Chapter Eleven
Arielle stood by the river’s edge, leaning on the stone wall between her and the water.
She’d slept heavily, thanks to the aspirin she’d taken, but sleep had not refreshed her.
She’d awoken, Lycos asleep still, and despite the early hour she’d crept from the bed.
She’d pulled on some random clothes, then slipped from the room and walked out of the hotel.
She’d wanted to be on her own with her troubling thoughts.
She watched the river flow past her, heading to the sea.
There was the slightest chill in this early morning air, reminding the city that autumn was on the way.
A sudden, painful memory assailed her. At the mas, at this hour, she’d be stirring, preparing to get up and head out to let out the poultry and collect any eggs.
Lycos loved those omelettes with the eggs so fresh…
The image was vivid in her mind’s eye. Sitting outside, under the faded awning, Lycos tucking into his omelette before moving on to croissants with home-made apricot jam and butter from Jeanne and Claude’s cows.
She felt her heart squeeze painfully. How happy she had been then. Day after day after day. Night after night after night. One week eliding into the next and the next and the next. An endless time, it had seemed.
I will remember it all my life. Never again will I know such happiness.
Because never again would she be able to call the Mas Delfine her home.
Or have Lycos in her life.
Regret filled her. She should have found the courage to talk to Lycos, to ask him to his face what she meant to him. Whether she meant anything at all other than a passing romance. Beguiled by the peaceful beauty of the mas. Indulging her here in this lavish stay in Paris.
But did that matter any longer?
The very question was hard to face. Last night she had seen a side of him she had known about, but hadn’t realised just what it meant. Now she did.
I’ve seen the Wolf. Seen what he does.
Her brow furrowed as she stared down at the turbid waters of the river. Emotions, as turbid as the river, made their presence felt. Heavy and hard to face.
But face them she must.
Slowly, she turned away, returning to the hotel. To Lycos. To say to him what she must.
Lycos stirred, his hand automatically going across the bed to reach Arielle. He had been consideration itself last night, letting her sleep peacefully, curled up on the far side of the bed. It hadn’t been the way he’d wanted to spend the night, but he wouldn’t have dreamt of pestering her.
Nor would he now, either. Instead, he’d enquire sympathetically how she was feeling and whether she was up to breakfast. Up to doing anything that day.
But as his hand reached across, he realised she wasn’t in the bed at all. He sat up, looking around. She wasn’t visible. The bathroom door was open and clearly empty. He frowned and reached for his phone. He sent her a quick text.
Are you OK?
It took a moment for a reply to come through.
Fine. I just wanted some fresh air. I’m heading back now.
Relieved, he replied with a simple text.
Great. Are you up for breakfast?
Again, the reply took a moment.
Fine, thanks.
He sent back a thumbs up emoji and rang down for breakfast to be brought up, as it was every day.
They had breakfast at leisure, in bed, and took their time over it. And sometimes took yet more time to get the day underway. Making love to Arielle in the morning light was memorable indeed.
No, best not think of that. She might still have a headache.
Instead, he used the time to take a quick shower and shave, and throw on a fresh tee shirt and boxers. As breakfast arrived, so did Arielle. He smiled encouragingly at her and the moment they were alone he immediately asked how she was feeling.
‘I’m OK,’ she said.
But she didn’t look OK. She looked the way she had last night. Withdrawn, not making eye contact.
Different.
He looked at her. ‘Arielle, what is it? You’re upset. And don’t say it’s just a headache. It’s more than that.’
She went to the window and looked out for a moment. Her shoulders seemed hunched. She turned back to him.
‘I think it’s time I left for England,’ she said.
She had said it. Said what had been building up in her ever since she’d woken, unable to get back to sleep, hearing Lycos’s steady breathing beside her. So near to her and yet so far.
He was staring at her now. His face had shuttered. It reminded her of how he’d looked last night.
‘Why?’ he asked bluntly.
She bit her lip. ‘I just think it’s the right time,’ she said.
‘Why?’ he asked again.
She swallowed.
‘Because—’
She stopped, twisted her hands and met his eyes, though it was hard to do. She took a breath, a difficult one.
‘Lycos, this time with you has been…amazing. Fantastic. Wonderful. Unforgettable. But…’
She paused again, then made herself say it.
‘It was never going to last, was it? It was always a kind of, well, accident really. You just turned up at the mas on impulse. A place you’d never chosen to own.
A place that just landed on you. Then you saw me there, and I was…
well, as attracted to you as you were to me. So, we, well… We started an affair.’
She drew a deep breath and looked him in the eye. ‘But I never had any…expectations because of it. Because…’ She broke off again.
She gave a smile, a wry one, that hid far more than she was prepared to let him see.
‘Lycos, you’re not just the Wolf. You’re the Lone Wolf.’
She took another breath. ‘And I know that. I know that our time at the mas was just a holiday to you. Just as showing me Paris was. It was a time out from the life you lead. That life like the race day, like that party last night. You cruise around, enjoying your wealth and why not? You’ve made it by your own efforts, you deserve to enjoy it!
And in my time with you I’ve enjoyed it too.
This lovely hotel, all those expensive restaurants and wearing the expensive clothes you bought me.
I won’t pretend otherwise. But nor will I pretend that I mean anything more to you than any of my…
predecessors. That’s why you’re a Lone Wolf. ’
She continued to look directly at him before finishing, ‘And that’s why it’s time for me to head to England. I have to make a new life for myself. You told me that and you’re right. The mas has gone. It will never be in my life again. It will never be mine.’
Lycos was looking at her, meeting her gaze full on.
She could not read his expression. She was too focussed on saying what she was saying, making herself say it, knowing she had to say it.
As she fell silent, he finally got to his feet and moved over to her.
He stood right in front of her and took her hands in his.
‘What if it were?’ he said.
Her first reaction was no reaction, her expression entirely blank. He repeated what he’d just said.
‘What if it were? What if the mas was yours?’
He kept his voice neutral, entirely neutral. Deadpan, like his expression.
But deadpan was not what he was feeling. When she’d made that announcement, I think it’s time I left for England, it was like a punch landing in his solar plexus. It came out of nowhere and winded him so he could not breathe.
But he’d forced himself to breathe. Forced himself to reply. To challenge her. Demolish what she’d just said by any means necessary.
And what he’d just said now was necessary.
In cards, in gaming, sometimes you had to set the stakes high. Higher than you intended, or preferred, in order to net your opponent and to keep them in the game. All so that you could win in the end.
And winning, now, was essential.
Because if I lose—
No, he could not think like that. Did not dare to. Too much was at stake.
Not the mas. Something far more crucial. Vital to him.
Something that, until this moment, he had not realised just how vital it was to him.
Arielle.
He heard her name echo in his head. Felt emotion knife through him, like a dagger thrust, but he pulled the blade from himself. He had to focus only on what he had to achieve. By any means necessary. By staking what he was now prepared to stake. By reminding himself about who he was.
I am the Wolf. And I do not lose.
He watched her face and saw the frown form above her eyes.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said.
‘It’s very simple,’ he said. His voice was calm. Very calm. The way he was at the gaming table. Preternaturally calm. ‘I don’t want you to go.’
She looked at him. He still could not read her expression. But he could feel her hands in his. They felt cold. Inert.
‘Why?’ His earlier question to her echoed back to him.
‘Because we’re good together. And I want that to continue.
’ He pressed her hands, still cold, still inert.
His eyes locked on to hers, willing her to accept what he was saying.
‘Arielle, I don’t want you to leave me. I want you to stay with me.
I want you to want to stay with me. So, I want you to have something you want.
’ He took a breath, looked right at her.
He wanted to make it clear to her what he was prepared to stake.
‘If I give you the mas, give you back your home, the home that was taken from you, will you stay with me?’
She stilled completely.
Then he felt her slip her hands from his. Step back.
And what was in her face he could not understand.
Nor bear to see—
Arielle sat, her eyes closed, as the Eurostar sped towards Calais, and she could only urge it on desperately.
Lest she detrain at Lille and head right back to Paris.
To Lycos.
Her throat closed. Tension wracked through her, along with misery and unhappiness.
And so, so much longing. Longing to undo what she had said to Lycos. To unsay the words. The words she had delivered like the stab from a knife. She heard them again now, all of them. Each one cruel and heartless. And true.
But there was no taking them back. Just as there was no way to deny the implication of what he had said to her.
Or the price she would pay for it.
He would be buying me.
Because what else would it be? He was offering her the one thing in the world she wanted so, so much.
But to accept it for such a reason? To accept it at all—
She heard her own voice, recoiling.
‘You can’t mean that. You cannot possibly mean that. How can you even think it?’
He’d sounded bewildered as he’d riposted.
‘But it’s what you want. You’ve said it a hundred times!’
And then her own voice vehement in protest.
‘Of course I can’t accept it! And for such a reason—’
Now, as her words replayed in her head, she knew, with a flush of shame, that she should have said more.
That I had given him every reason to think he could make an offer like that to me.
Why shouldn’t he think that? He swept me up into his luxury lifestyle.
Wined and dined me at expensive restaurants and picked up the tab for everything.
Paid for all those couture clothes he bought for me to wear, that diamond pendant and all the jewellery he said he wanted to buy for me.
Buy me with—
Her face contorted. Oh, she had told herself she was only letting him make her look so expensively glamorous to show how far he’d come from being that abused, neglected, impoverished boy from the backstreets of Athens, but she’d worn them all the same, hadn’t she?
She’d let him lavish his wealth on her and she’d gone along with all of it.
No wonder he’d thought he could offer to give her the mas.
Buy her with that.
Anguish stabbed her, piercing through the flush of shame. Filling her with a longing so great, a sense of loss so deep, that she could not bear it.
I could have had Lycos. And my home back.
Her nails dug into the palms of her hands and she welcomed the pain. Deserved it.
Because he offered me exactly what I had dreamt of! That stupid, dangerous dream that he and I could make our home at the mas. That I would lose neither him, nor my home.
Yet the offer he’d made her had been poison.
Her cruel denunciation of him rang in her ears.
‘You’ve tried to buy me, Lycos! And I’m appalled by it!
I’ve never thought you capable of that! Just like I never thought you capable of behaving the way you did last night, demolishing that wretched boy!
You should have refused to play with him!
You’re hard and callous and ruthless and I’ve seen a side of you I don’t like, and I don’t want to be with! ’
He’d made no reply, no defence. Only watched her, his face closed, as she’d snatched up her clothes—her own clothes, not the couture outfits that his money had purchased—stuffing them into her suitcase.
At the door she’d turned. He hadn’t moved.
Her eyes had rested on him, stony and implacable, as she’d told him, ‘I’m sorry.
Sorry it’s come to this. Sorry it’s ended like this. Just…sorry.’
She’d been unable to say more and what more had there been to say? Except one last thing. Her voice broken.
‘I didn’t know you, Lycos. I thought I did, but I didn’t. Now I do.’
She’d walked out and he’d made no attempt to stop her.
And that, she knew as she felt tears sting like acid beneath her tightly closed eyelids and as the Eurostar bore her relentlessly away from him, had been the worst of all…