Page 74 of One Summer in Monte Carlo
Surprised, she looked at him as he took both her hands in his. ‘Ma chérie,je t’aime. Will you please marry me?’
The sky exploded with thousands of silver stars in time with her heart as Nanette whispered a tremulous, ‘Yes, please.’
Jean-Claude slipped a ring on her finger while more fiery flashes of gold, silver, red and blue filled the sky over Monte Carlo before showering down into the Mediterranean.
Surrendering herself to Jean-Claude’s arms, Nanette knew beyond all doubt that his love was her second, and true, legacy from Monaco.
Epilogue
It is the second week in December and Monte Carlo is counting down the days to Christmas. Christmas lights are strung across streets and around windows, and decorated fir trees are everywhere. There are even rogue Father Christmases hanging from the windows and balconies of some apartment blocks. Casino Square is a mass of sparkling twinkling lights. The Christmas market chalets set up on the quay are busy every day and locals as well as visitors are enjoying the festive atmosphere while the sun shines in the pale blue winter sky and the sound of Christmas carols fills the air.
Nanette is in the bedroom she shares with Jean-Claude in the villa getting ready for Zac’s memorial service in the Sainte-Dévote Chapel and thinking not only about the last few months but also about the past.
It is three years since she’s been in the Principality at this time of year. When she was Zac’s PA, the three weeks before Christmas had always been the highlight of her year. The F1 season had finished for three months, allowing the drivers time to relax and recuperate with friends and family before it all started up again in the New Year. She’d enjoyed spending so much uninterrupted time here in Monaco with Zac in those December weeks. They had been good times, with no indication they would ever end. But end they had, leaving her with such bittersweet memories. Today’s memorial service would be her final memory of Zac Ewart and the way he had affected her life.
Organising today’s event, to which everybody who was anybody in the F1 world was coming to pay their respects to a driver who would be forever remembered as one of the best drivers who sadly never won the championship but who had died a hero, had been harder than she’d anticipated.
Nanette sighs. She still has guilty feelings over her inheritance from Zac. She’s done her best though, putting the money from the sale ofPole Positionto good use in creating the Zac Ewart Trust fund which will benefit the new charity, Fruits of the Forest, that Vanessa has been busy getting set up. And like everyone, Nanette is pleased that Boris Takyanov has received a lengthy jail sentence and is safely behind bars.
A quiet knock on the door and Jean-Claude enters. ‘The taxi is here,ma cherie. You are ready?’
‘Yes, I’m ready,’ she answers quietly. She has found the last few months difficult, even with the love and help of Jean-Claude, but she is definitely ready to face the world and remember Zac Ewart as the heroic man he turned out to be in the end.
She is also ready for her new life with Jean-Claude. Next week, they go to join Patsy and Bryan for baby Dylan’s first family Christmas. Afterwards, in the New Year, she has a wedding to organise. Jean-Claude wants them to get married in the spring, something she is happy to agree to. It will have to be an early spring wedding, though, because she has a new secret she plans to tell him once the memorial service is over. A secret she is more than happy to share and one that she knows will be received with delight.
