It was a yellow Lamborghini.
Raoul.
The hood was down. Raoul was concentrating on the road.
Jessica’s window was also down. As the Lamborghini swept past she stared across.
Raoul flicked a glance sideways and Comte Marcel came close to getting his way after all. The Prince Regent of Alp’Azuri came really, really close to driving straight off a cliff.
Somehow he didn’t crash. Somehow Raoul managed to park, backing up until the Lamborghini was at rest beside the battered heap of junk Jess was driving. He stared across, unable to believe that he’d found her. She was looking across at him with wide, grave eyes that held an expression he couldn’t read.
‘You’ve come back,’ he said, stupidly, and she nodded.
‘I had to bring Angel.’
‘Right.’ He didn’t understand but he wasn’t arguing.
He was in his car. She was in hers. It was a thoroughly unsatisfactory arrangement which needed to be corrected immediately. It was easy enough for him to get out of his car-it was done in seconds-but that still left her.
‘Jess, will you get out of the car?’
‘Why?’
‘I want to kiss you.’
‘Um… It’s just a marriage of convenience,’ she said tentatively, mechanically, as if she wasn’t sure what she was feeling.
‘Like hell it is.’ He tugged at the door. It didn’t open. ‘You’ve locked the door.’
‘Only the passenger door opens. You have to climb over the gear stick to get in or out.’
‘Well, climb over the gear stick.’
‘Why?’
‘I told you. I want to kiss you.’
‘You’re not mad because I ran away?’
‘I’m mad because you haven’t climbed over the gear stick.’ He strode around the back of the trailer to reach the passenger door. Angel stuck her head out over the trailer gate and she pushed her nose in his neck. He jumped a foot.
‘Why is Angel here?’ He took a deep breath, regrouped and abandoned Angel. ‘No, never mind. Where were we?’ He hauled open the passenger door.
Jess was coming out feet first.
He wanted the other end.
‘Why do you want to kiss me?’ she asked, muffled by the car seat.
‘You’re my wife. I love you.’
‘You love me?’
‘Of course I love you,’ he told her. ‘Of course I do.’ She was out, and he was turning her to face him.
‘Last night…you never said you did,’ she whispered cautiously. ‘You said you might.’
‘That’s because you wouldn’t let me win at slot-cars.’ He was tugging her into his arms, holding her close. ‘I never tell anyone I love them when they won’t let me win at slot-cars.’
‘And if I let you win?’
‘Then I’ll love you forever and ever.’ He bent to kiss her-but she pushed away. Just a little.
‘Raoul…’
Laughter faded. The joy at finding her took a back step as he recognised the seriousness and the deep doubts in her voice. He heard the echo of tears and he drew back. His hands were cupping her face, his eyes were searching hers and he thought: how could he have ever thought that he might in time come to love this woman? He loved her with his whole heart. Right now.
‘Jess, you can win at slot-cars any time you want,’ he said, and he couldn’t keep his voice steady. It was doing this quaver thing that he didn’t recognise-that he couldn’t control. ‘I’ve been a fool,’ he said and in that instant any hint of levity fell away. There was only room for truth between them, and both of them knew it. ‘Jess, darling Jess, I love you now, with all my heart, with everything I have. You are my wife, Jess, whether or not you want to stay with me. But I so hope you do. I do so hope you can. When I thought you’d left me… Oh, Jess.’
‘I don’t…’
‘It’s Dominic, isn’t it?’ he asked, and his hands caressed her face, willing the pain to disappear from her eyes. ‘Jess, loving again isn’t a betrayal of Dominic. How can it be?’
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered and he heard the agony of indecision. ‘It just seems…wrong.’
‘I know. It’s far too soon.’ He was seeking desperately to understand her pain. He was smoothing her face, tracing her spent tears. Loving her with his whole heart. ‘For you to lose your baby and then have us thrust on you; it’s far too fast. But it’s happened. Magically it’s happened, my love.’ He hesitated. ‘Surely Dominic wouldn’t want your world to stay grey.’
‘No. He wouldn’t.’
He hadn’t got it right. She was suddenly angry, pushing him away in distress. ‘Of course he wouldn’t. Dominic didn’t want anything except to be. To live. But he didn’t. I couldn’t save him. And he can’t be part of this. How can I have a happy ending when he can’t?’
There was a moment’s hush. The waves washed in and out beneath them while he tried desperately, frantically, to find the right words.
‘And Lisle can’t,’ he said softly, at last. ‘And Jean-Paul and Cherie and Sarah. And the people I’m working with in Somalia. So much death. It eats away at you. I know it, my Jess, and I hate it. The waste.’
‘I don’t… I just want my Dominic.’
It was a wail of aching sorrow and it was too much. He pulled her against his shoulder and he stroked the close-cropped curls and kissed the top of her head. She shuddered against him and he held her closer.
‘Did you cry, my love?’ he asked softly. ‘When Dominic died-did you cry then?’
‘I… No. I couldn’t.’
‘Yet this morning you cried.’
‘When I looked at Edouard. With his family.’
Damn, his heart was breaking just listening to her. If he could take this pain away… He’d cut his own heart out to spare her this desolation.
But he couldn’t. The death of her son was something that would stay with her forever and all he could do was be there for her.
‘You know, families are strange things,’ he said, softly into her curls. He was barely touching her with his hands, aware that at any minute she could pull away. She was leaning into him but his hands didn’t lock her to him.
The sea air was warm on their skin. The sound of the surf was a gentle hush-hush of a backdrop. But he wasn’t noticing. He was fighting, and he was fighting with everything he had.
‘In Somalia…’ he told her, going sideways to her desolation but sensing it was maybe the right thing to do. ‘In Somalia the people are being decimated by AIDS. I see tragedies every day as I work there. So many orphans. So many deaths. But you know, the inter-aid agencies have gone down the road of adopting children out of their own countries and they’ve drawn back. Because no matter how dreadful the circumstances, no matter how many deaths there are in families, families seem to reform. Regroup. Two families become one. Two teenage girls, friends, get together to raise siblings. Grandmas and uncles and second cousins once removed are stepping in to pick up the pieces. I’ve watched it over and over, with awe. And you know what, my Jess? The only linking they have is love.’
‘But…’
‘Don’t stop me,’ he told her, still stroking her hair. Aching for her to understand this with him. ‘Because I’m only just figuring this out for myself. Since Lisle’s death, I’ve been an outsider looking in. I didn’t think I had any love left to give. But of course I did. Love expands to fill the void. Edouard needs my love. My mother and Henri… I love them and they love me. And I love my memories of Lisle. How could I have said I had no more love when I still love my twin? She’s part of my life forever. Dominic’s death has brought you over to my country, despairing, and his life will
