Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
LUCY
Sébastien was busy with dinner for his hotel guests, so Lucy went for a long walk around the village, then down to the beach to stare out to sea.
She watched the dark bulk of a ship as it disappeared over the horizon.
Her father was on the other side of the Channel in England, no doubt shaking his head at Lucy’s decision.
But a new life, thrumming with possibility, waited for her here.
She still had the music and the sheet of code paper with her and she sat down on a bench to look at them again. She wished she’d been old enough to hear Margot’s stories over a cup of coffee and a croissant. She wished—
An idea sprang into Lucy’s mind. At first she wondered if it was ridiculous, but she chased that thought away. It would be a wonderful thing to do.
And she decided she had to tell Sébastien right away. She didn’t bother trying to battle the bad phone signal to text him, but went back to the bar instead. It was already bustling with locals who were whiling away the cares of the day.
She weaved her way through the tables to the piano, where Sébastien was playing Isabelle’s lullaby. She slipped one arm round his broad shoulders. She wanted to kiss his cheek, but she didn’t want to take him by surprise.
‘Sébastien!’ she said cheerfully. ‘You’re playing Theo’s tune!’
‘Got an ear for it,’ he replied, smiling up at her. ‘I only have to hear them a couple of times and they’re lodged in there!’
‘You’re a genius – I think you would’ve got on with Theo.’ Lucy’s heart flipped.
‘Look, I know you’re in the middle of dinner,’ she went on, as she put the notebook down on top of the piano, ‘but I had an idea for the bookshop. Thing is, I didn’t know what you’d think about it.’
Sébastien kept playing as he nodded her on, his expression expectant.
‘The bookshop café,’ Lucy told him. ‘We talked about it before, but I can see it so clearly in my mind now. I could convert the first floor above the shop. And if you’d like to, we could go into business together.
Your food is amazing, and wouldn’t it be great if more people could taste it?
The café could expand your business. People’d come for cake at the café upstairs at the bookshop and have their dinner at Jojo’s!
’ She’d been eager that he wouldn’t see it as a threat to his business across the road.
‘And I keep thinking about Daniel’s message…
Margot’s memory… I’d like to name the café Margot’s, after her.
And if you want to be my partner on the café side of things – I mean, I’ve run a magazine, but not a café, I don’t have a clue – then that would be amazing. ’
She beamed up at him. There were no doubts in her mind that she could trust him.
‘I think that sounds…’ He looked thoughtful for a moment, then murmured, ‘Perfect.’
Lucy reached up and gently touched her fingertips to his face. It was as if everyone else in the bar, with their chatter and their noise, had fallen away and it was just the two of them in their own little world. She brought her face closer to his, her lips moving towards his mouth.
She felt lost in his presence, in the scent of his cologne and the easiness of his company. It all felt so easy.
Lucy was barely aware of the bell above the door jangling, a second before a man’s voice said, ‘Oh Lucy, thank God I’ve found you!’
The spell was broken.
Ice seemed to pour through Lucy’s veins as she turned and saw a man in casual but expensive clothes enter the bar.
An open-necked, pale blue shirt that was cut just right; trousers that were a relaxed fit for summer but without looking baggy.
A handsome, almost chiselled face without a trace of stubble, and hair that was just long enough to look smart but slightly tousled.
The man she’d once loved, and had nearly married, was striding into the bar.
Images rushed through Lucy’s mind of all the happy times they’d had together, only to end in a final image of his stupid mistake; his devastating betrayal.
Andrew had come to Cordeval.