Page 40 of One Summer in Monte Carlo
‘Would you like me to tell him for you?’ Jean-Claude asked.
Nanette smiled at him gratefully. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I think it’s something I must do myself.’
As Jean-Claude stopped the car outside the apartment, Nanette impulsively leant across and kissed him gently on the cheek.
‘I’ve really enjoyed today, JC. Thank you.’
Jean-Claude looked at her steadily before unexpectedly placing his arm around her shoulders and pulling her towards him. His kiss was gentle and undemanding and a surprised Nanette was totally unprepared for the emotions it unleashed within her. As they drew apart, she stared at him.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Jean-Claude said, eventually releasing her.
Wordlessly, Nanette got out and closed the car door. Jean-Claude gave her an enigmatic smile before turning the steering wheel and driving away.
Nanette, her thoughts reeling, watched as the car disappeared. Had that kiss meant the same to him as it had to her? Could she be overreacting to a gesture that was maybe just a sign of loving friendship from a man she was already very fond of?
26
The following morning, Mathieu left on his business trip and Nanette’s day slipped into its normal routine imposed by the twin’s school timetable.
With the memory of Jean-Claude’s kiss fresh in her mind, Nanette felt strangely shy when she took the twins up to his villa for an after-school swim. She needn’t have worried. Jean-Claude, as always, the perfect gentlemen, greeted her and the twins in his normal manner. It was only when they were alone for a few minutes, as the twins dried and dressed themselves, that he took her in his arms and gently kissed her.
‘How are you today,ma chérie?’ he asked.
Nanette smiled at him shyly, as her heart skipped a beat at his use of the endearment. She hadn’t imagined it; the kiss had meant something to him as well.
‘Do you have any plans for tomorrow evening?’ he asked. ‘I thought maybe you’d like some company after the twins are in bed,’ he added.
Realising that Jean-Claude had remembered that tomorrow was the third anniversary of her accident, Nanette nodded. ‘Please.’
‘I have a business meeting early evening, but I should be with you by about nine o’clock,’ Jean-Claude said.
‘The twins have a school play rehearsal. I have to collect them at eight thirty, so by the time we’ve walked back, that would be perfect.’
‘Good. I think we have things to talk about,ma chérie,’ Jean-Claude said softly.
* * *
The following evening, the streets were quiet as Nanette walked slowly through Monaco to collect the twins. It would be another half-hour before the rush of people out to enjoy themselves for the evening began to make their way to the restaurants and nightclubs.
The hall where the twins were rehearsing was part of the modern apartment block where Zac had lived years ago and Nanette found her footsteps dragging the nearer she got to the building.
Having deliberately avoided this particular area of Monte Carlo since her return, Nanette couldn’t help thinking how ironic it was that it should be this evening of all evenings that she was again having to come to this particular building.
Nanette tried to push thoughts of the past out of her mind and concentrate on present-day aspects of her life – the twins, Jean-Claude, particularly Jean-Claude – but as she crossed the road towards the apartment block, images from her past began to merge with the present-day ones.
The lights were on in various apartments, including No.5 where she and Zac had spent so much time together. As Nanette glanced up, a glamorous woman came onto the small balcony to look out over the street, before going back inside and closing the French doors, shutting Nanette and the world out.
Standing in the middle of the small service road that led to an underground garage, Nanette stared up at the window. Three years ago, she and Zac were in that apartment getting ready to go out and celebrate her birthday before he left for the next Grand Prix.
She remembered how happy she’d been as they left the apartment. Stepping, hand in hand with Zac, into the lift to go down to the garage. Walking across to her new car and driving slowly up out of the underground exit, making for the autoroute and their dinner reservation in Mougins. The start of what had been a perfect evening with the man she loved – and whom she’d thought had loved her.
An unexpected shiver racked her body and Nanette took several deep breaths, trying to regain her composure. Images from later on that fateful evening were beginning to crowd into her brain.
Things she’d forgotten until now. The champagne she’d drunk, the friends they’d met up with, the heavy rain that had begun to fall as they were in the restaurant. Zac’s insistence…
Nanette jumped as a car horn blared out behind her.
‘Hey, lady, that’s not the best place to stand – unless you want to be run down.’ The man in the expensive sports car leant out of his window and rebuked her.
