Chapter 36
étienne shouts out my name as I leave, but I don’t look back. As soon as I’m on the road, I begin to cry and I don’t stop until I reach the mountain pass. This is where the snow sometimes used to make it impossible to get through. It’s where Sébastien and Josie died.
It was winter, it was icy, the person coming in the other direction lost control and crashed into them, causing them to fly straight off the edge of the mountain.
My dad feels like a shadowy figure to me, I remember étienne saying. His family wanted nothing to do with my mum after he died. He came from a wealthy background and she was a factory worker. They thought she was beneath him. They sure as hell didn’t want to be burdened with her son.
He’s wrong though. He’s wrong about Albert. I believe it of Sandrine, absolutely—she was vicious back then, a lioness who was fiercely protective of her cub.
But Albert: he would have welcomed étienne into the pride.
Jackson would have too, if only he’d known. He’s a good person.
As my chest begins to heave again, I pull off the road and onto an asphalt lookout point. There’s only one person I want to talk to right now.
And he answers on the first ring.
“You were right about étienne,” I say as I burst into a fresh set of tears. “It was personal. He wanted to hurt you. He was using me to mess with you. It was all a game.”
“Where are you?” Jackson demands to know.
“I’m up in the hills where Josie and Sébastien died,” I choke out.
“Are you driving?” He sounds horrified.
“No, I’ve just pulled into the lookout point.”
“Stay where you are,” he says. “I’m coming.”
He must drive like a bat out of hell because he’s with me within ten minutes.
As soon as his blue BMW swings into the lay-by, I reach for my door handle.
A hot gust of wind blows my hair into my face as I lurch toward him, but I don’t get more than a few paces before I’m crashing into his hard chest. His arms come around me, holding me tightly as I cry.
“I’m here, I’m here,” he murmurs against the top of my head. “It’s okay.”
I clutch hold of him as though he’s a life raft.
Have I made a terrible mistake? Is Jackson the person I should have been trying to reconnect with this summer?
I don’t know if he can read my thoughts, but the next thing I know my face is in his hands and I’m gazing up at him, into his mottled eyes. The sun is shining on his skin, highlighting his cheekbones, the curve of his mouth. His chestnut hair rustles in the wind and my head feels dizzy.
And then, after all these years, it happens. He bows his head and kisses me.
It’s a shock, but not a good one. It feels wrong. I’m not sparking with electricity as his firm lips press against mine, I’m fizzing with something unnerving.
I feel like I’m betraying étienne.
The roar of an engine sounds out from behind me as I break away. I look over my shoulder in time to see étienne’s GTi flying into the lay-by. He stares out of the front windscreen at us, his face riddled with shock.
I extract myself from Jackson’s grasp as étienne gets out of the car.
“Well done,” Jackson calls over to him sarcastically, giving him a slow hand clap. “Your plan didn’t work though—she ran straight from your arms into mine.”
“Jackson!” I hiss.
étienne’s face is ashen as he stands there, staring at us. He looks wrecked.
The wind is whipping my hair against my face. Jackson is on my left and étienne is on my right. Whichever way I turn, it’s agony.
“I’m sorry,” étienne says to me, and despite everything, my heart throbs with hope. “I should have come after you right away, but I needed a second to get my head together. It is real, Grace. What we have is real. Please believe me. I care about you.”
“It’s too late!” Jackson interrupts. He sounds victorious.
I snap my attention back to him. “Stop.”
His eyes widen as he stares at me.
“I’m sorry,” I say gently to Jackson. “But you and I…” I shake my head.
“Gracie!” He snags my wrist as I turn toward étienne.
“Let me go, Jackson,” I implore quietly, meaning it in every sense.
“You want him?” He releases my wrist, stunned. “After what he’s done?”
“There’s more to all this than you realize.”
“What could possibly explain him using you to fuck with me?” he asks indignantly.
I glance at étienne. His jaw is clenched.
“Please,” I say. “He’ll understand. It’s the only way we’ll be able to move past this.”
étienne looks torn as he stares past me at Jackson. Suddenly he reminds me of the hurt, frightened little boy he once was.
“Do you want me to tell him?” I offer.
He hesitates and then nods.
I turn back to Jackson. “Sébastien had an affair with étienne’s mother that your family didn’t know about.” It’s a struggle to maintain eye contact considering what’s just happened between us, but I force myself to as I continue. “étienne is Sébastien’s son.”
Jackson’s face drops off a cliff. “I don’t understand.”
“We can explain,” I reply.
“Well, can we get in my car before we all blow off this fucking mountain?” he suggests.
Jackson is sitting in the driver’s seat and étienne is folded into the passenger seat beside him. I’m in the back, between them. We’ve filled Jackson in.
He rakes his hand through his hair, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that was you.”
He remembers the day étienne came running into the garden, crying and bleeding, and how we went with his mum to drop him home.
Jackson’s jaw is rigid with tension as he and étienne stare at each other.
They’re cousins. It’s blowing my mind.
Jackson faces forward again and drags a hand over his face before meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Albie will be so distraught when he finds out about this.”
“I know.”
Jackson’s expression grows thoughtful. “Sébastien’s bedroom is still exactly how it was when he died—Albie never touched it.”
“That’s so sad.”
“What I’m saying,” Jackson continues, looking across at étienne, “is that all of Sébastien’s things will still be in his room. We might be able to find your mother’s letters to him.” He shrugs. “Maybe it’ll help you to piece everything together.”
étienne sighs and drops his head. This must be so overwhelming.
How helpless and alone must he have felt, watching his mother’s health deteriorate, while all the time, Chateau Angèle loomed over the town he loved, a constant reminder of the cruel woman—the family—who had shunned him.
I can’t blame him for wanting to lash out at the people who had hurt him and Estelle.
He was a terrified child and instead of helping him, Sandrine threatened his sick mother in her bed.
What sort of person does that? I’ve always tried to see the good in her as Jackson’s mother, but there’s no looking past this.
I reach forward and touch étienne’s arm. He grabs my hand and gives it a hard squeeze, his eyes shining as he glances over his shoulder at me. I let him go and sit back in my seat.
He and I have things to work out, but that can wait. I have a feeling that if we unpack the betrayals and secrets of his family and hopefully right some wrongs, other things will fall into place.
“We should go there now,” Jackson says. “My mom and Albie are out.”
étienne quickly shakes his head. “I can’t go back to that place.”
My heart contracts at how vulnerable he sounds.
“Jackson and I will search for them. I’ll let you know how we get on.”
He nods his agreement and gets out of the car.
Jackson and I stare at each other again in the rearview mirror.
“Thank you,” I say softly. “You’re a good man.”
He smiles sadly. “Just not the man for you, eh?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He averts his gaze. “It’s okay, Gracie,” he says gruffly, and then suddenly his tone is all business. “Do you want to drive Mellie’s car back or would you prefer to ride with me?”
“I’ll drive.”
He gives me a curt nod.
As soon as I’m out of his car, Jackson sets off, but étienne remains, leaning against his GTi. When he sees me coming toward him, he straightens up and meets me at the back of Mellie’s Clio.
“I’m sorry,” he says as we come to a stop in front of each other. “I should have told you everything from the start. I wish I’d trusted you.”
“You really hurt me,” I reply in a voice thick with emotion.
“I know.” He looks miserable as he holds his hand out to me.
“Je suis désolé, Grace,” he says hoarsely.
I stare at his hand and then I take it and a second later he’s tugging me into his arms. “Please forgive me,” he says as I bury my face against his neck.
“It was so wrong.” He smooths my hair away from my cheeks, trying to protect them from the havoc created by the wind.
“But everything that happened between us, from the moment we kissed, was real. For me, it was real.” His voice is low and fervent, his body warm and solid against mine.
“I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t fall for you, that it was a casual thing, that you’d be going home soon, but then you decided to stay and it scared me.
I tried to keep you at a distance, but I couldn’t.
Every time I pushed you away, I was fighting with another part of myself that wanted to pull you closer.
” Suddenly he’s clasping my jaw in his hands and staring into my eyes.
“I care about you, Grace. I more than care, I—”
I stand on my tiptoes and press my lips to his.
He gasps and pulls back, his eyes roving around my face.
And then his mouth is on mine again and we’re fighting against the elements to pour everything into our kiss.
Our tongues lock and tangle as he walks me back against Mellie’s car, the wind stealing our breaths, my heart quickening as I pull his body flush to mine, still wanting him in spite of all that he’s done. I’m certain we’ll get past this.
“I should go,” I say, breathing heavily against his mouth as we break apart. “Jackson is expecting me to follow; I don’t want him to worry.”
He tenses and then he nods, resting his forehead against mine. “I’ll be at Les Saules.”
“I’ll find you there,” I promise.
We give each other one more hard hug and then go our separate ways.
Jackson opens the door to me, his expression stark. “I knew I recognized étienne from somewhere, that I hadn’t just seen him around town.” He places a photo frame into my hands.
The image is of a younger Albert with his wife, Josie, standing beside a twentysomething Sandrine and a man of around the same age. Sébastien’s resemblance to étienne is strong.
“I’ve never seen this photo before,” I say. In fact, I’m not sure that I’ve seen any pictures of Sébastien.
“Albie keeps them in his room. There’s this one too.” He switches out the frame for another.
My eyes widen at the sight of a young curly-haired boy in Josie’s arms. “He looks just like étienne at the same age! There’s a photo of him at his house that is almost identical—even their poses are the same.”
“My mom would have seen him and known,” Jackson says grimly. “What she told Estelle about there being no proof…That was bullshit. That’s the only proof Albie would have needed.” He points at the photo in my hands.
He’s right.
“I can’t believe my mom would do this. I know she can be difficult, but I didn’t think she was cruel. He was just a little kid.”
“I know.” I sound as despondent as he does.
He beckons for me to come inside and shuts the door behind me. “Let’s go and see what we can find.”
Sébastien’s bedroom is on the top floor, looking over the garden. As Jackson said, it doesn’t appear to have been touched in years. There’s a faint coating of dust over everything, but not as much as there was at Les Saules. Someone cleans the room sporadically.
Jackson goes to a chest of drawers and begins to root through piles of clothing.
“This is so weird,” he says. “Everything is still here. It’s like a time capsule.”
I open the wardrobe and get down on my knees, moving shoes and bags and other bits and pieces aside, and then I see it: the old-fashioned biscuit tin tucked right at the back. “Jackson,” I say hesitantly, bringing it out. I ease off the lid and stare at the contents.
Sébastien, reads the top envelope in sloping cursive. No address, just his name.
Flicking through the stack and discovering that they’re all the same, I open the top one, pull out a letter, and without trying to decipher the contents—not because it’s written in French, but because this is not my letter to read—I zero in on the name at the bottom.
Estelle.
We’ve found them.
Jackson looks a little disconcerted as I force the biscuit tin into my bag.
“I’m not sure Albie would want you to take them away,” he says uncertainly. “This room is like a shrine.”
“They’re not Albert’s,” I reply. “They belong to étienne.”
“Yeah, okay,” he agrees.
“What will you do? Will you talk to Albert and your mum?”
He nods. “They should be home soon—they only went for a drive.”
I’d better get going then. I’d like these letters out of Sandrine’s sight and into étienne’s hands well before she gets wind of them.
“Thanks again for your help,” I say as Jackson walks me back to the front door.
“It’s the least I can do,” he replies seriously.
Without thinking, I turn and throw my arms around his neck. “I meant what I said. You’re a good man.” I let him go and look up at his face. “I knew you’d do the right thing. I knew you’d want to set this straight.”
He looks embarrassed as he averts his gaze, his cheeks dusted with pink.
“Are we okay?” I ask worriedly.
He meets my eyes again. “Of course. We’re friends, right?”
“Always,” I whisper.
I’m blinking back tears as I walk out of the door.