Page 31 of Summer on the French Riviera
‘There is no if about it. I want to meet her – and I’m going to meet her.’ Jack pushed a business card across the table. ‘My cell phone number is there. Please ring me when you’ve spoken to Elodie and tell me when I can meet her.’
‘Even after I’ve told her about you, I suspect it’s not going to be that easy to arrange a meeting,’ Harriet said.
‘You’ve had twenty-four years to tell her about me,’ Jack said. ‘And in all honesty you can’t expect me to wait another twenty-four years or even twenty-four days to meet my daughter. I’d prefer to think in terms of twenty-four hours, but I guess that’s not going to happen. Today is Monday and I hope very much to have met my daughter by the end of the week at the latest. If not, well, I’m not going away without meeting her, so I guess I’ll just turn up at Villa de l’Espoir and introduce myself to her. With or without you there.' He paused and gave her a serious look. ‘But I want my first meeting with my daughter to be conflict free and I hope that it will include you as well.’
24
Harriet walked back to Villa de l’Espoir trying to get her thoughts into some sort of order, whilst admitting to herself she didn’t have the faintest idea of how to handle the situation. It was admittedly something that had always been at the back of her mind as a possibility but one she’d never truly expected to happen. Seeing Jack after all these years had aroused a mix of unexpected feelings too. Feelings of regret, fury with both the way he’d stalked her and demanded to meet Elodie, but she also couldn’t deny there had been a certain pleasure, a recognition of feelings she’d thought were buried forever. Learning he was divorced had given her a jolt. Would the two of them have made a go of being married, if she’d been brave enough all those years ago and told him about Elodie? Or would they too have ended up divorced? The thought popped into her head,Well you’re both single again now, maybe…
Thrusting that particular unsettling thought aside, she realised she’d been pushed into a corner by Jack. She was going to have to tell Elodie who her father was and break the news that he was in town and wanted to meet her. Would she agree? Or would she refuse? If that happened, Harriet knew she’d have no chance of stopping Jack taking matters into his own hands. He would turn up at the villa and either baldly announce, ‘Hi, I’m your father,’ or more likely, as he didn’t want any conflict, he’d approach it sensitively: ‘Hello Elodie. I’m Jack and I understand I’m your long-lost father.’
Harriet could see the genuinely happy smile that would light up his face as he spoke those words. If he chose to introduce himself that way, then Elodie would surely respond positively. Jack had always exuded a certain charisma that made people warm to him, especially women.
Pressing the remote to open the side gate into the Villa, Harriet knew there was only one thing she could do. Tell Elodie the truth and then wait for Elodie’s reaction. Now she just had to find the right moment to tell her – and to brace herself for the inevitable questions she knew would follow.
* * *
Jack ordered another coffee and stayed where he was after Harriet had left. She hadn’t exactly stormed off after he’d made the comment about meeting Elodie by the end of the week, but she’d clearly been cross and upset. A definite reminder of the feisty woman he’d been deeply in love with all those years ago. And the signs had all been there back then, assuring him she felt the same way about him.
Only it turned out she didn’t. Hell, he’d even begged her to go with him back to the States when his father’s heart attack made it imperative he returned. But it was impossible for her to leave her recently widowed mother alone. They were all the family they both had, she’d said. Four years later, though, it seemed that she hadn’t thought twice about leaving her, and their daughter, to go to Australia of all places. Lizzie hadn’t been able to tell him anything about the man Harriet had married, only that she was now back in Europe, a widow.
Jack’s thoughts switched to Elodie, his daughter. He’d always wanted a daughter, but after Nathan’s birth, Sabrina had dashed any hopes he’d been secretly harbouring about having more children, at least one, if not more, by flatly refusing to have another baby. Which was probably just as well – Sabrina’s mothering instincts were, to put it politely, not close to the surface.
He had so much to learn about this new grown-up daughter of his. Jack didn’t believe for a moment that she wasn’t interested in meeting him. If she was interested enough to ask questions about him, then meeting up was the next logical step. Hopefully the meeting would happen soon. If Harriet was trying to delay things, she could only do that for so long before he’d take matters into his own hands. He’d leave it for a few days now and then he’d contact her again, insist he’d waited long enough. As Elodie’s father, he had every right to meet his daughter and he was determined to do so. There was no way he was leaving France now, not until he and his daughter had become acquainted. Hell, he’d change his visa and extend his stay here if that proved to be necessary.
Getting to know Elodie was the priority now. Learning about her; telling her about her American family. Making up for all the lost years. And it could be fun getting to know Harriet again too in the process. Those long-ago loving feelings that he’d buried deep down, maybe they hadn’t died away completely. There was no denying that jolt of attraction for Harriet he’d felt as they’d come face to face for the first time in years. Attraction definitely; it couldn’t be more than that after all this time, could it?
Jack drank his coffee thoughtfully. He was single. She was single. Although maybe the relationship with this Hugo was serious. Perhaps he’d flirt a little with Harriet, see if she responded. They were both older and wiser now, not the naive youngsters they’d been back then. Maybe he’d suggest the three of them took some ‘family outings’ together. He smiled at the thought. Was it possible that this time around their relationship could work out?
Jack glanced at his watch. Time to meet up with the other woman in his life for lunch. How she would react to his news was any one’s guess. Maybe he’d keep quiet about it for a little while longer.
25
‘Slight change of plan,’ Hugo said as he picked Harriet up that evening. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I’d forgotten that several restaurants close on Monday evenings, among them my favourite. So if it’s okay with you, I thought we’d have a wander around the marina and then have supper in my apartment. There’s a painting there you might like to see.’
The thought crossed Harriet’s mind, was this a ‘come up and see my etchings’ line? It was a thought she promptly dismissed. Hugo simply wasn’t that kind of man. Besides, if he’d asked if she would like to see his apartment she would have said yes immediately.
‘A walk around the marina sounds good and I’m more than happy to eat in the apartment tonight rather than go to a restaurant,’ she said. With so many eateries around, the chances of bumping into Jack were slim but she’d been on tenterhooks ever since their meeting. Eating in would at least eliminate that risk.
Wandering around Port Vauban Marina, Harriet was amazed by the number of pontoons and the luxury boats moored alongside them. ‘The really expensive yachts are over there,’ Hugo said, pointing across the harbour. ‘Billionaires Quay. Security now keeps both the locals and the tourists away from that area of the marina. Look,’ and he gestured towards a hovering helicopter. ‘Someone’s arriving.’ They watched as the helicopter dropped lower and lower until it landed on the landing pad of a large yacht at the far end of the quay and the whine of the turbine decreased as the blades slowly stopped rotating. ‘Come on,’ Hugo said. ‘Time for supper.’
Hugo’s apartment, on the sixth floor of an apartment block not far from the marina, had a panoramic view of the harbour from the balcony.
‘Thankfully, the delicatessen was open this afternoon,’ he said. ‘So I haven’t had to do any actual cooking.’
‘Can I help with anything?’ Harriet asked.
Hugo shook his head. ‘I’m all organised, thanks. Have a look around while I do the last-minute preparation. The painting I think you will really like is in the sitting room.’
Harriet made her way through to the sitting room with its leather Chesterfield settee and three matching armchairs, a coffee table and a bookcase with glass doors. For a large room, it was quite minimalistic. Harriet’s eyes were drawn to the seascape on one of the walls. She stood looking at it for several moments, drinking it in.
Painted in oils with a lightness of hand Harriet envied, it showed an old woman wearing a black swimming costume, evidently fresh from a swim, battling with a breeze that was preventing her from wrapping a towel around herself. It was poignant, evocative and a perfectly executed portrait of a woman totally at ease with herself and her surroundings.
‘This is amazing,’ she called out. ‘Is it a local artist?’
‘The artist was my grandmother,’ Hugo said quietly, coming to stand at her side. ‘She never realised just how good she was. Her life was lived around her family, painting was never more than a hobby done at odd moments.’ He handed Harriet one of the two glasses of white wine he was holding. ‘Shall we take this out on to the balcony?’ and Hugo slid one of the glass doors open.
Standing there near the safety rail looking out at the traffic down below, the yachts in the marina across the way and, in the far distance again, the white horse waves of the Mediterranean dancing in the evening sun, Harriet felt herself relaxing for the first time since the meeting with Jack that morning.
