Chapter 3 #2
‘You have arranged a lot of optional extras on this trip in order to make it as romantic as possible,’ he said.
‘I want you to remove them. Every single example and/or performance of the kind of romantic nonsense you specialise in smothering everything with, like some kind of saccharine-laced icing. I don’t want to see any rose petals or candles or heart-shaped chocolates or fairy lights.
Or a table for two and a bottle of champagne.
’ Now that he’d started, the words were tumbling out.
‘I do not want to be served a single dessert with two spoons or hear someone playing anything like “Fly Me to the Moon” on a saxophone. I don’t want to see silhouettes of lovers sitting watching spectacular sunsets or dancing with each other as if they’ve been stuck together with superglue or even walking hand in hand on a beach. I—’
Angus caught his breath. How could there be so much icing on that cake? So many things that were synonymous with romance? Where on earth was all this coming from?
‘Do you understand, Mademoiselle Pascoe?’
‘Tilly,’ she said faintly. ‘Please, call me Tilly. And yes… I understand.’
She didn’t look as if she understood. She looked… as if he’d taken a knife and stabbed her in the heart. And no wonder… her business was romance, after all. She lived and breathed every ingredient in the icing on that damned love cake.
And… it was unchivalrous of him to be taking out his personal dissatisfaction with one aspect of his life on her. He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
‘Or, you could just provide me with a complete refund and I’ll make my own arrangements for my week’s holiday in Provence. I can probably avoid everything I don’t want to experience simply by choosing to go in a different direction than the itinerary you have selected for me.’
How was it that her eyes were capable of getting any bigger? Or for her skin to become so pale it was almost translucent? Mathilde – no, Tilly – actually looked frightened now and Angus suddenly felt like a bit of a shit.
‘That’s not possible,’ Tilly whispered. ‘A lot of bills have already been paid in advance and it’s far too short notice to cancel and ask for refunds. I… I…’
She didn’t know what to do, did she?
Angus drained the last of his drink, hearing an echo of his own voice as he did so.
‘I want you to come with me.’
It was true. He did want her to come with him. But not just to get rid of all the romantic rubbish that had been arranged. In this day and age, that didn’t need to be done by personal contact. She could do it from her office, in the same way she had set it all up in the first place.
He had been fully on board with doing this visit to France alone when he’d left Scotland, but it was dawning on him that being in a foreign country, listening to a language he only had distant memories of trying to learn at school, and with nothing but pretty scenery to distract him from what seemed like the mess he’d made of sorting his personal life and future…
well… it might actually be rather a lonely experience.
Company might be… preferable.
And, for some unfathomable reason, he knew that even if it wasn’t for the fact that she was the only person he had available, he wanted Tilly to provide that company.
He put his glass down. His fingers were cold as he lifted them to rub his chin in an action that he knew was a form of self-soothing when he was disconcerted.
He didn’t need to have scared her into doing what he wanted by threatening to demand a full refund.
That had been unnecessarily heavy-handed.
He could easily afford to change his plans.
He could afford to pay whatever it took to erase any unsettling factors.
To spend more, in fact, to make sure that the word ‘boring’ could never be associated with this holiday and, by default, with himself.
‘What if,’ he asked slowly, ‘I hired you?’
Tilly was watching him warily. ‘Haven’t you done that already?’
‘Not to plan anything or make any arrangements,’ he said.
‘Unless it’s to cancel arrangements already made, as we discussed.
I will pay you to be my guide for the week.
This is your country. We can stick to the itinerary you’ve provided.
We will travel in the rental car you’ve organised and do all of the activities you’ve arranged, all of which are already paid for two people to do.
You can remove what I don’t want to see and you can show me what you think I do need to see.
’ He lifted an eyebrow. ‘I’ll make it worth your while. ’
And, without missing a beat, he named a figure that equalled, or probably exceeded, the sum he’d already made available for the most extravagant seven days of his life.
* * *
Tilly’s head was spinning.
The shock was only just wearing off from the fear engendered by the prospect of having to refund thousands of euros that she didn’t have available.
Along with that came the memory of how adverse publicity on social media had all but ruined the destination wedding business that she had helped Sophie to build up for long enough to feel just as invested in its success.
Could history be trying to repeat itself?
There was no way A Promise in Provence could go down in the dramatic kind of flames that only scandal could provide, but maybe it was doomed to simply sink without a trace by her becoming bankrupt?
And now Angus McLeod was offering her a life raft.
But why would he want to pay a stranger to spend what was rather a long time with him as a guide?
If it was simply to ensure that she would sweep away any reminders of what this holiday had been intended to achieve, it could mean that his anger was a way of trying to hide an utterly broken heart.
The pang of something that felt like sympathy took Tilly by surprise.
This was the man who’d told her to sit down like a parent admonishing a naughty child.
The man who’d almost rolled his eyes when she had been slow deciding on what she would like to drink but, above all, the man who had fired a warning shot, whether or not it had been intentional, that made her realise he could destroy the glue that held her entire life together.
A career that was making romantic dreams come true and letting lovers commit to spending the rest of their lives together.
Weddings were wonderful too, of course, and she’d enjoyed every moment of working with Sophie, but the most important decision had already been made by the time a bride walked down the aisle.
Tilly’s raison d’être was that moment of a proposal being offered and accepted.
When pure love and hope for the future took flight and blossomed into a vision of a whole new world that only they could inhabit together.
If anyone could show some tolerance – and perhaps even forgive a less-than-acceptable reaction to the destruction of his hopes of spending the rest of his life with the woman he loved so much – it had to be Tilly.
And it wasn’t as if she had anywhere she had to be in person over the next few days. What work she had in progress could easily be done online because she’d deliberately kept herself available in case any troubleshooting was needed for her most important client so far. But…
She found herself shaking her head. ‘But…’ Her next words wouldn’t emerge.
If Angus’s eyebrows got any lower his eyes were going to vanish. ‘But what?’
‘But I’ve only booked one bedroom in all the hotels.’
One bedroom.
One bed.
And a man that Tilly had, until very recently, considered to be the absolute epitome of sexy.
To her horror she could feel the flush of colour rising from her neck to her cheeks. She had to resist an urge to fan herself with her hand.
Angus didn’t seem to notice. He gave a small shrug that said he wasn’t bothered and even made a ‘pff’ sound that made him look, and sound, quite French. It almost made her smile.