since that accident, Tabby had also lost touch with their other friends, Hilary and Jen.
‘They needed a focus for their bitterness and grief and Dad was dead, so I made the next best target,’ Tabby continued. ‘It’s just I couldn’t bear Christien or anybody else in his family to look at Jake in that same tainted light…as though he was something to be ashamed of, apologised for and concealed-’
‘Why should he be? Your son is the mirror image of his very handsome papa. And Christien Laroche is not the male I took him for if he does not relish the sight of himself reprised in miniature,’ Pippa opined drily. ‘Furthermore, when Jake reveals his meteoric IQ and his deeply boring current obsession with fast cars Christien will experience such a shocking sense of soul-deep recognition that he will be flattered to death.’
Tabby cherished much less ambitious notions. She only hoped that once Christien got over the shock, he would be interested in getting to know his son. An hour later, sighing at the sound of her much-put-upon friend trekking downstairs again to fulfil yet another late-night demand from her domineering parent, Tabby climbed into the spare-room bed where Jake already lay fast asleep.
Eight days had passed since she had left France. Christien had tucked her into bed that last night and left her alone. Although that was what she had wanted, she had felt ridiculously abandoned the next morning and very sad driving away in the van. Indeed it had been a week during which Tabby had become increasingly angry with herself for her repeated failure to push Christien out of her mind, not to mention her reluctance to tell Christien that he was the father of her child. That smacked of a cowardice that Tabby was determined to confront within herself.
As Tabby drove off the ferry into France the following day she was keen to draw Jake’s attention to the more unusual cars on the road to keep him occupied during the lengthy drive ahead. ‘There’s a Rolls Royce…’ she told her son helpfully.
The little boy shifted excitedly in his seat.
‘Are you excited about the new house?’ Tabby asked.
‘Can I jump on my new bed?’
‘Forget it!’ Tabby said with a grin.
The minute Tabby parked in the driveway at the cottage, Jake headed straight for the back garden with his football, eager to stretch his legs after being cooped up for so long. Tabby decided to let him burn off some energy before she took him indoors. In truth, she was afraid of seeing disappointment on his earnest little face. He was only three years old and it took adult imagination to see that the drab cottage had promise.
‘Stay in the garden and don’t go near the road!’ she called in his wake, knowing her first priority would have to be the installation of a gate across the driveway.
Jake stopped and uttered a world-weary sigh that would have done justice to a little old man. ‘I
Entering the cottage while she thought about how shockingly fast Jake seemed to be growing up, Tabby came to an abrupt halt and stared with bewildered eyes at her unfamiliar surroundings. In panic she started backing outside again, believing that she had somehow contrived to gain entry to someone else’s home. Only when she saw the gorgeous artistic arrangement of flowers beside the fireplace and the large envelope that bore her name in Christien’s writing did she halt her retreat. In a daze, Tabby crept back inside again and snatched up the envelope to extract the card within.
‘I respect your right to live where you choose…call me, Christien.’
A phone sat beside the floral offering. He had even had a phone line connected. The windows had been replaced and the walls had been painted in fresh colours. In a daze she looked around the room, which now was furnished with twin sofas and a handsome
All of a tremble, she snatched up the phone and stabbed out the number that Christien had put on the card. As she waited for the call to connect she glanced into the little washroom and stopped dead. Because the ‘little’ washroom now appeared to encompass the enclosed porch beyond it as well and had a shower, marble tiles and a Jacuzzi that was state-of-the-art. A walk-in airing cupboard was packed with an array of fleecy towels and what looked very much like entire rows of crisp bed linen.
‘Tabby…what do you think?’ Christien purred as she hurried up the stairs with the receiver of the cordless phone clutched in her perspiring hand.
‘I think…I think I’m hallucinating,’ she mumbled, gaping at the rich wool carpet on the stairs.
‘
‘Christien…there is just no way that I can accept any of this,’ Tabby asserted in a wobbly voice. ‘Have you gone out of your mind? This whole place has been torn apart and remodelled into far more than it was ever meant to be. It’s so seriously trendy it must have cost a fortune!’
‘It’s my way of saying sorry for being pushy and welcoming you back to your new home,
‘How on earth did you even get into this place?’ Tabby queried. ‘Did you break in?’
Her bedroom had been embellished with a bed in which a princess would have felt at home and dressed with snazzy silk curtains and an over abundance of crisp white lace-edged pillows and sheets. The colour scheme was in her favourite shades of pale turquoise and lemon and she wondered dizzily if he had remembered that.
‘Solange kept a spare key hidden in the trunk of the old tree in the front garden. I’ve removed it,’ he confessed.
‘Thanks for warning me!’ Tabby sniped, but the reproof lacked bite because her voice was weak. ‘I just can’t believe you’ve done all this…and in such an incredibly short space of time.’ She glanced into Jake’s room, which, having already been furnished, had benefited a little less noticeably from fresh paint and polished floorboards. ‘What are you expecting in return? Me in a gift box?’
His husky, sexy laugh vibrated down her spinal cord like a caress.
‘How am I supposed to hand back new windows when you haven’t left me the old ones?’ Tabby demanded, looking out the bedroom window to note that a big glossy car had stopped out on the quiet road.
‘When I want you to climb into a gift box for me, you can be sure I’ll cut off all avenues of retreat-’
‘But I can’t accept a generosity that I can’t match-’
‘Are you discriminating against me because I’m rich?’ Christien countered with mockery.
Tabby walked downstairs again. ‘If I accepted all this stuff…well, it would make me feel like I’m in your power-’
‘That works fine for me,’ Christien slotted in without shame.
‘Or like I owed you big time-’
‘I can’t say that that idea turns me off either. I know it’s not politically correct but, if your conscience is heavy, I could give you a suggestion or two on how best to lighten-’
‘Shut up!’ But Tabby was laughing until she went over to the kitchen window to check on Jake, only to discover he was nowhere within view. ‘Hold on a minute,’ she urged Christien then. ‘Look, I’ll call you back!’
After distractedly pressing the ‘hold’ button, then discarding the phone, Tabby headed into the front garden. Relieved that Jake had not strayed round there as she had feared, she took the time to study the car still sitting parked because she couldn’t help wondering what it was doing there. It was a Mercedes and a very expensive- looking model. She was heading for the side of the cottage where she assumed her son was playing when she saw Jake running out from behind the van. He was chasing his ball, which was bouncing down the sloping driveway towards the road.
‘No, Jake…
But her shout was drowned out as the engine of the Mercedes suddenly ignited and the vehicle moved off. Even knowing that she was too far away, Tabby made a frantic attempt to reach her son and prevent him from running out into the road in front of the car. But she was too late. With a protesting screech of tyres, the driver braked hard and swerved to avoid Jake and the Mercedes mounted the verge with a crashing jolt before coming to a juddering halt.
For a split second deafening silence held and then Jake broke it with a frightened howl. Tabby grabbed him up, sat him down on the driveway and told him firmly to stay there while she raced across the road to check on the
