Chapter 14 #2
“You always did,” he said, looking down at her.
“You should have been nicer. It might have ended better. We could at least have been friends. You couldn’t even do that.
You’re a miserable person.” He had waited years to say it, hoping she’d improve.
She never did. He walked away. There was nothing more to say.
Even “goodbye” seemed superfluous. The marriage was over when she climbed out of bed with Philippe Prudeau, or long before that.
She was getting what she deserved for all the pain she had caused him, and she knew it too.
She had no regrets, she had gotten a lot out of the marriage for a long time.
Prestige, status, money, a big fancy apartment, nice cars, vacations.
And Philippe had set her up in a decent apartment he was paying for.
It wasn’t fancy like the old one, but it was big and respectable.
He said he would move in with her when he got divorced, which she doubted.
He was too cheap to pay for a divorce, but he paid for a nice apartment, and she was fine.
And he was an important man. She’d been ashamed to live in the apartment she and Xavier had rented after they sold their big one.
And the eight hundred thousand euros Xavier was giving her from the sale was a good chunk of money, and Philippe was paying her rent.
All she had to do now was make sure he would continue to pay her rent.
A threat of what she would tell his wife would probably convince him to let her stay in the apartment even if they didn’t stay together.
And the sex between them had been good for the last five years.
She didn’t love him either. But he got her good promotions and raises, which mattered more to her.
—
Xavier felt dirty after negotiating with Brigitte.
But it was worth doing. It would save them both time, and you couldn’t squeeze blood from a stone.
He was going to make money on his investment in the hotel.
It might take a little time to get it, but they had hit the jackpot, and Pascal was an honest man.
It wasn’t billions like Bon Voyage would have made.
But he and Pascal would make several million from the hotel.
Xavier could invest it in another business, or a start-up. He had a future again.
He waited at the airport for the next flight to Biarritz.
He got back to the dower house at ten o’clock, hungover from the night before, with a headache from dealing with Brigitte, and tired from the flight.
He took off his clothes and got into bed, thinking about what he’d done, and he realized that Sabrina was right.
Getting out of his marriage didn’t feel like a failure, it felt like a liberation, which was exactly what it was.
After thirty years in prison, he was free.
And whatever he had to pay Brigitte was well worth it. He felt like a man again.
—
Xavier woke up early the next morning and watched the sun come up.
He felt like a new man as he watched the sky fill with light, and then stood under the shower and thought about the day before.
A thirty-year mistake had ended. In retrospect, it was hard to understand why he hadn’t done it sooner.
Confidence at first that he could fix it, the hope that they weren’t as ill-suited as it appeared.
Some magical belief that the problems would take care of themselves.
Laziness, indifference, cowardice, the complications, humiliation, and expense of a divorce.
So he buried himself in his job and told himself it didn’t matter that he was married to a woman who didn’t love him and hated him at times, and whom he had never loved either.
He had wasted his youth with her. But he felt alive again, and suddenly hopeful about life, and that things might turn out right in the end.
He felt like he’d been given a second chance at living. It was like returning from the dead.
He sat in the morning sun in his garden, thinking about the future. He thought about his daughter and the explanation he owed her. She wouldn’t be surprised, but she would wonder why it had finally broken.
He knew what he wanted to do that morning. He didn’t want to wait another hour longer.
Half an hour later, he was standing on the front steps of the chateau, with an arm full of roses he had cut from the dower house garden.
He banged the heavy brass knocker, and Sabrina opened the door with a look of surprise to see him standing there instead of knocking on the back door as he usually did.
She was still in her nightgown. She’d been on the way to the kitchen to make breakfast for the children.
He set the roses down on the step, took one long stride forward, and kissed her with his arms around her, pulling her close to him.
She kissed him back, and then took a step back into the hallway, with his ancestors staring down at them from their portraits.
She looked flustered, and upset, as she pushed her hair back from her face.
“I thought we agreed not to do anything to complicate your situation more than it already is,” she said. Her heart was pounding from the kiss.
“That’s right, we did. But it’s not complicated anymore, or it won’t be. I uncomplicated it yesterday. I went to see Brigitte. It’s over, Sabrina. I should have done it years ago, or never started. The only thing good that ever came of it was our daughter.”
Sabrina looked startled. She hadn’t expected that, and had resigned herself to his staying married, and nothing between them being possible. She glanced at his left hand, and where his wedding ring had been there was only a deep ridge and a thin tan line.
“I took it off this morning,” he said when he saw her look at his hand, as though looking for confirmation that what he said was real, and not her imagination, or a wish or a hope.
“I have to warn you though,” he said with a smile, “I’m a pauper now.
I gave her everything we had left from the sale of the apartment.
All I have now is the rent you pay me every month.
” He and Pascal were going to make a fortune with the hotel, but it would take time for that to provide a steady income stream.
For right now, he was managing the way things were.
“I’m not after your money, Xavier,” she said softly, and he laughed.
“I never thought you were. And I’m not after yours.
” What he felt for her wasn’t about money.
His attraction to her was about the kind of person she was, that he had seen right from the beginning, the bright light that shone from within her, her deep caring about other humans.
Her gentle kindness and the hope she gave him.
She had reached out to him in the darkness, and led him back from the dark place he had been until he met her.
She was an unusual person. She looked deep into his eyes as he stood there.
She hadn’t expected this to happen, and she didn’t know if she was ready or not.
He could see that she was frightened and he wanted to reassure her.
“It’s going to be all right,” he said gently.
“Nothing is going to happen that we can’t handle.
” She wanted to believe that was true. She had thought that too before Malcolm died, and then her whole world collapsed in an instant.
Bad things did happen to good people, and she didn’t want anything bad to happen to Xavier.
He couldn’t promise her it wouldn’t. Life didn’t work that way.
You had to be ready for everything, good and bad.
And the way she had kissed him back told him that she was more ready than she thought.
It had been thirteen months since Malcolm died.
It felt like only yesterday and a lifetime ago, and she didn’t know if she was meant to move on, or live forever in the shadow of his memory.
Xavier thought she deserved more than that, they both did.
And if Malcolm had loved her as she said, Xavier was sure that he would have wanted more for her than living in his memory and seeing their children once in a while when they had time.
She was putting the roses in a vase and Xavier was watching her with love in his eyes, when the children came running into the kitchen, laughing and talking a mile a minute. She said that Xavier had come to have breakfast with them.
“Will you show me how to ride my bike if we take the training wheels off?” Luc asked him with his big blue eyes and missing two front teeth, which had recently fallen out.
“I want to ride like Elodie and Geraldine. She’s my sister now too,” Luc announced, and Sabrina couldn’t imagine her life without them now.
“You have to wait until you’re a little bigger,” Xavier said, and tied his shoelaces for him, and Sabrina hastily made everyone’s favorite pancakes, and promptly burned one.
She was distracted thinking of Xavier’s news and their kiss in the doorway.
Life was moving so quickly, she could hardly keep up with what was happening.
The children wanted to swim in the pool after breakfast but Sabrina said it was too early, and sent them out to play ball in the garden, so she and Xavier could talk.
She smiled shyly at him after they went outside.
They talked about the hotel and how well the opening had gone.
She hadn’t seen him since he had gone to see Brigitte.