gaming at his level. Anywhere that the wealthy gathered to disport themselves expensively. He disposed his time among them, going where the mood and impulse took him.
Right now it was taking him north as his regular review of his investments, managed for him by a prestigious private bank based in Paris, was due.
His car was drawing up with his case already in the boot.
Bestowing an appropriate note from his wallet, he took the driving seat, loosened his black tie and unfastened the top button of his dress shirt.
Despite the lateness of the hour, he was as sober as a judge.
He never touched alcohol when he was at the tables.
Gunning the engine, he moved out into the traffic, heading inland. Heading for Paris.
Arielle turned over in her sleep. The light night breeze from her wide-open bedroom window played over her eyelids.
She was dreaming. A dream of happier times, when her mother was still alive and Arielle had had no idea that she would lose her so soon.
When she’d had no idea that she would lose her beloved home as well.
A slight smile curved her lips, her long hair flowing over the pillowcase.
Outside the stars burned in the dark velvet sky, wheeling in their timeless arc, ushering the land towards the coming dawn.
The dawn that would bring the day that would take her home from her and change Arielle’s life for ever.
The sky was starting to lighten in the east, the night was fading.
Lycos changed gear as the powerful car steadily ate up the miles along the Rh?ne valley, heading north.
A road sign loomed up in front of him, indicating an upcoming turning, and he frowned slightly.
Why did it seem familiar? Then it clicked.
That was the town, Saint-Clément, scrawled as part of the address written on the piece of paper in his jacket pocket.
Another sign for the town flashed past and as the turning approached Lycos moved with a sudden impulse.
He was in no rush to reach Paris. He could afford a detour.
He turned off Route 7, pausing only to reset his sat nav—he would not rely on road signage alone in this unfamiliar part of the country.
Nearly an hour later he was glad he’d had the sat nav to guide him.
He’d gone past the town he’d made the turning for and headed out into the open countryside, which was bathed in dawn light.
He was aiming for the location in the next line of the address, a much smaller village, still some distance away.
He almost regretted his impulse but not quite.
The Provencal landscape was beautiful at this early hour, washed in the palest dawn sunlight, as he passed cypress trees, olive groves, vineyards and citrus stands, with occasional houses and farms dotting the undulating terrain.
The road narrowed so he slowed down although there was no other traffic on the road this early.
In grassy, stone-walled fields cows lifted their heads incuriously, sheep and goats ignored him and the occasional rabbit darted away. Mist hung in low hollows giving the countryside a mythical feel, ancient and timeless, and roadside flowers coloured the verges.
Finally he reached the small village he had been looking for.
The little square with its sandy, tree-edged area for boules was deserted but Lycos spotted a boulangerie with its door open.
Suddenly hungry, he pulled up to buy a freshly-baked baguette and half a dozen croissants.
Checking the directions to his destination, which was still a good few kilometres away, he resumed his journey, demolishing two of the croissants in short order.
The road had narrowed further and had started to climb.
Lycos slid his window down—the air was sweet and fresh, and had already begun to warm up.
He propped his elbow on the opened window and kept his speed low from necessity.
Absently he rubbed his jaw. He needed a shave and a shower.
And to get out of his tuxedo into something more appropriate for the day.
He would make use of the facilities at his destination. His newest acquisition.
Not that he’d keep it long. He’d check it out, then hand it over to realtors to be disposed of for its maximum value.
He had no use for a farmhouse in the middle of Provence.