Page 13 of The Riviera House Swap

No wonder, after that, she’d been desperate not to leave him – to leave the place where she’d given someone both her heart and her virginity.

She’d cried on the coach on the way home, clutching his address in her hand and hoping against hope he’d write. And he had.

She looked at the letter in her hand – one of the last he’d sent.

My love,

I have not received a reply to my two last letters. And I am so worried! But perhaps they get lost in the post.

I have spoken to my mother and she says you are welcome to come and stay any time – so you must speak to your parents again. Tell them how serious we are about each other! And then they will understand. Or perhaps my mother can call your parents and reassure her that I am a good guy.

I can’t wait until the summer when you come back. When we can start the rest of our lives!

Please do reply to my letter. I am longing to hear from you and I hope that everything is truly OK.

Until then, je t’adore.

Pierre x

She almost laughed at the childish ardour of it. It was so sweet, how deeply he had fallen for her – and her for him. He had seemed so more in touch with his emotions, so much moreintense than the British boys she’d been used to. Of course she’d been swept off her feet.

For the first month after she’d returned, she’d written similar letters back. Then she’d gradually come to realise, with help from Bess, that returning to France to get married at seventeen probably wasn’t a good idea. Eventually, as the memory of Pierre had faded and her exams had started to loom, she had come to believe that there was a better, greater future love out there for her one day. She’d considered running away to France – just once, after an argument with her mum. But her sensible chip had kicked in and she’d simply let him go.

Without thinking, she raised the thin paper to her mouth and gave the letter a little kiss. Then laughed at herself – she was getting far too nostalgic. The work meeting would soon bring her back to reality. She placed the letter back in the box and was just gathering her things to take into the spare room – clearing the way for Rory’s entrance tomorrow – when a photograph slipped out form between the messy piles of souvenirs.

She picked it up. There she was, hair long, dotted with butterfly clips, sitting on a bench with Pierre. His eyes were fixed on the camera, his hair flopping slightly forward. They were both smiling – laughing, perhaps – at something. Her eyes were closed – they always seemed to automatically click shut in pictures, and in this time before digital cameras, she’d only find out when collecting her envelope of printed pics from Snappy Snaps.

He had been even better looking than she’d remembered. His dark hair and eyes, the light tan of his skin. His baggy jeans and tee looking dated, yet somehow so cute. She thought about the way she had changed since – some ways for the better, others probably not so much – and wondered how he’d look nowadays if she could find him.

Her phone beeped to signal the start of the meeting and she quickly made her way down to the kitchen to find her boss, Jemima, already large on the screen. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ said, before realising that Jemima could neither see nor hear her, and was simply seeing a black screen with a name across it in white text – one that had popped up automatically when the meeting started.

What a relief! She slipped into the chair and clicked the volume with her mouse. ‘I think everyone’s here…’ Jemima was saying. ‘Terry, Adrian, Amanda, Clara, Steph, Sh—’ she stopped and her brow furrowed. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, humourlessly, ‘I think someone might need to change their name entry.’

Nina looked down at the tiny screen to check Jemima wasn’t referring to her. Then froze as she realised that she was. The nameShitheadwas written in white letters across the black of her screen.

‘Oh,’ she said, colouring. ‘Sorry.’ She quickly deleted the name and wrote her own in its place then started her webcam. Jemima remained frozen for a moment – possibly a computer glitch, possibly not. Then pushed her glasses back up her face and began the meeting.

Shithead. How could this have happened? Nobody had been in the house, nobody had her password, nobody could have accessed her laptop to put the offensive name. And even if they had, who did she know that would sabotage her like that?

Scrolling, whilst trying to pay attention to Jemima – who was ostensibly reading out something that could easily have been included in an email rather than take an hour of each of their time – she noticed the name at the top of the screen. Rory. The once-shared laptop had auto signed into her ex-husband’s account and what she’d experienced was a bit of his office humour gone wrong.

At least she wasn’t going mad and nobody was out to get her, she thought, making a couple of notes on a pad next to her laptop.

‘And the next item,’ Jemima was saying, ‘is the office kitchen. Could we all make sure that we wash our mugs thoroughly when we…’

Confident that she could safely tune out a further five minutes or so of Jemima’s complaining, Nina pulled up another internet page and began to scroll through today’s headlines. Then, for fun, she popped the namePierre Dupontinto Google. There were over forty-two million results.

But she persevered, adding his school, the year he’d have taken his exams, the town in which he’d lived as a child, each time the numbers dropping. Once she had all the information she knew in the search, there were still thousands of results, but she clicked on images just for fun. Just to see if she could recognise the seventeen-year-old boy in any of the pictures of fully grown men that appeared on her screen.

Jemima was just waffling on about the need for everyone who spent time in the office to contribute to the teabag fund when Nina gasped. Because, four rows down, she’d suddenly found herself looking into the eyes of what she was sure was a middle-aged version of her teenage crush. Despite the shorter hair, stubble, suit and tie, she could see the younger man shining out of him. What were the chances? Was it fate? she wondered briefly before realising she’d literally narrowed the search down and scrolled through hundreds of results to find him.

More written in the stalker’s handbook than written in the stars.

Well, he had certainly kept his looks, she thought. And it was hard not to compare this rather gorgeous specimen with the one she’d just divorced. It wasn’t fair, of course – but looking at the prize she could have won if she’d just taken more of a risk, shecouldn’t help but wonder whether ghosting Pierre had been the worst mistake of her life.

She clicked on the picture and was taken through to the site of a chain of patisseries, of which Pierre was the manager/owner. So… rich too, she thought. And with a limitless supply of pastries. It put Rory, with his steady but modestly paid job and his dislike of desserts, to shame.

‘…which will be moved to the last working day of every month, as opposed to the last Thursday of every month,’ droned Jemima.

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